3 Answers

  1. The most important thing that depends on each individual person is their own life. Live it for the benefit of yourself and not to the detriment of others and it will be great!

  2. In my opinion, the only thing that depends on a person is their attention to detail. Some things need to be cut off in themselves while they are still in the embryonic state, otherwise then all these little things pour out in a stream of global catastrophe.
    Specifically: I'm talking about internal contradictions. For example, if I am an opponent of the state-in words, then in deeds – I should not use its benefits, get some benefit from it. Also, I must root out the state in myself, my despotism in relation to people, that is, I must not strive for power in everyday life. Only in this case will I have the moral right to consider myself an oppositionist or anarchist. This is just an example, but attention to detail is required at all levels.

  3. In what sense – depends on the person? It is difficult to answer such a vague question. And what is “person” in this case, with what meaning and in what context is this concept given (what is opposed)? We will have to briefly consider all possible options:

    1. “Man “is defined in the individual sense as” any representative of Homo Sapiens ” and is used in a metaphysical context, that is, it is opposed to God. In non-Christian monotheism, a person can do nothing in this case-God gives him a ritual and moral Law (Torah, Mitzvot) or God gives him a social and legal Law (Koran+Sunnah, Sharia), and he, a person, must perform. In Christian monotheism, absolutely everything depends on man (100%) and on God-100%. That is, God takes a step towards a person and stretches out His hand (to anyone). It depends on the person whether to push the hand away or accept it. The rules are not as important as the love of others and God.

    2. “Man” is defined in the collective sense as “humanity”, the totality of all peoples of all times and is placed in a “collective-metaphysical” context. Then we have a slightly different picture – here we are talking about the collective fate of all people. Here, in many ways, any monotheism comes together, everyone agrees that there will be righteous and unrighteous people, and that there will be more unrighteous (food for hell). The debate is about what this hell is and how hell is compatible with the perfection of God (and no one among the monotheists disputes that God is the most perfect being). In Judaism,” hell”, as far as I understand, is temporary, and there is no emphasis on it at all. In Islam,” hell ” is largely moral and ideological-those who believe incorrectly and live incorrectly (not according to Sharia) fall into it. In Christianity, God did not create hell. In it, the fallen part of humanity (the unsaved) places themselves (flees from God and locks the doors of hell behind them, better in hell than with God). And in this hell there may be those who followed all the rules on earth. But their hearts were outside of God. Even more interesting is the fate of the”righteous ones”. In Judaism, a picture of “earthly prosperity” is drawn, where the righteous, under the guidance of a chosen people, taste the results of their earthly labors. In Islam, the same picture is transferred to the sky. There the faithful enjoy all the possible joys that they have been deprived of, there is no sickness or sorrow, there is an abundance of fruits and so on. Paradise is described both as Eden. In Christianity, the coming Paradise is described not as a “Garden”, but as a “Kingdom”. There is Christ in the center of everything (not even a temple). And the joys are unimaginable for a person of the earth, they consist in the fact that the union of God and people has taken place, God is no longer a stranger to people, He is in the midst of them. Since He is infinite perfection (see below). above), people in paradise do not even need the joys of Eden (although they are there), and you can learn and celebrate infinite perfection endlessly. “Tired”, “bored” – it can not. But – let's go down to the level below.

    3. “Man” in the individual sense as a part of humanity, but opposed to Nature, i.e. “individual-existential” level. Since we oppose man to Nature, it is clear that at the level of “existence” (“here and now, in this world”) it occupies a dual position. On the one hand, he is a slave to natural laws (we all need to drink and eat, we all grow, develop, grow old and die, etc.). In the end, a person is also an animal (a living being). And as an animal, it is mortal, subject to animal programs (not instincts, instincts remained in undeveloped mammals), in short, subordinate and dependent. But I. Kant also said that man is different from an animal. He has a moral law within him. And so even the weakest man is stronger than the mightiest elephant or lion. Stronger – with your consciousness, with your self-directed reflection. In other words, an elephant or bear is not aware of its mortality, does not plan for the future, does not create a culture (they can only create a hierarchy of individuals). And a person creates it. Therefore, it has free will and free choice. In this capacity, he stands above nature (even if we forget about metaphysics altogether and declare it an invention of believers). Depending on the ideology and attitude to nature, different people emphasize their “subordination” to nature, or their “dominant” position in nature.

    4. ” Man “in the collective sense as humanity in the context and in the face of Nature, that is, the “collective-existential” level.

    At this level, the question arises about our relationship to nature, how we interpret our opposition, from the position of strength only or from the position of morality as well, and what is our relationship to nature. Throughout its history, humanity has “consumed “Nature and” transformed ” it. It did not set itself the task of “preserving” Nature, but in the twentieth century it was faced with the fact that for the survival of humanity as a species, this is necessary. And then the question arose before people-whether the preservation of Nature depends on a person and, in general, how much a person can “save”something. And people were divided into ” skeptics “who claim that Nature can save itself (if anything, by destroying humanity, through an epidemic, for example) and” rationalists-optimists “who say that from the point of view of both morality and common sense, it is necessary to add the task of” conservation “to the other two and reconsider the task of” consumption ” (otherwise you may not survive). Both are partially correct. Humanity has not really mastered the “forces of Nature” (no matter how much both communists and transhumanists dreamed about it), and the natural environment (the biosphere) is still quite capable of destroying people. On the other hand, the “rationalists-optimists” are also right – if you do nothing, then it will definitely destroy you. The task of survival and entering into new ecological relations still faces humanity. And humanity is not completely powerless here (see above about the dual status of man in the face of nature). Let's move on:

    5. In the individual sense, a person is placed in the context of History and Culture and is opposed to himself, but in the collective aspect (himself as humanity) and in the space-time aspect (as the creator of cultures and the fruit of historical development). Here, too, he has a double status, Marxists have not noted in vain that a person is “a set of social relations”, that is, on the one hand, a separate person in the social sense is “produced” by the culture and historical epoch where he fell. This is understandable. But if the individual only “assimilated” something from his ancestors in the process of socialization, we would still be living in primitiveness, in caves. No, there is another side to man. He “appropriates” the culture and epoch to himself and goes forward. Even an individual in this sense is (if he is aware of his importance as a creator of culture and history) a subject of the development of society. And we have seen in history scientists, discoverers, rulers, military men, and so on. and so on, in a word, people of different professions (sometimes even miners-see Stakhanov), who sought recognition from others in this field (the field of historical and cultural creativity). They left their mark on the Earth, changed society (at least only within the framework of their business, their profession). And there were people in history who made world-class discoveries in their field, for example, in mathematics – Euclid, Pythagoras and Lobachevsky, in physics-Newton, Faraday, Einstein, Bohr, in chemistry – Lavoisier, Mendeleev, in biology-Aristotle, Linnaeus, Darwin, Mendel, in philosophy-Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, in historical science-Herodotus, Carlyle, Marx – and so on,and so on.

    6. Man in the collective sense (humanity) is opposed to itself in its cultural and historical development.

    Here we will talk about the extent to which humanity itself manages its own cultural, historical and social development. This is the question that Marxists tried to answer : is it possible to plan and project history (“philosophers have previously explained the world, our task is to change it” – Karl Marx, I quote from memory). So far, we see that humanity in the twentieth century is trying to solve this problem and largely solves it – humanity is already united (globalized), humanity has a society and a hegemon state (the United States), humanity has developed the norms of international law, and so on. This same desire for planning and designing must (according to the law of unity and struggle of opposites) generate its opposite – the desire to get rid of and get away from the formation of a society of world control (anti-globalism) or change its current vector (alter-globalism). But neither aniglobalists nor alterglobalists can remove what humanity has discovered in its development – the ability to plan the development of culture and society.

    Summing up, we see that on a larger number of levels, a person (in the individual or collective sense) can still do something. Namely, he can determine his life path based on the restrictions imposed on him by society and nature. to appropriate or not to appropriate the riches of culture and previous historical epochs, to determine their attitude to nature – to consume, transform or preserve it, and so on. Of course, he cannot “do everything”, this is indisputable.

Leave a Reply