more of the same

The issues of the day concern morality, progress, purpose, and a philosophy of life.

I think it is a false myth that humans are moral. Moral are like laws – cultural constructions that depend on a stable society for enforcement. When the social stability degenerates, morals, like other luxuries, become things of a different time and place.

The idea of social progress is another false myth. Like a workaholic, society becomes exhausted as it strives to reach higher levels. In a few regions certain indicators may seem to scream progress, however many less obvious aspects of these society are strung out, worn thin, and unsustainable. In most regions of the Earth, people are extremely poor, uneducated, and without health care. I see no reason to think these people will be better off in 50 years.

The purpose of every other animal on Earth is to reproduce. Humans, like a Windows operating system starting up, require a very long time to be ready to achieve this purpose. The reason it takes so long is also like a Windows operating system – we have too many applications built on archaic (and buggy) code, competing (inefficiently) for limited resources.

If we cannot honestly delude ourselves with pride in morality, social progress, or purpose, what can we use to fill this philosophical void? How do we come to terms with an increasingly undeniable amoral and nihilistic existence?

What should be the role of a philosophy of life? How should it affect our day-to-day living, our lifestyles, our careers, our general attitudes, our actions, and our life accomplishments? Does a philosophy of life need to be sustainable or universal applicable? Or is it simply a legalistic justification for what we feel?

I think philosophy is simply a justification. It is little more than an intellectual exercise. It may guide our behavior occasionally, but only rarely and weakly. Usually we guided more by a desire to be nice, agreeable, attractive, and accepted. Moreover, we tend to focus these desires on people we perceive to have social authority. When authorities come into conflict, people frequently die and morals, philosophies, etc are set aside. We are social animals, not philosophical animals.