there are two views of history:
bottom up vs. top down
The bottom up. This evolutionary view sees humanity as a freakish accident of Mother Nature's primeval first scream or fit. Many scholars refer to this hypothetical event as the BIG BANG ( the Big Sonic Boom) when the one chunk of celestial material decided to burst forth in all directions.
This microscopic view of humanity sees people as being unduly subjected to wayward celestial forces like they early Greeks except without the Greek plethora of canonical mythological gods like Mercury for instance to explain away natural phenomenon.
According to this view, we are vulnerably exposed to these invisible forces in the universe both in the natural world and in the mental world: hence, the logic for recourse to the use of psychiatric medication (which creates dependence in a lot of cases).
According to this world view, a human being is neither guilty nor innocent. If is behavior is not normative, he or she just needs the periodic requisite corrective social re-engineering of his or her physical and/or mental environmentment (i.e. the practice of reshaping cognitions which is know to contribute to the false memory syndrome) using a sytem of deterrents (i.e. negative reinforcements) and proper stroking (i.e. positive reinforcements), not to mention periodic recourse to the appropriate dosage of psychiatric medication.
This notion is founded on the belief that the human behavior is largely determined by social forces exterior to the person: therefore, control and shape these social forces and you can control the individual.
It also believes that the media can be used to induce contrived mass hypnosis as we saw fastidiously orchestrated in fascist and communist countries in this century.
This pessemistic notion does not accept that a person has the ability to BE FREE and ACT FREE: accoding to this view freedom and truth are myths. The TRUTH is inconsequential.
The confrontation between Pontius Pilate who was having his way reigning over the Jewish people and Jesus was one regarding "Truth". This world view entitles everyone to live in such a way as to always "flatter the SELF" as Pontius Pilate did all the time so ably as underscored by the Gospels.
According to this view the human experience is purely relative and defined by the senses and consequently human beings should avoid pain and pleasure themselves to foget the meaninglessness of their existence as no person can possibly please another let alone have sympathy and compassion for someone else other than the self. All acts of altruism is seen as pretense and hypocrisy.
Man and woman do not have a conscience and the so-called conscience is the cause of unnecessary and counter-productive sense of guilt.
The top down. The other view sees Man and Woman as co-creators endowed with the dignity of a "being" that is created a little less than the angels: that is to say "persons" endowed with personhood that has inherently an INNATE CAPACITY for truth and an understanding of what is true and NOT truth.
Consquently, Man and Woman are "free agents" who has the responsibility to tend towards self-determination as they chose their destiny guided by their conscience: their personal sense of right and wrong. They can chose to take the HIGH road or the LOW road or as Dante did, they can go through the pit of il Inferno, through to il Purgatory and up the mountain to il Paradiso.
Knowledge of truth leads to the moral imperative of knowing and encouraging "just behavior". These inner gestaltish capacities are luckily, the natural gyroscopic qualities of children and adolescence. They are also those of people of goodwill: the Good Shepherds and the Wise Men of Christmas.
(For this reason the Gospels are quite right in affirming that we must live in this world like children who believe in the goodness of life in order to be able enter the Kingdom of God and share the glory of his only Son.)
Because Man and Woman are of primordial importance in this point of view so are their inalienable rights as "sacred persons" and their culture is also "sacred in character" not only as a socializing agent but also as a relicquary of the collective metapersonality from whence the individual is nourished to extend what he or she was given by Mother Culture, reaffirming his or her unique identity that has his or her roots in Her very being. Undoubtedly, a person may adopt many cultures and broadening, deepening, and extending his own personal sense of self.
Because this view prizes culture and understands its crucial role in the psychological and linguistic development of the individual and because it has the ability to provide him or her with insight into the meaning and purpose of life at the collective level, it helps the individual appropriate a sense of existential meaning and purpose at a personal level.
This view allows for the possibility that culture can be a vital force (stronger than any blind and wayward libido force) capable of helping the individual find his or her inner voice and capable of helping him or her get in touch with the inner being: this is the main focus and purpose of buddhist practice.
The Final Summation
This top down view is a spiritual idealistic point of view rooted in the belief that the major guiding force of the world is that of the Holy Spirit of Truth and Wisdom. According to this world view, the individual has a moral imperative to get a life of his or her own on his or her personal voyage of self discovery through life. A good training in the humanities at University is suppose to help to do just that for the individual and is why the value of a university ARTS background is in essence priceless.
His or her struggle to become more of a person is one of becoming a person of integrity for which the person is ready to become a martyr as was the poignant case of Saint Thomas Moore's refusal to recognize the legitmacy of King Henry the VIII's second marriage. So great was the value that he was willing to place on his integrity to be even scorned by the very ones that he so loved, his own family.
On the other hand, the bottom up view is based on the need to shape behavior to make the best of a difficult, meaningless situation rejecting any pie-in-the-sky-for-the-good-guy and reflecting a more so-why-be-good-when you-can-have-more-fun-being-bad point of view. This is the mindless material that TV soaps are made of. According to this point of view people are more often than not mindless creature and the game of life is nothing more than resorting to subterfuge and chicanery even and especially at University. In this context, lying and cheating is considered a smart and expedient thing to do, so why not, eh?
This approach does not believe in the value of moral integrity, but rather sees it as a lot of hocus-pocus, fairy tale material of which real life is not made of and consequently condones crime as long as the individual does not let himself get caught as in instances of marital infidelity beliefing that everyone says one thing, but in reality does another: this kind of immature thinking is perverse as it legitimizes the telling of lies and undermines the need for personal credibility and the responsibility of ones actions morally encouraging amoral behavior.
This approach is in the main: clueless.
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Updated: September 21, 1997