Two problems

Culture, Idea(l)s

Some notes on two philosophical problems, both of extreme importance, and both intimately related.

‘Culture’.

Culture: the way in which life gives shape to itself and expresses itself. I.e. how life lives. The way in which life lives, this is culture. Hence, different 'cultures.' But evidently, there are better and worse ways in which life can give shape to itself.

Better? More in accordance with the natural needs and ends of the life in question. Better suited for allowing the life to become all that it can be. For example, very simply, life needs a certain amount of sunlight to thrive. But if a group decides to live in such a way that it never sees sunlight, hiding indoors all day, teaching its children to hide from the sun to avoid dying from cancer, this is evidently a worse way of life than a way of life that embraces the sun. For the development of individuals, it is good to be guided by certain principles and ideals, such as courage, wisdom, beauty, and so on.

Comparing 'cultures' is very much like comparing different styles of athletic training. Different ways of breeding a certain type of life. 'Breeding', because what is doing the training and what is trained is one and the same thing: life. The object and subject of culture are one: life.

Life is what lives. And this mode of living, this is culture. When we speak of ‘cultures’, we are merely speaking about different ways of living.

Life can mould itself in such a way that it becomes sickly, weak, disturbed. But here the question arises; if life chooses to do so, is this ‘culture’ then really to be called a culture? As here, life is not so much giving shape to itself, as that it is disfiguring itself.

In this 'culture', life is not given the freedom to live as life should, to reach for the heights of which it is capable. Rather, life is deformed, destroyed, frustrated, domesticated. Made less resilient, less powerful, less creative.

Is this still culture? Or more of an anti-culture? If culture is understood to be the way in which life gives shape to itself. If culture is understood as such, then what is there of culture in the 'culture' of the life that disfigures itself?

Here, we can no longer compare cultures like we are comparing two different styles of athletic training. Rather, it is like comparing a style of training to a way of systematically destroying yourself

The latter might still conceive of itself and sell itself as a way of training, and many will follow it. Even though it is not producing any beneficial results. Still, it is not training, but destruction. There is little culture, in many cultures.

Not all ways of life are equally good, because not all ways of life care for life. Not all ‘cultures’ are equally good, because not all cultures care about culture.

Is there culture, in our ‘culture’? Is culture —the formation of life— still the guiding force of our ‘culture’? Is Culture still an Ideal, in our ‘culture’? I need not remind you, but I will, that our political overlords encourage the deformation of our bodies through experimental medicines and industrial foods, and that children are encouraged to destroy their bodies through surgery and poorly regulated hormone therapy. The entire industry of education, which should be concerned with the formation of life, creates sickly, fearful, and ignorant individuals, ready to be plugged into the industrial machine.

If our ‘culture’ does not encourage the formation of life, but its deformation, what culture is there to be spoken of?

This leads us to the second problem.

‘Idea(l)s’

Ideally, Ideals are inborn, felt intuitively, impossible to question, and so close that the possibility of putting them into a concept does not even occur. The life that enjoys a greater health, is intuitively and automatically driven to chase after the highest ideals —courage, wisdom, beauty, and so on. It does not conceive of these things as ‘ideals’, things outside of itself to chase ‘after’. Rather, it feels them inside of itself, as a part of itself, and it cannot do otherwise than to be attracted to more of the same. When in health, life desires that which gives life.

When this inborn guidance falters, the wise still realize the need for ‘ideals’, even in the absence of a lived experience of them. As Polyander says in Descartes’ Search for Truth concerning God, the soul, and the virtues:

“I compare these propositions to those ancient families which everyone recognizes as being very illustrious even though their titles to nobility lie buried in the ruins of antiquity. For I have no doubt at all that those who first brought mankind to believe these truths were able to prove them with very strong arguments. But ever since that time, these proofs have been repeated so rarely that no one knows them any longer. These truths are so important, however, that prudence obliges us to believe them blindly at the risk of being mistaken, rather than to wait until the next world in order to get clear about them.”

(Descartes, The Search for Truth, 504)

However, here, we are not speaking about truths and proofs, we are speaking about lived realities. And when these are no longer lived, it is still wise to keep them in our hearts and minds as concepts, abstract Ideals to strive for. ‘Ideas’, Platonic, or even Kantian, take the place of the once lived intuition of direction. As guiding stars.

Remote, put forward by thought, but still acting on that deepest intuition which now no longer knows the light of day. Eventually these Ideas/concepts external to the individual, fall, they are deconstructed. No more ideals. No more as lived realities, and no more as highest concepts of the mind. When the intuition falls, the concept no longer has anything to stand on. The idea becomes empty, and it is easily broken down. When the life is not fit to receive the idea, the idea eventually disappears.

‘culturally’, this is where we are.

Culture and Idea(l)s

In many ways, culture is only about ideals. And ideals are only about culture. Ideals are what give form to life. And life is what forms itself in accordance with ideals.

At first, perhaps, unconsciously. Later, a conscious formation of the individual in accordance with Ideals in a Platonic sense.

But when Ideals fall, this does not mean that ideals disappear. Men live, striving for certain ends. And even the life that proclaims to want nothing, still makes choices on how to live. No longer consciously guided by Ideals, or guided by an inner intuition of ideals, this life just becomes prey for the goals of others. Guide, or be guided.

But in the same way as not all cultures are alike, not all ideals are alike. There is little culture in many ‘cultures’. And there is little ideal in many ‘ideals’.

Perhaps, when ‘culturally’ there are no Ideals to be spoken of, intuition must once again take over. And what separates men will be, again, nothing but their very lives and their inborn intuitions. Those capable of striving for Ideals, even in the absence of ‘culturally’ given Ideals. And those who are not capable.

“The nihilistic question “for what?” is rooted in the old habit of supposing that the goal must be put up, given, demanded from outside- by some superhuman authority.”

(Nietzsche, Will to Power, §20)

There is some nihilism, in complaining about the lack of culture, and the lack of ideals, in our ‘culture.’ Do we really need culture and ideals to be given to us? Do we not have the strength, to give form to our lives by ourselves?

Culture and Idea(l)s, the two things that are missing. And the two things that are required for all higher life. All programs for a ‘future’ philosophy of life should incorporate these two problems.