Magic
Magic
the power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.
So, we start with magic : the idea that supernatural forces exist, and they can influence events. How is the idea of magic different from money ? If we have money, we believe that it can influence events, if I go to the bakery with money someone would have to bake bread for me if I am handing the right money bill in the end of the transaction. If I print my own bills, it will not work.
We use money as a symbol of social obligations, and we act out that belief in this symbol. Money can be a social contract, which through action through belief, can get us a stable economical routine. We look for stability and safety, for guarantee.
Money is a symbol of belief. The etymology of symbol comes from greek : sun (with) + ballein (throw) = sumbolon, to throw away. The original term marked people who belong to a certain group. The ancient Greeks shattered coins or pieces of clay, in an act of ritual, in which members of a party were handed out the pieces and puzzled them again as they reformed. The ritual transformed into the modern Easter celebrations in Corfu, and lost most of its original meaning.
Freedom
Freedom
The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
Money is good evidence that we belong to a society that is build on rules, which members of that society act fluently according to a stable belief in value. Our culture educates us to understand the value of money, and it enforces it through authority. Normative western society is about production, regulation, market, routine. We regulate money through the coordination of effort as a variable in time. That means that we are obligated to contribute our time through work, if we do not do so there are consequences, sanctions.
Sanctions are acted through bodies of authority of society, such as police or law institution or even member in the social hierarchies – parents, managers and bosses. Authority is the power or the right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. But the power granted by whom ? There is a status quo about what type and form of authority we accept, for the sake of this article – normality.
Freedom, within the context of authority or culture, exists only when there is an overlap between what one desires and what is permitted by authority. For the sake of this article, we can call this overlap between the wishes of the self (pleasure principle) and what authority approves – normality (reality principle).
Shame and Guilt
So at a certain point of our life, we start to develop a sense of guilt and shame. It usually starts happening when parents are defining which actions are considered normative within the context of adult behavior. Our parents are usually our first contact with authority, and they do it as representatives of normative society. To ensure our comfort survival, our stability, we must act in a certain way.
Normative behavior is no longer believed in the west to be given by god (tables of the law), we can ask ourselves what is the motivation behind normative behavior ?
Various answer might apply, our upbringing, society, psychology, rewards and punishment, law enforcement etc. The main principle is that we act against our own desires, our pleasure principle, in order to benefit in the long range, something that is uniquely human.
When children are being brought up to act this principle of self-control, they will carry a intuition or sense of guilt and shame, simply because other principles of self-control, like a reasoning / intellectual mechanism, are too complicated for them. That might be one of the reasons The Original Sin and the Banishment from the Garden of Eden are the main root narratives of Judaeo Christian societies.
Again, we find two sides in our dual Cartesian belief – the self who strives for freedom and independence and society which strives to preserve its interests as a whole, its own comfort and survival. These two are in constant conflict as we have to repress some of our own desires in the name of long term benefit as part of a group.
The self-sustaining principle
Shame and guilt always relate to something that we think is wrong. The guidelines for what is wrong or not we inherit from our environment, our family, our society and culture.
When any of us acts towards the state of freedom, per definition, we will have to get rid of shame and guilt, there will never be freedom until shame and guilt are gone, because shame and guilt are feelings that indicate that we did something wrong, socially speaking.
But, why does society enforce those feelings of shame and guilt ? Authority, is the power acted by representatives of society as enforcement : make sure that we are in compliance with a law, rules and obligations. In other words : shame and guilt are there only to remind us that we are not free, so we keep acting according to the interest of the group and not selfishly. One can argue that the sole purpose of shame and guilt is to prevent us from being free in the name of global interests of society.
The Paradox
If our goal is true freedom, in can only come in the expense of society. The only way of overcoming ourselves and to replace our intuition with reason, in the process of individualization, is to get rid of the notions and feelings of shame and guilt. These are mental mechanisms, which were designed only for the purpose of preventing individualization. The paradox here is that we believe that shame and guilt should be an indication of what right and what is wrong, but in actuality they relate only to the big interest of the group and to its mechanisms, which always comes at the expense of the individual.
We will have to accept that what we call right and wrong are only definitions coined by the self-interest of society, and acting in promoting freedom within the context of society is limited and self deceptive. For the self has no part in it, the self only wants what it wants, it desires, its optimal action is without limitation – freedom.