Self Empowerment: The Essence Of All Ethical Teachings

Maybe I am not religious enough, barely meeting the requirement to even understand why, as Catholics, we had to believe in some supreme being who is beyond human comprehension. I was very young when I was told not to question God’s existence or his teachings. And, if I got into a debate with a believer who was so convinced that there is something beyond his comprehension, he’d always tell me to have faith when my reason fails to understand.

Sorry, I just can’t understand that. In fact, I refuse to give in to an argument that demands that I give up my human experience and understanding, and to take a leap of faith. Leap to what? It’s not that I don’t take risks or don’t understand what it means to take risks. When there are no more option; or that other options are just as bad as not doing anything, then risk maybe the only choice. However, in the case of leap of faith, there are options: one of which is I choose not to give my thinking.

I also don’t understand what it means to worship. But, if worshipping demands that I give up my thinking, then I don’t want to have anything to do with worshipping. I refuse to give up my individuality. I could be dead wrong about the true meaning of worship. But, for many years, I see people give up their individuality when they worship some being that escapes comprehension.

But, really, that’s all we know: what we experience, what can be experienced, thinking, feeling – that is, all we know is what humans are capable of; and they can be understood even if ‘mathematical’ or ‘logical’ reasoning alone cannot comprehend. We have that human capacity to understand the universal human conditions.

Yet, I have great respect Jesus, Mohammed, Lao Tzu, Confucius and other great moral teachers, for their teachings on how to live and how to treat other human beings. In fact, I came to understand them more deeply through the lessons I have learned from other human beings like my father, my teachers, sometimes from complete strangers like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and the people in the streets who performed great service to their fellow human beings. From them, I learned:

To think on my own

To be brave

To be responsibility for one’s actions

To respect the others and their opinions.

To believe that others have their own ways of thinking and expressing themselves.

To let go of your loved ones for their sakes even though it pains to do so.

As I spend more time reflecting on the teachings of these religious figures, the more these teachings become familiar. I soon realized that they were once taught to me: my father and other great human beings, through their actions and words, lived by them. They had shown me that these moral teachings found in religious texts were humanly attainable. But, for what purpose? To serve the High Almighty? The God or some supreme being that is unattainable and completely incomprehensible? No, It was the teaching of self empowerment.

Self empowerment is not and cannot be an act of a selfish ego that craves everything for himself. He cares for no one but himself. The selfish has not yet freed itself from the dictates of his basic instincts, from greed. On the contrary, Self empowerment is about empowering the individual so he may free himself from the outer and inner oppression that so weakens him that he would easily surrender his self to an abstraction, an ideology, be it religious or political.

The self empowered individual, through his words and actions, teaches the others self empowerment. The self empowered individual has a heightened his sense of individuality, not individualism. And, with a heightened sense of individuality, he recognizes the importance of a community, not anarchism or authoritarianism that demands blind faith, blind allegiance.

This teaching of self empowerment is, I believe, the true teaching of the great religious figures.

What We Are Has Little Bearing On Who We Can Be

They say that I have a past life - that I used to be a prince who lived a long time ago. Some even say that the stars determine my destiny, my thoughts and feelings and the kind of partner I will, naturally be attracted to. In others, what will be will be. All these things determine my future before I came into existence.

How many people have been humiliated for their wrong doings? How many, as a consequence, believed that because of a few misdoings in the past, they will have been, for the rest of their lives, be indelibly labelled  like the numbers ingrained on the body of every Jew during Hitler’s final solution?

But why would they think of themselves that way? By what manner or hidden philosophical view of theirs about their selves (and the world) made them think and behave as though the past has pre-determined their present and the future?

There is a difference between what you are and who you are. When is confused for the other, we get, as a result, a belief so ingrained in us that we believe that the past predetermines the future.

What are we? We’re made out of the same biological soup as every organic thing, living or non living. As belong to the human race, we have same DNA (just a very miniscule strain that separates us from primates). Scientists say that by studying our genes, they can tell a lot about our physical appearance, our predisposition, our level of aggressiveness, our chances of getting cancer, our height. The list goes on. But, that is what we are, the whatness.

But, who are we? The who is what distinguishes our lives from those of the others. The who-ness is that which is made up of specific actions, our initial reactions to external stimuli. And, if we apply rational judgment, we can opt not to react but rather to respond to external stimuli.

There’s seems to be no doubt that our what-ness makes us initially view and react to certain situations. But, we can change that. We can respond. With proper self reflection, our determination not to have past actions and behavior determine our present and future actions, we can change the course of our personal history. And, it is because our responsive-ness, or, more accurately, our ability to respond rationally and responsibly (response-ability = responsibility), that our future is not and cannot yet be written. Up in the stars; or, down there in our genes.

In other words, it’s up to us if we want to effect change. We may not be able to change what we are; but we can certainly determine who we can be. And, by be-ing, I am not talking about being a doctor, an engineer, an accountant, or a bum. It does not matter what career or job we take on. What’s more important is to strive to live as authentically as we can be.

Critical Thinking As An Ethical Value

Critical Thinking, I contend, is not, in its very core, a skill, but an ethical value. In order to recognize it as an ethical value, let us consider ‘open-mindedness’, a glaring feature of critical thinking. Is it a skill? I don’t believe it is.  Years of applying the skills of logic carry no guarantee that one would be open to ones’ deepest assumptions, biases and prejudices. Especially to one’s fears. When I was young, I had always believed that people who grow old grow in wisdom. That is not the case. They just grow older. What about children? Can they be open-minded?

The minds of children are open to learning new things. They are receptive. They are naturally inquisitive and are engaged in endless questioning. However, they are incapable of distinguishing the true from false ideas. They rely on the authority. In many circumstances, the adults are the authority. Children’s minds are ‘open’ but they are not open-minded. Because they have not yet learned to discriminate certain kinds of knowledge, they have no way of appreciating the value of open-mindedness. Open-mindedness implies that one is closed or once closed to opposing views.

In open-mindedness, there is a struggle within one’s self. This struggle is a battle that rages within one’s self. It is a battle which is decided upon whether to put aside preconceptions and beliefs about one’s self and the world in order to evaluate and, whether to accept new ideas that could replace old and perhaps, fearful or even destructive ones. These old, fearful or, destructive preconceptions are what caused us to ‘close up’ to newer and possibly better ideas. This is why children cannot be said to be open-minded (nor, closed-minded) because they have not been informed of any preconceived ideas about themselves and the world in which they live. They do not yet have a past to rely on, to lean on, to find refuge the way old people do when they have to protect themselves with the foreign, present reality. The good old days may be gone forever, but they still cling on to them.

Only a biased person, then, has the option to be open-minded. He has a door that can be opened or closed shut. So, if he has door, can he open the door? That is, can he initiate the opening? I imagine that a biased person is apprehensive and he would, he might, open the door, but ever so slightly; but he would never be able to open it wide. To do so would be disastrous for him, too dangerous for his biases would be left unprotected. For he has his biases and fears which he has to keep them concealed for fear that ‘they’ may harm him, his very raison d’etre,. It would then be safe to say that, if he ever does open the door, he would do so on his own terms. But that is not being open-minded, in the strictest sense of the word. To say it were so would be to proclaim it in bad faith.

Then, who or what can yank the door wide open? The Other Person. His very existence, his right to exist on his own terms demands that the door be opened wide. This is where being open-minded, the very essence of critical thinking, is an ethical value, a relation between oneself and the Other. To be open-minded is a response to the Other’s demand to be heard. Being open-minded is an invitation to let the Other in, thereby allowing the self to see himself for what he is, in full view of what he could be hiding from himself. True, open-mindedness invites self destruction, but it also enables the creation of the new self. Truth, though painful it may be, is liberating.

Can Critical Thinking Be Taught? Is It A Skill?

Non critical thinkers take their interpretation of facts as though it were correct and absolutely true. They are critical of interpretations that run in conflict with theirs. And while they may be skillful in the science of logic, applying the principles of logic on arguments, they do not apply them on theirs. Non critical thinkers may not be honest or open-minded. They take the easier path towards criticizing other people’s biases and prejudices, but never theirs.

Critical thinking involves oneself in being critical of one’s own perspective. Critical thinking requires certain skills, including the understanding and the application of the principles of logic. Critical thinking skills are: Rationality, self-awareness, honesty, open-mindedness, discipline, and judgement.

But why is it that although people can be ‘trained’ to acquire skills, why is it difficult if not possible to train them to become aware of their own perspective, to be honest, and to be open-minded? Are they then, properly speaking, to categorized as ‘skills’? That may explain why there is a difference between one who is ‘skillful’ and one is ‘experienced’. In other words, one may have mastered the skills, but still lack experience. ‘Experience’ cannot be taught. Experience takes time. However, Time does not ‘cause’ one to become experienced. One may have the skills and years added to his resume; but it does not follow that he has cultivated out of those years of acquired knowledge into wisdom.

And, here is where critical thinking comes in; but not as a ‘skill’. The more I reflect on critical thinking, the more it reveals itself as an ethical value. I do mean to imply that critical thinker is similar to the ‘experienced man’ or the wise man, although these types of men are critical thinkers. I merely want to show that critical thinking as it has commonly been perceived as a set of skills is different from seeing it as an ethical value.

Let us take ‘open-mindedness’ as our first case of treating critical thinking as an ethical value. As an open minded person, you are not closed to other ideas that may oppose to your own. You may be judged as an open minded because despite your advance age, you are capable of learning new things. Now, being open minded towards your own perspective is perhaps the most difficult display of being open minded for the fact it is difficult and painful to be honest about your fears, prejudices and biases. It is difficult because you have long believed in them. It is painful because you have lived by them. And, to judge them – if it comes to that – as untrue, would be tantamount to committing suicide. Hopefully, you persevere and find new, truer set of beliefs to replace the old ones.

Because it is difficult and painful, you are not easily inclined to be open to your perspective. In fact, I don’t think it is possible to be the one to initiate the opening. It’s easy to welcome a friend into your home; but not so a stranger or someone who’s out to hurt you. Being truly open to one’s deepest fears, biases and prejudices would be like welcoming a total stranger into your home. No amount of time and training can make you open the door to a potentially harmful stranger. Critical thinking, in its very core, is not a skill.

The “Meaningful” Meaning Of Life

Who asks the question ‘what is the meaning of life?’ Strangely, it’s not us, not in the way a salesperson would before he meets his prospect for the first time. For every response of the client, there is a prepared question. Leading the client to buy his product, the salesperson is in full control of the relationship. This does not work, however, as one of the most fundamental questions makes you skip a heartbeat. We never really intend to ask ourselves that question. In planning our lives, we ask what we want to be. It would seem, then, that life is putting that question to us. Life grabs you by the shoulders and shoves a mirror in front of you. And, what do we see? Someone who isn’t quite sure as to what he really wants out of life; or, someone who isn’t sure anymore if he’s heading in the right direction. It could happen to anyone of us, including the successful and the comfortable ones.

Material needs met, few debts, a sizeable amount of savings, great provider, well educated and admired by society. Yet he is unhappy.

He works from 9 to 5. Has enough money, not affluent but neither is he poor. No heavy debts, although at times he is on the look out for a better paying job. Nonetheless, he is way better off than the average Joe who lives from pay check to paycheck. Yet, he is unhappy.

He has a wonderful wife, and wonderful children who are above average students. Certainly has debts, but he does not worry too much about his situation. Yet, he is unhappy.

A successful business person who is admired by his peers for his skill and knowledge; yet, he feels that something is missing in his life. Life stops them with a question dropped hard on their heads.

What is missing in their lives? What is the cause of their unhappiness? Have they not accomplished enough, if not much, to live comfortably? Or, is it because they didn’t believe in what they were undertaking to get things done? Whatever it is, this existential sense of discomfort is the result of being questioned. We become a Question.

We become a Question because we have come to the painful realization that we will not live as long as we want to; or that, we would knowingly continue living a life with no meaningful meaning. This is the part where we divert our attention away from that rude awakening. We try our best to enjoy as much long as we can in the state of forgetfulness, of amnesia.

To the point: life is experienced as meaningless if we have lived a life centered on satisfying our selves and on the belief that death ‘happens to someone else but not me.’ To state it in another way: life is rendered meaningless if we live only for our egos.

Hence, it is not just believing in what you do and what you live for: life becomes meaningful when you live for the Other, even at the expense of your ego. So, when you live for the Other, you transcend the limited and limiting boundaries of the ego. The meaningful meaning, therefore, lies in living for the Other, unselfishly.