In integrating the notion of dialectical causality into the context of society, we can see a marked change of perception as to how society functions. These changes can be expressed through the basic tenants of dialectical causality.
Regarding the philosophy of Dialectical Naturalism, reality is treated not as a static ontology, or as many philosophers would characterize as “being,” but a process. This process concerns phenomena of all sorts cooperating, directly or indirectly, within a continuum of entelechial development. Entelechial development can be defined as self-formation through the actualization of potentiality. Anthropomorphically speaking, this development is concerned with increasing “subjectivity” in the development of each and every phenomenon.
To acknowledge the directionality of dialectical causality is to assume the establishment of order within the universe. For instance, an acorn, through its physical characteristics, is equipped to germinate and grow given the necessary nutrients. In many respects, the notion of an acorn being physically equipped to become something defines its latent potentiality. And so, when dropped onto the soil, the acorn will germinate and will become what it is meant, or physically defined to become. It has the ontological potential to germinate and grow, and to fulfill that potential is to actualize the potential. However, the acorn only has a single potentiality - the potentiality grounded within reality.
Returning to the idea that the ontology of dialectical causality is a process, or continuum of entelechial development, we must acknowledge the role of the environment in which phenomena are a part. In the ongoing strive towards actualization of latent potentiality, phenomena not only “interact,” but also cooperate , contribute and above all, depend upon their environment. For instance, the acorn interacts, cooperates and depends upon its eco-community, composed of both living and nonliving phenomena - in themselves, striving towards actualization. Without the minerals from beneath the earth, the decomposition of biota, the streams of wind and falling rain, the acorn would never be able to germinate - actualizing its potentiality.
Because of this, the universe itself can be characterized as becoming. This notion of becoming then equates to the overlying development in the directionality of greater complexity and “subjectivity.”
The acorn is able to actualize its potentiality through the eco-community of which it is a part. However, human beings, must not only actualize their potentiality through the surrounding eco-community (commonly referred to as First Nature,) but also the social community (commonly referred to as Second Nature.) We grow from children into adults: we develop and we become what we are physically defined to become by cooperating with, and contributing to not only the natural world, but the social: the people with whom we share this existence of interaction with First Nature.
Returning to the notion of “becoming,” we are not only becoming as individuals - growing from children into adults, maturing, and understanding both First and Second Nature, but we are also becoming socially and evolutionarily. We, as individuals, are further developing and gaining understanding through our general interactions; we, as a society are developing through cultural innovation; and we, as a species, are developing in the journey upon our evolutionary pathway. Because of this, a dichotomy must be established between individual directionality, social directionality and species directionality.
The development of an individual human being is both a matter of psychology and physiology. Both the social and ecological community must nurture the individual in order for that individual to grow into a healthy adult both psychologically and physiologically. This notion of nurturing is possible through the continuum of entelechial development.
In the sense that a mother, for instance, interacts with her child on a day-to-day basis: holding, rocking, singing, speaking, bathing, and feeding; the social and ecological communities of which this individual is a part must have a presence within their stages of development and growth. If some aspect of either of these communities does not show its presence within an individual�s development, their development has not been fully nurtured, and because of this, they may not fully actualize their individual potentiality. If a mother fails to interact with her child, then the child may develop serious psychological disorders if not die. Moreover, if people from an ethnicity fail to interact with an individual from little on, that individual may come to develop an alienated perception of such people - perhaps leading to racism.
Interaction is a broadly used concept. An ethnicity of people could “interact” with a small child by taunting them or even beating them - alienating them and putting them into a position of oppression and powerlessness (as seen in the South African Apartheid, among others.) This sort of “interaction” would most certainly lead that child to further alienating themselves from such people. The child may even develop a deep hatred that carries into their social behavior as an adult.
And so, within a nurturing environment, there must be opportunities for interaction. However, what sort of interaction is involved in the actualization of an individual’s potentiality?
Through the advice of a veteran political activist, I have been working to start a local discussion group. This discussion group would be an opportunity for people to tell their stories - and an opportunity for people to listen to such stories. Everyone within the group would be given an equal voice - and everyone would be given an equal opportunity to learn about the people with which they share their day-to-day lives. Granted, hurtful and overall negative stories are sure to be told. However, we will also be told heartfelt, joyous stories. Both, of course, will give us a new insight to the world around us.
In a nurturing environment, we must not only be subjected to painful experiences, but uplifting experiences. Life, within all its complexity is not simply a “good” experience - it is full of all sorts of experiences. In so many respects, this stands as one of the most beautiful aspects of life, and to embrace this within our “interaction,” is an important step in creating a nurturing environment.
However, even if we may come to need both hurtful and uplifting experiences, how may we come to understand what we do need in the actualization of individual potentiality?
Through the tenants of Dialectical Naturalism we are given a definition of society and humanity concerning its development and Progression upon the Earth. In the political framework of Libertarian Municipalism, we are then given a community-based way of life in which we, as a society, shall set out to Progress through a new approach of social interaction. We are then given the opportunity to sculpt a cultural framework built upon a rational foundation in which we are brought face to face with that from which we have been alienated for so long. Our culture shall symbolize and model these factors of interaction into modes of cultural cognition.
We can then establish a synergistic relationship between culture and society embracing our needs defined through human nature. Therefore, through an understanding of our psychology, sociology, ethnology and physiology, we are given the answers regarding what we need in our interaction with First and Second nature. As our socio-culture expands epistemologically, we shall come to better understand our needs, in turn, addressing those needs through our interactions with First and Second Nature.
In essence, nurturing from both the social and ecological community is the causa sine qua non to the successful actualization of an individual’s potentiality. Above all, a nurturing environment involves the presence of the full dimensionality of that environment based around our needs.
The following is an excerpt from Murray Bookchin’s: The Philosophy of Social Ecology.
Without a notion of continuity in culture History, how can we explain the extraordinary efflorescence of the Magdelenian period, some twenty or thirty thousand years ago? How can we explain the clearly unrelated evolution of complex agricultural systems in at least three separate parts of the world-the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Mesoamerica-that apparently had no contact with one another and that were based on the cultivation of very different grains, notably wheat, rice and maize? How can we explain the great gathering of social forces in which, after ten thousand years of arising, stagnating, and disappearing, cities finally gained control over the agrarian world that impeded their development, yielding the “urban revolution,” as V. Gordon Childe called it, in different areas of the world that could have had no contact with one another?
[Bookchin 1990: 163]
As with the individual, societies are also “becoming:” developing through a directionality of cultural innovation. Bookchin establishes a dichotomy between irrationality and rationality as the primary forces in the development of societies.
Irrationality can be likened to mal-nurture in the development and actualization of a society. For instance, the focus and sheer worship of money within our current society has led us away from interacting with fundamental structures of an economic system. Rather than focusing upon labor employment by listening to the people in need of jobs, we focus upon profit maximization. Thus, the actual employment of secure, well-paying positions is ignored beneath the shadow of our obsession with economic growth.
Rationality is concerned with interaction, and interaction brings understanding and nurturing to a society. For instance, as stated in the principals of Ecological Economics, we need to realize all costs then internalize those costs to account for the true social and ecological impact of production and consumption. As a society gains a greater understanding of First and Second Nature, discourse between the citizens brings creativity in the drive for entelechial social development. This, in turn, leads to Progress - the actualization of social potentiality.
With rationality and interaction driving the development of a society, the directionality of that development begins to show through. The implicit potentiality behind this directionality is defined through human nature.
Peering into our evolutionary pathway, we can see the directionality of development of the human brain. We can see advances within the realms of self-consciousness, reason and particularly, development in the frontal lobe, giving us a greater control over innately reflexive and defensive actions. We can also see physiological adaptations in walking posture and dexterity along with a steady increase in the size of our cranial cavity.
Our evolution, of course, is progressed through our interaction with First and Second Nature. Not only do “selective pressures” define our evolution, but we as individuals or as a society define our own evolution through the way in which we cooperate with, and contribute to First and Second Nature.
Because of this, as a species, we are clearly undergoing the actualization of a species-potentiality. One could assume that this directionality will involve a greater self-consciousness, ability of reasoning, and reflective reaction.
Bookchin believes that in our species directionality, we are progressing away from tendencies of pure emotional or violent reaction - what he characterizes as our “animalistic tendencies.” However, keep in mind that, our “animalistic tendencies” have not been degrading upon our evolutionary pathway. As seen in so many instances, we are ever capable of feeling hatred, however, we can also love and hold compassion. Thus, I am lead to believing that our “animalistic tendencies” play an important, if not equal, role in our survival and self-formation. For this reason, our directionality of greater self-consciousness, reason and reflection may act as a complementary to our “animalistic tendencies.” Indeed we can react violently, but we can also react in a loving embrace. Additionally, in some instances, these refined abilities allow us to react in an even more intense, albeit reflected, compassion or aggression.
I know of a young man who was severely beaten as a child. Over time, this has worn him into a very violent and destructive individual. I remember him telling me, “I would march through an alley - ready and willing to stab friend or foe!” As he spoke, a certain pride could be felt within the tone of his voice. I knew at that moment, that my own existence has been quite naive in comparison. The world he described had a crisp and cold reality, gently breathing into his thoughts. I have never looked upon my own dreams in the same way ever since I spoke with him that night.
Later in his life, he tried to overcome what has been nurtured into him through a sort of reason. Through an ethical standpoint, he tried to redefine who he was brought up to be. The beatings from his stepfather forced him to consider what he was becoming. And, as he once said, he did not want to become his stepfather - he did not want to grow up to eventually do such evil acts to his own children.
Consequently, he became a much more compassionate person. However, although he is much more compassionate these days, his compassion remains cold and distrustful. The anger from his childhood seems to loom on the fringes of every word he tells me. Deep down, he is still a hurtful and hateful person, yet he does not want to be.
Therefore, one could argue that his reason was meant to complement his psychodynamic psychological self. Because he has not yet been able to shake what was ingrained into his psyche, his cognitive self and psychodynamic self remain in a state of conflict with one another. This commonly shows through when he is unable to suppress the anger surmounting from his psychodynamic self, then becomes frustrated through his inability to suppress what he does not want to be. He has induced the restructuring of the schemas within his cognitive self; however, his psychodynamic schemas remain fixed within the battered state of his childhood.
This particular young man clearly has been mal-nurtured by the social environment in which spent the days of his childhood. Because he has been mal-nurtured in such way, he has developed what Bookchin would call a capacity of violence and aggression. However, Bookchin appears to contend that reason alone can suppress such a capacity.
Returning to the notion that our newly developing evolutionary abilities are complementary to what is already in place, I believe reason is unable to encompass the scope of suppressing our capacities. Acknowledging that mal-nurture - the failure to fully actualize the potentiality of an individual - allows such capacities to surface, would not a nurturing society be key to suppressing such capacities? Indeed, reason and ethics are perhaps the greatest tools we have to construct a truly nurturing social environment. However, they alone cannot focus the animalistic of our human nature to, perhaps, allow us to give a loving embrace rather than reacting in a storm of violence.
Additionally, when Bookchin speaks of simply suppressing our “animalistic tendencies” I feel that he is only embracing the outer edge of directionality in the actualization of social potentiality. When ignoring not only emotional development, but the development of our nature-as-a-whole as central to the actualization of individual potentiality, conflicts are surely to arise between culture and human nature. And so, I contend that we should focus upon establishing synergy throughout the construction of culture, social interaction, and human nature. Additionally, we must ensure a proposed culture does not cause conflict within the different aspects of our nature or other cultural models.
What is the nature of evil? What is evil’s place within social “aprogression?” In suppressing our animalistic capacities, are we setting out to create a culture ignorant of fundamental aspects of human nature - resulting in the conflict between cultural models and human nature? Prima facie, suppressing the “animalistic” aspects of our nature may seem to embrace our directionality, however, what if related variables exist? What if suppressing those tendencies actually results in self-alienation or the mal-nurture of the psychodynamic self? Asceticism of very human reactions and very human feelings may be socially attractive, but may lead to not fully actualize our individual potentiality.
So, in short, concerning second nature, we must acknowledge both the becoming and the being. We must acknowledge both the rational and reflective, but also the emotional, the violent and the animalistic. Society is not something to harbor only what human beings will become. Society is something to harbor what human beings are - we are in a state of becoming, and society will become something new as we become something new. Society must embrace the directionality of our evolution, however, to ignore the reality of our nature is an ignorance I do not believe we can afford.
Published: 5 years, 5 months ago
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