Kansir/Canser

A meditation upon possibility (can), Immanuel Kant (Kan), movement and displacement (ir), existence and being (ser), gravity (serious), patriarchy (Can I, sir?), and degradation/decadence (cancer).

The fiction of the Will: have we yet understood what it means for a someone to 'will' something? The sum of our experiences dictates our actions far more than the 'will' does. This must be readily assented to by anyone - we act as if a young boy grown up in the ghetto with an abusive household, if he reasoned long enough about it, would make the right decision and not join a gang. This is, obviously, absurd. It is just as unlikely for a young person grown up in a suburban christian household not to grow up to be christian as well - or, at the very least, not have some sense of ascetic ideals. The exceptions to these circumstances are to be found in the fact that not all circumstances are so general, or some arbitrary individual disposition (for there are unique people to be found everywhere - take a most wonderful 'exception', Richard Wright and his autobiographical "Black Boy") , but in the end we realize that it is never the 'will' that gives us an adequate answer to why 'one does what one does'.

The problem with the will is that it has created an entire guilt complex for those who still believe in it, for those that think their actions should follow their ideals, rather than that their ideals will follow from the pattern of their actions... if one could choose what one involved oneself in, self-sovereignty would "reign" in general, and not half of the so many follies and failings of people would arise. The very idea that we could possibly reign over ourselves causes the greatest despondency in those who see themselves fail, time and time again - what could it possibly mean for their will to be inefficient? obviously, it is that they have not subjected themselves to enough experiences that would reverse this trend. We tend to expose ourself to limited circles - what is prescribed by the majority.

Christianity favors this conception of the will in the idea that hell is reserved for those who deliberately choose an evil life. This is christendom's major downfall, for one must necessarily either be less happy under the realization that one cannot live up to one's ideals, or must be rather bigamous in one's judgments of others. This latter case occurs in those whose life experiences have led up to them accepting the majority order and living comfortably within it. They do not question their own ideals or their "will" because everything they do supports the paradigm held up by uncritical society. Of course, this never takes any great force of will, but is often done out of pressure to conform. Their judgments upon those who are deviant, criminals or people from different cultures, are so badly informed that we must conclude their metaphysics to be absolutely wrong. Take for example those christians who called the hurricane in Louisiana the just consequence for the type of people that lived there (and I heard this once by my own ears). These people are completely blind to the idea that what one culture or social circumstance breeds is no better than another. Individuals, the only ones who could really show their 'willpower', but who really just constitute a unique ideal, are those who could genuinely be favored by any higher power, if one must posit one (which one never really has an obligation to do), and are the mode through which we actually can make valuations about humanity, and escape the relativism of what I said in the previous sentence (and one must always avoid relativism).

- These are the first thoughts of a proposed treatise which will likely not see light for some time, I was not going to post it, but hit the button on accident, so I thought I would let it be (who knows how far my plans will take me, after all).