Disobedience and truth

 

 

Reflections of contemporary  philosophy in a post-Foucault era

Together with objectivity, the truth is another of the most solid myths of our educational culture […] And again, how much suffering has the truth had to cause to prevail! And it is that, in the same way that objectivity is nothing more than a dominant subjectivity, truth is nothing more than a fiction staged by power to justify itself.

 

 

 

Everyone claims to have their truth, but is there any that can be valid or universal? Is there anything that can be inevitably true? Is there a truth that cannot be doubted? Is there something that is true regardless of the eyes that look at it? For some people absolute certainty will be in some god, for others in any ideology; any of these options would be an endless debate. What, then, can be true? Could oppression be the only reality of which we can be aware?

 

 

 

The idea of absolute truths is nothing more than a claim to “impose behaviors that we do not share, in the name of some law of nature, the essence of man, untouchable tradition, divine revelation. The social lie has always been based and will always be based on oppression or domination.

 

So those truths that we presuppose are nothing more than ways of controlling our minds and our actions; the truth to which we are subjected and submitted is the truth of power. Power not only exerts a physical coercion in which it tells us what is allowed and what is not; but also exerts a moral coercion. In fact, for the first to occur, the second must exist. This coercion is founded on a series of premises qualified as true: cultural guidelines, prejudices, dogmas, etc. The function of these truths is the division of people (let's look at how society is structured) the more divided we are, the greater the power that these truths exercise over us. The truth of power divides us and encourages exclusion: ageism, saneism, machismo, speciesism, racism, etc. So, if all truth has to be questioned for being the cause of submission, suffering, submission and degradation of the species; the only thing we can be aware of is the existence of oppression.

 

According to dictionaries, "oppressed is one" who is subjected to the vexation, humiliation or tyranny of someone "

 

Social oppression makes citizens feel 'crushed', suffocated, unable to be themselves, and often forced to act in ways that are not normal for them.

 

We are sorry to assume that we know we are incapable of being ourselves, because of alienation and submission; because of living inserted and inserted in a destructive, competitive, and, ultimately, incoherent system. But that social oppression that prevents us from being, also prevents us from being others (human and non-human).

 

 

 

It is surprising that with the enormous and perhaps excessive rumbling of the news about corruption, the worst of corruptions has not been glimpsed [...] I am referring to the corruption of the mind, to the continuous putrefaction of due conscience, among other monstrosities of mental degeneration, to the manipulation of information. These corruptions are not instant blurs of vision. Over time, these manipulations of our helpless neurons end up distorting, disorienting and dislocating them. It will be difficult for them to make a synapse, a pertinent and correct connection.

Once we assume that our perception is distorted, we will be able, perhaps, to recognize that we live oppressed and oppressed. Recognize that we do not decide on our lives. Recognize that we are not free.

 

Oppression, which can affect some groups or others in multiple ways,

 

It can manifest itself through stereotypes disseminated by the media, cultural stereotypes, market mechanisms, etc., that is, forms of habit that are normal in people's daily lives.

So the normal thing is that we live under the yoke of oppression, incited and incited by culture and the media, and under the interests of a market. A market that, along with the two previous ones, turns women into objects and animals into food; a market that expands with our need to want to be like others, to not want to clash, to not be different for fear of exclusion.

 The capacities (intellectual and material) of contemporary society are immensely greater than ever; which means that the extent of society's domination over the individual is immeasurably greater than ever before.

 What should we do in the face of such a bleak scenario? Oppression goes beyond “he who dominates you so much only has two eyes, only two hands, only has one body, that which dominates us no longer has eyes, no longer has hands, no longer has a body… what dominates us are a set of inherited and imposed ideas that are maintained by the interests of a few. Ideas that are embedded in our mind, and that occupy all spheres of life, that condition our way of thinking and that prevent us from distinguishing between real needs and artificial needs.

 A moral revolution must be the total reorientation of the human personality, which can only be achieved with two methods that could be called integration and education.

 We live in a society characterized by exclusion and by an education that, as M. Nussbaum would say, seeks to make us only economically productive subjects. Once we are aware of oppression, it will be in our power to investigate about what subjects us and makes us submit to others. It will be in our power to question or blindly obey. It will be in our power to fight for freedom.

 Let each one follow entirely, always and everywhere, the impulse of his nature, be it limited or brilliant. Only then will man know what it is to live, instead of despising life without ever having lived it.

 

But how can we recognize our own nature if we don't recognize ourselves? How can we disobey if even disobedience is within certain limits? How can we not try if we are going to die without having lived? Skill is acquired with practice.

 

Obedience has two distinct phases: either we obey because we cannot do otherwise, or we obey because we believe we must. In the first case, we would speak of a domain exercised through physical force, which cannot (in the words of Alexandra David-Néel) be called authority, since only the domain of abstract ideas would refer to it. Secondly, we find obedience from believing that it is necessary to obey that is fed by the fear of the unknown. Cultural patterns incite us to obedience; and education, far from promoting critical thinking, imbues us with a uniform thought that is further and further removed from our interests as individuals and as a society: “the alienated subject is devoured by his alienated existence.

 

If the only truth of which we can be certain is oppression, it would be better to end it and not be certain of anything. Oppression feeds on obedience, and obedience on a lack of criticism. Will it be our goal, in a society like the one we live in, to acquire it? If "the secret of life is to live" will boycott and disobedience be the only way to achieve it?