Yesterday, I found myself making a rather dismissive response on social media to someone ( who was quite in earnest) proposing the adoption of ‘normality’. I know where they are coming from and to an extent, I sympathise. But this ‘normality’ they are talking about is just another abstract bundle of concepts and related aesthetics, which being such, is no different in nature to any other adopted image or pose. Western (again, apologies for this arbitrary designation) culture, especially online culture, is replete with these artificial identity fetishes ranging from bizarre cults to quasi-traditional poses. A maxim I go by is that “the identity that is named, is not the authentic identity”. There is little less traditional than an artificial and adopted traditional, or in the above instance, ‘normal’ id.
My response – and it probably appeared as being unnecessarily catty, which is not how I like to go about things – was to say that we should be focused on improving and developing the beneficent aspects of human nature such as it appears, rather than seeking to adopt a kind of high-street off-the-peg simulacrum of normality, or indeed any identity. I said in effect that nature takes care of normality itself.
Nature produces the living phenomena of the world- including humanity- according to it’s own principles, not all of which are - or possibly can be- known to us. That is basic, inherent normality, or put another way, commonality. We are all fundamentally normal in this most important aspect. We don’t need to stunt ourselves by adopting or fetishising something like a plastic ready-made form of normality. That is just another consumerist trap and illusion.
This also touches on the issue of the supposed objective supremacy of science. Science, and the scientific worldview are certainly the most refined and powerful paradigms of the practical intellectual capacity of humanity, but that does not mean that science is the whole story, much less supreme. It’s a question of proper (as in, appropriate) application and categorisation. Of course, as a Buddhist I would regard all categorisation – and indeed all purportedly objective (and subjective) truths- as partial, relative and dependently arisen. In other words, as only as valuable as they are of practical benefit.
But leaving out that spiritual dimension which I shouldn’t attempt to presume for anyone else, even so, science is not absolutely objective or independent of social forces in our social species. Indeed, science is necessarily artificial and dependent on aims – in other words, on interests and desires.
Science extracts from nature defined elements and creates artificial conditions in which to break them down and study them – for practical aims. This is only proper, but we shouldn’t assume that the beneficial results of the scientific method have anything to tell us about the actuality of our experience beyond the use value of it’s knowledge.
For instance, something as simple as water is analysed down into molecules of oxygen and hydrogen. But pure water is very seldom (if ever) encountered in nature as it actually is. The pure elements of science are abstracts from nature’s actuality, just as artificial and as potentially beneficial- or detrimental- as abstract concepts regarding self-identity or collective identity or another construction based on sentiment.
The point is that nature as it is and as it presents itself to us- and as us- is the common ground out of which all artifices, including but not limited to science and culture, are built. Their respective values to us are further grounded in their proper application or field of relevance. Here, a very basic practical evaluation- Are they conducive to harm or help? Are they being applied according to the principles of benevolence (the intent to promote happiness and to ease suffering) or not. This miraculously living planet – not ‘our’s’ but of which we are a part, and whose life supporting dynamics we have dangerously unbalanced I might add- is already thoroughly permeated by the normalising patterns of nature.
For living beings such as ourselves, nature is already an identity. We need not heap more abstract artifices on top of that. We should however develop what nature has endowed us with in cultivating our (to use a scary old term!) virtuous parts. To develop compassion, decency, generosity – if only of broad mindedness and a willingness to treat each other with the respect of siblings and equals- and to develop also our intellectual capacities to actively benefit others. The first part is enough to say of culture. The second is the proper direction of science.
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