Description

Hello, Welcome. I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. Musing Interruptus is a podcast for sharing thoughts and stories and enjoying idiomatic phrases. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode; click on continue reading to open a Google Doc with the complete transcription. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, follow and share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Drop a comment with your answers to today’s questions! I love hearing from you! The background music is called Just Tuning Up by Blue Dot.

Embrace the wild side, naturally. In political philosophy, we learn the story of how we escaped the state of nature and entered into a society, a relationship of civility (at least aspirationally) via the social contract and the creation of the state. In the state of nature, it was every man for himself. I wonder what the women were doing. That means that there were no institutions or, police or laws. You needed to be fast, strong, and adapt. This is during the whole nomad and first settlements. Did you know that the whole men were hunters women were gatherers thing was debunked? If you are interested, I left a link to the article in the transcription. The author, Okobock, indicates that the gender distinction in hunting and gathering isn’t substantiated. There was no division of labor in those times. There is, however, evidence that women in different regions hunted with weapons and dogs. Some women were buried with their weapons. 

It seems that entering society made it possible to fossilize power relationships through rules, norms, laws, customs, religion and belief systems. The social contract refers to a philosophical concept that explains how we created society by agreeing to relinquish our right to exert violence. This conversation never really took place, and yet organized life was detonated. Taking a detour off the unpaved roads in the state of nature has a lot to do with the nature of humanity. 

Human nature can be considered as fundamentally good or fundamentally evil.- You heard me, we go straight past bad- At least that is how I imagined it. Humanity found itself needing to create mechanisms to protect itself from one another. The need for protection included property. We need an institution to punish those who would take our cheese! You might be a commie and be willing to share your cheese with anyone or even anarchically think that the cheese is there for the taking. However, you need to agree on that within the community. I find it fascinating how humans have created structures of power veiled by culture and religion. Careful! We are warned if we dare speak of a cultural practice that may impinge on human dignity. That has been in place forever, don’t touch it, don’t move it. You are appalled by child marriages because you are not culturally sensitive or of course women prefer not to be recognized by law or study or live a life free from violence. That is a sacred cultural practice; don’t touch it with your tainted Western ways. Oh wait, the West has those practices, too. Oh Snap! We have philosophically escaped the state of nature, but how can we ever escape human nature? It seems that philosophy is urging us to keep up with it, instead, individuals are just trying to keep up with the Jonses or whoever your neighbor is. 

This shows that sound arguments should be more relevant than who is speaking. In that vein, I am reminded of the people I loved listening to.  Emphasis on love…