In this essay, I will explore the concept of philosophy, and discuss how societies are shaped and formed entirely of the philosophies of the individuals that comprise that society. Finally, I will argue for why philosophy and influence should affect the voting behavior of peoples in a democratic society.
What is Philosophy?
Philosophy is a vague concept that has wildly varying yet acceptable meanings, largely because we can apply the term for many, if not all, aspects of the human experience. In order to properly argue for the importance of philosophy, an accurate description of what is meant by ‘philosophy’ must first be defined.
Philosophy is the concept which describes the methods to formulate and decide on a direction and purpose for the self, by the self. This is related to another most popular description of philosophy, which is the academic study of such a concept. The study of philosophy is the analyzing of the fundamental nature of reality and other aspects of the human experience into theories or methodologies, commonly broken down into divisions such as natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy. What is described here instead, is not the study, but the ‘practice’ of philosophy; this is the manifestation of the effects of such contemplation in our day-to-day lives. It is the summation of all the beliefs, desires, and other internal thought processes that guide an individual’s behavior. Put simply, it is a dealing of reasons and purposes.
Another way to describe this practice is that the existence of this particular activity seems to be unique to the human consciousness from any other living thing’s consciousness. Even the most intelligent non-human animals do not indicate that they ponder their purposes for living, and instead are only driven by instincts such as the seeking of pleasure, aversion to pain, and the need to reproduce. Cells, which are the building blocks for all life, also do not practice philosophy — their divisions and other related cellular activity is a causation of chemical reactions as far as we can observe.
The most important quality of philosophy, and the quality that will be most important for many of the arguments that will be presented in this essay, is that the ‘act’ of philosophy ultimately begins and ends within the individual. An individual may be exposed to information in the form of a philosophical theory or construct to perhaps accept a new philosophy or change a previously held philosophy, but ultimately there must be an internal process that is entirely conducted within the individual that finalizes this change for his or her philosophical state. Along the same lines, no external influence can affect an individual’s philosophy if the individual actively does not allow to be influenced. The beliefs or reasons held by a person are never truly verifiable by any method imaginable, and even the common self-disclosure of a held philosophy may be false, simply due to the fact that we are often not able to externalize our deepest thoughts for one reason or another. To summarize this point, philosophy cannot be forced upon others; it can only be realized within individuals after consideration of perception or information.
While philosophy can only be held individually, any collection of individuals form what can be described as a group — and paradoxically, groups can be said to hold philosophies too.
Philosophies of Groups
Groups are any collection of human individuals, which may be in the form of an official organization, or even any informal social circle.
Every group has purpose, and are formed and maintained to serve these purposes. The argument that groups have purpose is a much stronger argument than the argument that human beings have purpose; no human being ever chose to be born, but every group is formed with purpose and has much more verifiable qualities of such purpose. This purpose can be deliberate as in the case of corporations that wish to produce higher capital through the methods of large-scale collaboration, or can be organic and relatively involuntary as may be the case for a group of middle school students who are inclined to repeatedly interact with those who are more likeable and familiar to achieve feelings of social acceptance and greater satisfaction.
How can a group have philosophy if the philosophical process only begins and ends within the individual? It is because groups consist of individuals — those individuals hold philosophies — and the summation of these philosophies can be said to be the philosophies of the group. This is similar to the idea that a nugget of gold is indeed just a collection of the gold chemical elements bound together in such a shape.
If the idea that every individual’s held belief in a group summates to the group’s philosophies sounds hard to accept, that’s because not everyone participates to the group’s philosophy equally. Individuals in the group with more social and ideological influence can affect the group’s philosophy much greatly than an individual in that same group with lesser influence. Furthermore, there is also choice available to individuals whether they would like to make their philosophies known or not to a particular group, whereby acting upon held philosophies can be said to be revealing and therefore influencing the group with those philosophies.
An obvious way to validate the existence of a group philosophy would be by observing groups that have deliberate purposes for existence, so that we can perhaps evaluate what effects the individually held philosophies has on the group’s purpose.
A corporation’s purpose may be to make as much money as possible, and a team unit within that company may have the philosophy to be as productive as possible — so that ultimately the company can make as much money as possible. Consider a team unit that previously had a hostile working environment and unfair compensation for its team members. If a new manager is hired for the team, and the manager acts upon the purpose for the team to ‘be as productive as possible’, a comfortable working environment and a fair salary may be logical changes to enact for the team, naively speaking. The identification and enactment of a such philosophy has led to what we can perceive to be a more productive workplace, where we would be able to assume higher profitable outputs from the employees who are now more satisfied with their daily conditions. As follows, the conclusion can be made that if a manager or leader does not have productive internalized philosophies for themselves and their organization, they may act selfishly or in ways that are ultimately detrimental to the organization’s overall strength.
Many companies also see the importance of hiring employees of good character and positive attitudes, because they recognize that every individual they accept into the organization will have an influence on the existing coworkers (the culture, so to speak), and that the company’s hiring criterias and sought out values will also reflect on the perceived operational philosophies. So it is quite clear that groups do indeed have observable philosophies, and that the philosophies of every individual does contribute proportionally to their levels of influence on the group.
Just as groups can have philosophies that are summation of the philosophies of individuals that comprise the group, entire societies can also be said to hold philosophies along the same logic.
Philosophies of Society
Society is a broad and deliberately vague term that encompasses a larger combination of individuals and groups. A society may be a region, an entire nation, or even our global society as a whole.
While societies are sometimes affected by select individuals, groups often affect societies much more greatly. Consider the social impacts of large corporations, religious groups, political groups — many substantial actions that markedly impact society on a great scale are done as groups, and therefore the philosophies of the key members within the groups.
A key difference in distinguishing between groups and societies is that groups often have active and voluntary membership, while societies may not. The individuals that comprise a group are most often permitted to leave, while most individuals may not be able to choose what society they are part of. No one chose to be born in one country over another, and moving countries are much more difficult than moving jobs. Many individuals considered part of a society may be there for reasons or factors outside their control.
This causes an interesting difference between group and societal philosophies, where individuals often have a much greater motivation to contribute to the philosophies of their smaller respective groups. There is less motivation to affect the larger society, as the state of the society is not as reflective of their actions because they can distance themselves away from the responsibility. Ultimately, individuals in any society can choose to agree with their society’s philosophy or not; but the ability of the mass to agree upon key principles of the philosophies will help advance the society’s purposes and create a strong cultural cohesiveness as well.
The philosophies of the key influencers are much more important than of those who lack this influence, describable to how the philosophies held by a CEO is much more important to a company than those held by an intern, for many obvious reasons. Likewise, governments exist precisely to determine which individuals of the society is given this power to influence a defined political region, by having the position to enact legislature, organize public speeches, and so on.
For dictatorships, the philosophies of the masses matter much less than those in power, because the masses simply do not hold much influence. Consider Nazi Germany and the dominance of Hitler’s ideologies over the the Germanic people, and how many of them attest to not having agreed with Hitler’s philosophies. In modern times, our media outlets cannot accurately portray the philosophies or beliefs held by North Korea’s working class, because their freedoms are very oppressed, and they have no true methods or even reasons to express those beliefs. The only media outlet in the world that could portray the philosophies or beliefs held by North Koreans is the North Korean state media, but they would obviously never do so, because doing so would be providing influence to those people, which those currently in power seem not to want to do.
Luckily for us in democratic societies, a repeated key value for our society is our provided freedoms and having the power to affect who governs us through suffrage. Individual philosophies of a person in a democratic society clearly matter much more than the individual philosophies of an average North Korean, if for no other reason than the simple fact that our philosophies actually have the power to directly influence aspects of our lives, while the North Korean’s philosophies do not. In the democratic society, the power lies in the voters — and just as a manager has the most potential to effect working conditions for subordinates, the elected US president (the individual) and their political party (the group) has the most potential to affect living conditions for Americans (the society). This argument can be said of nearly every democratic society, where freedom of thought and speech is permitted.
So not only should the free thinker take advantage of the power they have to influence his or her government, but they should also educate themselves and promote virtuous philosophies throughout their own groups, so that those groups can eventually affect the larger society. While philosophy begins and ends within individuals, information can be passed along to promote positive societal values that will serve to benefit all.
This is part 1 of a 3 part series on Philosophy.
- Philosophy: How does it affect who I should vote for?
- Philosophy: An Internal Dialogue
- Philosophy: 8 Stories
If you enjoy my work, check out The Noneo, where I provide a modern commentary on the most influential literary work in East Asian philosophy.
