Charter of Values

Quebec proposes to adopt a "charter of values" establishing a secular mandate upon dress and clothing for public workers. The idea of a charter of values is fascinating, and it would be interesting to see how societies, starting perhaps in the West and moving beyond, could be persuaded to adopt such declarations, taken as far as possible.

The Quebec one in particular stems from their history of oppression with the Catholic Church, which forced women in the 1940s-50s to wear certain clothing, procreate regularly, and forbid the use of birth control or abortions. A public statement regarding rather or not one is able to wear religious garments in public sends a message that even where an individual "chooses" to wear such clothing the society at large acknowledges that the individual can be manipulated, coerced or otherwise deceived, against what is presumed best for them, into adopting these habits. The ban arises primarily as a protection for women based on this history of religious tyranny, but of course must apply to men and women alike. The question arises, of course, rather or not this move would even do much to address the underlying problems caused by religion.

Marcuse said that real tolerance cannot tolerate intolerance, because to tolerate intolerance is merely to defeat tolerance itself. Of course the question as to the value of tolerance also arises, and this value, good and bad, would need to be weighed against whatever values underlie and are tied to religious norms of expression, good and bad. Either way, the task of aspiring to set up commonly held values in society and enshrining these in law is pretty cool. This goes beyond traditional constitutions that grant rights and privileges and only implicitly or secondarily state underlying values. To openly declare and defend certain values themselves, first and before rights and privileges, would put a society on the path toward the possibility of philosophy.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/09/09/montreal-quebec-parti-quebecois-charter-of-quebec-values.html

I agree with your sentiment. I have always wholeheartedly loved this policy as it is enforced in France. To take oneself seriously as a secular society (laïcité), to not tolerate the oppression of stupidity, to stand firm, intolerant towards intolerance, indeed...

A society can only begin to form a Heart when it stands firm for its values. Such a heart does not always have to be a good heart, but to banish religion from the power of the state is, indeed, a noble and beautiful thing.

It is no wonder that such a politics arises in a cultural sphere where spirituality, poetry, the hearts-mind, is implicit in the secular discourse, the language and its habits - only such a society would perceive the essential depravity of religious discourse and symbolism.

Yes, but religion need not be removed from the cultural values, it may hold a key place as it has in history, before the advent of Christianity and the beginning of the modern demo-cratization. It is conceivable both that a society with Heart will form upon a religion-metaphysics and that it might form upon a lack of religion-metaphysics. Either way, a value would be needed which is stronger than the religion or no-religion, meaning that the impulse, the psychological force of the subjectivity must be drawn more heavily and essentially by this single value or small set of values than it is drawn by the religious-metaphysical.

The reduction of physical influence and power of systems of religion-metaphysics bodes well for this. Now what is needed is for the demo-cratization to collapse like a wave-form encountering hard reality, becoming measured by something more objective within itself, and so gravitating toward more severe logics. This collapse will purge the will to homogeneity and cause a new war of values, as Nietzsche foresaw. WWI and WWII were examples of this, but demo-critization emerged victorious in both accounts, because it has already wed itself with the supreme no-value god of modern history. The death of god has done much to hinder the death of god.

The war will be postponed and man will continue to sink into the oblivion of value-lessness so long as modernity continues to thrive in its nihilism. But this cannot last forever.

I would be happier with a society with Heart, as you say, which has religion-metaphysics too than with a secular society without such Heart, without the singularity of valuation and self-valuing power as strengthens and guarantees certain kinds of strong subjectivities. God-religion is only a symptom, it is and never has been the primary or even the secondary entity of concern.

The example for France is important. Compare it to ancient Rome, the same standard applies. Rome was the all overpowerfing Signifier, which name commanded the loyalty of the Gods. Jupiter was Rome's protector. There was no God greater than Rome. Still, there were Gods, and they were important, because they served the cultural Heart. If they would not, if they would have been universal, they would be reviled or ignored.

France has a similar resource, a similar central value. It's not primarily a matter of military might, but of unblemished and self-perpetuating self-reverence. I see no other way for this planet or any part of it to be rid of the corpse of God and the surrounding void, than that such a self-reverence is attained, distinguished, identified, created, born in whatever way. And "Gods", that is to say Great Forces, are bound to be part of this birth, just as the Olympians were part of the rise of Rome.

One thing that can never be un-deified is Destiny. This term will always represent, to all humans, their own self-valuing. In science, Destiny is interpreted as physical necessity, the determined. In religion it's interpreted as a moral necessity, the determined. Using value ontology it must be interpreted as part of the ontic structure of the being. Whichever way it is interpreted, it is an awe-inspiring object of hope and fear. "Know thyself" means "see your future".

Five years ago I began developing a campaign to "advertise the future". The concept of Future as held by a Self, and this Future and Self are mirrors of each other. The monotheist God never represented anything besides a projected future, a self made of destiny. When God died, the future died with it. A good thing, as this future man was interpreting himself in terms of was pool of waste. It might be that the future simply had come too close for man to uphold it anymore. He could smell it, he could smell himself, and gave himself up.

It's time to clear out the remains of the old self, clear out the temple of the future.
I once introduced that New God. That God is a new type of future. I caught a glimpse of what needs to be done, to revive the body of man as a reflection of a healthy future. I caught only a glimpse and was able to act on it with power. Imagine what is possible when a group sees the whole reality, the whole relationship between self and future.

All creator-tyrant have seen themselves as the future. There is no difference between a creator-tyrant and the future he envisions. And there is no difference between a nation, a state or tribe, and the vision of its creator-tyrant. And there is no possibility for a creator tyrant to exist if "his" people are not precisely the right material to embody his vision.

Who, what is ready to envision and to self-create a future that submits all Gods, all necessities? I feel, ruthless optimist that I am, that there is a great number of such people, waxing until the moment when the idea becomes necessary enough for themselves to become necessary, to be full and born into the world as wholes, anchors, subjects.

Most people are not existent. Many are urging to come into existence, This can only happen under the "name of a new future". And this future must be "told" in terms of science. Which means that science will have to be interpreted anew, ripped from the corpse of God, cleansed of the deathly odor of objectivity-as-death, objectivity-as-separateness - and brought under the auspices of the mind.

"Mind" replaces God.

Now we speak the same language.

If Heidegger's dwelling is necessary, the dwelling for the re-appropriation of science as Mind (God subordinate, the lie removed in the fall) must include images of the other Minds, along with a respect for a given if precarious hierarchy. What is at the top of the hierarchy? No nothing! The elephant in the room is us!