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The True Complementary World

The True Complementary World

By
Ryan Close

October 25, 1999

Dr. Charles Ess

Alpha Seminar

*Justice, what is it? What makes justice unlike injustice? Why are men unjust? One conception of human nature has given men the justification to do unspeakable acts of violence, while another speaks volumes to nonviolence, unity and equality. How did this come to be? Which is the way we should live and why? In our quest for knowledge we may find that all we ever knew was wrong and that all we have believed in was false. In that moment we may begin to think for our selves, realizing that the masses were not only wrong, but also unjust.*

Socrates, Thrasymachus, and Justice

In Plato’s first book of the Republic he discusses Justice, what it is and whether it is the way we should live or not. In his book Socrates is the main character who’s main opponent is Thrasymachus. Thrasymachus says that he knows what justice is and that they should wager money on who is right. If he is right and Socrates cannot prove it to be otherwise he should have to pay a penalty; and likewise if Thrasymachus is wrong he will pay (Plato, 13-15).
Thrasymachus says, “that the just is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.” He argues that who ever is the leader of any city or community will make laws that are advantageous for them selves and it is just to obey those laws (15).
Socrates begins by asking if it is just to obey leaders just to make sure he knows what Thrasymachus is talking about. Thrasymachus says it is. The Socrates asks if leaders are infallible or if they do indeed make mistakes for if they do then they might, by mistake, make a law which does not better them selves, in fact such law may be disadvantageous for the leader. Thrasymachus agrees to all of this. Then Socrates says that according to Thrasymachus it is not justice to do what is advantageous for the stronger because when the stronger make mistakes it is just to obey such laws. Thus it must be justice to do both what is advantageous and disadvantageous for the stronger (15-17).
Thrasymachus does not agree to this at all. He goes on to explain that in the moment a man makes a mistake he is not actually stronger. He argues that a doctor is only a doctor in so much as he is conforming to the definition of being a doctor, for when he makes a mistake he is not a doctor but a doctor who has made a mistake. In the same way a ruler, while he can be called a ruler, does not make mistakes. Thus while a man is a “ruler” he must be obeyed, for this is just and his laws benefit himself (17,18).
From this point on in the book all ideas are considered as if they were talking about the definition of the idea, justice done perfectly and injustice when done perfectly etc. For instance if the unjust betrays all then why are criminals able to conspire together to commit crimes? They are able to conspire because they are not perfectly unjust; they are able to be just so just as to be able to work together. Socrates and Thrasymachus consider only the definition of ideas, the idea in its perfection.
Now Socrates continues, is a doctor one who cares for the sick or a moneymaker; and Thrasymachus replies that he is one who cares for the sick. Then he says is a pilot one who rules sailors or a sailor; and Thrasymachus replies that the pilot is one who rules sailors. The doctor needs the sick and the pilot needs the sailors in order to be what they are. In other words, by definition they would not be a doctor or a pilot if these did not exist. Both arts provide for what they need, or what they exist to serve. Medicine does not consider the advantage of its self, medicine, but rather the sick. Likewise, piloting does not consider the advantage of piloting but rather sailors. Thus no art seeks its own advantage but rather the advantage of what it serves. Therefore, “there is never anyone who holds an position of rule,” insofar as he an be called a ruler, “who considers or commands his own advantage rather than that of what is ruled and of which he himself is the craftsman; and it is looking to this and what is advantageous and fitting for it that he says everything he says and does everything he does.” Otherwise he could not be called a ruler in the strictest sense of the word (19,20)
Furthermore no one wishes to rule voluntarily. Rather he insists on being paid as if the benefit of ruling is in the ones being ruled (24,25)
“Then this benefit (advantage) is for each not a result of his own art; but, if it must be considered precisely, the medical art produces health, and the wage earner’s art produces wages;… …each accomplishes its own work and benefits that which it has bee set over.” Therefore it is clear that no art provides for its self but it considers the advantage of the weaker. Thus the strong are just when they rule for the weak and they are unjust when they rule for them selves (24)

How Should We Live

Now Socrates considers how we should live based on the argument that justice is wiser, stronger, and happier. Thrasymachus argues that when a man is perfectly unjust he is happier than the just man when he lives in perfectly just. He says that when we can get away with it we would all prefer to live unjust lives. The unjust man will become wealthy and possess the wills of others and he will thus become happier. Socrates does not agree (25).
Socrates asks is injustice more profitable than justice when it is perfect and Thrasymachus says it is. Then Socrates asks if Thrasymachus can speak of one as virtue and wisdom and the other as vice, to which Thrasymachus says he can. Thrasymachus says that injustice is a virtue and that justice is vice. He says that injustice is good council and justice is just very high-minded innocence. Socrates then asks if the unjust are both good and prudent. To which Thrasymachus replies that it is when they can get away with it (25,26)
Now that Socrates has it all straightened out what Thrasymachus was actually saying he comments that if Thrasymachus had said that justice was virtue and injustice was vice, that it would have been easier to prove that justice is wiser, stronger, and happier, but that since he said otherwise he will have to try harder. So he begins by asking if in Thrasymachus’ opinion, would an unjust man be willing to get the better of the just man. Thrasymachus answers that it is not so because if he did he would not be a just man. Then Socrates asks if the just man claims he deserves the better of the unjust man and not the just man. After some discussion Thrasymachus agrees. Socrates continues by asking if the unjust man would want to get the better of both the just and unjust man, to which Thrasymachus answers that he would since the unjust man will claim he deserves to get the better of everyone. “And will he struggle to take most of all for himself?” “That is it,” Thrasymachus agrees (26,27).
Socrates sums up the argument in this way, the unjust man takes advantage of both the like and the unlike while the just man only takes advantage of the unlike. Now if the musical man is prudent and the unmusical man is thoughtless, then the musical man would not try to get the better of his colleague the other musical man, rather he would try to get the better of the unmusical man. In the same way, if two men were perfectly wise and always right they would not want to get the better of each other but of the one who is wrong. They would be getting the better of only the unlike. Then the man who is both good and wise will not want to get the better of the like but of its opposite, the unlike, but the bad and unlearned and ignorant will get the better of both the learned and unlearned. Then the just man getting the better of the unlike would be wise and both prudent and virtuous. Then the unjust man getting the better of the like and unlike would be foolish and bad (27-29). Thus justice is wiser than injustice.
Now the argument turns to whether the injustice is stronger than justice is. Socrates begins by pointing out that it is injustice that produces hatred, factions, and quarrels because the unjust take advantage of both the like and the unlike. Therefore wherever injustice exists men are unable to accomplish anything in common. Socrates says, “Then does it come to light as possessing a power such that, where ever it comes into being, be it in a city, a clan, an army, or whatever else, it first of all makes that thing unable to accomplish anything together with itself due to the faction and difference, and then it makes that thing an enemy both to its self and to everything opposite and to the just? Isn’t it so?” Thus the just must be stronger (29,31).
Finally Socrates moves to the subject of how we should live considering whether the just or unjust are happier. He begins by saying that a particular thing has a particular job and does a particular work. Some things do a better job or a more accurate job than other things. Then he asks if there is a thing whose work is that of reasoning and ruling. Thrasymachus answers that there is indeed and that it is the soul (32).
The word being used for soul is here psyche that means the life and person of a human being that allows him to be rational and know what right and wrong are. Plato’s conception of the soul is that it is made up of three parts; appetite, spirit, and reason. To Socrates these three parts needed to be in balance for the human being to be happy. Socrates goes on to explain why this is true (Ess).
Socrates points out that the eye sees well with virtue and without vice. Thrasymachus agrees pointing out that the vice of the eye is blindness. Socrates replies that he does not care about what we call the vice but only that is true because in the same way the soul can rule better with virtue than with vice. Then Socrates states that living is also the work of the soul. Now if justice is virtue of the soul and injustice is the vice, it can be argued that the unjust man can not rule or live well while the just man can rule and live well. Thus the just man is happier and we should live just lives and not unjust lives (32,33).

Thrasymachus’ Worldview

Injustice

Thrasymachus believed that what we call justice is weak and what we call injustice is strong. Because of this view, his definition of justice is whatever benefits the stronger. Dualism is the conception of human nature that supports all of this.
What is Dualism? This is the worldview where if two things are different one is seen as better than the other. This forms a type of Hierarchy. Examples are:
God Man Man Good White Material
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SEPERATION
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Man Woman Nature Evil Black Immaterial

Hierarchy is naturally established among selfish men. Thomas Hobbes argues that all men are irrational and therefore selfish and in that way we are competitive. Being naturally competitive we are always comparing our selves to others, thus we have ego. Ego or pride is the very concept that exemplifies dualism (Hobbes, 30-34). In other words the belief that we are better than anyone else, the establishment of a hierarchy is central to dualism and hate.
Therefore if we hate each other and just as soon kill our neighbor as we would an animal there would be chaos or anarchy. Hobbes stated that if an element of society causes chaos, the ruler has the right to eliminate this element by force (32,33). In this Hobbesian worldview we see an incredible hierarchy:

Authoritarian Monarch / Ruler order
-------------------------------------------------------
SEPERATION
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His Subjects chaos

This Hierarchy gives us the right to dominate the weak. Dualism has always given the elite the justification they need to subvert and otherwise destroy the apparently weak.
In 1984 we see Dualism at work. An authoritarian government called Big Brother rules the country of Oceania. In the book, O’Brien argues that the only way to impose your will on anyone else is to make that person suffer, and by doing so crushing their will.
“ ‘How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?’
Winston thought. ‘By making him suffer,’ he said.
‘Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.’ (Orwell, 269, 270)”
Therefore it can be seen that in Dualism the human being is destroyed for the Authority can not hold on to power perfectly as long as long as humans still have will. He is no longer allowed to think or choose for himself. The very things that make him human are taken away from him. Instead of his will and the will of all his peers, there is only the will of the one, the ruler. Within this view we can only be either rulers or willess subjects. This is unjust. King says that, “any law that degrades human personality is unjust” (King, 43).

The Perfect Dualism

The only way Hobbes was able to justify an authoritarian monarchy is by establishing a hierarchy through a perfect dualism. He does this by saying we are irrational and if we are irrational we will be incapable of telling right form wrong and thus we will do what we want whenever we want. Being unable to tell right from wrong we would just obey our feelings and urges whether or not they hurt others or not. Thus being selfish we would eventual engage in war. Hobbes says that being selfish, “they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man” (Hobbes, 31). War is the ultimate end dualism wishes to accomplish. Hierarchy becomes hate when the separation between the two people becomes so great that the other no longer appears human. This is called demonizing, when an element different from your own is made to seem evil. Only then will a rational person wish to end another rational person’s life. Demonizing is used to make rational men act irrational.
Thus, if we were truly irrational we would create chaos because we are incapable of self-rule. There is one problem with this. Being unable to tell right from wrong, a large scale hierarchy would be impossible. We would not be able to grasp the concept that another group of people were evil and we are good because we would not know what good and evil was. We would only know that we deserved to survive at any expense, therefore we would be selfish and would cause chaos.
Hobbes is being a scientific. He does not believe in God so to him there can be no soul and therefore we are not rational. Knowledge comes from the senses; it is tangible. Rights, potentials, values, conventions, and reason are not material; therefore they cannot be real. To Hobbes and Thrasymachus, all of these unreal values and ideas come only from the one man, the ruler. Hobbes calls this man the Leviathan. Both Hobbes and Thrasymachus believe that values and morals are whatever the ruler decides is conventional and good. Hobbes believes that this ruler will make decisions that are good for the community for this is his entire argument, that since we are irrational we would all kill each other unless the ruler told us what to do. Thrasymachus says that every man is selfish and thus the stronger man will rule the weaker and his laws would benefit only himself.
When Socrates asked if the unjust man would want to get the better of both the just and unjust man, Thrasymachus answered that he would since the unjust man claims he deserves to get the better of everyone. This exemplifies the Dualistic Hobbesian worldview where all men are selfish. There is no right or wrong. It says that I should take advantage of any and all people I can get my hands on. If someone were in need of my help I would say, “To hell with them, let the bastards die. When they die, they will not be competing with me for my resources and I can consume them.” That is the attitude of pure survival. The only way to defend this view is to say there is no definite right or wrong.

Plato’s Worldview

Hobbes would say that we are irrational because he cannot see reason. Hobbes is very much a scientist. His worldview excludes both the soul and reason because they are not material. This is very much like Socrates who led Cephalus away from his superstitions and to pure reason and logic in arguing his point (Plato, 7). But Hobbes and Locke do it for very different reasons. First of all Hobbes argues we are irrational using science, but science would not exist without reason. Secondly, reason is all Socrates has to use in an argument. In a democracy if any particular group cannot vote then the majority is no longer ruling. For instance, until blacks were allowed to vote the majority did not rule in the South. The majority rested in the black community but they were not consented. Locke says that men contract with a government to rule them, therefore the power should rest in the people, but since all the people will not agree all the time the majority of the men must consent to being ruled. “There wants and established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common measure to decide all controversies between them” (Locke, 52). Thus a law is unjust if it rules without the consent of the majority as slavery laws did in the South. Plato wanted to use reason because in a democracy you cannot argue from religion because not everybody will believe in the same thing that you do and just because they believe differently than you doesn’t mean you can exclude them from government.
Plato does believe in a soul, but he can understand it using the reason and logic that Hobbes says we do not posses. In fact Plato argues that reason and logic and therefore self-rule, come from the soul. Furthermore Plato sees the immaterial things as being more real than the material. In the allegory of the cave culture is a cave that men are trapped in. The men trapped in the cave are tied to a pole and forced to stare at the back of the cave wall. Every thing they see is just a shadow of the real thing just like what Paul meant when he said, “Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). One object can make an almost infinite number of shadows. For instance the definition of a triangle is three internal angles that all equal 180 degrees. But when we visualize a triangle we do not see that triangle of the definition. Instead we see a triangle, a particular example of triangle. The triangles are like shadows cast by a single object, the mathematical definition of a triangle that is more real than the actual triangles them selves. Reality is whatever endures through change. Perfection exists as an idea or a definition we cannot visualize and which is more real than material things (Ess). Therefore immaterial things like the soul and reason can be thought of as more real material things.

Locke, like Plato, asserts that both men and women are rational, and thus being able to tell right from wrong we can do right when we want to do wrong. Being able to do right we would not be selfish and we would not need a ruler. Thus men are free, equal, and independent. If this is what makes us human then if anyone takes this away from us then they have wronged us. Thus any government that rules without the consent of the rational majority makes us less than human and we become slaves. The only way anyone can hold power over us is if we give them that power by consenting. This is the purpose of government, so if any government does not rule by the consent of the governed it is no longer a legitimate government.
In other words, since we are rational we are capable of goodness and therefore able to rule our selves. In this case minimal rule would be the best form of government, something like democracy or a perfect socialism. To agree with this view you must understand what right and wrong is and that they are universal, for if they are not then there is no point is saying we are capable of goodness.

Right and Wrong

Now what is right and wrong? No one human impulse or desire is wrong in and of its self, just as no note on a piano can be wrong. But like notes on a piano, human impulses can be played in the wrong way or at the wrong time. When our own impulses violate someone else’s right to carry out their impulses then we have wronged them. That is why in Law we see that every man’s rights must be limited so much so that no one else’s rights are limited any more.
Now the question is whether right and wrong are universal or just something each man makes up based on his culture.

The Tao

Hobbes starts from the scientific point of view that says that life is a war. “To this war of every man, against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice” (Hobbes, 32).
This view is obviously in error. Every one has heard two people argue. They say things like, “How would you like it if anyone did the same to you?” and “Why did you take my seat, I was there first?” or “Come on you promised.” The remarks the man makes are not really saying that the other man’s behavior does not seem please him. The man is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior, which he believes the other man to know about. The other man never tries to disregard the first man’s standard, he tries to come up with a reason why his behavior did not actually violate the standard or why at the moment he was exempt from the standard. It looks in fact that both parties have in mind a standard or Law. Many people call these morals, but the word moral is used today to describe a particular person’s views on what is right and wrong. But using the example of two people quarreling we can see that this standard, Law, morals, or whatever you want to call it is not objective. It is something that every human is aware of. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is wrong, and if there were no absolute agreement about what is right and wrong, then there would be no reason for quarrelling (Lewis, Mere, 17-21)
This absolute is what is called the Tao.
Furthermore, for reasons we do not understand, even though we are aware of the Tao we disobey it daily. Chances are that this year, this week, this very day you have done something that is wrong. You will even admit to it, but as soon as you do you will come up with a string of excuses about why you did it. The fact that we instinctually come up with excuses at the very mention of one of our shortcomings proves all the more that every man is fundamentally aware of an absolute right and wrong (20).
“These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, human beings everywhere, have this idea that they should act in a certain way. Secondly, they do not in fact behave in that way. “They know the Law of Nature, the Tao, they break it” (21).
It is sheet music that tells a musician which notes to play and when, and in the same way it is the Tao that tells us what impulses to allow and which to deny. The sheet music is not a note, and in the same way the Tao in definitely not an emotion or an impulse. So now the question is what is the Tao, where do morals come from. The Tao or the Law of Right and Wrong must be above and beyond the mere facts of human behavior.
To those that would argue that morals are not universal consider the consequences. There is no society where killing one other is productive and encouraged. There is not a country where cowardice and betrayal are looked upon as attributes of good men. If there was, that country would be so different from our own we could not even understand it. It would be the dualistic world that Thrasymachus presents.
Some would assert that the Tao is not natural to all people because morals are learned. “Children are not born with a knowledge of the Ten Commandments, any more than they are born already knowing Tort law or campaign finance regulations. These rules of appropriate behavior are taught to children and conformity to these rules is consistently rewarded, while violation is consistently punished”(Floyd). When a man sees a man trapped in a wrecked car his feelings or animal instincts will tell him that it will be dangerous to try and rescue the trapped man but his ability to reason would allow him to put the trapped man’s interests before his own. Because of reason he can say, “you are not any more important than me so I will help you because if I was in your place I would like to be helped as well.” So if the Tao is based on Love, and Love is just an application of Reason, then children could not be expected to know all about right and wrong. Reason is something that grows along with becoming an adult. That is why there are legal consent laws and why children do not vote.
Furthermore, morals from the Tao are seen in every culture, from Babylonia to the Egyptian books of the dead, to American Indian and Chinese proverbs. Even Buddhism, Indian, and Roman/Greek philosophies share the same basic belief in a definite right and wrong. I would go into detail with examples of different moral ideas and where they can be found in many different cultures but it would take up nearly ten more pages. Maybe next time.
In a way Plato argued that there was a definite right and wrong. When Thrasymachus said that justice is whatever is advantageous to the stronger he was asserting that there was no definite right and wrong and that who ever is strongest can make it up to benefit himself. Socrates argues that justice cannot be so objective, they must be definite. If right and wrong were objective then we would all be unjust as Thrasymachus suggests. Plato tells us that if we made up our own right and wrong then we would be incapable of accomplishing anything, as hate, faction, and betrayal would inhibit corporation. Furthermore a person would be torn in two as well and be unable to function. As the Bible and Abraham Lincoln tell us, “a house divided can not stand.”
Without a Tao the world would be like Thrasymachus’ world. We would all be selfish and follow our urges and desires. We would have every justification to harm and kill whomever we want because of the dualistic hierarchy we would have created that puts us at the top. But there is in fact such a thing as right and wrong we can rest assured that we can eventually live in a just world.

Positive and Negative Freedom

So since there is such a thing as right and wrong then we can in fact be capable of goodness. We are able to do right when we want to do wrong. Our emotions and feelings are based on what will help our physical body survive. When we do things that contribute to our survival we are rewarded by pleasure, while when we act in a way that does not contribute to our survival we receive pain as a type of negative reinforcement. So doing right when we want to do wrong might sometimes mean suffering pain. While our body wants to survive, Plato asserts that we will be able to choose with our souls to put the other persons interests ahead of our own. This is called positive freedom, the ability to deny our selves and our wants and needs for a greater cause. For instance, a dancer will practice for years. Those who do not understand positive freedom will think she is enslaving herself. But those who do understand positive freedom will realize that she is setting her self free to be able to dance beautifully in the future. The dancer is able to put her immediate wants and needs aside for a greater freedom later. In the same way rational men are able to put their immediate wants and needs behind the interests of others. This is called mastery of self. When you master your self you will be able to love perfectly.
A Revolutionary Among Us

Lets take a look at positive and negative freedom. The rebel wants “freedom from” authority. This is negative freedom, as his options are narrowed, limited to only what is opposite of what authority wants. In a way he is still controlled by the authority. The non-conformist on the other hand wants “freedom to” be their own authority, to do what ever they want regardless of what other authorities want them to do. Therefore the type of freedom they have is positive freedom, as it is not limited by authority in any way but only by what the non-conformist believes to be right.
Emily Dickinson wrote about positive freedom when she said it was wrong to be somebody.
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! They’d banish us—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell your name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!” (Dickinson, 13)
Like Plato, Dickinson believed that society would suffocate the person and inhibit the growth of individuality. She thought that society would tell you what to do, who to be, and what to believe, and that if you did not conform to this they would “banish you.” She was a non-conformist who wanted positive freedom from society. Society was the authority she decided to ignore. To Plato society was the cave.
A revolutionary on the other hand is a non-conformist who does care about authority. They care enough to want to change it. While a non-conformist would be apathetic to authority a revolutionary would do every thing he could to go about changing authority. It is very much like the man who escapes the cave and then comes back. He needs to set the rest of humanity free from the cave he was once trapped in himself. However, there are other reasons.
King argues that if we believe a law to be unjust we have the responsibility to disobey that law. “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law” (King, 44). This is called civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is the heart of revolution; the understanding that a governing body that is making unjust laws must be changed. King choose to use peaceful protest while the founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were forced in to a violent confrontation known as the American Revolutionary War. However it takes place, Jefferson believed that a country should under go a revolution every ten years.
There are many other reasons why a person who has fought so hard be set free from the slavery of the cave will come back. First of all, even experiencing unity with all things, complete awareness, and becoming virtually God himself would still be very lonely without the rest of humanity. According to the Bible, this is exactly the attitude God has toward the unsaved. This feeling of being lost without the community is a very complementary view based on the original conception of the Judeo-Christian God Yahweh. The very complementary God of the Jews was a God that worked in history on the side of the oppressed. This view of God is called the “Prophetic.” It is concerned with the salvation of the community (Ess).
The dualistic view of God on the other hand is called the “Apocalyptic.” It is about the salvation of the self. The community fades into the background. As Hobbes and Thrasymachus would like us to believe, as humans we exist alone.
The complementary view tells us that,“the only one who is truly alone is a beast or God” (Ess). So to be lonely we can only either be an animal, which because of rationality and the soul is ruled out or have achieved unity by escaping the cave. And at the point that we escape the cave and become divine, our rationality and love, that which allows community to exist at all, forces us to go back to the cave and try and liberate society. This is what Jonathan Livingston Seagull did when he went back to his flock to teach them to fly.
“ ‘Jon, you were Outcast once. Why do you think that any of the gulls in your old time would listen to you now? You know the proverb, and it’s true: The gull sees farthest who flies highest. Those gulls where you came from are standing on the ground, squawking and fighting among themselves. They’re a thousand miles from heaven—and you want to say you can show them heaven from where they stand! Jon, they can’t see their own wingtips! Stay here.’… …‘Sully, I must go back’” (Bach, 85, 86).
It is also the same thing that Jesus did when he died on the cross.
“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:10-12)
Both were revolutionaries. Revolution is the center of free society, and both are the product of rationality. Through rationality we become free, and then through the same rationality we feel obliged to set others free.

My Worldview

The Human Trinity

Every human being is made of three distinct parts. These parts are not very much like persons but more like three manifestation of the same person. And this is not to say there are only three manifestations of each person, but just that the parts normally named and discussed in most cultures can be seen to exist as one of these or as a part of anyone of them. These three parts are the Body, the Spirit and the Soul. Some people might refer to a body, mind, and spirit but in this example the mind will turn out to be a part of the Soul. I have found words in Greek to help us understand these parts by giving them original names so the reader can start from scratch.
Sarx (S)
The first part of the human being is the Body. This is what the Bible calls the flesh. The Greek word used is Sarx. The Sarx operates in the physical universe.
The Sarx possesses the type of life called Bios. Bios refers to the duration, means, and manner of life. In other words the completely physical and observable type of life that can be explained and recorded made up of atoms and molecules, their positions and velocities. From the moment Bios begins at the moment of the conception of the Sarx, it is ending. The beginning is called birth and the ending is called death.
The Sarx is seeking ultimate or unending Bios. This is called immortality. This is achieved through infinite survival
The Sarx is motivated by only one thing, and that is fear, fear of death and pain. Thus the Sarx is driven by the single command to survive. Survival is emotional. Our emotions are designed to keep our Sarx alive. As stated before, pleasure is a positive reinforcement for surviving. Usually doing things that increase our survival like eating and sex are accompanied by rewards of pleasure. Self-denial is opposed to survival of the individual because the Sarx would actually feel an amount of pain at having its rights limited. Though survival in its self is not wrong, and therefore emotion is not wrong, it does become wrong when they become central to one’s existence. Survival at any cost is wrong, it is dualistic. When a hierarchy is established with you on the top then you have every justification to dominate and destroy others. This is hate. When you look at a tree and think only of lumber and profit or when you look at a woman and see only dirty thoughts (Carter, 60), then your goal is no longer the good of others but the infinite survival of your own Sarx. This is where the Thetan comes in.
Thetan (Q)
Then second part of the human being is the Spirit. The Greek word for the Spirit in the Bible is the pneuma. I call it the Thetan. The Thetan operates in the metaphysical universe the same way the Sarx operates in the physical universe. The two have identical functions in their respective domains, the Sarx in the physical and the Thetan in the metaphysical universes.
The Greek word pneuma means to breath. In ancient times the life of a person was thought to reside in their breath because when they died they no longer breathed. In the same way the Hebrew word Ruach can mean either wind or spirit. (Kohlenberger, 1550) The Thetan is seen as distinct from both the Sarx and the Soul. Soul and Thetan are very closely related because they are immaterial and they are both contrasted with the Sarx
The Thetan possesses the type of life called Zoe. Zoe is a metaphysical term that denotes life itself, that which cannot be observed in a dead man. It is that which animates living beings. It can also be understood as eternal life or even the very life of God. (Kohlenberger, 1630) Since it does not end the Thetan is not afraid of death and thus never tries to survive. It can never hurt another and is never selfish. Thus it would be fundamentally different from the Sarx. The opposite of fear is faith so it could be argued that the Thetan possesses the quality of faith, the belief in the unseen. Because it is ruled by faith instead of fear it can love instead of hate.
Soul (Y)
The idea of the soul can be seen best in a portion of Jesus message found in Matthew, “Jesus replied: ‘ “Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”’” (Matthew 22:37). In it we find three Greek words that will describe the work of the soul perfectly. The first is the Kardia, the heart. It is the seat of the emotions, desires, feelings, affections, and passions. It is what is now called the heart or mind and is closely related to the appetite of Plato’s Psyche. Intellect, the mind and conscience are also present in the Kardia. The second word is Psyche, the soul. It is that part of us that rules our being. It possesses reason and logic. Due to this ability we are able to understand what right and wrong is and thus we are capable of doing right and thus self-rule. The third word is Dianoia, the mind, which means understanding and intellect or the mind in general. It especially denotes the thought process itself, or the operation of reason. It is also the origin of imagination.
A forth word, Nous, denotes the seat of emotions and affections. Possibly the way of thinking and feeling or our “moral inclination… …Implying reason and conscience, as opposed to fleshly appetites” (Kohlenberger, 1654).
As you can see the lines between these four are very blurred. They are just four words to help us understand the purpose and the work of the soul better.
The Soul-Psyche cannot operate independently of the Sarx or the Thetan. The Mind-Dianoia, for example, operates by way of a physical device within the Sarx called the Brain. The Heart-Kardia might operate by way of a similar metaphysical device within the Thetan that has no name. Both the Mind and the Heart are combined in and with the Soul to create the life and person of a human being.
Thought originates in the Mind in the Soul. The Mind can make Sarx based decisions, on what is called “animal passions” or pathos in Greek. These decisions are useful for everyday living since the pathos is based on only one dynamic, which is to survive. In order to be a master of your self in positive freedom you must have a Soul bent entirely towards the Thetan side of your human nature. This Thetan-bent Soul is not realistic in this world because we will always need to survive and thus we will always need the Sarx. It is only when survival at any cost becomes the focus of the human being’s existence, when he has fallen to pride and dualistic hate. Again, dualism is expressed best by the survivalist’s creed, “To hell with them, let the bastards die. When they die, they will not be competing with me for my resources and I can consume them.” This is only possible when you see your self as the top of a dualistic hierarchy. When we let our Thetan rule our nature we can love. However we can only love perfectly when we need nothing.

The Complementary World, What are the Obstacles

Hierarchies have always given the elite the justification they need to subvert and otherwise destroy the apparently weak. But who is to say what parts of any system are not needed. In the complementary view nothing has a preferred status, all things are connected and need each other. Just because two things are different does not mean that one is good and the other is bad, or even that one is better than another.
In Hobbes’ view mankind is nothing but rhesus monkeys on crack. Without the capacity of reason possessed by the Soul we pursue our emotional urges all the time. In fact we would go about hurting others all the time in order to fulfill our own selfish desires in an effort to survive. When followed completely, our Sarx based desires are unjust and create hierarchies producing dualistic hate. However, it is our capacity to reason that allows us to deny our urges for the good of others. We are capable of reason because our Souls can make decisions based on the Thetan side of our nature
This is the basis of law and order; that all men's rights must be limited so much so that no one else's rights are limited any more. This is also the basis of love, denying one's self for the good of another or others. The good of the many out ways the good of the few or the one.
Love and Law are both grounded in Reason and Decision. Many of my friends would tell me that love is an emotion. But according to my model, lust would be an emotion used to move you toward infinite survival through your offspring. Love is a decision.
The Sarx, being interested in survival takes a selfish interest in sexuality. This bodily self-interested sexuality is called lust. I am not saying lust is wrong, it is only wrong when it becomes the center of all your actions. But the type of sexuality the Thetan participates in is non-self- interested sexuality. Another word for this is Eros. Walt Whitman wrote about this type of love when he wrote, “Urge and Urge and urge, Always the procreant urge of the world” (Whitman, 96). He is describing a idea that brings the entire universe together. There is only one obstacle to this world coming in to existence and that is dualism and thus injustice.
The unjust man is evil. Satan is evil because he is the ultimate example of dualism. Possessing incredible ego and pride he wants to create an infinite hierarchy with him on top. To accomplish this he wishes to destroy or dominate every thing so as to make himself the supreme being. This is the only way he sees that he can achieve infinite survival or immortality.
No one benefits from being the friend of an evil man unless he is stronger. Eventually when you have helped the evil man he will kill you as well. If he is truly evil then he will want to dominate or destroy all until he is supreme. An ignorant man may for a time believe that the unjust or evil man may reward him for his efforts in helping in his evil plots, but in the end the perfectly evil man will betray him as well. As Plato said, “the unjust man benefits from the like and the unlike” (29).

It is the nature of Good to have to separate from this evil. This doesn’t make Good dualistic but only all the more complementary; to remain complementary it must separate its self from any dualistic evil.

Heaven the True Complementary World

Heaven is the perfect unity, the perfect communion. But all those who are there are separated from us. As Dickinson says in her 1732nd poem, “Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell (15).” according to modern Christian Theology, the worst part of hell is the separation from God and everyone else; it is incredible loneliness.
Dualism is opposed to a view my teacher calls the Complementary view. Being a Christian I saw how the act of Jesus on the cross tore down the Dualistic relationship between man and God allowing Man to Commune with God, therefore the act of Communion. For this reason I prefer the term Communism to “the complementary view,” but I realize that this is a loaded term. I wish I could use it in a freer way.
In the Complementary view, just because two things are different dose not mean that either is better or preferred and everything is connected in intimate ways.
Whitman wrote with this view in mind. There is almost no emotion in his poems, except that which appears to be lust. This is because there is no preferred state, therefore there cannot be a preferred emotion linked to any event. Rather he wants to connect with the entire universe in an almost sexual way. He says that “And that a kelson (the part of the ship that connects all the planks along the bottom) of the creation is love”(Whitman, 97). So he can therefore connect with the entire universe by connecting in small ways with individuals. And in connecting with individuals he also experiences that kelson, the idea of love, if even in a small way, thereby allowing him to commune with all things. It is a Communion of all with all instead of a war of all against all. It is way beyond lust. Because of this Eros the community exists. In this community we are intimately connected but retain our individuality. We are all a part of a community but we always retain a knit of individuality.
“Out of the dimness opposite equals advance,
always substance and increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction,
Always a breed of life” (96).
This perfect Communion seems to be impossible here on earth at the present. Though Dualism can be seen as evil since it creates racism, sexism, slavery, nationalism, and almost all the social problems we face as a multiclassed global society, we are forced to use it. By declaring Dualism evil and less desirable than the Complementary view we become Dualistic. Is this a universal trick, or joke? Based on the Tao, the idea of a fundamental Good and Evil, Right and Wrong are universal and also fundamentally opposed. Never shall the two meet. Therefore just because the two exist it forces even Good to adopt a Dualistic position even though Dualism is evil.
The Complementary View Good Right
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SEPERATION
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The Dualistic View Evil Wrong

Unfortunately, at present the complementary worldview seems to be only a dream. I believe that only once evil is finally destroyed and there is no dualism at all can we ever have a true Communion Based Complementary Society. In this Communion, everyone would be equal; no one would hold a position of superiority because there would be no favored frames of reference. Furthermore, despite being connected in incredibly intimate ways, we would all retain our individuality.

*And now can our questions be answered? Justice is doing harm to none. Justice is unlike injustice because there is a definite right and wrong that defines who we are. Men deny this and become unjust for want of power. The conception of human nature we should try and live in is the loving one, the complementary one. Because only when we all become just will the true complementary world exist.*

Bibliography

All Biblical references are from:
Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible New International Version. Chattanooga: AMG
Publishers, 1996.

Bach, Richard. Jonathan Livingston Seagull. New York: Avon Books, 1970.
Carter, Forrest. The Education of Little Tree. New Mexico: University of New Mexico
Press, 1987.
Dickinson, Emily. “The American Experience.” Poems of Emily Dickinson: Poem 288.
Ed. Alpha Seminar Faculty. Acton: Tapestry Press, Ltd, 1999. 13-15
Ess, Charles. “Alpha Notes.” Burnham Hall, Springfield. 21 August – 22 October
1999.
Floyd. “The Case For Equifinality.” 15 October, 1999. The Debating Room.
.
Hobbes, Thomas. “The American Experience.” Leviathan. Ed. Alpha Seminar Faculty.
Acton: Tapestry Press, Ltd, 1999. 30-34.
King, Jr., Martin Luther. “The American Experience.” Letter from Birmingham Jail. Ed.
Alpha Seminar Faculty. Acton: Tapestry Press, Ltd, 1999. 41-49
Kohlenberger. Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible New International Version “New
Testament Lexical Aids.” Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1996.
Lewis, C.S. The Abolition of Man. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Locke, John. “The American Experience.” On the Beginning of Political Societies. Ed.
Alpha Seminar Faculty. Acton: Tapestry Press, Ltd, 1999. 51-55.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: HBJ, Publishers, 1977.
Plato. The Republic of Plato. Trans. Allan Bloom. BasicBooks, 1991.
Whitman, Walt. “The American Experience.” Song of Myself. Ed. Alpha Seminar
Faculty. Acton: Tapestry Press, Ltd, 1999. 95-106.

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