Wednesday, August 29, 2012

On Boredom (L’ennui); Or, The Happy Cupcake Syndrome


Happy Cupcakes

Boredom is not a phenomenon of the world (Greek -physis) – rather, it is an echo from an inert mind (Greek -kosmos).

In Le Rouge et le Noir, Stendhal writes of his 19th century protagonist, Julien Sorel, that he scares his youthful peers because of his ‘energy’.  Just to introduce the character briefly, Julien is a bourgeois clerk/librarian who is employed by a wealthy Peer of the French aristocracy; he is poor, a country bumpkin from ‘lesser’ France (i.e., the provinces), and has the (mis-)fortune to be transplanted from the hinterlands of France into the brilliant and complex aristocratic ecosystem at the center of 19th century Parisian society (i.e., the enriched, endowed, entitled, and ennobled). Julien is educated (in the tradition of poor humanist priests although he is not yet a member of the clergy), but he is also socially ambitious in a world where the social classes can never successfully mix. Stendhal’s plot hinges precisely on this “caste” tension, in which the irresistible force of a socially humble man’s individual merit and ambition is pitted against the immovable rock of society’s enshrined rules of inherited rank and lethargy.
            Because of Julien’s education and his personal intellectual merit and efforts (as well as a little pushing from his priestly teachers), once our budding Tartuffe becomes established in his clerical employ in Paris, he discovers that his learning and his reflective habits of mind intimidate the indolent but aristocratic young people in his entourage, who have inherited their merits and their high-society positions from their wealthy families and connections. From this strain between Julien and his social milieu shall unfold more complexity in the plot intrigue, of course; and so, writes Stendhal about this bourgeois arriviste Julien, “Dans ce siècle, où toute énergie est morte, son énergie leur fair peur.”
            The first Characteristic in the story for our consideration is énergie, which it seems should be understood as being something like intellectual daring, emotional drive, or just simply commitment to an idea that inspires and moves our hero to action. In the context of this description Stendhal creates an additional tension between ridicule, which serves to oppress and enthrall Parisian society in general, and an intriguing notion of personal vitality, which makes of certain individuals social mis-fits who seem always to be crusading for some greater fairness in, or amelioration of, the social context. To be exact, Stendhal’s reasoning is that the fear of ridicule has long since died in his 19th century, leaving behind a particular hardened ‘moral’ shell for the coming generations of society; and this moral shell of codified and inflexible opinion both dominates individuals and transforms them into a homogeneous flock. This Staid Mass, in turn, demands from its younger constituent elements that each should conform to inherited ideas and usages, and it uses ridicule and mockery to subdue and beat the wayward down into submission. The idea is that we grow up into this cupcake mold, which in turn comforts the previous generations of our society because they can rest assured that one young cupcake will look just like another and that all cupcakes will look just alike for the foreseeable future. The promise of success in such a world lies in conformity—everyone is and acts like everyone else.
            (P.S.- John Locke, in his “A Letter about Toleration” §4 The limits on toleration, also writes about the zealotry that accompanies this type of imposed and imposing conformity in the Christian religious communities of his day; but he studiously avoids using the language of cupcake…)

The second Characteristic to which Stendhal draws our attention is the adhesive that unites the herd, this society, into one homogenous group. The binding glue for this particular 19th century Parisian society, which is so tightly girdled and entrapped inside the mold of its received ideas, opinions, manners, etc., is ridicule. The vital piece of information here is that the younger generations are not even bothered by the fear of ridicule, because they have simply slipped into the dead, but actively constraining cupcake mold as inheritors of a previous generation’s battle of words and ideas. The young themselves have no intellectual or emotional investment in the mold that is imposed on them, and which they unwittingly adopt. They are taught the “proper” way of doing things, and their world asks of them not that they should have their own ideas and battles, but only that they should conform to what they have received from those who have gone before. The (intellectual) battles are long over; theirs is now simply to continue to change the dressings on the metaphorical and never-healing wounds.
            In his chronicling of 19th century France, Stendhal minutely observes and dissects the phenomenon of cultural transmission. There is an inherently dialectical and dialogical tension among and between generations. One generation fights for its manners, usages, and beliefs, and then passes that acquired ‘body’ of beliefs and actions onto the children and the children’s children, who receive and believe because they respect (fear?) their parents and their elders. In the best of cases, from the point of view of a Nietzschean philosopher anyway, as the child becomes the adult of the new generation he will challenge the teachings he has received, fighting his own battles and winning through to his own understanding of the world. In most cases, though, this struggle will not occur (so also says Nietzsche!); and the next generation, aimless, will meekly ramble around until it comes together into a free-ranging herd, conforming to and obeying the cupcake-type precepts and “truths” it received in the mother-milk.

This brings us to the 3rd characteristic that interests Stendhal in Le Rouge et le Noir ennui, or boredom.  Cupcakes are inherently bored. They are not encouraged to challenge their shape, nor the color of their sprinkles, nor their position on the serving plate; they are simply expected to sit patiently, in all the glory of their cupcake-ness, and wait until whatever is going to happen inevitably happens. So it is with every generation’s children.
            Except on the rare occasion, coming-into-adulthood is not marked by us personally doing battle with the dragons that live in the hidden places of our minds, dragons that have snuck in through the education we have received and tucked themselves away in the corners of our imagination, dragons that have carefully secreted themselves in our most shadowy places and there patiently await the Dawning-of-Their-Day. (P.S.- The image of dragons is from the first discourse in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra; Immanuel Kant would have very properly called such ‘mind-critters’, Verstandeswesen).
            More typically, coming-into-adulthood tends to be marked by acceptance of and conformity to the teachings and traditions received from the hands of the Elders. This means that the excitement of discovery for self, the heuristic call of the wild, and of engaging in one’s own personal and private ‘heroic’ tussles against the demons that attend us and stalk us, is not only not an outcome desired by the Elders of our societies (including our educational institutions), but is aggressively discouraged, indeed excluded from those individual right-of-passage experiences that are considered, at least by Nietzschean philosophers, to be healthy and good. So it would seem that we may conclude that it is therefore ‘the way of things’ in society that we should be profoundly bored.
            Stendhal, like Nietzsche after him with his ideas about the world’s Great Men and of social evolution through their Will to Power, understood that each generation is automatically the hero of its own stories. However, while this may be true of generations, most individuals probably will not ever become authentically heroic, precisely because they are being pressed and molded into the societal cupcake patterns (teachings and traditions) that require no individual thought or action, but only obedience to the principles of conformity and a passive mind. This irrepressible ennui at the heart of Stendhal’s vision of 19th century France, whose controlling mechanism is ridicule, is directly translatable today by our alpha-state inducing relationship to technology, which first lures our eyes to the screen, then dulls our brains and senses. Ennui – the emotional flat-line of the Nietzschied masses. This is the defining characteristic of the Merseaults (…remember Camus’ L’Etranger) of our world, of the “outsider” who does not remember whether his mother died today, yesterday, or whether she is still sitting at home right now having her afternoon tea and crumpets.

The world become existential, and therefore ultimately unpredictable, still however invites us to dare. To dare to rebel; to dare to listen to the sound of the different drummer; and to dare to follow the path toward that new beat by taking the high road of our own thoughts and dreams and visions, that most solitary and desert way which so titillated and so seduced Stendhal’s Julien Sorel and Mlle de la Mole, and which so profoundly enthused Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. To be sure, the terminus of this journey is seldom, if ever, happiness. But then how could it be? Are we not, after all, daring to break the cupcake mold, and thereby necessarily drawing down upon ourselves the disapprobation, indeed the wrath, of the Elder generations of cupcake makers? But while this journey’s end may not be happiness in the sense of social contentment, Nietzsche has argued that we will finally find there freedom in the truest philosophical sense.
            And what will these new cupcakes-without-molds look like? Some will make great contributions to the world of men; some will wreak great havoc. Some will become admired; some reviled. All will be Rebels in courage. Thinkers of thoughts independent. Ayn-Randian-type Architects of their own realities. New-world Iconoclasts. The Ridiculed. The Isolated and Insular. The Street Fighters of the world.  The Alive. And, at the end of the day –the Dead.

Further reading: Roland Barthe’s essay, “Toys”.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Torn Shreds... Heraclitus on G/god


A Torn Shred from Heraclitus… “To the G/god all things are beautiful, good, and right [suitable]; men, on the other hand, have supposed that, while some things are unsuitable [wrong], others are suitable [right].”

This passage has the following reference [If you wish to, but cannot read the Greek Font, you may download the font from the internet onto your computer.]: B. 2, 1.1.102.1; PORPHYR. zu D 4 [I 69, 6 Schr.] tw◊i me«n qew◊i kala» 2 pa¿nta kai« aÓgaqa» kai« di÷kaia, a‡nqrwpoi de« a± me«n 3 a‡dika uJpeilh/fasin a± de« di÷kaia. 
·      Grammatical Comments: this is the perfect form of the verb of hypolambano (uJpeilh/fasin), commonly meaning to suppose, assume, to have as a working hypothesis

In Heraclitus’ view, it would seem that men and the G/god/gods have very little in common. They are, quite literally, worlds apart. The Divine Gaze sees everything at a glance, and grasps all things within the weft of a streaming together-ness; the Divine Gaze sees in “things” (from mosquitos and flies to ideas and imaginings) no quality other than the fact that they are. And by virtue of their being, which means being what they are, all “things” are beautiful, good, and right.
            Men, however, do not have the Big Gaze that sees everything at a glance; from countless and always-partial ‘points of view’ they only catch a glimpse of fragments of things. Furthermore, in addition to our Fragmented (and therefore incomplete and finally uninformed) Gaze, Heraclitus also says that the Human Gaze is further degraded by preconceived ideas and notions, which are moral in nature, and which we seem to ascribe naturally to ‘things’ that enter into our field of view.

From this Heraclitan shred it is clear that the G/god is not moral in the way that men are moral, because to the G/god nothing is a‡dika, or unsuitable. The term ‘unsuitable’ is commonly understood in Ancient Greece to connote a violation of law (compare Xenophanes, Herodotus, Aristotle, Plutarch). This would mean, therefore, that there is no-thing grasped in the Divine Gaze that is a violation of law; so either the G/god is a-moral, or It conceives of no Law in its Gazing, and therefore also knows no justice. These are probably all correct conclusions, because each is consistent with the civilization that gave us Epic Poetry and Greek Tragedy.
            If, though, this is a theoretically correct way to envision the G/god, then how can the Religious Man justify reasoning or acting morally, which is to say in direct contradiction to the G/god he worships? What argument can the Religious Man make, and based on what possible anchor of reason or ‘point’ of theology, that would allow him to condemn morally anything at all? This is the question that is at the heart of Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue, and for which Socrates finds neither reason no response. This Religious Attitude is the world become Irrational, and leaves Socrates, at last, speechless with wonder.
            On the other hand, however, although nothing may be a‡dika (unsuitable) to Heraclitus’ G/god, should men, with their moralizing ways, actually attempt to imitate the G/god? Should we try to exclude from our thinking about the world the framing of ‘things’ morally, in terms of suitable/unsuitable, legal/illegal, good/bad, etc.?
            Finally, what if there really is no moral ‘bottom’ to the world, where moral thought can be truthfully and finally grounded? What if, should we ephemeral creatures be moved to imitate the gods, we were to leave behind moral framing and begin to see that all the things of the world are in fact beautiful, and good, and right. What would happen in and to the world if we were to construct a human ethic based on the Beautiful, the Good, and the Right? What if, seeing all things as a ‘right-ness’, as di÷kaia, we were to incorporate only the Beautiful and the Good (kala» and« aÓgaqa») in our understanding and interpretations of the world?

Saturday, August 18, 2012

American Freedom v. Martin Heidegger & The State


Heidegger
It’s a charming idea, to think of America the Beautiful as America the Philosophically Beautiful.

Of late I have been thinking much about the philosophical foundations of these United States, and of the difficulties 'We The People' have, to steer a straight course that follows the North Star of State Secularism. The recent condemnation in Russia of the punk-rock group, Pussy Riot, in which State Religion legally overwhelmed Individual Freedom, serves as a timely object lesson for me, and reminder, that the course of liberty needs two anchoring ideas that seem to be lacking in the Russian state, but that the America philosophes did not neglect in their thinking some 200 years ago -namely, the philosophical commitment (1) to keep free from State control individual speech and the press, and (2) to keep separated AT ALL COSTS the church, Religion, from the State. Founding Father philosophes, one; Perestroika technocrats (?), nil.
            The American philosophes, in addition to separating Religion from the State (following an idea from Jefferson), borrowed an idea from the 16th century French humanist philosopher Montaigne, which also involved keeping separated the various powers of government – the legislative from the executive and the judicial. By framing the Constitution in this way, these philosophes reasoned that it might just be possible to fragment the institutionalization of power so thoroughly that it becomes nigh unto impossible for any group or individual to consolidate power into one place in order to create a social tyranny. This last/previous link harks back to an article posted August 15 on the Phrontisterion website, which refers to Putin’s new dictatorship, the one that is, arguably, being presently constructed on the foundations of Perestroika. All I can say is that, from this philosopher’s modest point of view, the “philosophers” of the Russian Perestroika should have perhaps re-ferred and de-ferred to Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia in the course of their human events.

All of which has brought me around again to the question of philosophical underpinnings for nations and states. When we think about politics we should think about ethics – so says Aristotle anyway. And in the study of ethics there is one question that is rather more important than all the other questions, which is THIS question: will men (of both the girl and boy persuasion) generally, (i.e., usually, normally, routinely, customarily, mostly, largely, regularly, habitually, recurrently, commonly, repeatedly, and/or ordinarily) fail to live up to high moral standards? A Heidegger biographer, Hugo Ott, answers in the affirmative, calling this attribute Menschliches Versagen (human failing). Let it be said, though, that Ott is specifically thinking about, presupposing, and nominally referring to the great German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, when he asks, if I may presume to render in my own phrasing, whether the human animal (including the great MH) isn’t just designed by nature to be an ongoing social screw up. (Human failing, after all, is not really applicable to the isolated hermit out living on some remote mountain top; but bespeaks human thoughts and action in the social realm). Carlin Romano, himself a philosopher who clearly has little to no use for the great MH, nonetheless observes that MH is considered by some to be the greatest German philosopher of the 20th century; similarly, MH is regularly listed by philosophers of all ilk to be among the top 20 philosophers, all nationalities combined, of the 20th century.

So how did I get from the American Founding Fathers to this philosopher whom Romano has unpleasantly, but not necessarily inappropriately, called the “pretentious old Black Forest babbler”? In an Aiken Musing in which I was thinking Big Thoughts about Socrates and Heidegger, particularly with regard to how they viewed the relationship between the individual and the state, I made the following remarks. Take them for what they’re worth.
            Socrates’ philosophical paternalism, especially in the Crito, seems to compare with Heidegger’s notion of man’s new/true Ontologie, viz., his existence in terms of the State, his für-den-Staat-sein (“existing ‘for the State’”, in Being and Time). Emmanuel Faye, [the French philosopher who has written the currently definitive work on Heidegger’s commitment to the Nazi philosophy], does in fact say, in writing and in person (both on p. 694 of the French edition, Poche 2007, and in a public lecture held at Notre Dame University, which I was fortunate enough to attend), that Heidegger cannot be considered a philosopher because Philosophy, as an intellectual discipline, has the vocation of serving the evolution of man, and is incompatible with any 'philosophy' that seeks the destruction of man. Now, no matter what we might think personally about Heidegger's State-based ontology as a potential political structure in the abstract, from the non-abstract point of view articulated and argued by the American philosophes in the Constitution, any philosophy that argues for the dissolution of Man into the machinery of the State is at odds with the American philosophy of Individualism and the fragmentation of State power.
            An additional assumption of Emmanuel Faye's is entirely French in nature, which is that he is, predictably, the faithful child of the Cartesian cogito; so he is naturally hostile toward Heidegger's fundamental (and fundamentally Hitler-era German, i.e., Blut [blood]-based) Ontology, which dissolves (conquers/annihilates) the subjectively knowing individual (cogito), and dismisses it as a philosophical (ontological?) untruth—a conviction which in turn must, of necessity, invalidate the philosophical underpinnings of a liberal democracy. According to Faye, Heidegger seeks to replace by means of his philosophy the impoverished cogito (i.e., Thinking Individual) with a new ontological value for man: a für-den-Staat (for the State), collectivized existence -- at which point Heidegger's thought weds wonderfully well with Nazi political thought, and, frankly, with any other type of political theory that seeks to dissolve the Individual into the grinding cogs of State existence. This is how Faye already reads Heidegger 's 1927 Being and Time; and I find Faye's reading not only plausible but extremely persuasive. I am also very sympathetic to Faye's loyalty to a truly existential and individualized cogito, which continues to speak out from the heart of the American and French revolutions, and which, I think, must ultimately constitute the redoubt against which the permutation of power into tyranny must finally fail (which is Jefferson's argument for education in this liberal democracy). The cogito also has the virtue of justifying, both politically and philosophically, the devolvement of a centralized Führer power principle in the State (Heidegger) onto the shoulders of simple citizens (Jefferson).

So, obviously, this philosophical notion of man as man-in/under-the-State, where the State is the significant entity and the individual is subservient to and sacrificed FOR the State, is a notion that lies at the heart of both Heideggerian Ontology and Nazi thinking. Furthermore, if truth be told, this philosophical inversion is also at the heart of almost any type of patriotic sentiment that seeks to dissolve the Individual and fuse him/her/it into a State-defined whole.
            But this idea of man-in/under-the-State is precisely what the American philosophes found unacceptable, thus provoking their philosophical fury and frenzy in separating everything that could possibly lead to a consolidation or centralization of social power in America. Power to the Individual!!!!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

“A Fight of Individualism Versus Collectivism…” (Paul Ryan)


Education v. Tyranny
I remember as a child getting in trouble for fighting in the schoolyard. So in an élan of linguistic generosity I suggest that perhaps what Paul Ryan sees as a Randesque “fight” in America’s socio-political ‘schoolyard’ between individualism and (some form of) statism, is not really a fight, but an inherently philosophical tension -- a theoretical DMZ (Demilitarized Zone, for those who still remember the Vietnam War) to be respected by all the players in the American game in order for our profoundly diverse United states to function in an environment of freedom.
            Unlike all men (at least according to our Declaration of Independence), not all opinions are created equal. Ever since I was a little boy I have heard a sentiment expressed, which has been systematically misattributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.” Were this philosophical sentiment truly from the Enlightenment Man, I would continue to feel guilty about thinking, privately, what a dumb sentiment this is; but as it’s only from the EM’s English biographer, I can now say with renewed philosophical boldness:  I am quite sure that I will avoid at all costs defending to the death someone’s right to think or to believe or to say something STUPID! Stupid (read: under-/un-informed) opinions don’t count for me, either as private citizen or publicly professing philosophy teacher; and, no, I do not value martyrdom or self-immolation for stupid ideas. (And by the way, yes… notwithstanding the great cloud of witnesses, which are the collective shades of my public schoolteachers surrounding me even as I pen these words, sadly shaking their heads in disappointment and disapprobation, there are in fact also stupid questions!). So, for the record, I suggest that the above-cited, bolded and titled opinion from Mr. Ryan, i.e., that America is being torn asunder by the fight between individualism and collectivism, is under- and un-informed.
            Now allow me to up the blogging ante by leaving behind (but only temporarily) my childhood memories and Truisms, and re-penning words that express a different philosophical sentiment, one for which I have unqualified admiration.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

So, asks the less-Truistically disposed adult version of me, what are the philosophical underpinnings of this opening argument of the United States Constitution? It reads like a perfect political science road-map for a social contract – an invitation to collectivize, taken straight out of Enlightenment-era French salons… Statement of Purpose (as my wife, the English Teacher, might put it): “We the People” agree to work together in order to “ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”.

Question #1. But, might ask the I-lifted-myself-up-by-my-own-boot-straps American, the varied and the sundried, why should we individuals, why would I want to overcome my varied and sundried-ness in order to collectivize with those who, perhaps, do not bring to the table as much as I do? The Varied-and-Sundried would have every right to respond to the US Constitution’s philosophical invitation to ‘unite forces’ by asserting, justifiably or not: ‘I am proud of what I have accomplished with my work, my dreams, my energy, my resources, my, my, my… Why should I be forced to share any of my hard-earned… etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (it will be more fun if you say etcetera like Yule Brenner in The King and I)?
            So how would the American philosophe respond to the assertion-clothed-as-question of this particular Varied-and-Sundried, this philosophically un-united Island of Mr. One (Island with a total population of 1, me-myself-and-I, or 3 if you’re trying to cook the books: me, myself, and I)? The question, after all, certainly has philosophical legitimacy. Why should the individual be compelled to give of his abundance to others? At this point I prefer to break my old grade-school English teacher’s heart (sorry, Mrs. Bryant), and to answer this first question by asking a second question.

Question #2. What ideas or principles could have moved our Founding Fathers to agree to override an individual’s interests, goals, ambitions, differences, and grievances, in order to create a group of individuals into an increasingly perfectible Union? (I think I may have just given away the answer to question #1 – namely, that Mr. Island’s assertion is simply counter-Constitutional, and therefore philosophically inconsistent with the framework laid out by America’s Founding Fathers!). Make no mistake about it, America’s Fathers were clearly persuaded that a Union of individuals, as opposed to individual islands and (very tiny) atolls, is the superior form of the Social Contract, and should therefore take precedence over the Non-social Contract, or Anarchy.
            At this point my long-term memory kicks back in and I recall my 6th grade biology teacher (although I was most certainly sitting in the back row looking out the window or staring at my neighbor’s, Debbie’s, 6th grade legs) telling us that humans are by nature social animals. But what does that actually mean, unless it means something like, we humans are designed in such a way that we prosper better in our world by grouping ourselves, rather than by isolating ourselves? So, already simple grade school biology thumbs its nose at Mr. Island’s wrong-headed philosophical inclination. And to add insult to injury, what about Mrs. Clinton’s proverbial and socially collectivist contention that “it takes a village to raise a child”?
            So if Nature (both Human and Mother) itself tries to teach us that we prosper better grouped than isolated, what then might be the goals of such United groups? This is the part where the American philosophes made history; and this is also precisely where Mr. Ryan seems to see his Randesque ‘fight’. What types of goals did our Founding Fathers set out for these states United? It is better, affirm these philosophes, to unite forces in Order to do 6 things:
1)   form a more perfect Union,
2)   establish Justice,
3)   insure domestic Tranquility,
4)   provide for the common defense,
5)   promote the general Welfare, and
6)   secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

Now that we have settled what the Founding Fathers were philosophically committed to… In the above linked article referring to Mr. Ryan’s commitment to and distance from Ayn Rand’s philosophy of radical individualism, Mr. Ryan says that Rand's works are required reading for his staff. "The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," he went on to say. "And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."

Another Truism that enjoyed prominence in my formative educational years, being primarily directed at me, is that someone can have just enough education to be dangerous.  So I give you Paul Ryan, the intellectual leader of the GOP:

“In April, Ryan attempted to distance himself from his prior infatuation with the novelist, telling the National Review in an interview, "If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don't give me Ayn Rand." (A spokesman later suggested that Ryan was not repudiating Rand's philosophy, but that Ryan did not make staffers read "Atlas Shrugged.")”

Remember that, philosophically speaking, Ryan is on the side of radical individualism—the Mr. (each man is an) Island philosophy. So why, then, in defense of this philosophy of supreme individualism, is Ryan giving priority in this last quote to one of the paramount collectivist and communitarian organizations on the planet – the Catholic Church, through the person of one of her greatest saints, the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas?
            It seems clear to me that instead of proffering for public consumption under- and un-informed insular sentiment that runs counter to the collectivizing thought of America’s Founding Fathers, this newly-hatched vice-presidential candidate should really just stick to being the radical economic and budget adviser for the GOP, and leave the work of public intellectualism and philosophy to less-dangerously (i.e., more) educated intellectuals and philosophers.
            It would still seem, however, that this is no longer just a battle for the soul of America, but also an important fight in that battle, to answer the question – what is man that we, The People, are mindful of him?