Ideology and Manas
Marc Black
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Abstract
The concepts of freedom, empowerment and self can have meanings in one context while having very different meanings in another context. Showing these differences involves showing the different contexts and the different meanings within the contexts. Toward this goal, one context is submersion in ideology and manas. 1 The other context is exposure or awareness of ideology and manas.
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Abstract: There is a fundamentally important philosophical problem with the notion of ideological freedom: If an individual is ideologically free, it means she may hold a certain body of beliefs and may act on the basis of principles derived from this body of beliefs. When the same freedom goes for other individuals, different world-views emerge leading to different body of actions in the same context among those people living together. Different actions will naturally conflict. These conflicting actions resulting from different world-views can be ordered by laws and rules in order to ensure the peace of this group of individuals, but the internal systems of beliefs that these individuals possess will not accord with their restricted actions. Nor will it comply with some of others’ actions allowed by the established order. The situation will ultimately give rise to an “axiological tension” for most of the individuals. In order to ease this tension, it is usually put forward that some social behaviors such as “tolerance,” “connivance,” and “allowance” should be implemented among individuals of different ideologies. This paper claims that such a behavioral approach that aims to implement the above social behaviors does not resolve the problem. On the contrary, it creates further problems. The paper, instead, claims that the background metaphysical and epistemological beliefs should be the focus and it examines three apparent options in this sense: (i) revising the extant, (ii) stressing on the common, and (iii) generating new metaphysical and epistemological beliefs that can be shared by all relevant parties. The last option, this paper claims, is the most promising one to overcome the problem of axiological tension. Keywords: ideological freedom, axiological tension, ideological respect. [Öz: İdeolojik özgürlük kavramı yeterince analiz edildiğinde bizi köklü bir problemle baş başa bırakmaktadır: Bir bireyin ideolojik olarak özgür olması demek, söz konusu bireyin belli bir inanç kümesine sahip olması ve bu inançların oluşturduğu ilkelere dayanarak eylemde bulunabilmesi demektir. Fakat aynı özgürlük diğer bireyler için de geçerli olduğunda farklı dünya görüşleri ortaya çıkar ve bu dünya görüşleri bir arada yaşayan insanların aynı konuda farklı türlerde eylemde bulunmalarına yol açar. Dünya görüşlerine bağlı olarak farklılaşan eylemler doğal olarak çelişecektir. Birlikte yaşayan bu bireylerin barışını sağlamak için, çelişen eylemler, üretilen yasa ve kurallarla sınırlanarak düzenlenebilir, fakat bireylerin sahip olduğu iç inanç sistemleri onların “sınırlanan eylemleri” ile uyuşmayacaktır. Aynı iç inanç sistemleri diğerlerinin yasa ve kurallar tarafından “izin verilen” eylemlerinin bir kısmı ile de uyuşmayacaktır. Bu uyuşmazlık durumu pek çok bireyin iç dünyasında nihai kertede bir tür "aksiyolojik gerilime" neden olacaktır. Bu gerilimi azaltmak ya da yok etmek için “tolerans,” “hoşgörü,” “izin verme” gibi bazı sosyal davranışların farklı ideolojilere mensup bireyler arasında teşvik edilmesi yaygın bir şekilde bir çözüm olarak öne sürülmektedir. Makale bu türden sosyal davranışların teşvik edilmesini öngören davranışsal yaklaşımın problemi çözmek şöyle dursun başka problemler yarattığını öne sürmektedir. Makale bunun yerine arka planda yer alan metafizik ve epistemolojik inançlara odaklanılması gerektiğini savunmakta ve bu anlamda üç bariz seçeneği masaya yatırmaktadır: (i) Var olanı gözden geçirme, (ii) ortak olana vurgu yapma, (iii) ilgili bütün tarafların paylaşabileceği yeni metafizik ve epistemolojik inançlar üretme. Son olarak makale, bu son seçeneğin en ümit verici seçenek olduğunu savunmaktadır. Anahtar Sözcükler: İdeolojik özgürlük, aksiyolojik gerilim, ideolojik saygı.]
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