Martin Thømt
Ravneberg
Foss High School,
Norway
Opettaja
Thor Steinar
Grødal
3.
What Rousseau is
saying that property is the basis of our society. And that our society is
a construction of man, and it is created by the actions of man, not by god
or nature. Is then our society based on hegemony? For isn't property in
its nature (I speak now of capital property and not small private
property, such as owning individual clothing) excluding others from
something? Taking for oneself is in one sense taking from others. And to
put the interest of the few at the cost of the interest of the many, needs
something to justify it.
Norms and normatives are defined by institutions.
For the individual's idea about what should be normative can never become
the standard. The individual can simply not spread it, and it only becomes
a normative when it is generally accepted by all in a closed group, as a
subculture or religion. The individual can also never have the authority
needed to create normatives, therefore institutions are needed to create
the normative. And if we accept Rousseau's statement, the first
institution in our society was the institution of property and the
institutions create the normatives, I come to the conclusion that the
culture to a large degree is based on the structural. But if these
cultural and structural forms are only a construction of man, it means the
possibility of deconstructing and/or reforming them.
When man looks at himself he largely sees himself on
the basis of his past and his future. (I cannot know if this statement is
universal as I can't directly know the metaphysical phenomenon of others.
But I can perhaps speak abstract about man, for here I have some basis for
knowing.) If that we see ourself in this way, and create ourselves on the
basis on our possibilities. If it is as I think it to be that man has will
and possibilities (which amounts to freedom, at least to some degree). We
must not forget that man is bound by his historicity though he is free
within it. The concept of freedom creates responsibility. If you hold this
view there is a sense of by creating and/or maintaining the society, we
are responsible for it.
So the question that naturally arises from this view
of the world and the freedom of man, is -- "is this society the society we
wanted?"
In our modern society, more or less all people are
"simple enough to believe" that property is unchangeable. Can our system
based on an economic dictatorship exist without force? If not, can we make
something better and am I responsible?
