On Meaning of Human Being in the World

Kazhimurat Abishev

It is not enough and impossible for man to lead only organic life, e.g. to remain in limits of supplying just organic needs. It was said that only existence of certain meaning could be justification for human being. However, someone can say that it is not rare to meet people for whom meaning of life is just support and supply of physical existence. All their efforts and thoughts are aimed at it. Certainly, it seems that difficulties of our life provide solid basis for such conclusion.

However, if someone will start from the idea that only existence of certain organic needs is justification for all his actions and deeds then many specific only for man features would be impossible to explain. First of all, for performance of pure organic needs man does not need to unite with other people into society.  It might be said that union exactly makes easier their organic existence. For this, herd’s organizational forms would be enough. If such organizational forms sufficiently supply organic needs of animals even the most developed ones then for their further improvement there are no any incentives. 

The whole specificity of man, his way of being in the world can be characterized by understanding that he is a social creature. In philosophy such definition exists from Aristotle’s times. This definition will not change if you will explain origin of human being as a result of biological evolution or as a divine creation or as any other way. Society assumes that every individual who is a part of this society although he was born and raised in it does not genetically or organically inherit all rights and responsibilities established by this society but learn them in process of his formation as a human being. He learns the whole way of human existence only after birth and during his upraising but he does not already come into world with this knowledge and it is not originally and organically present in him. Consequently, people themselves establish public relations between people in their nature and it does not matter how these relations are necessary in certain conditions and they are not given people from the origin.  That is why public relations in principle can be chosen. And that is why people historically change these relations although in their biological nature they remain almost the same.

Organization (union) of people into society is rather answer to needs of establishment and rooting of certain necessary for people values and not just for survival needs even if organic needs cultivated in any cultural environment as the primary values. It is one way when people simply satisfy their organic needs without making it a way and indicator of self-establishment and another when consumption becomes self-value. Relations between people that create and make possible to function human society mean mutual penetration by meaning and logic of their unity. Also it means understanding and co-living through specifics of essence of each other’s lives and not by self-sufficing location of bodies in space and time. Co-living through each other’s lives is possible not only where people penetrated by some common value but also when they are opposite in values. In the end, social commonality is aimed at limiting self-sufficing organic needs as the relatively completed whole and at establishment of more universal aims. According to logic of social commonality, man should not exist only for his organic needs but for values that are dominate over individual life. Already communal organization stated that kin and tribe are higher and more valuable than life of individual kin member and demand unconditional sacrifice of individual life in the name of commonality preservation. Individual unconditionally accepts this aim, e.g. makes it his personal aim. At the same time it is not possible to say that individual life does not have any value for archaic community. Every life is self-valuable because any value starts from it. But preservation of life of the whole is more valuable than preservation of individual life. Consequently, social organization of people is possible only where behavior of individuals comprising this organization is not forever pre-determined by genetic and biological structure that automatically works in stimulating conditions. Man correlates his being with being of the rest of the world and tries to identify his place in it, and to find the meaning of the surrounding world as well as his meaning in this world exactly because it was not defined before him and for him by previous conditions and this circumstance presumes that people must and would be compelled to define themselves. Organization of individuals into society although it happens a priori and unconsciously and as if semi-automatically but it is their decision and their definition of mutual being based on recognition commonality as the highest value that gives meaning to existence of every individual. From the situation of man’s self-identification in the world there is a need for defining of value of nature and the whole organic life as well as its independence from people. All these are not only acceptance as a fact the world’s existence beyond man but it is its assessment and selection of the attitude that would correlate with such assessment. This assessment can be various and depending on its content becomes a certain way of people’s attitude towards the world and way of people’s being in the world. The fact that human commonalities not only in different regions but in relatively similar geographical conditions are often substantially differs in culture perhaps can be explained by difference in ways of their relation to world. In particular, originality of the East and the West not as geographic parts of the world but as cultural paradigms is exactly in differences of their way of relation to the world and to man himself.

Due to fact that man does not directly belong to the world as its internal part but he exists in external to the world relation with his own special position as a witness and observer, in principle he can become on position of external world towards himself, the man, and from this position to make assessment. He also can be witness and observer of everything that he presents and what is happening in the man’s world.

That is why it is possible to talk about relation of man to world and that relation he can establish or change himself. It happens because without position of beyondness man cannot relate to himself as some external reality and to watch himself as a stranger. 

That is why values are not given to man but chosen by him. Consequently, human commonalities have same values as well as various ones. Values change for people, commonalities and whole mankind historically. Values are the essence (core) in which individuals see the meaning of their existence; this is at what people consciously and more often unconsciously aimed. Values if present are something that determines the general trend of actions and deeds and what indirectly make clearer people’s affairs thus giving every individual his own special “light”. Therefore, in the end people themselves create values even if something accepted by them, as a value existed before and a priori. It is because establishment of man’s relation to this something is valuable by its content (substance) even recognizing world’s existence as a fact. Man cannot be absolutely neutral to world because in opposite case, world simply would not exist for him. He would be inside the world as for instance, animals and would not be in his some special relation to the world with his special position as some other reality that is equal to the world. But the fact that people create values themselves does not mean that values are unreal or non-objective. Man, human commonality is ontological power as nature and this is seen from the increasing positive and especially negative impact of people on nature. For every individual member of society demands that follow from logic of mutual cooperation and social commonality are objective because commonality in most general form presents same for everybody value. Such objective value exists independently from its recognition by one or another individual.

In everyday life we witness that people have different value aims. This is especially obvious in complex, divided inside society. Even accepting common values, they can be different and quite often simply opposite for every individual. This is result of autonomy of every individual as a subject. Man consequently is subject of his values. Thus one or another individual sometimes becomes center of different and contradictory aims.

Even individuals who think that they live just taking care of supplying of primary vital needs in limits of organic survival however find motives beyond interests of survival. Moreover, to be live and make efforts for this is only tool and not the final goal. In this case they have demands for themselves and others that go farer of organic needs limits. They also consider some actions as just or unjust, good or bad, good or evil and these assessments in limits of just organic needs supplying are unnecessary if take into account behavior at animals’ level. It can be seen for instance, when deep-rooted egoist often tries to hide actions for his own benefit under pseudo-noble cover and he operates with the same categories. As a result of this, individuals quite often choose as value and meaning of their existence very questionable and even anti-human, destructive aims, targeted against human commonality and harmony. Such values and ominous aims are not so rare among individuals but even among ethnos and peoples.

Aspiration for unlimited wealth, power, violence and expansion can be examples of such value aims. In history of humankind there are a lot of examples of this. History is full of violence, destruction of one people, ethnos by another exactly because of clash of their value aims and worldview paradigms. To make something as a meaning of existence does not mean objectively positive fact but as a rule it is perceived as something high, noble sometimes simply as a mission prescribed from heaven to man, ethnos, and so on. That is why it is possible to speak of true or false value. As in cognitive sphere, truth or falseness of chosen value is not seen directly; sometimes many centuries pass by on way of following certain values before revealing their falseness.

Value accepted as a foundation for relation to world by one or another commonality sets internal core meaning of their specific culture. Many facts support this. For instance, researchers of American, Australian and other tribes that preserved the most archaic forms of organization and culture, for long time could not understand “logic” of their thinking. They thought that this thinking is still pre-logical (L. Levi-Brule) because their judgments and ideas often did not fit into framework of norms and rules of cause-effect logic of thinking of Western man who got used to see meaning of thinking only in revealing internal laws of objects with aim to use and apply them. But later it was found that thinking of the earlier communal man follows some different and specific logic essentially different from thinking and intention of European man.  L. Levi-Brule later admitted his mistake. Individuals from earlier cultures usually do not look at nature through the point of view of simple usefulness and applicability and they do not see nature as a tool for satisfaction of their needs. For them nature is full of its own meaning and they usually try to merge with it, to copy it and to personify it.

Activity of man in transforming nature can be made in two main meanings: firstly, for establishment and strengthening of harmonious relation between man and nature, for mutual enrichment, revival, and secondly, for only use of nature and perception of it just from the position of so-called need-use motive. Such relation started in late antiquity in Europe and then greater strengthened in New Times. Based on this foundation, the culture and spiritual atmosphere change and its leading intention become vision of everything as useful or useless; something that can or cannot bring any benefit, etc.  From this position nature and man for people themselves gradually start to loose self-sufficing value and independent, unrelated to anything meaning. It is naturally that man preoccupied by only this desire does not want to preserve, save nature by itself moreover, to revive it where it is necessary, precisely if he would do all this then only because it is useful for him. The same relation established to people themselves, to social aims and norms and institutes, etc. There is a characteristic of need-use relation in the most general type and in it’s so to say unadulterated ‘purity‘ that happens in life quite rarely. Unfortunately, such relation received the most crude and naked form of development in the world where we live, e.g. in the former Soviet Union and especially in Kazakhstan. Environmental catastrophes in our country are result of this relation for many years in the past.

Of course, the said before does not mean that in the world where such values and relations established other relations and values do not exist. We talk just about leading statement of such aims. Sometime back they were seemed as noble and high and consequently it had its heroes and many victims. But if such aim becomes all absorbing and all-overcoming in its unrestrained movement then it would become (and already became) destructive way leading only to catastrophe. And now there are not doubts in this. 20^th century was very significant in this: two World wars, fascism and totalitarianism, many regional wars, arms race, economic, environmental catastrophes, etc.

Relations aimed at preserving harmony with nature at some although one-sided form was established in past in East. These relations have various forms in different eastern cultures. Currently, we witness expansion of western way of relation to world to East too. If specific feature of human being in the world is his aspiration for certain meaning that he chooses and formulates himself then primary objective basis for this is freedom.