LUST FOR POWER: PART OF HUMAN NATURE?

LORELEI JOY A. CORPUZ

Introduction

            Power: how far will one go to have it? Thousands of years ago, God created Adam and Eve, the first people on the earth. He created Eden, a paradise where everything Adam and Eve need is at their fingertips. God only gave one rule to them: that is, not to eat the fruit of the tree located in the middle of the paradise. Nevertheless, Adam, with the persuasion of Eve, disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit which opened their knowledge of good and evil. After being cast out from the paradise of Eden, Adam and Eve bare Cain and Abel. These two individuals could not stand being together and this resulted to Cain killing Abel. This began the story of man – the story of conquest, control, and power.

            After thousands of years, stories of power, manipulation, and control have proliferated not only in the individual level, but also in organizations and even nations. Essentially, the entire human race is under the manipulation and control of individuals who have acquired positions of power and control within the systems created for this purpose. Countries, like the United States, Russia, North Korea, and China, wanted to have super powers on this planet. They keep on building military bases, strengthening nuclear facilities, claiming disputed territories to maintain and further their positions of power and control over billions.

Nowadays, we have a measure of what we call “freedom and independence” as long as we bow to those who have these positions of power and control over us.

The question now is, why do people, organizations, and nations desire for power? Is the lust for power part of human nature?

Many philosophers have studied human nature, of which, one of them is the English philosopher, Bertrand Russell.

The Life of Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born into a privileged English family on May 18, 1872. He was the grandson of Lord John Russell, who was the first Earl of Russell as well as a former prime minister.

Bertrand’s early life was traumatic: orphaned by the age of four, he and his elder brother Frank were sent to live with their strict grandparents. Lord Russell died when Bertrand was six, and thereafter the boys were raised by their austerely religious, authoritarian grandmother. Russell’s youth was filled with rules and prohibitions, and his earliest desire was to free himself from such constraints. His lifelong distrust of religion no doubt stems from this early experience. As was customary for children of his social class, Russell was initially tutored at home. Later, he attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he achieved first-class honors in mathematics and philosophy. At Cambridge, under the tutelage of the Hegelian philosopher J.M.E. McTaggart, Russell became a proponent of idealism, the belief that all reality is ultimately a product of the mind. Some years after graduating, however, Russell and his colleague G.E. Moore came to reject idealism in favor of realism, the belief that the external world exists independently of experience and consciousness. Russell became part of a general revitalization of empiricism, the belief that all human knowledge is derived from our sensory experience of the external world. By the time Russell published the philosophical works The Problems of Philosophy and Our Knowledge of the External World, he was working firmly in the empiricist tradition.

Russell graduated from Cambridge in 1894 and was briefly an attaché at the British Embassy in Paris. In 1895, he returned to England, where he became a fellow of Trinity College and married his first wife, Alys Pearsall Smith. A year later, after a visit to Berlin, he published German Social Democracy, the first of his seventy-odd books.

Russell’s important early work was concerned with mathematics. Russell’s great contribution to logic and mathematics was his defense of logicism—that is, the theory that all mathematics can, in some fundamental way, be reduced to logical principles. The logicist project was important because, if it could be achieved, then mathematics would be established as a field of certain knowledge and not one of conjecture. Mathematics could legitimately be considered a priori knowledge, meaning knowledge that is necessary and self-evident, completely objective, and independent of human experience. The search for legitimately a priori knowledge has been a major occupation of philosophy throughout history. Over the course of his career, Russell remained preoccupied with the questions of what we can know with absolute certainty and how we can know it. The Principia Mathematica, Russell’s three-volume treatise on logicism, coauthored with A. N. Whitehead, is full of painstaking proofs that attempt to establish that numbers, arithmetic, and all mathematical principles can be derived from formal logic. This dedication to rigor and interest in justification is a recurring characteristic in Russell’s work.

Along with G. E. Moore and with Russell’s student Ludwig Wittgenstein, Russell is considered one of the founding proponents of analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy describes both a historical tradition (the tradition following Moore and Russell) and a general approach to the practice of philosophy. Analytic philosophy—which has come to be virtually synonymous with “logical positivism”—refers to a belief that philosophy should be executed with the same rigor and precision as scientific inquiry. Analytic philosophy is characterized by a skeptical distrust of assumptions and a methodical system of analysis based on logic. Just as he used logic to describe the foundations of mathematics in Principia Mathematica, Russell would use logic to clarify philosophy, through his concept of logical atomism, and linguistics, through his theory of descriptions. Although the subject matter differed across his career, Russell’s analytic methodology remained more or less constant. Many of the particulars of Russell’s analysis have been challenged or refuted, but his legacy as an analyst remains undeniably influential.

Although Russell’s intellectual reputation is based on his work as a mathematician, philosopher, and logician, Russell was also noted for his work as a social reformer. In fact, he first became known to the general public because of his political and social work rather than his publications. When the First World War broke out, Russell publicly voiced increasingly controversial political views. He became an activist for pacifism, which resulted in his dismissal from Trinity College in 1916. Two years later, his opposition to British involvement in the war landed him in prison. Stripped of his teaching job, he began to make his living by writing and lecturing independently. In 1919, Russell visited the newly formed Soviet Union, where he met many of the famous personalities of the revolution he had initially supported. The visit soured his view of the Socialist movement in Russia, and later that year he wrote a scathing attack titled Theory and Practice of Bolshevism. In 1921, he married his second wife, Dora Black, with whom he explored his interest in education. Russell and Black opened the progressive Beacon Hill School, and Russell wrote such works as On Education (1926) and, a few years later, Education and the Social Order (1932).

In 1931, Russell became the third Earl of Russell. Five years later, he divorced Dora Black and married his third wife, Patricia Spence. By this time, he was extremely interested in morality and had written on the subject in his controversial book Marriage and Morals (1932). He had moved to New York to teach at City College but was dismissed from the position because of his unconventional, liberal attitudes on sexuality. In 1938, Russell wrote the book Power, A New Social Analysis. When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Russell began to question his own dogmatic pacifism and by 1939 had rejected it in favor of a more relativist position. Believing Nazism to be an evil that needed to be stopped at all costs, he campaigned tirelessly against it throughout the Second World War. He returned to England from the United States in 1944. His teaching position at Trinity College was restored to him, and he was granted the Order of Merit by King George VI. In the period that followed, he wrote several important books, including An Enquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), Human Knowledge: Its Scopes and Limits (1948), and his best-known work from the period, History of Western Philosophy (1945). He also continued writing controversial pieces on social, moral, and religious issues. Most of these were collected and published in 1957 as Why I Am Not a Christian. From 1949 and for the rest of his life, he was an active advocate of nuclear disarmament. In 1950, Russell won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He spent his final years in North Wales, actively writing until the end. He died on February 2, 1970 (SparkNotes, 2017).

Russell’s Idea

Lust For Power: Part of Human Nature

Russell's view of human nature, like that of Thomas Hobbes (1651) in his Leviathan, is somewhat pessimistic. By Russell's account, the desire to empower oneself is unique to human nature. No other animals besides Homo sapiens, he argues, are capable of being so unsatisfied with their lot, that they should try to accumulate more goods than meet their needs. The "impulse to power", as he calls it, does not arise unless one's basic desires have been sated. (Russell 1938:3). In Russell's view, the love of power is nearly universal among people, although it takes on different guises from person to person. A person with great ambitions may become the next Caesar, but others may be content to merely dominate the home. (Russell 1938:9)

This impulse to power is not only "explicitly" present in leaders, but also sometimes "implicitly" in those who follow. It is clear that leaders may pursue and profit from enacting their own agenda, but in a "genuinely cooperative enterprise", the followers seem to gain vicariously from the achievements of the leader. (Russell 1938:7–8)

In stressing this point, Russell is explicitly rebutting Friedrich Nietzsche's infamous "master-slave morality" argument. Russell explains:

"Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the courage and sagacity necessary for the achievement of supremacy... Nietzsche accused Christianity of inculcating a slave-morality, but ultimate triumph was always the goal. 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. '" (Russell 1938:9).

However, Russell is quick to note that the invocation of human nature should not come at the cost of ignoring the exceptional personal temperaments of power-seekers. Russell separates individuals into two classes: those who are imperious in a particular situation, and those who are not. The love of power, according to Russell, is probably not motivated by Freudian complexes, but rather by a sense of entitlement which arises from exceptional and deep-rooted self-confidence. (Russell 1938:11)

The imperious person is successful due to both mental and social factors. For instance, the imperious tend to have an internal confidence in their own competence and decisiveness which is relatively lacking in those who follow. (Russell 1938:13) In reality, the imperious may or may not actually be possessed of genuine skill; rather, the source of their power may also arise out of their hereditary or religious role. (Russell 1938:11)

"I greatly doubt whether the men who become pirate chiefs are those who are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or whether Napoleon, at Austerlitz, really felt that he was getting even with Madame Mère. I know nothing of the mother of Attila, but I rather suspect that she spoilt the little darling, who subsequently found the world irritating because it sometimes resisted his whims."

Bertrand Russell (1938:11)

Non-imperious persons include those who submit to a ruler, and those who withdraw entirely from the situation. A confident and competent candidate for leadership may withdraw from a situation when they lack the courage to challenge a particular authority, are timid by temperament, simply do not have the means to acquire power by the usual methods, are entirely indifferent to matters of power, and/or are moderated by a well-developed sense of duty. (Russell 1938:13–17)

When any given person has a crisis in confidence, and is placed in a terrifying situation, they will tend to behave in a predictable way: first, they submit to the rule of those who seem to have greater competence in the most relevant task, and second, they will surround themselves with that mass of persons who share a similarly low level of confidence. Thus, people submit to the rule of the leader in a kind of emergency solidarity. (Russell 1938:9–10)^[4][5]

Russell argues that the love of power can actually be a good thing. For instance, if one feels a certain duty towards their neighbours, they may attempt to attain power to help those neighbours (Russell 1938:215–216). In sum, the focus of any policy should not be on a ban on kinds of power, but rather, on certain kinds of use of power (Russell 1938:221).

"The love of power is a part of human nature, but power-philosophies are, in a certain precise sense, insane. The existence of the external world... can only be denied by a madman... Certified lunatics are shut up because of the proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given control of powerful armies, and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach."

Bertrand Russell (1938:212)

According to Russell's outlook on power, there are four conditions under which power ought to be pursued with moral conviction. First, it must be pursued only as a means to some end, and not as an end in itself; moreover, if it is an end in itself, then it must be of comparatively lower value than one's other goals. Second, the ultimate goal must be to help satisfy the desires of others. Third, the means by which one pursues one's goal must not be egregious or malign, such that they outweigh the value of the end; as (for instance) the gassing of children for the sake of future democracy (Russell 1938:201). Fourth, moral doctrines should aim toward truth and honesty, not the manipulation of others (Russell 1938:216–218).

To enact these views, Russell advises the reader to discourage cruel temperaments which arise out of a lack of opportunities. Moreover, the reader should encourage the growth of constructive skills, which provide the person with an alternative to easier and more destructive alternatives. Finally, they should encourage cooperative feeling, and curb competitive desires (Russell 1938:219–220, 222).

Other thinkers have emphasised the pursuit of power as a virtue. Some philosophies are rooted in the love of power because philosophies tend to be coherent unification in the pursuit of some goal or desire. Just as a philosophy may strive for truth, it may also strive for happiness, virtue, salvation, or, finally, power.

Reflection

Is the lust for power part of human nature? If one answers, “man desire for power because human nature compel him to have control over others”, then I believe that it does not answer the question directly. That is not an answer at all to the question. It is like answering the question, why elephants are so strong, by saying that, because it is the largest animal in the world. Such answer does not explain the cause, but only add another feature of the same question that begs again for an answer.

The pursuit of ‘power’ is definitely not a facet of human nature! It is a vague effort to continue to be important because of one’s upbringing that nurtured the ego and not the persona. If a person have lived an orchestrated existence, graduated from elite schools, participated in lots of extracurricular activities, had parents who concentrated on developing him to be the most prominent person, , then he is in danger of entering the world of seeking power, and may never recover at all.

The pursuit of power is usually limited to people who are very insecure. Those who are secure in themselves are busy doing things to make this world into a better place. This means that insecurity creates strong desires and motivates people to strive for whatever can make them feel secure. People who strive for money are the ones who need it the most and the same goes for power. If a child felt powerless, neglected or weak early in his life then there is a very big possibility that he will strive for power when he grows up.

The desire for power may be somewhat misplaced. Generally, when people say they want power, what they really want is freedom. And when they get that freedom, they tend to stop wanting power.

I believe that desire for freedom and not power, as opposed to Bertrand Russel’s idea, is a part of human nature. I believe that what man, as well as animals, desire most is FREEDOM; freedom from bothering others, for maintaining own life, or freedom from depending on others. Such a desire was set by nature, because man believe that only a free entity can be happy and creative.

In order to have freedom, a person has to prevent others around him to have control, or mastery over him, either by physical strength, or by strength by numbers. It is the fear of being under subjugation that living beings seek Power; power by numbers (group power) and power either by own physical strength, or by intelligence, or by ability in organizing groups.

Man by nature wants freedom and tends to have resistance over rules. That, I believe, is the reason why Adam and Eve disobeyed God. God gave one rule to them and that is not to eat from the tree located in the middle of the garden. Cain killed Abel because Abel was a threat to his real freedom – to do what he wants.  

The root of the matter is existential necessity for freedom for every being! Man’s desire for power only starts when freedom is compromised. Desire for power, then is a natural response/reaction when man’s freedom is suppressed.

So, to save the world from power seekers is to devise a society wherein maximum individual freedom is accorded to every human being in the socio-political system. Democracy must be reinvented, by avoiding its present power-fueled model as Hobbes (1651) had prescribed to tame the brutish nature of man. He was fundamentally wrong in assessing the bottom nature of man as nasty and brutish. What man seeks by nature is pure freedom

Conclusion

In conclusion, the basic aspect of human nature is the drive, the never-ending struggle to be free and to live in solidarity and harmony with one another.

In other words, humans have a drive to live and a drive to be happy, to live in peace, love and freedom. Freedom quenches the desire for power.

References

123 HelpMe Editors. (2017). Hobbes' View of Human Nature and his Vision of Government. Retrieved from 123 HelpMe.com: http://www.123helpme.com/assets/13117.html

Adler, Alfred (1927). Understanding Human Nature. Unknown: Garden City Publishing. ISBN 1-56838-195-6. ASIN B000FFTGRI, ISBN 0-7661-4263-9

Griffin, Nicholas (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63634-5. ISBN 0-521-63634-5

Hobbes, T. (1651). (R. Hay, Ed.) Retrieved from http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3113/hobbes/Leviathan.pdf

Lloyd, S. A., & Sreedhar, S. (2014). Hobbes' Moral and Political Philosophy. (Spring 2014 Edition). (E. N. Zalta, Ed.) Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/hobbes-moral/

Russell, Bertrand (1938). Power: A New Social Analysis. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-50653-7. ISBN 0-7661-3569-1

Russell, Bertrand (1969). The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell 1914–1944. London: Bantam Books. p. 193. ISBN 0-671-20358-4. ASIN B000KRWCMW, ISBN 0-415-22862-X

Sommerville, J. (1992). Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context. London: Macmillan.

Sommerville, J. (2017). Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbesian Politics. Retrieved from https://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367-092.htm

SparkNotes Editors. (2017). SparkNote on Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Retrieved from Spark Notes: https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hobbes/

SparkNotes Editors. (2017). SparkNote on Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). Retrieved from Spark Notes: https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/russell/

Williams, G. (2017). Hobbes: Moral and Political Philosophy. Retrieved from Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Resource, A Peer Reviewed Academic Resource: http://www.iep.utm.edu/hobmoral/

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Gabriel Marcel and Reflection and Human Identity

RONALYN R. TAGUDIN
 

August 2017

INTRODUCTION

            Reflection in layman’s term can be equivalent to the word “rethink”. That is a simple word to utter but the meaning of it needs inner involvement of oneself. The soul of you awakens your personal shelf – your personal appearances, belief and thinking. It is not just saying to yourself that “I am who am I” because perhaps you know yourself in terms of what you like and dislike, what stuff you prefer, what are your preferences among others and what makes you unique compare to your friends or colleagues for instance. You can say all of those because you are already familiar of your personal and outer needs of life.

            Take a look of this simplest example. One day, I realized that I do not have with me my eyeglass. Nowhere to be found! I cannot work without my eyeglass because I cannot withstand the radiation of my computer for eight hours. So what if I forget to wear my eyeglass? What is the connection of this to reflection? There is already a missing link of my daily routine that causes a break of the good process flow of what I used to do. Because I forget my eyeglass, I need my memory capabilities to bring me back on where I put my eyeglass, so I need to recall then recall then recall - non-stop recalling. Going back of what had happened within that day just to depict where did I put my eyeglass is a good way of reflection. It gives you the time to take a pause for minutes to analyze and helps you solve your problem. Reflection cannot just a source of relief but also a solution to a problem.

MARCEL’S VIEW OF REFLECTION

            One of the ideas of Gabriel Marcel that I want to emphasize is regarding the modes of reflection. We often reflect whether our decisions and actions done within the day are right or not? Or did we do something that sacrifices the welfare of others? Or do we consider the feelings of others on what we did or just our own sentiments? Or do we really sit for a while and take a pause to rethink and reconsider our actions? Do we really do that? Probably most of us will say somehow I ponder upon, but some will just tell, what was done is done, you could not undo it! Do we really need to reflect? And what will be the best complement for reflection? And my readings on Gabriel’s philosophy answered those questions.

            Marcel Gabriel said that there are two modes of reflection – primary and secondary. “Primary reflection is decompositional and analytic; when reflecting on the self in this mode, Marcel believes that one is led to treat the body as an object linked with or parallel to some other entity that might be termed ‘soul’. Secondary reflection, on the other hand, allows us to recover on a higher level a unity that had been lost on the lower. Through secondary reflection, according to Marcel, the self-evades the kind of definition sought on primary reflection, and finds ‘subject’ and ‘object’ to be inseparable and recognized through a fundamental ‘act of feeling’ (The Gifford Lectures).

            Marcel believed that “non-conceptual knowledge plays a significant role in human experience – thus illuminating philosophical truths.” As he claimed, philosophy, brought reasoned analysis to the issues affecting the meaning of life. The foundation of his work is based on life experiences that expressed beyond words and dialogue. Marcel’s existential ideas are better grasped when “lived human experience is not a one-dimensional succession of discrete events. For Marcel, secondary reflection is the same dynamic, creative act that must be performed in order "for it to be possible to grasp the significance of my life over and above chronology, over and above my life as understood through primary reflection" (Tattam, 2013).

            Based from the above statement, one may learn from personal experiences. Our experiences are considered first hand teachings that are not bounded in definition by theories and concepts. It is our free will to learn great things including our own mistakes. Indeed human experience really help an individual grow and explore beyond his comfort zones. In addition, experiences are dynamic, one cannot have the same view of one situation. There are a lot of explanations and discussions behind one’s experiences. It could be a source of positive outlook in life or it could be a source of distress. As they said, “you can never learn unless you experienced it!” Once you already knew what others are talking about regarding that experiences through active participation and interactions, you may have different connotations and understanding in mind. By starting to make dialogues and communicate to others, you can express and relay your ideas as well as you accept and listen their ideas too. At the end of the conversation, all will be thinking and considering ones’ ideas that could lead to reflection within your own self whether it is a primary or secondary reflection already.

            The Gifford Lectures also cited Marcel’s additional idea on reflection. He stated that the primary reflection tends to break down the unity of experience, but secondary reflection tends to restore the unity of our experience. Primary reflection is an analytic process, but secondary reflection is a synthetic process. Primary and secondary reflection are on opposite sides of an existential fulcrum, in the center of which is the question: "Who or what am I?" Primary reflection may discover that "I am not who I am thought to be," but secondary reflection may discover that "I am not merely the negation of who I am thought to be." Further reflection on the question of "Who am I?" may enable each of us to recognize the importance of personal feelings and emotions in defining who we are as human beings. We may discover that who we are cannot be separated from what we feel.

            Moreover, Gabriel Marcel introduces the notion of creative development, which occurs through free activity as soon as there is life, or rather, as soon as there is ‘being in a situation’. In life, one may recognize circumstance and situation as a call to creative development. On the basis of these thoughts, what answer can be given to the question ‘Who am I?’

            The answer, Marcel thinks, is to be found by enquiring into one’s own life; he concludes that a life cannot be simply identified with a narrative or a consciousness of it. In responding to a certain call, in articulating one’s life based on a reality that gives it meaning and purpose, is to both give and fully realize life. He added that “he finds it impossible that anyone could give an objective answer to the question ‘Who am I?’ He attempts to move towards an existential understanding of meaning and purpose in life. Marcel looks to a realm beyond consciousness, pointing out that one must transcend the conscious self to understand the depth of identity. There are two directions in which one can move: in relation to others, and in relation to one’s self. Marcel suggests that the ego can become closer to itself the more it is with the other and not consciously directed at itself. In relation to one’s self, one engages in secondary reflection, and strives for the subjective understanding of the ego that cannot be given any objective account” (The Gifford Lectures).

            It is to be noted that reflection may be a way to recall or examine our past experiences in order to understand them better. And by understanding those experiences, we may be able to transform them into concepts and learnings that could suits our emotional, personal and social needs. Marcel Gabriel also said that once a problem is solved it is dismissed from consciousness, whereas a mystery always remains alive and interesting. Problems, Marcel believed, are resolved using "primary reflection"—which is abstract, analytical and objective. Mysteries, on the other hand, are approached with "secondary reflection," which concerns itself with deeper personal insights. Philosophic thought is reflective, not only because it concerned with investigating the nature of human existence, but also because it is concerned with evaluating its own method of investigating the nature of human existence.

            Every time I heard the question “Who Am I?” the typical answers will be just describing oneself aside from telling his/her personal information. Moreover, one of the things a person can say or write when answering the question is about his/her good and bad characteristics, what makes him/her happy or sad and whether he/she is considerate to the feelings of others. It reflects what kind of person he/she is as well as the attitudes and philosophies he/she embraces. Those are only cover up of oneself. The deepest distinction of ourselves rest within our hearts, beyond what we really thinks and see personally, and more than what we show to others – it is our soul that dictates the inner picture within us.  It is more than we are living for! It is the real us - the depth of one’s thoughts and feelings. No one can describe exactly what the meaning of it in a concrete manner because life is as wide and colorful as horizons. It is the free will within us, the unconscious part of us that triggers voluntary actions and emotions. It’s not a script that you need to follow and it brings significance to one self as inner fulfillment.

            It was also identified that “each person may have both an objective identity in the outer world and a subjective identity in the inner world of his or her own thoughts or feelings. A person's subjective identity may be a felt quality of identity which may change in accordance with changes in that person's feelings. A felt quality (or a quality of feeling) may be unanalyzable, because the quality of a person's feelings may be inseparable from the things which that person feels. A felt quality may be a unity of feeling which cannot be dissolved by primary reflection” (The Gifford Lectures).

            The philosophical attitude is perhaps not altogether different from "ear" understood in this way. But there is really no contradiction in this, for the attitude in question can reveal itself only as a certain way that consciousness reacts to what must be called its fundamental situation. But what can be meant by reality here? Certainly not this or that particular phenomenon whose explanation might be in question. No, what is meant here is reality as a whole, and it is this ensemble or this totality which is put in question in the philosophical attitude. We ought perhaps also to take special note here of the mysterious relation between the I who questions and the world I am questioning. What am I, I who question? Am I within this world or outside it? In the presence of any given, the philosophical spirit lives this question with anxious impatience.

            The leading question in Marcel’s philosophy of the concrete is the question, “Who am I?” Only through a pursuit of this question can humans be liberated from the objectivizing tendencies in modern thought, and return to the immediacy of their lived experience. Reflection will illuminate this lived experience only as long as it remains a part of life. He defines two levels of reflection—primary and secondary. As stated a while ago, primary reflection is analytical and tends to dissolve the unity of experience as it is existentially disclosed to the involved self. Secondary reflection is recuperative and seeks to reconquer the unity that is lost through primary reflection. It is only with the aid of secondary reflection that humans can penetrate to the depths of the self.

            In a personal note, reflection is an avenue to strengthen your personality, thus boosting your morale! I can say that as an individual, we are “taken, broken, given and blessed.” We are taken in the sense that life leads us to where we are now. We are continues riding on our own journey. We are taken to life to live it to the fullest! To experience the good as well as bad things the world can offer us because through those we are learning. We are also taken to fulfil our responsibility to other people. How? By doing our work effectively and efficiently. We are taken either to deliver services or goods to our fellowmen. Either way, we are fulfilling our duty either to save the lives of our patients, to ensure the safety of our constituents, to teach our students the lessons for the day, to sell goods to customers to fulfil their basic needs or to just talk and deliver inspiring messages to  other people. Thus, we are taken to the different roles of life. Our multiple roles brought vibrant to our existence.

            In addition, we are considered broken sometimes because we felt the difficulty of balancing our duties in life. With that we experiences mixed emotions. The trade-off of happiness and sadness comes in. We are being challenged by our emotions to surpass the battle in life. At first, we always thought of being positive that every problem has its own solution - that is a great attitude to be positive towards life! But at some point, we felt sad and burdened because we thought that we cannot withstand to do the duties and responsibilities we pledged to do. In facing those scenarios, we need to take a break, pause for a while, relax and breathe. By that time, we asked ourselves, can we still do it? Can we make another try? Chances are there, so we try to figure out what makes us to quit in that kind of situation. Then we reflect the result our actions and decisions. Many what-if questions were being raised like what if I will stop now, what will happen? What if I will continue? What if before, I decided to go for my first option? What if? A lot of what-if but reflection helps clarify uncertainty. Thus if your broken don’t hesitate to talk deeply to yourself and think over again before you continue.

            Stated further, we are given and blessed at the end of knowing ourselves better because ones we already knew who we really are, we are ready to give ourselves again to the society and help the people we are serving. And that we are all blessed and commit ourselves to deliver the effective and equitable services to the best of our ability. We are given and blessed at the end of the day because we already learn to love ourselves better than we knew and we are living more than the life we expected to live.

            Finally, we should both anticipate the future and recall the past in relation to the present moment, so that the future and the past are only ever understood now. Somehow, it is not as easy to challenge the way we are living today because we are already bounded with the culture and values that if we try to go against it will be leading to problems and difficulties. And, as we commit ourselves to know deeply who we are, we need to open our entire life to be ready to the pain and rejection that might happen. For almost of us that are re-opening the possibility of knowing more than we already knew ourselves, we should not stop to call for forgiveness, and to adopt changes that could make us a better person. Change is the only thing that does not change! To change how we think and act needs a louder voice!

MARCEL’S IDEA ON HUMAN IDENTITY

            After going through the primary and secondary reflection to better grasp the meaning of one’s life, you are also incorporating the result of your understanding on your situations, feelings and virtues in life with your new found identity. I believe that every reflection we had connotes addition and revision of our present identity because it affects the way we act, participate and live in the society.

            I was thinking this time – the time of the millennial, what can those of us living in these years learn more from the writings of Gabriel Marcel? Well, he is considered a good philosopher so I am opening the possibility that he does in fact have something to say and share to us even though it was already decades passed when he raised his philosophical views and writings. Some may think that his type of thinking may be considered old-aged and irrelevant this time in the academe but that was not the case because there are still philosophy subjects that are being thought to universities and graduate schools. Marcel studies is interesting and must need to be appreciated, read and contemplated.

            Thus, I was also encouraged to expand, react and insert my opinions and views on Gabriel Marcel’s idea regarding human identity. I know that I myself can relate in this Marcel’s ideas because I have lot of experiences and observations regarding how other person tag one’s identity or make human branding – that is the reality we are facing now due to your status in life, education, profession or societal role.

            “Marcel sees reality as existing on two levels which he calls the world of the problematical and the world of the ontological mystery. For Marcel, the world of the problematical is the domain of science, of rational inquiry, of technical control. The real is defined by what the mind can formulate into a problem, solve, and contain in a formula. Reality is merely the sum-total of its parts. In the world of the problematical, human beings are viewed as objects, as statistics, as cases. They are defined in terms of their vital functions, (i.e., biological) and their social functions; the individual is considered merely a biological machine performing various social functions. There is nothing unique about me. There is nothing more to my identity than the biological processes which keep me alive, the type of job I hold, and the number of possessions I acquire. I am my functions. Marcel further notes that the ontological need, the need for imbue one's life in transcendental meaning, is stifled and suppressed, ignored and denied” (Barich, 2007).

            As stated above, there are two levels of reality. The contrasted against the world of the problematical is the world of the ontological mystery. What makes this aspect of Marcel's point of view difficult to understand is that he never defines what he means by ontology. The word ontology usually refers to discussions about the nature of existence or being. A philosopher of ontology might ask: "What is the nature of being?" "What is the essence of reality?" Why is there something and not nothing" What is reality? For Marcel, being is an element of reality which exists in and of itself, which defies reductionist analysis, which cannot be circumscribed by the formulas of the natural sciences. Being goes beyond the framework of the rational mind, mysterious sustaining reality.

            Furthermore, he said: “to access the ontological mystery and gain a sense of its reality requires that one detach oneself from the world of the problematical. Detachment occurs in recollection, a process in which one gathers oneself together, turns inwards, and unifies the fragmented and shattered pieces of problematical living. Within recollection one encounters what Marcel calls presence, which he describes as an influx, as an encounter with that which is permanent and enduring, as an encounter with being. "Presence is mystery," Marcel writes, "in the exact measure in which it is presence." Marcel stresses that presence is a gift, a gift we can neither possess nor acquire. We can, however, prepare ourselves to encounter it through the process of recollection and by establishing authentic relationships with other people” (Barich, 2007).

            It could be said that in encountering the ontological mystery brings a gradual transformation within the perceptions, relationships, and life experiences of the individual. Moreover, the individual broadens his visions of the world and begins to see aspects of reality not admitted in purely rational mindset. Indeed, his perceptions deepened, and he becomes more attentive to the needs of others and relates to people as people and not as cases or as statistics on a balance sheet or financial statements. Stated further, as an individual, I come to realize that my being -- the core of my reality! Can one say “I am not my life; I am more than my life.” In the domain of the ontological mystery one can encounter more than himself.

            Marcel has also a notion of the problematical world. It has noted that in this type of world, people are reduces to their vital and social functions. “The value of a person is determined by his function.” An individual may be happy knowing that even in public places he was being recognized due to his profession, good deeds, position or affiliation to well-known organizations. For example, if you are a teacher, you are bringing your profession anywhere you go. Even if you are in uniform or not, once the people knew that it is your profession that identifies you, all the time you will be known and looked up by others because of your profession. If you are an Accountant, you will be known as an Accountant, the same treatment if you are a Lawyer, a Doctor, and others. You are bringing your professional image every time you are mingling in the society. You are indeed being branded by your social functions. People are nothing more than statistics dominated the technology they have created to control their world.

            In addition, people received their identity according to the economic function they perform. As an individual, I am required to perform a function in the economic life of society. I am my career. When my function becomes obsolete, I am terminated, and then I am forced to find a new function or role to play. I can spend twenty years of my life serving a corporation or institution but when I no longer help the company make profits or achieve its objectives, I am rendered unworthy of employment. If I am at certain age, then it is unlikely I will ever find steady work again.

            Another good example that everyone may relate on what Marcel describe our world now is that our lives are dominated by a relentless technology supposedly designed to make our lives easier, but which seems to make our lives more complicated and stressful sometimes. Can we say that we are enslaved to our gadgets, to our machines, to our technology? Our society might collapse if we were to experience a breakdown of, for instance, our telecommunications network or the power grid. How could we live without the telephone or electricity? We have, in Marcel's vision, lost control of our control: we have lost control of our technology. This is a general picture of our world now – the reality that everyone is facing!

            At the heart of his writing is concrete experience, and such experience provides the way for man to find his place in the universe. Marcel's emphasis of being over knowledge stands in stark contrast to our increasingly scientific age. For this reason, his criticisms are particularly relevant and must be carefully weighed.

            Marcel was concerned that scientific thinking had bankrupted human experience. Scientific thinking, with its reductionism and technicality, avoids the mystery of life in favor of ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’. In modernity, man has, “…become unsure of his own essence and a stranger to himself.” He has divorced himself from fundamental experience by turning to objective analysis. As a result, “the dignity and sacredness of being” is replaced by “the idea of function.” Man views himself as a functional being, incorporated into biological, mental, and social systems. As a result, “the capacity to love, to admire and to hope” are lost as man loses his desire “…to transcend his situation of alienation and captivity” (Barich, 2007).

DIFFERENTIATION

            Marcel does provide a vague way out in the world of the problematical. He emphasizes the need for humility, for love, for a letting go of the hubris which compels men to dominate nature and one another. His thought calls for a rebellion against established norms and patterns of thought which perpetuate ad nauseam the world of the problematical. By consciously sensitizing ourselves to the ontological mystery, we open ourselves to the mystery of presence and emerge from the darkness of our selfish egotisim. We begin to see the whole of life differently. We experience meaning where there was once emptiness; hope where there was once despair; presence where there was once the void. Relationships take on a new found significance. We gain the courage to smash the idols we worship, the idols of self, of money, of power; idols which compel us to use people and nature to satisfy our insatiable appetites. Marcel is calling for a radical revaluation of values, for a fundamental change in how we understand reality and relate to other persons (Barich, 2007).

CONCLUSION

            Gabriel Marcel said that reflection is never exercised on things that are not worth the trouble of reflecting about. And, from another point of view, let us notice that reflection was a personal act, an act which nobody else would have been able to undertake in my place, or on my behalf. The act of reflection is linked, as bone is linked with bone in the human body, to living personal experience and it is important to understand the nature of this link. To all appearances, it is necessary that the living personal experience should bump into some obstacle.

            Gabriel also added that “it is essential that we should grasp the fact that reflection is still part of life, that it is one of the ways in which life manifests itself, or, more profoundly, that it is in a sense one of life’s way of rising from one level to another. We should notice also that reflection can take many different shapes and we can say therefore that reflection appears alien to life, or opposed to life, only if we are reducing the concept of human life to, as it were, a manifestation of animality. But it must be added that if we do perform this act of reduction, then reflection itself becomes an unintelligible concept; we cannot even conceive by what sort of a miracle reflection could be granted on mere animality. “

            On the other hand, the more we grasp the notion of experience in its proper complexity, in its active, the better we shall understand how experience cannot fail to transform itself into reflection, and we shall even have the right to say that the more richly it is experience, the more, also, it is reflection. But we must, at this point, take one step more and grasp the fact that reflection itself can manifest itself at various levels.

            Through realization, we can be able to communicate at a broader level with ourselves and on the other hand, we now able to enter into far more intimate communication with our friends since between everyone there no longer stands that barrier which separates one from another regardless of the position, power or status and we could find ourselves more than the identity that we already had.

REFERENCES:

Barich, John.  (2007). "Reflection on Marcel's 'On the Ontological Mystery”. Retrieved July 7, 2017.

Encyclopedia of World Biography. (2004). The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6^th Ed. The Gale Group Inc.http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy-biographies/gabriel-marcel. Retrieved July 5, 2017.

Hanley, Katharine Rose. (ND). Marcel: The Playwright Philosopher. https://www.questia.com/article/1G1-104080554/marcel-the-playwright-philosopher. Retrieved July 5, 2017.

Helen Tattam. (2013). Time in the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, Modern Humanities Research Association. ISBN 9781907322846. http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/time-in-the-philosophy-of-gabriel-marcel/. Retrieved July 5, 2017.

Sweetman, Brendan. (ND). Marcel and Phenomenology: Can Literature Help Philosophy?. Academic Journal Article Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature. https://www.questia.com/article/1G1-104080550/marcel-and-phenomenology-can-literature-help-philosophy. Retrieved July 5, 2017.

The Gifford Lectures. The Mystery of Being: Reflection and Mystery. http://www.giffordlectures.org/. Retrieved July 7, 2017.

 
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