I have been wondering recently about the value of people, especially myself. I am far too critical to believe that every human life has inherent value. Successfully continuing to breathe just isn’t enough. So what does give a person value?
Things like “character” and “personality” are so nebulous and subjective that I don’t even know how to properly consider them as possible suppliers of value for a person’s existence, and I refuse to believe that wealth or physical attractiveness are how a person should be measured.
One could argue that people derive value through their work, and for many people that may be true, but that has an inherent problem. There are, at this moment, too many people for everybody to be meaningfully employed. Our country desperately scrambles to create more and more “service” jobs that mostly cater to the middle class' desire to be treated as if they were people of social importance and the Sisyphean paper pushing our increasingly bloated corporate bureaucracy generates. Not everybody has the ability nor opportunity to be a doctor, firefighter, farmer, etc. Our technology has guaranteed that only a fraction of the population is necessary for actually essential jobs. So, what about all of us who simply don’t have what it takes to be great nor the opportunity to be essential? I would like to think that value can be derived from something other than one’s career which, let’s face it, is usually just a way to put food on the table. If I accept a person’s work as their value I myself am currently value-less.
Social impact is another route, but a lot of how capable a person is of influencing those around them, for good or ill, depends upon simple charisma. Should a person’s value really be determined via popularity contest? Intelligence and cognitive ability could be argued as a measure of value, but of the people I know some of the most intelligent are the least successful and happy. My own intelligence has routinely been more hindrance than help to me. Creative talents are another highly subjective criteria and the cultural value for any given skill waxes and wanes with aesthetic fads. For example, the only creative endeavor I could truly claim to be gifted in is poetry, an art form which has only ever enjoyed brief moments of popularity before falling back out of style yet which has never had the dignity to just curl up and die.
So I find myself, a misanthropic college drop-out unemployed shut-in, struggling to find any way in which I can truly call myself a valuable human being. I cannot believe I am the only one
Fuck the notion of your work being your value. What a load of protestant imperialist crap.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever affected someone personally? I'll bet you have. And maybe they went on to do something amazing that none of us will ever know about. Thing about value is that what's truly worthwhile can't be measured or bought.
I imagine you provide value just by being you, whether you know it or not. I imagine my friends would say the same about me.
i'm not sure that *value* is an appropriate measure of humanity, either. what is value? it's a measure of what goods are worth in a capitalist system, at its root, and it's subjective based on the perspectives of people, commodity and scarcity...the idea that human beings have more or less value seems unfair.
ReplyDeleteperhaps *fulfillment* is a better idea to chase than *value*. all human beings have worth in that they are part of the social contract; they create society; they exist. it is our experiences and how we shape our own and others' lives that are the important concepts.
i often have a hard time reconciling what i see as fulfilling with being a productive member of society, but in finding a balance between working enough to have what i want, and creating (and playing!) enough to feed my soul, i am fulfilling not only my obligations to society, but also to my friends, family, and myself.
what else matters?
t-sunshine-love: Thank you for the encouragement but I still cannot believe that just being me is any kind of justification. I also cannot use my effect upon others. The same argument you use may be turned on its head. I have affected many in a negative fashion, and even those I have affected positively in the short term I may have done them no favors in the long run.
ReplyDeleteLilbitosideways: I must object that money is a symbolic representation of value which is central to capitalist philosophy but money is in no part a defining description of the word "value." Only an American would make that mistake. To value something is to cherish, desire, respect, uphold, idealize, love, and/or view a thing as essential.
As far as the notion of personal fulfillment being a justification for existence, that to me has always sounded a bit selfish and encourages laziness. If all I must do is fulfill my own wants then there is very little motivation to achieve anything beyond a stunning mediocrity. I also find very little value in the support of my society. I am, by default, a member of American society, which I have found consistently disappointing and occasionally revolting. I could seek to change the society I live in, but must acknowledge that the vast majority of its participants do not want the changes which I would like to see and, short of somehow becoming a dictator, I cannot force change. Even if I could that only makes me a bully forcing others into the role of dissatisfaction I have just vacated.
the capitalist definition of value is what stands out, possibly only to Americans, but i would argue, also to any westernized civilization since the age if imperialism. i think it may be a semantic difference in what i was trying to say. you offered several other possible definitions of value, and admitted that none satisfied you...which i understand and appreciate. what i'm wondering is, if value != worth, then what are you defining as value?
ReplyDeletebeing an unrepentant leftist, popular American culture nauseates me, too. but there is a great deal more to the social contract than Survivor and McDonald's. it is inherently everything. you could remove yourself almost entirely from "society," and i've tried, but to me, it isn't as satisfying as standing for something. changes always make someone unhappy, but that doesn't mean we can stop change from happening. we merely have to align ourselves with one of the "sides" that are pulling on things.
i don't think that achieving your own wants is mediocre or selfish...not unless the wants themselves are mediocre or selfish. is wanting to create art either of those things? is wanting to contribute to humanity, in the sense of being a firefighter, a doctor, a teacher? if wanting to have a nice house or a nice car isn't necessarily on that altruistic level, all the same, one has to contribute something in order to earn those things. i would argue that we all work from our own motives, and very few people *want* to be lazy or mediocre. maybe i'm too idealistic there.
also, i hope you don't think i'm attacking your ideas. i'm fascinated by the topic and the conversation.
lilbitosideways: no worries at all about "attacking" anybody. I welcome discussion and debate so long as nobody degenerates to infantile mud-slinging and name-calling, which does not seem in danger of happening here.
ReplyDeleteYou might enjoy reading Spent: Sex, Evolution and Human Behavior by Geoffrey Miller. Interesting take on psychology, personality, mating and how people present and perceive.
ReplyDelete