With the lesson Spirituality of being there we started considering some deep changes of mentality, that are consequent if we take seriously Heidegger’s presentation of being as “being there”. In my last post I reflected on the fact that considering us as determined beings, as if we were all nothing but watches, so considering freedom as non-existent, does not diminish the value of us and our actions. Similarly, we can add now that determinism does not even affect our pity, that is our sensitivity to other people’s, oe even ours, suffering. Faced with the perspective of determinism, one could argue that, if we consider all of us as watches, just as nobody is moved by the mistreatment of a watch, no one will be moved by the mistreatment of a human being. However, there is no reason to have this fear, for a simple reason: if we are all watches, not only the other person is a watch, but so am I; so it’s no surprise that a watch can be moved by the mistreatment of another watch, at least if it has been programmed to have these feelings, especially if it is oriented to actively cultivate them. At a starting point, it may seem strange to imagine humanity as a set clocks, or computers, that are able be moved to each other, but in reality this is nothing more than what already science has accustomed us to think, since we found to be essentially composed of DNA, that is, from molecules, that consist of atoms equal to those which form other objects that we consider inanimate. In other words, consider ourselves as mere objects, only more complex and differently organized than others which we consider inanimate, no way detracts from the value that can be attributed either to our actions and to suffering, of others or our. Along with the feeling of pity, in a deterministic mindset, even any other feeling retains all its value and therefore all its being worth to be actively cultivated, explored, studied, to be practice of spirituality. A person who engages in a path of deterministic spirituality is anything but cold or repressed in his feelings, his affectivity, his ability to give full freedom to his emotions.
After all, the insensitivity to other’s suffering occurs in non-deterministic mindsets as well: I do not see, in fact, that all non-determinists are vegetarians also. In passing, since we touched the topic here, we might wonder whether the cultivation of spirituality can encourage vegetarianism. I think so, especially after outlining what seem to me the most fruitful terms, to organize the issue, in the lesson Spirituality as nonviolence, connected to Spirituality and peace. In summary, we can say that spirituality can also be a path that leads to a vegetarian diet, though not by some objectivity, but in the common confronting of individual choices. In other words, what can be considered as “the good” cannot be defined objectively, but only in the walking of conventions.
