So you're saying we can be who we are without needing conflict? This may be true, but it is through conflict and our responces to it that we learn who we are. the need to know who we are is, in itself, a conflict between ones self and the concious mind.
Immagine an object, any object. It exists in and of itself, that is true, but without some kind of interaction it cannot be known. The very nature of who we are, of what we are, would be invisible to us in a world without conflict of any kind.
Not only that, but conflict changes us. By learning who we are, we change. by acting on our environtment, by responding to the world around us, we change and adapt and become better people, all while learning more of who we are, and who we want to become.
This can be likened to particles on a quantum scale. They can exist, but without interactions that we can observe, they remain unknowable. Also, the very act of knowing, of observing, changes the nature of the quantum object we are observing, just like the self of the human being.
How can one know who he or she is, within or without "the social organism and its distinctive properties" unless there is some way to observe the interactions of the self? without observing the self in action?
As for your cellphone example, if we all had the same average performance phone, what need would there be to make a better one? What we have is good enough, and making them better wont net us any gain. The desire to inovate, to improve upon, is greatly reduced. Instead, the competition between different phone manufacturers creates an environment where money and effort invested translate into not only an improvement in the quality of life, but in more money for those who put the work in. The aparant scarcity of the product is a function of that competition, an unfortuanate and ugly side we call greed. I do believe though that the drive competition gives us to improve is well worth a little bit of self intrest and a little bit of greed. There will allways be those willing to use advancements made due to the force of competition to improve those less fortuanate and while slower than what we might like, the wealth does spread. mostly.
I'm not saying the way the world works is perfect. Far from it. Competition has an ugly side, as I mentioned earlier, but it is up to us, as a species, through growth by expirience, to improve ourselvs and our social structure.
This movement, on the other hand, I see as going too far to the other end of the scale. What we have works, and works quite well, but needs quite a bit of tuening. That tuening should be in our personal ethics, through education and discussions like these, and an understanding that hard work brings prosperity, and a willingness to share lifts up the lives of those around us, making our own lives better. What we do not need is our instinctual drive to push ahead taken away from us, putting us equal to others who are not, in fact, equal to us in every way. We do not need a system that does not reward the individuals hard work, creativity, and effort. Doing so would slow our growth and advancement, encouraging apathy and discouraging personal effort.
In fact, I believe that this is why communism wouldn't work the way our minds are now. We are still too focused on lifting ourselvs above others before helping those others for a system of equality to all to work. That system also ignores the simple fact that some can simply -do- more than others, be it lift more, build better, think better, or be more creative than others. Without rewarding these people they will have little to no reason to strive to reach thier potential because everyone else will have the same anyways.
Now, as fun and engaging as this discussion has been, I need to get some sleep. Good night.
