Social Masks

 During the week, a man wake at  6 am,prepares his breakfast, takes a shower, and goes out at 7 to work. On his way,  he greets his neighbor that is sweeping the  sidewalk and ,sometimes he chats a bit with her. He comes on his job just before 8. He is a teacher and teachs in a school close his house. He welcomes some children and otheres teachers and goes to his classroom. He knows every student by name and also the problems of each and treats them according to their difficulties.  In the staff room, the teachers talk about very issues. After the work,everyone go to their houses. Some goes to take a drink, others go to watch a movie,and some will chat to friends.

 Each of these moments, situations, places and people with whom we have contacts requires a different shade to deal with every situation. In the course of a day, a man needs use many shades, otherwise I will have to live isolated in a redoma. Some people use to say that demonstrate what they really are. But what would  be a person totally bare of social masks? I think that would be the man in his state of nature, acting only for their basic instincts. Wake up, urinate, defecate, eat, drink, fuck, kill by a space and / or a food  then sleep. That would be the true man, without masks, honest and transparent.

    Since man got out of his natural state to the state of civilization, he became a user masks. The strongest used the shade of the strength to dominate the weak, and the weaks used the guise of politeness not to be slaughtered. Over time, the weaker realized he could use the mask of persuasion to master the the strong physical. Then came the Social Masks

 Just as there is an outfit for every occasion, there is also a kind of personality for each situation, place and person. In addition to our psychological and physical characteristics  already formed by the time we create momentary characteristics to present ourselves before the other. These momentary characteristics are called Social Masks They protect us from our natural state and from natural state of other They approach two strangers, turning them into known. Two bottle caps  protect  the internal drink of each bottle so that both don’t  mix and don’t even meet. An Ego  avoids the other. It is the real,the universal, the all and for the All, there’s nothing but me.  Then, I use the mask of the humble ,of the polite. I use the mask to please the other that is using a reflex of mine.

 A common man uses the client mask from one bank to talk to the manager of this bank. In  a bar with  his friends,the same man uses another mask and  in his house will dress in father.Similarly, the bank manager, the doctor and the bohemian friends will use various social masks, depending on the situation and the person they’re talking to.

There are many beings living in a man, so many masks to very situations. There is the inner self, hidden by the social mask, there is one that is seen by other and beliving that he is  what the other  is seeing in him. Similarly, the other depends on the I to know what type mask will use to socialize. So are we never true? Surely, we have inside of us a lot of true beings,and who says that someone has no personality takes into account a concept of the common sense and has no scientific or philosophical foundation.  After all, what we really are?

If someone asks me who I am, I have several answers: "I am Marcelo, son of Fortunato and Celia, a graduate in Philosophy, poet, blogger, father of Klaus, uncle of Tábata, in love with Jane Doe,a  Pink Floyd’s fan ,customer of a supermarket, invited  in a party, spectator of a play, etc. There are several answers to this only question; various settings for Marcelo Maia Gomes.But which of these is my  unmasked PERSONALITY? Which of these personalities were not formed from my association with the other and from an outside living? All  personalities are malleable and adaptable to moment; all of them are just convenience masks. Even, who says expose what's inside, depends on the other to such exposure.

For Sartre, the other is the mirror for the individual and that defines our intersubjectivity  according to the situation, time and place and the other, that is before me  is my influence and I’m him. If I am talking to a religious person, my conscience determines how I can or how I can’t to do. It knows the  consequences if I take myself as an atheist and, just as the religious prepares internally to try to persuade me of the existence of God . Choose, then, what masks we will dress. That’s true, I make the mask of other and the other  defines my mask.

Those masks become the individual  multiple selves , which often come into conflict, causing a divided conscience, incriminating each other hypocrites. But what is hypocrisy but a social mask that we wear to protect and hide our self?  After all, who are we? A being endowed with characteristics or a human that reflects the image of the other , which in turn reflects the image of the self? Is there an internal  and secluded existence or every existence depends on the outside to be?

The SELF is the person, the PERSONALITY that it hides behind various selves. The SELF is the intact part of being human, which the other should only know as little as possible. Nobody knows the our SELF,  are the selves, dresses Social Masks, and we need to use these masks to present in front of the other , because we need it. I am the strange to the other and it is strange to me, so we use disguises to the family we seem to each other.

                                                         

Hugs
                                     Marcelo Maia  Gomes
Degree in Philosophy from CEUCLAR

Justice:an individual feeling or an universal reality ?

The Justice word brings two concepts to our minds: a concrete and an abstract. The concrete concept is the image of a court composed of  judge ,lawyer ,prosecutor, jury,and defendant. The abstract  concept is broader; you can’t see it, but you can feel, and sometimes it is contrary to justice of the courts and the law. Often, we think that the law is being unfair because it’s not acting as we want. In  Antigone,  tragedy by Sophocles, the two brothers of the protagonist kill each other  fighting  for the throne of Thebes. Creon, uncle of Antigone and new ruler has decided that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices will be in public shame. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites, and will lie unburied on the battlefield, prey for carrion animals like worms and vultures, the harshest punishment at the time.Antigone doesn’t agree with that edict and bury her brother and she is buried alive in a cave.

In the play of Sophocles, there are two kinds of Justice; the law’s and the individual’s. Creon, which is the law, just think Polyneices’ body shouldn’t be buried,because the nephew allied to Thebes enemies to win Eteocles. Antigone thinks Uncle decree is unfair and contrary to the divine laws. The righteousness of Thebes is based on the good of the state and the Antigone’s rectitude is settled on your feelings, which she believes to be the same of the gods. After all, what is justice?

Someone needs something, goes to a shop,pays for the object and becomes its new owner. If someone takes something and doesn’t  pay, so the shop has a loss and if  he pays and doesn’t  take the object,so he is a injured consumer. The sense of justice is similar to the act of consuming.We make acts and we want to get something that has  our own preset price If we believe that we made the good, we expect to receive something good . When someone does something bad,  we expected that the evil will be its payment. Pay good actions with good action and bad actions with bad actions .Is it true? Not always.

 Injustice is a feeling that occurs when  the received doesn’t have the value of a given action.You don’t get what you give. You think that you gave good and you got evil or someone gave evil and  got good. However, the good to one can be the evil to other. That one what I call unfair may think I'm being unfair by calling him that. Thus, the sense of justice and the sense of injustice may even be the same for everyone, but the reasons that trigger these feelings depend on what is the good and what is bad for each person.

Socrates was sentenced to death for going against the laws of Athens, and shortly after ingesting the poison the philosopher said he could have avoided the conviction if he had given up the fair life. According to him, the legislation of Athens was unfair , because that was not according to his interests . In other words, there is only Justice if  something is in accordance with the individual interest   There is no right or wrong law, fair or unfair legislation, grateful or ungrateful people. There are actions that the individual agrees and actions  that the individual doesn’t agree.  Antigone did justice to bury her brother, but Creon was also doing justice when he condemned the niece to death.Which of the two was unfair and who was the  fair? The answer is easy: one who committed the action that I agree is fair and the other is the unfair.

 Sometimes, the disharmony among  justices (individual, social  and legal) generates an unhealthy desire to impose “what is right”. This imposition appears in various forms: religions, dictatorships,revolutions,lynching, murder, genocide, physical and psychological torture, verbal abuse, and even suicide (because there are those who kill for the unfair feel the burden of guilt on themselves). There is also the violence that doesn’t act, but  it keeps in mind of the one who believes didn’t receive what should get. This one expects the other to charge what someone owes him. His “right “ will be imposed for others.The “Other” can be God, karma,an accident, an illness, a disappointment or remorse. It doesn’t matter what is the Other; it matters that the “right” prevails. That’s the sense of Justice,my “right” above your “right”.  I end with a question: Is Justice the same feeling of revenge?

Hugs

Marcelo Maia Gomes

Degree in Philosophy

The Boredom

       There are times when the Everything manifests in the form of  the Nothing. That is, we realize that whatever we do will get us nowhere beyond our inner emptiness. It is the boredom that does not attack us only in times of loneliness or when we have nothing to do. Although these moments it manifests more often and apparently with more intensity, also appears in the busiest hours or when we are in good or bad company.Boredom can be the discovery that something or someone always lead us to Nothing.

    The boredom anguish us,because we avoid our empty and meaningless nature.For thousands of years, man has been trying to change its nature and to find meaning for their existence in an endless quest that leads to a sense of frustration, worse than the own boredom.

     Buy, sell, work, clamber, smoke, drink, write , fight, we pray, we become unbelievers, finally, practice various actions that fill us and make us able.However, there comes a time when boredom and its immanent inconvenience arises to let us know that nothing beats the nothing. The humans do not accept this defeat and keep to search a new "something" to our lives.

     Beat the Boredom is only possible to the man that embraces and use the boredom as inspiration to create. The philosopher and the actor and the composer extoll that  empty feeling as someone exalts the feast. While others seek or expect a way to win your boring moments, the theoretical and creative allow the defeat to win the "winner". Do not confuse allowing the defeat with surrender. Surrender is giving up the fight and to lose the award, while allowing the defeat is to take advantage of the poison to create the antidote.

     The man  contemplating boredom, do not do it because he likes to be bored, because if it did, would always evoking that feeling that is in the depths of every sentient being. The admiration for boredom come from the finding that Everything is a cover of Nothing and the Nothing can be used to fill itself. When boredom is useful, it ceases to be boredom.

Hugs

Marcelo Maia Gomes

Degree in Philosophy from CEUCLAR