I saw on u tube a video called “What if the self isn’t something to find.”

I saw on u tube a video called “What if the self isn’t something to find.” So I watched it. It turned out that it was a discussion about how we in the western world are embedded in the great and not so great ideas of western philosophers, such as Marx, Freud, Jefferson et al, and are more or less trapped ( my interpretation) in whatever good or evil has been nurtured in that culture AND not only that but when we look at when those western philosophers looked at non western culture, such as china, they ( and eventually us) didn’t get institutionalized. W

 we can not see the true nature of philosophers and ideas that come out of china or non western cultures because western thoughts are different than non western thought. All in all, it was good food for thought. I thoughtfully expanded this basic principle to include African, Asian, Native, and Gender ideas, since western thought ( Age of Reason) included such a magnitude of contradiction, such as “all men are created equal” contradicting slavery and so many other oppressive institutions in which there was little or no equality at all. Perhaps the center of the discussion was the difference in search for self. Western thought seems to revolve around the idea that somewhere inside everyone is the self that is pure from the mess of what the culture entangles everyone with and accepting that mess ( as long as it isn’t dangerous to anyone) as defining not only who but what you are. This inner search is both a selfish and self loathing process. Finding oneself becomes a full time job, weighing in on one’s personal relationships. Some things are better left undiscovered, as somethings are better left unsaid. But let’s face it, in America, there’s little we want to ignore and little science wants to leave under the rocks of curiousity. What if upon the discovery of the self, we find there’s about seven billion different versions and they’re all dangerous. Let’s say many want guns, want to be kings, want to be porn masters, want to be multi-billionaires, or, simply, just want to commit crimes with impunity. In other words, the self is as corruptible as the devil believes it is. Sent from my iPad