love doesn't make the world go round
There are signboards up in the WMC advertising that physiotherapy is available to students and faculty members in pain. Why? Not, as Milton enthusiasts might like to delude themselves, because love motivates people to selfless good deeds (and just how good is physiotherapy, really?). In reality, the people offering the “service” NEED and WANT your pain-inflicted bodies so that they may practice their skills and earn a dollar. It is necessity and the drive for self-preservation that motivates people to perform any vocation. Physiotherapists do not love you, nor do they care that they make you feel better. It is their JOB to reverse your ailments so that they may satisfy their clients and secure returning patients, you included.
On the nature of defense, isn’t it lucky that societies like the NRA still exist?! Here is a modern example of Hobbesian men and woman stubbornly clinging to their rights to arm themselves despite constitutional attempts to control firearms. These sturdy Americans refuse to relinquish their natural right to defend themselves from those who may jeopardize the rights or possessions of the former. Fear of the “other man” justifies the existence of the NRA. It is the right of any man to secure (by any means within his power) that which is his. The NRA stands for freedom to bear arms and protect oneself, not for love of the fellow man. Could you claim love for your fellow man as you foil his robbery attempt by pulling a gun on him?
posted by Melody Stevens at 5:21 PM
2 Comments:
It is entirely true that those who offer such services as physiotherapy do in fact need and want people (and their bodies) in the interest of earning money, or in the interest of honing their skills such that they can earn even more money in the future. And we can recognize that the pursuit of money is the modern Hobbsian equivalent to the pursuit of power, so it would seem that such services are selfish in nature to those performing them. However, we should ask why such services are even offered at all. Is it because of so many people are injured so frequently that there is a large market for profit in these industries? Or is it in the pure and simple interest of helping our fellow man? Whatever motivational factors started such practices, it is certainly clear that by now nearly all industries have become corrupted by capitalism--the exploitation of people's needs (or false-needs for that matter) for others' profit.
But things weren't always this way. Capitalism is a fairly new development in human history. It wasn't until the industrial revolution when goods and services could be mass-produced that people started to take advantage of the possible exploitation of their fellow man. There was a time when people traded only what they needed. Some people specialized in production of certain things, others in other things. The mechanization of production changed all of this. But the point is, people began trading with one another because it proved more efficient in the interest of self-preservation.
Ok, I set out to try to argue against the selfishness of private services, but I just couldn't do it. Rather, I hope I have strengthened Mel's argument.
On a side note: Since the NRA embodies Hobbesian values such as the natural right to defend ourselves, and if this way of thinking truly does prevail in our world, then why isn't the NRA more widely accepted? Why aren't firearms legal in Canada?
Firearms are legal in Canada, they just need to be registered and used by those with licenses. And the NRA isn't part of Canadian culture because some Canadians are idiots. Our government restricts our self-preservation rights because a very obnoxious portion of the population buys into the illusion of love. Seeking to prevent further outcry, the goverment passes ridiculous and ineffective laws. The anti-gun people are satisfied by these laws as irrationally as they are duped into believing love is the world's motivating force. Open your eyes, people. New legislation that can't be enforced means very little in such a vast land area. I'm from central BC and most of the people I know have many guns the government does not know about.
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