Teleological
2020 06 06
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I was reminded of a word today: teleological.
Which means (according to Google):
(Philosophy) - relating to or involving the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise.
(Theology) - relating to the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.
I encountered this word on a page that is very clearly trying to take atheism out at the knees.
The problem with this, it seems to me, is that you could ascribe a telos to a thing - its ultimate purpose - but so could I. Will they be the same? Probably not. You could also assign value to that purpose, and that value may not be fair. You could, for example, only see women as livestock - I was watching the original "The Handmaid's Tale" film today, hence that thought - which in Western culture doesn't give something much value. I remember reading a story one time about a guy who'd been raised in a culture where all women were meant to do was entertain and please men. It took him a long time and a lot of work to realise that women had value outside of what they did for men.
In terms of race, think about how men of Asian origin have always been portrayed in film - either servile, or as a joke, and never as men who could get laid. We, as white Westerners, have been doing that to other culture groups for hundreds of years in one way or another - assigning their telos as ultimately valueless.
It is, therefore, grossly reductive and limiting, ignoring other values a person might have.
But folk of certain religions of which we are very familiar do this, have been doing it, for hundreds of years. Consider who it was that brought slavery to North America - Christians. The English upper classes also, for example, saw the service class as being part of a vocation, which implies that the folk in service were not fit to do anything beyond that; or, somewhat more arrogantly, that they were in service to the upper classes because they felt a calling to be such. Think about how now, in our current time, a lot of people think of anyone who works in the service industry.
Religion, specifically, does nothing but ascribe reductive, limiting telos to everything it swallows. Consider, for example, that Christianity teaches that the only reason humanity exists is to serve God, that we do not exist in and of ourselves, but exist only to masturbate a deity's ego.