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Why Philosophy?Urszula WislankaThe theme for this Fire Inside is domestic and state violence. All violence hurts. And while the physical pain may pass with time, women prisoners have shown us how they deal with the more insidious results of violence: the attempted destruction of their sense of self. Most women prisoners experienced tremendous oppression and self-doubt. Yet the women who talk to us have reconstructed themselves, redefined who they are. One woman, for example, said that when she came to prison, she felt she was not the person she wanted to be. There were parts of her that led her to drugs and behavior she did not want to condone in herself. While in prison she turned to the practice of her religion, Native American, to cleanse herself, to find balance and to become a new person. It was through the practice of her religion that she re-created herself as she also created a community of which she wanted to be a part: through participating in ceremonies such as sweats and feasts and through making religious objects to give to others. She felt she gained so much that she also wanted other Native American women in prison to have an opportunity to do that. She turned into a fighter for the religious rights of Native American women in prison. She turned her own inward development towards others. What she has done is two-fold. 1) She set out to improve herself. And she found that 2) in the process of changing herself she became a part of, she also created, a community that could nurture the "new" self, a community she contributed to and wanted to share with other women. She found her individual "I", included a sense of "we", a collectivity that was not opposed to her sense of self, but integral to its creation. Her new definition of herself as an individual included a creation of a community. Such a transformation on the part of several women led to the creation of CCWP, as part of a community outside supporting the changes inside. The "we" can get expanded to include the whole society and its prison system. The definition of who we are as human beings is the work of philosophy. What comes from the stories of women prisoners is that philosophy, in this total sense, isn't practiced only by professors sitting in ivory towers spinning ideas in their heads, unrelated to the "real" world. All of us as human beings are capable of practicing philosophy. We are all able to ask the question "who am I" and provide an answer. If we do it honestly, we may not like our own answers. So we may want to change ourselves to become the person we would want to be. This process of asking oneself basic questions leads not only to "finding" oneself, who one wants to be. It leads to changes in one's activity, how one relates to others. It also gives a lie to the standpoint that we are only isolated individuals, with no control over what connects us. Taking back the process of collectively defining who we are as human beings can help us to finally transform the way we all live. But in order to realize that transformation, we-each one for herself-has to be able to single out aspects of our concrete experience, i.e., to make abstractions or categories, to decide for ourselves what our activity means for us and in the social context. This is the practice of philosophy, which is theoretical. Theory means being able to look at all the experiences of concrete life and being able to abstract from them the principles that define my "I", who I am, and understand how my actions create my "I" not just as an isolated individual, but in a community, a "we" that is no longer just in opposition to who "I" am but is clearly my creation. It is the transformation of the way in which a society connects the "I" and the "we" that can lead to a new society, fundamentally different, one in which we are finally able to fully consciously practice the creation of our humanity. Violence that is so much a part of this society, forces not just prisoners but all of us to find ways to change the whole as we are changing ourselves. Last updated February 14, 2005 06:46 PM |
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