Embryonic Beginnings

[survivor999]

by spk

That great product of the Enlightenment, Georg Wilhelm Hegel, first noticed the difference between being and becoming. Being is a state that exists in primordial forms of nature, and through its antithesis nothing, evolves into becoming. Philosophers prior to Hegel – from Aristotle to Kant – had ascribed a static quality to being – what is, is. Hegel allowed us to understand that what is, develops into a higher order of existence.

If you wanted to be really generous to George W. Bush, you could describe him as an Aristotelian, though he probably deserves this attribute without any intellectual effort on his own behalf. Aristotle defined being as equal to being - in his philosophy, development was a separate concept that was not integral to being.

George Bush has defined a single human embryo as a human being – it exists in the same dimension as all other human beings, with all their inherent rights (but apparently with no responsibilities). It has no chance for development because it already exists, fully developed, at least in all the moral dimensions that characterize adult humans.

There is no room in this philosophy for Hegel’s advancements, if indeed Bush or his supporters would consider anything out of the Enlightenment as an advancement. There is no thought that a human embryo at the cellular level, visible only microscopically, might be something that is becoming a human being. Bush cannot allow the grayness that is often the result of Enlightenment thinking, with its emphasis on reason rather than doctrinaire certitude as an answer to life’s problems.

More: http://agonist.org/numerian/20060720/embryonic_beginnings