Gabriel Honore' Marcel -- Born in Paris on December 7, 1889 and died in Paris October 8, 1973 -- was a French Philosopher, a leading Chrsitan Existentialist who wrote 30 plays and focused on the modern indivdual's struggle with techonolical dehumanizing Society. Sounds like exactly where Society is today as well.
Besides plays, Gabriel wrote books: notably his book: "Man Against Mass Society" which was required reading for my degree in Philosophy.
IN that famous book, Gabriel succintly and brilliantly defined and described what he called: "False Abstractions". This concept is more needed today than any time in history.
From memory, I will try to give you an updated definition based on his basic concept:
A "false abstraction" is a delusion which is a false belief based on illogical assumptions that appear right to the thinker but are in fact ontologically false and intrinsically evil.
Here a few examples from history.
a) Heads rolled for the concepts of "equalite", fraternite’ and liberte" but you would not have been able to find a Frenchman who knew what those words meant in the context of cutting thousands of aristocrats in two - which were acts diametrically opposed to those three concepts. (Gabriel Marcel's example).
b) "Pure Arianism" and the slogan "forward" and "final solution" were the banner concepts that allowed Hitler to pass laws making it legal to kills Jews and Poles (Non Arians). Besides the four millions of poles who died in the Nazi occupation of Poland, 6 million Jews were killed in the Concentration Camps. But even worse, 350 German civilians volunteered to shoot/execute Jews within the city limits. For Hitler, rights were "endowed not by the Creator" but by the State; and Hitler was the State. The courts of Nuremberg exposed his "false abstractions"/delusions.
c) Our present day concept of "pro-choice" annihilates the fetus’s right to life which is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment: "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." In the last 38 years, 51 million fetuses have lost their lives in the USA as well as 400 million in China. The USA is only second to China in abortions. But the ontological fact is that none of those 451 million fetuses had any choice at all. The Michigan Health Code has a section on abortion. I have a full copy of that code. I quote it: "..in abortion, the fetus, homo sapiens, is killed." Thus our own State of Michigan has defined a fetus as a person, "homo sapiens." The 14th Amendment should protect that fetus-person’s life. Science also has defined human life to exist at Conception - not a potential person; but a true person: body and soul. That fact has changed Dr. Nathanson from an abortion doctor to an ardent pro-life advocate and lecturer. Additionally, according to international law, a fetus can inherit an estate...but cannot inherit his/her own life. Thus "pro-choice" is a "false abstraction" and that - like all of the above - is intrinsically evil.
d) The KKK cried "White Supremacy" and killed many African Americans because of this concept because of the belief (delusions) that Black people were not really totally human. Seems that Geneticists have recently proven that concept totally false through DNA - "that all people on the earth – and all who ever lived – have all come from or can be traced to just one woman." How sad that the KKK in white hoods were busy about killing and hanging their own brothers! But that is typical of "false abstractions" which remove their followers from reality and human decency and seeing the dignity of all human personhood. False abstractions are on a continuum: They can begin small but at the extreme right end up taking lives.
e) President Obama said in his first debate that the goal of Government is to "keep everyone safe." That is a "false abstraction" because he gives $500 million a year to Planned Parenthood to kill babies in the womb. He does not keep those 1.2 million babies a year safe. 60% of those abortion clinics are situated in low-income Black neigborhoods. A neice of Martin Luther King , Jr. said: "Defund Planned Parenthood because how can we have "the dream" if we are killing our kids." She surely has that right..and is perfectly right-on true!
So, in light of all these examples, let us see this formula:
False Abstraction = false belief = a delusion = intrinsic evil.
Peace and love,
Pio
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