5.3.1 |
BELONGING TO AN ASSOCIATION
AND NOT BELONGING TO ONE |
A historical, so-called 'universal' declaration of human
rights has it that (literally) all human beings 'are endowed
with reason and conscience', that the family, as founded by
people who are married, is 'the natural and fundamental group
unit of society', that everyone has the right to 'security in
the event of widowhood', that motherhood (not parenthood) is
'entitled to special care and assistance' and that 'elementary
education shall be compulsory'.
The same 'Declaration' pontificates that education ought to 'promote
understanding, tolerance and friendship among religious groups'.
Obviously such
a formal document is nothing else than a general assemblage of
the sensible and nonsensical, inclusive and exclusivist ideas
which happened to be in vogue among politicians and officials of
a multitude of nationalities at the moment of conception.
It has thus become a disorderly coalition program of activating and
nonactivating,
intrinsic and extrinsic,
doxastic rights or —even more disorderly— 'rights and
freedoms' (with at least one type of duty: 'the duty to the community in
which alone the free and full development of his personality is
possible').
Yet, one of the more sensible, nonexclusivist articles of the
above ramshackle Declaration correctly states that everyone has
the right 'to freedom of peaceful assembly and association' and
that 'no-one may be compelled to belong to an association'. In
the systematic context of our
Model this must be classified,
of course, as
a right of personhood.
It is the
extrinsic,
nonactivating right to assemble peacefully, that is, in such a way that
other people's rights to personhood are respected equally; and the right
to associate, or to belong to an association.
As the right is extrinsic and nonactivating, it is also the right
not to assemble (even peacefully) and the right not to
associate or to belong to an association. If the Declaration had
been more consistent in its
religionist
tenor, it should have explicitly mentioned too that no-one ought to be
compelled to belong to a religious organization in particular.
Now, in
the Ananorm the right to
belong to an association or not to belong to one, is not only an extrinsic
right (of personhood) but also an intrinsic right. The Ananorm does
not know any independent or derivative principle of association or
nonassociation.
The (explicit and implicit) intrinsic message of the
Book of Fundamentals is that everyone should
live as much as possible in conformity with
truth and
neutral-inclusivity.
It does not and cannot say, however, to which particular state of being,
or to which particular
nanaic action, priority must
be given. This has to be left to the capacities and interpretations of
individual persons and groups and to the circumstances in which they find
themselves.
(The Model is in this respect as open-ended as a scientific
paradigm.)
Neutral-inclusivistic symbolism is even more subject to these individual
considerations, because it serves only indirectly the establishment and
maintenance of neutral-inclusivity.
The requirement is that it does so on the whole and at least in the long
run, but if someone else can contribute to neutral-inclusivity to the same
or to a higher degree without
denominational
symbolism and without joining
a denominational or other organization
'e should certainly do so
instead.
Both fundamental action or abstention and participation in
the DNI's symbolism can be
purely individual or social expressions of adherence to the values of the
doctrine. Symbols or forms of symbolism such as those concerned with
mourning, singing or meditation can be expressive of only one person's
spiritual thoughts (or nonthought) and feelings. Even for the observance
of the
suprapersonal special days it is not
necessary to be with other people, other families or other groups.
When an ideological action or
practise is the
expression of the thoughts and feelings of a group, however, we may speak
of "socialization", and when such a group is organized in some
way, of "organization".
If centered round a
comprehensive (rather than a
political) ideology, such socialization and organization are of a
sociodenominational nature.
Those who organize, or participate in, sociodenominational
activities should, of course, not disturb or interrupt those who
do not want to participate in these activities, unless social or
legal rights equal to those of other comprehensive or political
ideologies are being exercised on special occasions. (Such
rights are then actually or hypothetically the result of a
social contract between free persons.) Similarly, adherents of
the Ananorm shall not have to accept any disturbance or
interruption by a religous or other ideological practise of
fellow citizens; even (or particularly) not if its meaning is
purely symbolic, unless rights equal to those of themselves are
being exercised on special occasions.
No-one has any moral obligation as a citizen to participate
in social activities organized by a state, party or other
institution, if the belief in a god or demon, in a supernatural
power, in any particular religion or ideology, or in any
particular congeries of related ideologies, is given a special
status in those activities.
Furthermore, a lesson to be learned from religious and party-political
history is that socialization and organization should be forced neither on
nonadherents nor on adherents, whether by a person, party or other group
representing, or purporting to represent, the state or by a temple
society or any other such institution.
