#ethics of care

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Ubuntu

The philosophy of Ubuntu is a traditional African ethical and philosophical concept that emphasizes community, interconnectedness, and shared humanity. Originating from the Bantu languages of southern Africa, the term "Ubuntu" can be translated as "I am because we are" or "humanity towards others." It reflects the belief that an individual's identity and well-being are deeply rooted in their relationships with others and that the community's welfare is integral to the individual's welfare.

Key Concepts in the Philosophy of Ubuntu:

Interconnectedness:

Communal Identity: Ubuntu posits that individuals are intrinsically linked to their communities. A person is not seen as an isolated entity but as part of a larger social fabric. This interconnectedness means that one's actions affect others, and the community's well-being is vital to each individual's well-being.

Relational Ontology: The concept suggests that being human is fundamentally about relationships with others. One's existence and identity are defined through interaction and connection with other people.

Human Dignity and Respect:

Inherent Worth: Ubuntu emphasizes the inherent dignity of every human being. It advocates for treating others with respect, compassion, and empathy, recognizing that everyone shares a common humanity.

Mutual Respect: In Ubuntu, respect is not merely a social nicety but a fundamental ethical obligation. Treating others with dignity is seen as essential to maintaining harmony and community cohesion.

Collective Responsibility:

Shared Responsibility: Ubuntu promotes the idea that members of a community have a collective responsibility for each other’s welfare. This includes supporting those in need, resolving conflicts through dialogue and reconciliation, and fostering an environment where everyone can thrive.

Ethics of Care: The philosophy encourages an ethic of care, where individuals actively contribute to the well-being of others, understanding that their own well-being is tied to the community's overall health.

Social Harmony and Reconciliation:

Peace and Reconciliation: Ubuntu values social harmony and seeks to resolve conflicts through restorative rather than retributive justice. The goal is to restore relationships and repair the social fabric, often through forgiveness and reconciliation.

Consensus Building: Decision-making within an Ubuntu framework often involves consensus-building processes, where the views of all community members are considered, and solutions are sought that benefit the collective.

Solidarity and Cooperation:

Unity and Cooperation: Ubuntu emphasizes solidarity, cooperation, and unity among people. It encourages collaborative efforts in all aspects of life, from family and community to work and governance, with the understanding that collective action leads to greater success and fulfillment.

Generosity and Sharing: The philosophy promotes generosity and sharing of resources, knowledge, and support, reflecting the belief that prosperity is achieved through collective effort.

Humanism and Morality:

Moral Framework: Ubuntu provides a moral framework that stresses the importance of kindness, generosity, and ethical behavior. It encourages individuals to act in ways that enhance the community’s well-being and to avoid actions that harm others.

Human-Centered Philosophy: Ubuntu is deeply humanistic, focusing on the value and dignity of each person and the importance of fostering positive human relationships.

Application in Modern Contexts:

Leadership and Governance: Ubuntu has been influential in shaping leadership and governance in post-apartheid South Africa and other African nations. Leaders inspired by Ubuntu prioritize the welfare of their people, seek to heal divisions, and promote social justice.

Global Relevance: While rooted in African traditions, the principles of Ubuntu have been embraced globally as a model for ethical leadership, conflict resolution, and community building. It offers a counterpoint to individualistic and competitive models of society by emphasizing cooperation, empathy, and the common good.

Ubuntu in Philosophy and Ethics:

Comparative Ethics: Ubuntu is often compared with other ethical systems, such as Confucianism, which also emphasizes the importance of relationships and community. It offers a unique perspective on ethics that prioritizes collective well-being over individual autonomy.

Challenges and Critiques: Some critiques of Ubuntu focus on its potential for communal pressure to conform, possibly at the expense of individual freedom. Others argue that while Ubuntu provides a strong ethical foundation, it must be adapted to fit modern, diverse societies.

The philosophy of Ubuntu offers a profound and holistic approach to understanding human relationships, ethics, and community. It underscores the importance of interconnectedness, mutual respect, and collective responsibility, providing a framework for fostering social harmony and promoting the common good. Ubuntu's principles are increasingly recognized and applied beyond African contexts, resonating with global movements toward more compassionate, cooperative, and just societies.

[slowtides]

"Over the past few decades, many of us have experienced living in an accelerating social system of organised loneliness. We have been encouraged to feel and act like hyper-individualized, competitive subjects who primarily look out for ourselves. But in order to really thrive we need caring communities. We need localised environments in which we can fluorish: in which we can support each other and generate networks of belonging. We need conditions that both support our abilities and nurture our interdependencies.

This is because issues of care are not just bound up with the intimacy of very close relationships, such as family and kinship. They also take shape in the environments we inhabit and move through--in local communities, neighborhoods, libraries, schools and parks, in our social networks, and the groups we belong to.

But how do we create the kind of caring communities that make our lives better, happier, and even, in some cases, possible? What kind of infrastructures are necessary to create communities that care?....We argue that there are four core features to the creation of caring communities: mutual support, public space, shared resources and local democracy....Caring communities need to be strengthened, pluralised and diversified by building up these four features, which, brought together, form what we call a 'sharing infrastructure' at community level."

The Care Collective, The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence

[kyriefae]

I love Doctor Who for many reasons. Some of them silly, some of them less so.

Overall it's a show that deeply encourages and values empathy and the pursuit of knowledge over violence, over making assumptions of others, over asserting power or pursuing it altogether.

I met a particularly unsavory person irl via work recently and something about her stories...the way she scapegoats strangers so intuitively to break the silence. Her value set appears completely devoid of the good I mentioned above. While her character overall may still hold some decency that time would reveal, I've lived long enough to understand the value of the stories we tell to others and how that reflects on us in turn.

I am so relieved to have something like Doctor Who in my life because I've met so many people over the years who would instill a lasting edge of cynicism in me if they were all I knew.

"There's no point being grown up if you can't act childish sometimes."

Watching this show in all it's eras feels like being home; feels warm and inclusive. It's not a home I had but it's a home I have. Additionally so, it's like the audience, cast, and crew are telling a joke together and it's meant to make us all laugh (keyword ALL). The warmth I feel often comes from knowing most of my laughter watching this show has never been at the expense of someone else.

I've heard it plenty of times...if someone has to insult or belittle others it's a sign they feel small and seek to lash out. That's all well and good if you're on a cloud above but if you live in a world where others routinely use this method, albeit often as a form of social bonding, the wariness sets in and the weight of a deep sadness can intensify; calcify given enough time.

Doctor Who alleviates that sadness for me.

Its like a long essay written in favor of humanity. I'm reading it over and over again finding bits and bobs to take back with me before I return to the everyday; to that world full of small people desperate to feel big.

To those of us that relate to this show, I hope you know know how amazing I believe you are. 🥰 I hope these words can resonate with you because I think this show highlights a quiet wisdom we've earned one way or another in our lives.

We share in that wisdom not because we want to feel superior but because we want to believe in the good in people. I myself can not confidently inform you of any inherent good or selfish drive (and I studied philosophy for pity's sake) but I can say when we have a shared space as vast as Doccy Who to entertain us and provide us with endless horizons of exploration, we begin to share in a common mind. We bond with each other in ways that last. We grasp at the opportunity of building a legacy worth standing.

Just make it a good one, eh?

[bubblewhale]

Im reading Caren Gilligan's book: Ina a Different Voice. Talking about a poc mother that rather killed her daughter than to let her live in slavery. There is a great tension inside a person living in oppresive society, and the need for separation and personal power that the systemic opression is built on. So by commiting the most horrible crime of killing or rape, this person drasticaly severes themselves from the relationship with the other/loved one. The most painful part is the level of dissociation from self that takes place in order to be able to do this act. Anyways this post is about Sasuke and his wish to severe his last standing connection to Naruto by killing him, in order to seperate and gain power in society. And it's also about the level of dissociation from self that would be necessary in order to do this, and the level of emotional release, authenticity and vulnerability that comes from accepting his bond with Naruto in the end. By choosing relationship and connection over the pain and destruction of dissociation, he chose love and true morality and himself.

[thebtseffect]

Care-full Fandom: BTS, ARMY, and the Ethics of Care 

originally presented at the 2022 Northeast and American Popular Culture Association conference

BTS's impeccable performances, healing messages, and never-ending list of "firsts" are a testament to the group's impact on the global pop culture landscape. Although the scale of their success has led to discussions surrounding the "BTS phenomenon" and ARMY fandom, there is a need for deeper considerations of BTS's impact on the nature of their fandom. How and why are ARMY influenced by BTS? Drawing on the concept of ethics of care, this presentation aims to delve into how BTS embodies care and how ARMY reflects those expressions of care.

[kyriefae]

My love for this show having an impact at sharing moral philosophy in a popular setting knows no bounds.

Especially when it's the moral philosophies that inspire humanism, ethics of care, existential projects, and anti-nihilism.

My sweet Chidi. 🥹

The Good Place (2016-2020)

[faeriekit]

"This fic was ai generated—" Cool, so lemme block you real quick

[figuringoutstill]

"All too often our mode of listening deteriorates into intellectual sorting, with the professional grabbing the veterans’ words from the air and sticking them into mental bins . We assume we know what we’re hearing, that we don’t really have to listen, that we’ve heard it all before ... (We) resemble museum-goers whose whole experience consists of mentally saying, ‘That’s cubist! That’s El Greco!’ and who never see anything they’ve looked at ... listening in this way, destroys trust .”

Jonathan Shay (in Achilles in Vietnam)

[philosophicalcrumbs]

Can you conceive the existence of a being who is incapable of caring for anyone? To be completely devoid of empathy and love?

For the purpose however, of diagnosing the terminal stage of any relationship: it makes it easy to identify whether some cares for you or not, for care is the primary symptom of a being who loves.

Jennifer Chang, from "Dialogues (Against Literature)"

[delicourse]

i miss them a little if im gonna be honest

[leadingincontext]

Ethical Leaders Care (Part 2)

By Linda Fisher Thornton Leading With Care Using an ethics of care changes how we think and act as leaders. It helps us remember that each person is important and that treating each other with care is part of our shared human experience. Caring shows that we know that people are more than task-doers and that leading is more than tactical, more than obligatory, and more than just a…

[kyriefae]

*This is a TL;DR maybe trauma dump kinda post so fair warning. 😉

I have been no-contact with my parents for about a year and a half now. I'd say in that time I've found peace I wasn't affording myself before and I hadn't consciously been able to figure out why. I held on to a sense of guilt and obligation they imbedded in me; indoctrinated into my brain.

I let them go at the age of 32.

I let them know my reasoning but I also note on here a very important thing they were and will likely never know: they don't know I'm nonbinary and they don't know I'm bisexual.

Their acceptance isn't something I crave because I have long since lost it. I've grieved it's loss a thousand times over; many sleepless, tear-filled nights wore away at the desire to feel their acceptance like rain to stone.

It started with "Mom, Dad...I'm not Catholic" at 16 and snowballed from there. The amount of therapists and counselors and priests they sent me to and the sheer distance emotionally they created with me had profoundly negative consequences on our relationship. Not to mention the heightened sense of awareness I began to note as to how much they wondered or cared about my preferences or my day or my thoughts on things. They established a power dynamic and believed they could throw money at the problem; but their "problem" was me. A non-dogmatic child.

I say all of this to build at least a semblance of context around the significance that a couple of days ago, I re-downloaded the book of faces to my phone. I generally don't care to use the app but friends of mine remain connected through messenger. Anyway, my mother reblogged the prototypical Christian supremacy thought line on the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Specifically the part where she and so many other people, fueled through hatred, see a drag showcase of the Feast of Dionysus and think of it as an abomination unto her lord.

...

It's a quiet pain.

Quiet because I expected as much but I know now I was correct. Correct to preserve myself. To look after my own safety; to walk away.

...if she'd heard her youngest child who staunchly accepts agnosticism is ALSO "one of those queers" well ...she'd have a downright panic attack. The phone calls I would receive alone would send me into a spiral. Instead...I know where I stand. I know where she and my father and my siblings stand.

Over there in their echo chamber of heteronormative, god-fearing obligations, duties, and restrictions. Atop their pedestals looking down upon the rest of us that live our lives in every other sort of manner.

While I'm over here. Loving the beauty that exists out there in the world and genuinely moved by what I've been seeing these Olympics. Especially the opening ceremony.

Gojira!? Are you kidding me? I fucking love them. Whales are in the sky!

If you've read this much, know that I'm sending you the positive vibes I plan to instill in my day. You're included and you're valid. 💞

Kisses.

[kyriefae]

This.

Relatability up to 100%.

You wanna know what? An eventuality? How about we focus on what we do together? Yeah? Let's win!

Love 13 🥹

thirteen's era appreciation: 448/?

[darthfoil]

"Now, when I say care, I’m using it as a loaded word to mean: the ways in which we support people, fully and wholly, love them unconditionally, and incorporate them into the fabric of our lives. "Care, as I am describing, is almost always reserved for romantic relationships."

Source : Decrying Desirability, Demanding Care by Samantha Marie Nock

Scary for those of us without those relationships.

[mylordshesacactus]

Like when I talk about the level of negligence here, please understand.

These are a group of the most obnoxiously privileged people in the universe, who paid obscene amounts of money for the sole purpose of gawking at a mass fucking grave and acting like this made them Awesome Explorers Who Did Totally Real Science while gushing about how it’s just like a movie with zero respect or reverence for the reality of what they were seeing. Just for the cool factor.

So when I say that the level of arrogant disregard for their safety on the part of the company that knowingly, willingly sent them down there in unsafe and unrated death cannisters while lying to them about it is so egregious that the entitled billionaire pricks who fucked around and found out have my complete and total sympathy as victims?

It’s that bad. It’s very, very fucking bad.