Philosophy Deficit Disorder (PDD) • noun • (fill-aw-saw-fee deh-fuh-sit diss-orr-durr)
Definition: the debilitating consequences of not having a philosophy to guide your actions in life.
Origin: The Sustainable Culture Lab
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This week’s word is brought to you by Jack Britton, SCL’s Philosophy Fellow.
Throughout his fellowship, we have engaged in a conversation about the relative absence of philosophy in American life, and the impacts of this void. Philosophy is a love of wisdom, and every day, Americans are reminded of how an absence of wisdom disproportionately still shapes our lives.
America is experiencing a new surge in COVID-19 deaths as the Delta variant spreads across the country, but this surge is due to the millions of Americans who still refuse to get vaccinated. All of these unvaccinated Americans have their own justifications for not getting vaccinated, but the capacity to explain a bad decision does not make that decision wise.
On July 24, The New York Times published an article about a Florida doctor who has made millions of dollars spreading false information about COVID-19 vaccines. His wealth and education do not make him wise, but in America’s ethnocidal society where there is no shared language or philosophical ground for articulating what it means to live a good life, these material credentials can mislead people into believing that he is.
Unwise decisions and an absence of philosophy are killing thousands of Americans and making all of us less safe, but this is not a deficit exclusive to our relationship with COVID-19.
Over the last month or so, I have spoken with people about the importance of developing their own personal philosophy to help guide their life, and often the notion of creating a personal philosophy had never occurred to them. To these people, philosophy was something that you find and attach yourself to, but not something that you could create. Their relationship to philosophy is similar to that of happiness. They believe that it is something that they must find or pursue, but not create.
Similarly, when I tell people that I am a philosopher, they want to know the school of philosophy that I belong to, and never imagine that I might have my own philosophy.
Within American ethnocide, the absence of philosophy manifests in countless destructive ways, and Jack and I have begun calling this situation “philosophy deficit disorder” or PDD to describe the debilitating consequences that stem from not having a philosophy to guide your actions. By giving the problem a name, we are now more empowered to accurately identify the problem and cultivate solutions.
We believe that one of the first solutions is the cultivation of a personal philosophy.
Your Own Personal Philosophy
Between my late 20s and early 30s, I realized that I basically knew how to take care of myself, and that the thing I needed to spend time thinking about was how I could effectively take care of other people.
America often professes the need to obtain various material possessions or status symbols to prove to yourself that you are a capable and successful individual — that you are a “good person” — but I have never been interested in any of that stuff. Instead, I came to place a greater emphasis on knowing myself, and when you’ve been alive for about 30 years you start to have enough lived experiences and self-awareness that merely taking care of yourself can become a bit redundant, boring, and unfulfilling.
I bring this up because my self-boredom is what pushed me closer and closer to philosophy. At this point, my personal philosophy hardly required words, and could thrive off of an unspoken self-awareness that I had cultivated throughout my years of living and existing in the world. But if I wanted to bring a long-term partner or even a child into my life, I needed to develop language and justifications for my actions so that they could effectively, actively, and equitably participate in my philosophy. Otherwise, I would end up trying to deceive people or force my beliefs upon those closest to me, and I already knew that I did not want to live as an authoritarian.
What I realized was this: I needed to create a personal philosophy that included precise language so that when anyone, and especially those closest to me, asked me “Why?” in relation to any action, I could give them a thoughtful and considerate answer rooted in my reasons for living. I did not believe that responding with “Because I said so,” or “Because a book said so,” were adequate responses, so I knew that I had to create a philosophy to fill the void.
By swimming against the American current of individualism and materialism I rarely suffered from PDD, and became more attuned to the simple, subtle philosophies that had already impacted my life.
I have spent years working on my philosophy, and it has grown into a book and organization that manifests my philosophical work so that it can aid others, but most people’s philosophy should not mimic my endeavor. In fact, one of my primary philosophical inspirations comes from a Black woman with only a high school education.
My grandmother Althea Hills Holmes raised four children in the housing projects of Charleston, South Carolina, and without her personal philosophy I would not be here today.
My grandmother had a stated and frequently articulated desire to lift herself and her children out of the projects and her philosophical mantra was that she wanted to “get her children a piece of education, then get herself a piece of house and a piece of car.”
She worked hard to make sure all of her children went to college, and one of my uncles even went to an Ivy League school. After all of her kids finished college, she started saving money to buy a house, and after she bought a house she then bought herself a brand new car.
Her philosophy was not overly complicated, or even “philosophical” in the commonly used sense of the word, but it gave her the capacity to express to others the meaning of her actions as she forged a life that empowered her to take care of others. Without this philosophy I would not be here today.
A Personal Philosophy Exists to be Shared
America is in the middle of a PDD crisis. In the weeks to come, Jack will begin publishing philosophical essays about once a week discussing important philosophical topics, and later in the year, SCL will release modules and trainings pertaining to our philosophy, but also the cultivation of one’s personal philosophy.
If you’re looking for a place to start the process of filling your own philosophical void along with America’s broader PDD problems, you must begin by understanding that all of us are capable of creating our own philosophy. We are not solely dependent on turning to the philosophies of the past or religious doctrines as our sources of wisdom. Instead, we should identify what matters to us and use that knowledge to cultivate our own philosophy.
As we set out on this journey of creating our own philosophies, we should never forget that we are creating a philosophy because of the responsibilities and connections that we have with other people. Our humanity is only made possible through the humanity of others. I am because we are. A philosophy made of and for one person does not need language because we are not dependent on words in order to communicate with ourselves.
A personal philosophy exists so that we can communicate it with others and engage in a dialogue that can guide us towards wisdom and a sustainable, nurturing life. A philosophy comes with the freedom of understanding that you are responsible for the well-being of others, and as one’s philosophy grows and adapts over time the shared communal responsibility of its practitioners keep it alive.
My grandmother’s philosophy was also a philosophy that my mother and her three brothers also practiced. They understood the language and knew that this philosophy would help them lead wiser, more sustainable and nurturing lives. All of them got an education, and they helped my grandmother buy and maintain her house, and they helped her buy her car. She was because they were, and vice versa.
This week, take some time to write down what matters to you and how these values can better the lives of others. In doing so, you will begin taking the first steps toward creating your own philosophy, and what you create could positively impact your friends and family for generations.