Economy, credibility, and sexuality

The Person from the Distant Village and the Modern World Paradox

The world order has changed, and humanity has awakened to its current time with a new spirit. However, the series of traditional rules that humans—carrying thousands of years of instinctual coding on their backs—created to survive, feel safe, and live together, have begun to become a burden in the modern world.

Even so, the person from the distant village in our subconscious does not refrain from clinging tightly to the dogmatic rituals formed over thousands of years with an instinctual urge. For a person who has to live by the standards of the modern world in their daily life, this is a contradiction that is very difficult to cope with. When they delve into the roots of this discomfort, which they cannot quite name correctly, they encounter their mother, their father, the people of their neighborhood, the traditions they grew up in, and even themselves, carrying their past into the present.

Perhaps, to analyze the situation, it is necessary to return to the center of the story and recall the conditions under which the traditional village person lived.

In traditional culture, the freedom of the individual is not a factor. The individual cannot eat what they want, cannot dress as they wish, and cannot easily change the social class into which they were born, cannot marry the person they want, and even if they find the traditions passed down from their ancestors and grandparents irrational, they cannot change them.

THE PRIMITIVE HUMAN'S DEPENDENCE ON TRADITIONS

What does the individual receive in exchange for all the freedom they sacrifice? We must not forget that for many long years, primitive humans struggled desperately to survive in the face of wild nature. Hunger, loneliness, helplessness, harsh climatic conditions, wild animals; for a human who is inadequate against all these and has no chance of surviving alone, the only solution is to find a way to live together. Therefore, for the individual to feel safe by sacrificing their freedom, obeying the community's traditions is avital necessity.

So, why do we find it so difficult to remove from our lives the traditional impositions that constituted a vital necessity for primitive humans but have no meaning for modern world humans? Especially when traditions are intertwined with dogmatic commands, things become completely inextricable for people in the modern world. At this stage, it is necessary to look at the practices of today's developed countries, which in their past saw dogmatic traditions as obstacles to progress.

SSOCIETAL ANALYSIS THROUGH SEXUALITY AND THE STATUS OF WOMEN

The primary action of the Enlightenment movement was, of course, social equality and freedom. Therefore, the social class and gender divisions inherent in dogmatic traditions were viewed as obstacles to national development. In a society where Catholics, Protestants, and Evangelicals did not view each other as equals, and where women were treated as second-class citizens, it was impossible to speak of stability.

More importantly, dogmatic traditions directly interfered with the individual's freedom and choices. This personal intervention deeply shook the characteristic structure of society. Religion did not grant the individual freedom in any area of their life, and even attempted to keep their sexuality under control. Not only was the young individual not permitted to experience their sexuality before marriage, but their decisions regarding when and with whom to marry were also subject to interference.

First and foremost, it must be acknowledged that sexuality is a concept that cannot be controlled. Although it is not always possible to determine its dramatic consequences on society because it is one of the least discussed topics, how and under what conditions sexuality is experienced defines the character of societies.

In societies where sexuality is repressed, women are labeled as sinners on the grounds that they seduce men. In such societies, it becomes inevitable for women to be raped or even murdered by men. Because the woman is declared a sinner from the very beginning, it is not the man who rapes or kills who is blamed, but the woman who is raped or killed. With all these pathological definitions, women were excluded from social and public life and rendered invisible. The Enlightenment philosophy's assessment of this issue was certainly not complex. A society that treats the other half of its population so poorly could not be expected to establish credibility or succeed in any field. Therefore, this distorted understanding needed to be reformed.

THE TRADITIONAL CONFUSION OF DOGMATIC SOCIETY

How was it that the suppression of sexuality, which is declared primitive and demonic, could so deeply affect the social dynamics of a society? Traditional and religious pressures caused sexuality to be lived in secrecy or even within a criminal framework. It turned individuals who appeared to be very good, religious, and respectable people into sinners and bad people who cheated or engaged in premarital sex. It led to the emergence of individuals who were forced to lie to everyone around them, who felt dirty, sinful, and guilty because of the forbidden sexuality they experienced, and who, as a result, experienced psychological fragmentation and felt deep anger toward themselves and everyone around them. The failed, criminal, or radicalized, aggressive attitudes of these characters defined the main contours of the society in which they lived.

CIVILIZATION AND SEXUALITY

In developed countries, sexuality is not viewed as sinfulness or immorality. In these countries, it is very difficult to see a young man in his 20s or 30s looking at the breasts or legs of every woman he sees with a primitive hunger.to see is very difficult. This is because his sexual character, which has not been suppressed since his early adolescent years, has been accepted within society and has completed its development freely and without problems.

Therefore, there is no need to claim ownership over women, and the likelihood of him becoming aggressive, committing rape, or feeling enough anger to kill a woman due to unsatisfied sexual urges is low.

In an advanced, civilized country, it is seen as a charming behavior for boys and girls to start dating. When they reach the age of 14-15, they are allowed to meet outside with their family's knowledge, and their requests to go to the cinema, a cafe, or spend time with friends are supported by their families. Thus, the child also discovers their gender within a protected framework. When they reach the appropriate age and feel ready, the sexual experience they have is not a dramatic matter of honor that concerns the family.

The experience they have is a very private situation concerning only themselves and their partner; it does not concern anyone other than them. In other words, an individual's sexuality is not a public problem. After experiencing this, neither the girl nor the boy feels guilty. It does not even cross their minds to answer to family elders or the local priest.

As a result, individuals who are forced to lie to everyone, who feel guilty because of what they have experienced, who are unhappy, aggressive, and forced to grow up intertwined with moral decay do not emerge. This is because the child's perception of gender and sexuality is built on healthy foundations from the very beginning. Only in such societies do individuals who trust and are trusted grow up.

CREDIBILIS, “CREDERE” CREDIBILITY

There is a word that we constantly encounter in economic news these days: Credibility. The Latin root of the word, “Credibilis,” means worthy of belief or worthy of trust, while the verb form of the word is “credere,” which means to believe and to trust. The equivalent of the word in economics is a bit more complex, but it remains faithful to its essence. “Credibility” expresses the trust that investors, business partners, and international markets have in a country's economic stability and integrity.

A country with high credibility is accepted as a reliable and safe place for investments.

This trust is related to a country's ability to fulfill its financial commitments, maintain political stability, and successfully implement economic reforms. This is because it is known that a country's credibility—that is, its reliability—directly affects its ability to attract capital, maintain trade relations, and, in general, its potential to develop a healthy and sustainable economy.

Do self-contained societies hold the naive idea that they are not seen or scrutinized by the countries of the world, or do they intentionallyavoid creating a realistic picture of themselves? It is unknown. However, in the international community, a biased picture created by a country about itself is not accepted as data to determine its reliability, nor are economic values the only things looked at to determine credibility. Looking at some of these criteria is important for understanding what developed countries mean by the word credibility.

• The rate of civil and commercial criminality in the country
• The numbers of femicides and rapes, and the legal procedures related to this issue
• The balance of working conditions, income, and living standards
• Freedom of thought and expression
• The number of child laborers
• Literacy and reading comprehension levels
• The number and quality of scientific studies published internationally
• The number and nature of international commercial lawsuits

These are just some of these criteria. Ultimately, when a famous politician says from the podium, 'To emerge from the financial crisis and increase investments, it is necessary to raise the credibility rate,' I think the only remaining behavior is to contemplate the general picture and feel sorrow.

JOHN STUART MILL "ON LIBERTY"

The British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill, who lived between 1806 and 1873, justifies the importance of individual liberty for social and economic progress in his work 'On Liberty' as follows: He argues, in essence, that individual liberty is valuable not only for the individual but also for the welfare of society; a society is only capable of making progress if its individuals are able to express and realize themselves.

Because reliability is a result of an open and free society where individual liberties are respected and protected. In such a society, people communicate with each other more honestly and openly; thus, the society creates a reliable, that is, credible impression both domestically and internationally.

Since the path to credibility lies in the social morality spontaneously formed by free individuals, there is no other choice but to resolve the dilemma of the individual who, when it comes to their freedoms, is treated like a primitive human from a remote village, yet is simultaneously expected to live as a part of modern society.

Since it is impossible to cast aside the reality that societies are composed of individual people, one cannot expect free individuals who are capable of trusting and being trustworthy to grow in a society where individuals lack the capacity to decide for themselves what to wear, how to speak, or when and under what conditions to experience their sexuality.

The path to being among developed countries does not lie in pontificating about credibility at economic meetings, but in starting from the very beginning. Because credibility is not just an economic measure, but also a sociological one. It is necessary to transform the individual, who schematizes their subconscious reality as a person from a remote village, into the free, talented, self-confident, honest, and moral human being of the modern world. To achieve this, taking examples from the centuries-long history of reforms in the past of today's developed countries could be a good start.