now some believe that the value of a society, civilization comes
from economic or military strength…
for example ask someone, what is the greatest country on earth?
and many in America will say the US…
and asked, why is America the greatest country on earth?
many will say because we are the greatest economically or
the greatest militarily… but is that really the value we put on
a society or a culture? is the GNP is really a sign of being the
greatest country on earth? let us think about other cultures, other
societies… let us, for example, take ancient Greece…
do we value them because they, Athens for example, was the
greatest country on earth because of economic strength or because
of military strength? No, the value we place on ancient Greece and on
Athens in particular is the understanding and creation of such things
as culture and arts and philosophy and history and mathematics…
we remember Greece and Athens not for its military or economic GNP,
but for the other things, for its philosophy and arts and history and math…
Greece created far more in its roughly 180 years of existence then
Rome did in, in a thousand year’s…do we value Rome for its military
and economic strength? No, what value Rome has for us is, in its
legal system…we have a Roman legal system and we have a Greek
everything else…the real value that comes from a culture is not from
its economic or military strength but from its contribution to
succeeding generations…contribution like art, science, philosophy,
history, mathematics and economics…that is the real value of a society…
the value of the Renaissance is not in its economic or military strength but
in its art and philosophy and culture…the rebirth that is the Renaissance is
not economic or military but something greater then that, more profound then
just economic or military…but in the act of creation of beauty and the creation
of knowledge and understanding… so when history writes its verdict of the US…
it will be a negative one… because we stood for false and phony values like the
economic and military… instead of creating real values like artistic or philosophical
or culturally…we are an empty society, creators of empty values like money or fame…
and pretend strength of the military…we offer lower values like greed and
self protection when the higher values of art and philosophy and culture go unanswered
and unwanted…we must become who we are and that isn’t about money or greed
or pretend strength of the military… that becoming is about creating art
and philosophy and a greater understanding of what it means to become human…
the rejection of the lower values of greed and anger and violence and
hate…the rejection of instinctual values and the acceptance of
higher values like love, peace, acceptance… values that make us human
unlike lower values that make us animals… rise above that and become
human… understanding what is the higher values and rising toward those
values is what makes us humans and the true meaning of life…
becoming who we are… which is human beings…and accepting values
that are human and not animal, not instinct…
who are you?
animal or human?
Kropotkin