this post marks a milestone where I have made 8000 post here
at ILP…
and what have I learned in my 15 years here and not necessarily from ILP
but from my thinking, reading and writing…
that values matter…the values we hold make all the difference in the world…
that my words and actions still don’t match…that I still engage in
hypocrisy because my words and my actions don’t match…
at least I am aware of this hypocrisy that I exists in…I look at
my words/language and see if they match my actions…
I claim to be a person of peace, and love and yet, I too
engage in words of violence and brutality in my everyday life
and in my ILP life… when I insult someone here on ILP…
that is not engaging in my words of peace and love…
now one might say, its ok Kropotkin, it is a small thing…
but that is kinda the point, everything is just a small thing…
when are we going to treat those small things as important things…
in my own personal life, I don’t always practice what I preach…
and that is a failure in my life…my words must match my actions…
or I am engaging in hypocrisy…
the first step, the first step always begins at becoming aware…
do I see myself as I act and interact with other people?
am I aware of what I am saying and what I am doing
and do my words match my actions?
we human beings, myself included, go though life sleepwalking
and we act without any thought and we speak without giving it
any thought…
But why Kropotkin? why hold yourself to a higher standard then other people
hold themselves to?
because I am aware and they are not…
also, to follow Nietzsche words, to become an autonomous and rational human being,
I must become aware of myself at all times, while I speak and while I act…
If I am to become a philosopher, a real philosopher, I must connect my
actions with my words… I must become a “man of my word”
and that has been the failure of philosophy, the words, the very fancy words
of a Hume or a Kant or a Locke, have only been just that, words…
they haven’t been put into action…
if we are truly to become philosophers in the truest sense of the word,
we must, must connect our words and our actions…
up till now, philosophy has engaged in a fairly sophisticated version of
hypocrisy, but it has been hypocrisy nevertheless…the words and the
actions haven’t match…in philosophy, outside of one or two people…
Spinoza and Socrates… those two have had their words and their actions, match…
those two and only those two have been the true philosophers
because their words and their actions matched…
they have been authentic to the values of philosophy…
because their words and actions have matched…
and what words should we be engage in?
the explorations and discovery of values…
“what values should we hold?”
“what values make us better human beings?”
“why is love a greater value then hate?”
these and other questions of values is what we should be engaged in…
in my engagement with values, I have found out the truth about being human…
“we are what our values are”
discover your values and you will discover who you are…
and then we can begin our exploration of matching our words/values
with our actions…
Kropotkin