a new understanding of today, time and space.

K: and? what is your point?

Kropotkin

ok, so what happens after we have finished
our reevaluation of values and we have uncovered that
we are no longer indoctrinated with the myths, habits, prejudices
and superstitions of our childhood………what now?

we have returned from our Zen moment and we see the world in a new
light and with new values…now what?

we reintegrate into society with our new found values…values that
we can truly believe that are our values, not inherited values from
our childhood indoctrinations…and we use these values to understand
the world, with values that are truly our own……

“but it is not enough to understand the world,
we must change it”

Karl Marx said that……and he is right…

we must take our new values and transform the world…

the change we seek is based upon the values we have uncovered
in our reevaluation of values…

let us say, we have found that love is the value that we must
transform the world with… and we go from the particular, individual
value of love to a universal value of love…values that can be used to
protect the system we inhabit……. for we are social creatures,
we exists in groups, which are systems and those systems, if they
are worth keeping, are worth protecting with our newly found values…
we exist with each other and we need each other and the way we co-exist
is by values that we use as we interact with each other and the values
that drive our systems…in other words, what values give our social
systems the ability to be stable… love is far better at keeping a system
stable then hate……. hate will destroy a system, be it a family system,
a political system, a chess club, anywhere we come together to form a system…

hate is surely as much a value as love and which value makes the system
stronger and more stable and allows one a chance to exist and grow,
hate or love? I think we all know the answer to that… we are social
creatures and our values must reflect that…our values must not only
represent us, but those values represent who we want to be…

our values belong in the past, present and future…….
that is why we must find our values, not the indoctrinated ones,
but our true values…….for this allows us to not only co-exist with
others, but to co-exist within ourselves…it is not enough to
hold values if we don’t use those values to transform the world,
the many systems we are part of…we use these new values
to find our place in the universe, the world, this reality, within
our social groups/systems and we use those values to become who we are……

the center of human existence lies in the values that we hold, be it
negative values like hate, anger, lust, greed or for positive values like
love, peace, hope, charity among other positive values………

the positive values allow our system be it us or be it our political
or social or economic system to exist and prosper and maintain its
stability……

negative values damage us and the systems we are part of………

holding positive values allows the system and us to grow and prosper…

so, what values do you hold? and why?

Kropotkin

in thinking about Kant’s three questions,

what can I/we know,
what should I/we do
and what ought I/we hope for…

the second, what should we do is really a political question…
the first is a philosophical/scientific question
and the third is a religious question…

( recall that in Kant’s age, there wasn’t the split between science
and philosophy that there is now… science was philosophy
and philosophy was science) it was called Natural philosophy……

anyway, back to the the second question, the political question of
what am I/we to do?

what is the goal of life? that is essentially what the question
is asking, what is the goal of life… and that goal gives us our
actions as needed…once again, I bring up the idea of taking
a journey… without a goal, a destination the journey cannot
be completed until we have a goal/destination…otherwise
we are just aimlessly wondering around the land… which is in
fact exactly what American has been doing these last few decades because
we haven’t had a goal or destination to aim for and it is preventing us
from us accomplishing anything… we have been aimless wondering
about with no goal to aim for… that is precisely what has been the
problem with America these last decades… and the role of the partisan
followers in this biblical wondering the desert for the last 40 years?

their role has been to prevent us from creating a goal, a destination for
us to reach…their partisan bickering has prevented America from
coalescing around a goal from which we can then begin to move forward…

one of my major beefs with Obama has been he didn’t form or create a
grand vision to us to travel toward… he presidency was an ad hoc one,
where they went from one crisis to another without any master plan to
get ahead of the every increasing crisis… he went from position to
position but never connecting the positions into one master grand plan which
created a goal/destination for us to try for or reach…

begin with a master plan and then treat the following crisis under
the master plan…… so, the way forward is to treat any event or crisis
as part of the master plan and subsume those events into the destination
we are trying to reach…

so we have a terrorist attack… instead of treating it as a separate
and individual event, it becomes part of a overall, overarching plan
in which the terrorist attack is becomes part of the overall master plan…
instead of treating the terrorist attack, ad hoc, as a single individual event…

we treat the terrorist attack within the confines of the master plan…
we simply react to it as part of a comprehensive already created plan…
our response is one of, this has been expected and is already accounted
for in the master plan…… because we know what our destination is going
to be, we can simply overcome this and continue on to our overall goal……
9/11 didn’t need to become the clusterfuck it became if, if they had
simply had a plan in place to overcome it…… in other words, the 9/11
American response was far worse then the actual attack… the attacks
damage was not physical but mental, psychological… it damage our
psyche far more then it did physical damage………and it needed to be
treated that way……. it wasn’t the physical damage of 9/11 that was
the problem, but the damage to the psyche was the problem…

and by having an overall, overarching plan that had such events like
9/11 within them, we could have easily overcome such events…
if we had a plan, a goal, a destination to reach, 9/11 wouldn’t have
been such a deal… but because we didn’t, we simply reacted ad hoc
and by doing so, overacted in such a way to severely damage
America in the short run and the long run………

if you have a plan, a goal and you hit a setback,
that is exactly how you can say it, ah, we hit a setback but
it doesn’t matter because it is a small setback that won’t prevent
us from reaching our goal……. if you have a goal of saving
a million dollars and you have a setback of your house burning down,
that is a setback for sure, but it doesn’t have to stop you from reaching
your goal/destination… you simply take it as a setback and continue on
building your wealth to a million dollars… it doesn’t become something
that is permanent and stops one from reaching their goal/destination…
no, it is just a temporary setback and that is what 9/11 should have been…

a temporary setback… not an end all, be all………….

so what should I/we do… is really a political question and requires
us to think about and decide upon a goal/destination…….

so, what goal/destination should we try to reach for or decide upon?

and how does that goal fit into the question of “what are we to do”?

for the one answer tell us about the one question…

so, what should our goal/destination be?

Kropotkin

a good friend sent me something by William Hazlett,

"On the ignorance of the learned from table talk, Essays on
Men and Manners (1822)………

as this little essay strikes pretty much where I am at
at this moment, I shall comment on the essay in regards to
certain aspects of what I have been thinking about…

Hazlett speaks of learning from a book… most readers
passively read a book… but I have learned over the years
and have put into practice these last few years…
is the art of engagement with the reading material…

in other words, I engage in a dialogue with the written material…
learning, true learning is a dialogue between two people…by engaging
in a dialogue with the material, we bring out the matter at hand in
our minds……. if we are passive, we simply absorb what the writer
has said and we may or may not understand it………. but by
a dialogue with the writer, we can get a better sense of what the
writer was saying and most importantly, we can create
a dialogue within ourselves about the material at hand………

so given this understanding of how in writing and especially
in philosophy, we must engage in dialogue with what we read,
who is the best philosopher on ILP?

the answer is rather easy given the engagement in the material
by both parties… he demands engagement with the material…

of course the answer is …. Iambiguous……… because he demands
engagement with the material… he wants dialogue about the matters
at hand……….he doesn’t engage in polemics like the rest of us…
he engages in dialogue……. we all could learn something from
Iambiguous…………… I know I can………

Kropotkin

so let us extend this idea…… the idea of engagement with the
material instead of just passive interactions with the material…

we can say this is true of our political interactions…

for our bottom line about human beings is we are social
creatures… ignore or forget about this fact at your own risk…

we are social creatures and and all we do or think about, must
reflect the basic fact we are social creature…

so, for us to become our best selfs, we must engage with
that aspect of human beings being social creatures…

and that includes, especally includes the political
part of the human being… we are social creatures and
we best discover this aspect of ourselves in the city…

it is in this action and interaction in the city with our fellow
human beings that create or brings out the best of us…

so is the modern city today, best suited to bring out the best of us
by our interactions with our fellow citizens?

by god, no… in fact, we have created cities that
more and more prevent interactions with our fellow citizens…
we walk around with our nose’s stuck in our “smart phones”,
and we hid ourselves in our houses watching bad TV shows like
the “real housewives of… whateve” we have isolated ourselves
from our fellow man, our fellow citizen and that lack of
dialogue, that lack of interaction with our fellow person,
has damaged us………… I am just as guilty of this as anyone else…

I cannot grow as a human being without interacting with my fellow citizens…
it is within the dialogue and interactions with my fellow human being
that will allow me become something more… to overcome who
I am now…………. it is in the engagement with my fellow citizens,
not in my being passive, that will allow me to become who I am………

so, we have as our basis of being human, first of all, awareness
and secondly, engagement…we must be aware of who we are
and what we might become and we must become engage in that
prospect and engage within ourselves and with our fellow human beings……

so, if you ask yourself, what can I do to be a better human being?
(and I ask you, has any of you ever asked yourself what can
I do to become a better human being? the sound of silence…

so to become a better human being
become aware and engage with whatever reality you are facing…

Kropotkin

so given what we see in this modern age, what is
the most prevalent attitude we see in this most modern of times?

I would say, passivity/resignation……. all those conspiracy
advocates have abdicated from their engagement with
the modern world and have retreated into their own
fantasy world filled with hate and conspiracies against
them…… and most of the rest, allow their time to be fill with
the minutiae of daily life… who is picking up bobby from school
and what time is the recital tonight? and others, escape with
video games and having their noses in I-phones on such silly sites
like facebook with its fake friends………the modern world
is just a life long attempt to escape accountability/responsibility
for our own existence……………….

if there was one phrase I would use for the modern world,
this is it…

we use the tools of the modern world to escape
any type of engagement with ourselves or the world…….

this is why passive ism’s and ideologies appeal to us…
it allows us to maintain our life long attempt to
be passive in the face of life……………

such active ism’s and ideologies are frowned upon because
they force us to engage with ourselves…… communism and
anarchism is hated because it forces people to engage…
philosophy done right, forces people to engage with who they are…….
religion allows passivity because it allows god to be the
center of focus instead of where the focus should be which is
right on us……… the philosophical sayings of, become who you are…
is disliked because it forces a person to engage with becoming who
you are……… if taken seriously, you must engage to become who you are…

the Socratic saying of, the unexamined life is not worth living…
becomes an act of engagement into your own life…………
you must engage to examine your own life…….

“it is not enough to have the courage of your convictions,
you must have the courage for an attack upon your convictions”

that quote if taken seriously, forces one to become engaged with
your own life… you cannot be passive and have the courage
for an attack upon your convictions… that courage requires
engagement into your values……………… to discover what
values you believe in, requires engagement……. you cannot be
passive…………

are you engaged in your life or are you passive?

are you becoming who you are?

are you engaging in an attack upon your convictions?

are you examining your life, your values?

if you have only one point in life, that point is simply this,
become engaged……….in your life, in your values, in who you are…….

are you engaged?

Kropotkin

so, thinking about our “existential choice”…
in other words, the choice of values, what values are we to
follow or engage with………

the “existential choice” of the Christian is to follow the values
of Christ……. but do they? I have already answered this one as no……
because the Christian has abandon those values of Christ, of compassion,
of charity, of love of thy neighbors, of the sermon on the mount
and the parable of the good Samaritan…… all of which has been
abandon for the hypocrisy in supporting the party of treason, the GOP,
and the traitor in chief, IQ45…….

the “existential choice” we have, is what values are we going to have or use, to live
our life…………………….

are we going to engage with the values that are positive, like
love and peace and justice and equality and charity or are we going to
engage with negative values like hate, fear, greed, lust, anger…….

this discussion of values is at the heart of the discussion of who we
are as Americans……. we might say, we support the American values
of truth, justice and the American way of life………

if you support the right or the treason party, then your values
are of hate and anger and greed and those values that you claim
of Truth, justice and the American way of life really means,
not truth, for the GOP and traitor IQ45 is against the truth,
is against justice for justice as its heart is about equality…
justice demands that we treat everyone equally regardless
of position, wealth or power and if we don’t treat everyone equally,
then we don’t have justice and we clearly don’t treat everyone equally
under the law, so we don’t have justice and if you don’t support
equality/justice, you cannot say you are a supporter of truth, justice
and the American way of life…………

so in the end, what values do you support?
do you even know what values you support?

for to know what values one actually does support, means for one
to engage in an examination of your life and who has the courage
for such an examination?

so who are you? you are the values you engage with and the values
you act upon and the values you live your life with………………

your actions determine who you are and your values decide your actions…
so, what are your values?

that is the “existential choice” we have…our values………

Kropotkin

we also have “existential choice” in other ways…

but let me lay this out…

we have as I have noted, one way, which is engagment,
active participation in our lives… becoming who you are, is not
an passive matter, it is an active/engaged activity…

but there is an second way of philosophy…
and that is reflected in those who seek retirement from
the way of the world… in other words, philosophical pursuit is
meant to teach one to retreat into one’s own indifference and
passive nature…the christian best shows us this, when he/she
retreats into contemplation of god and makes the “existential choice”
of not engaging in the world and escaping from the world…

when one says, pox on both sides, they are accepting this idea,
that best way to travel through life is by not engaging in the world…

those who retire to the monastery or escape into the desert to
contemplate god… are escaping from life, not engaging in life…

that is an “existential choice” and then there is a third way…
the way of using philosophy to heal…man has a soul disease
and we use philosophy to cure him…Socrates for example,
often speaks of doctors who heal and he says that a philosopher is
a healer of souls…

so we have philosophy being one of three actions, first is engagement,
the second is retreat into oneself and the third is using philosophy as
an act of healing of one’s soul or the societies soul… as it is often the
case that the reason a person is soul sick is because the society is
soul sick… the act of personal alienation is being soul sick because
the society is sick and you have become alienated from that society
because it is sick…how are we to heal oneself or the society?

that is the question for philosophy and philosophers…

so, which of the three possibilities do you accept,
the healing of philosophy,
the escape of philosophy or
the engagement of philosophy?

make your choice, your “existential choice”

Kropotkin

let us take a better look at these three “existential choices”

one is engagement,
two is retreat
and three is healing…

let us at two, retreat…

we have seen number two, retreat, practice a great deal since
the beginning of time… I have spoken of the Christian during
the Roman era that practice retreat, escape from society…

we also have Greek philosophical practices of the Epicurean school for example,
that preached that the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, by
achieving peace and freedom from fear and the attainment of the absence of pain…

this is done by escape into the self-sufficient life surrounded by friends……

don’t depend on society but become self sufficient both physically and mentally…

you also have such “religions” as Buddhism which proclaims that the prime
factor in the universe is suffering and we must escape from this “suffering”
by withdrawing from life and working on becoming “enlighten” or gaining peace
by becoming or having “enlightenment”… withdrawal is the key………

and we see this today…… the withdrawal of people from the political process…
we have less then 50 % of those eligible to vote,who actually vote… this is
the withdrawal idea from the political “storm and stress” that we see every day…

we see this at work every single day… but is this “existential choice” the right choice?

let us rephrase this, what values do we want us to have, us, being you and me?

what values do we want society to have? and does withdrawal into ourselves
represent those values we have decided upon?

we rarely have answer, only questions………

Kropotkin

so we have the three forms of philosophy,
the engagement, the retreat and the healing aspect of philosophy…

and we have Kant’s three questions and they are…

What can I know?
what can I do?
and what can I hope for?

so, we ask, of the three forms of philosophy,
into what category do the three questions of Kant fall into?

do the Kantian questions fall into the engagement form of philosophy
or do the Kantian questions fall into the retreat form of philosophy
or do the Kantian questions fall into the healing form of philosophy?

the three Kantian questions seem not to be about retreat as they are
active questions, what can I…
and the three Kantian questions don’t seem to fall into the healing form
of philosophy and so, by process of elimination, we are left with
the Kantian questions being an engagement form of philosophy…

What can I know? Descartes answer this question with,
Cogito, ergo sum… I think therefore I am…
and every philosopher after that to Kant attempted to answer this
question in light of the new scientific method that had
thrown the entire question into question… the new science had
denied the prior precedence of authority like Aristotle and the bible…
so, that is why this new question of, what can I know, was so important…

What can I do? in light of the new philosophy, this question is also
about engagement……. what can I do? or what should I do? can also
be asked………… and we have the new philosophy saying that we don’t have
to follow the old ways, the old method, the old authorities…we can find
a new path into the brave new world… thus the answer to the question of,
what can I do, or what should I do, is also about engagement…
how do I engage with the world?

and what can I hope for? what can I hope for?
and this question is also about engagement…….
it isn’t a retreat form of question and it isn’t about healing,
it is about how do I hope, which is another form of engagement…
it is engagement about the future… to what can I hope for in the future?
and can I make it happen in light of what can I do, or what should I do?

for the future is about making hope become real……. and that is engagement…

and searching for the truth? what form of philosophy is that?
is searching for the truth, engagement or retreat or healing???

Kropotkin

we have three forms of philosophy,
the engagement,
the retreat
the healing…

is that it? is that all of philosophy that we have to think about?

no, I believe that there are other forms of philosophy
we have to find those forms of philosophy, but I think
they exists………… we might have not just three forms
of philosophy but maybe 4 or 5 or even 6 forms of philosophy…

what other forms of philosophy might we have besides the
engagement, the retreat or the healing form of philosophy?

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin: we have three forms of philosophy,
the engagement,
the retreat
the healing…

is that it? is that all of philosophy that we have to think about?

no, I believe that there are other forms of philosophy
we have to find those forms of philosophy, but I think
they exists………… we might have not just three forms
of philosophy but maybe 4 or 5 or even 6 forms of philosophy…

what other forms of philosophy might we have besides the
engagement, the retreat or the healing form of philosophy?

K: so I asked, what other forms of philosophy might we have
besides the engagement form, the retreat form and the
healing form of philosophy?

we have another form… this is the ancient idea… it is a
different type of philosophy and that is the idea of philosophy
as a way of life……….

Our modern world treats philosophy as a subject matter to be learned,
like math or history or economics… we “know” our philosophy if we can
babble speak in philosophical jargon that only other “philosophers” can
understand……… if we know about what philosophers believed in
in certain idea’s… if we can pass a test saying that it was Plato,
who created the idea of the eternal forms and that it was Descartes
who by skepticism, came up with Cogito, ergo sum…if we learn
philosophy as an intellectual pursuit… with no practical applications…
that is how we learn philosophy… as facts and figures to be remembered,
not lived, but remembered……….

but in the ancient world, philosophy wasn’t like this……. you went
into philosophy not to remember facts like it was Plato and his
eternal forms……… no, you went into philosophy as a way of life……

Philosophy wasn’t just to be studied, remembered and then forgotten…
no, it was to be lived… and that is the next form of philosophy,
philosophy as lived…………. philosophy guides one into our lives…
how to live? philosophy tell us how to live……… What are we to do?
philosophy will tell us…… what are we to hope for? by not only studying
philosophy, but by living philosophy can we be able to know what we
ought to hope for…………………

and that is what is missing in philosophy these days, right now, it is a sterile, dead
thing that is memorized instead of being a breathing, living ideal to be
lived… we must live our philosophy, not just turn it into some academic
subject……………… why study philosophy if you are not able to or willing to
live your life by your philosophy…… it is just an academic exercise otherwise……

so, we have the engagement form of philosophy…
we have the retreat form of philosophy…
we have the healing form of philosophy…
and we have the next form of philosophy…
that to be lived form of philosophy/philosophy as a way of life…

Kropotkin

It has been suggested that I don’t put enough
emphasis upon the spiritual side of human beings…

we are spiritual beings, not material beings…
that is the message of religion anyway…
true or not…

we need to have some spiritual engagement in order
to fulfill our need for “metaphysics”…

and we call metaphysics, that which is beyond the physical,
and that is a need of the human being, to understand
that which is beyond the physical…

but what if, what if we take philosophy and use that
as a spiritual device… what if we understood philosophy
as a spiritual guide… how would that work?

it becomes a guide that tells us how we are to live our lives…
and that guide arises not from metaphysics as such, but
from the collection of all of us… philosophy is really
just guide that arises from not just the parts, philosophers,
but from the whole, which is all of us…

sometimes, the parts are greater then the whole…
and this is true of philosophy… the parts of philosophy is
greater then the whole…we can treat philosophy as
as a spiritual guide because it is the collective wisdom of
all of us…………… individual man can be deceived and
mistaken, but all of us…… we are the whole……. like the
universe……… the individual parts may be flawed but the
whole is wisdom incarnate………………….

this may be another form of philosophy:
so, we have as forms of philosophy,

philosophy as an engagement into life,
philosophy as a retreat from life,
philosophy as means to heal life,
philosophy as a way of life,
now, we have philosophy as a spiritual guide to life……

Kropotkin

possibly, just possibly we can use philosophy as
revealed text like a biblical revelation…

the word of Descartes was Cogito, ergo sum…
and we then study this aspect like a
layperson studies biblical revelation…………

the authority of Descartes is to use his method of
skepticism to reduce the physical world into a brief
and flashy slogan, like cogito, ergo sum………

and we have Nietzschians who proclaim the word of
Nietzsche as the revealed word of man…….something to
be prayed to as we study it……….he can do no wrong…
he is infallible…….and we pray to the revealed word of Hume
as well as Kant…as we hope they lead us to the promised land
of Knowledge and wisdom…………….those philosophers have
become the voice of authority and traditions that they
fought against in their battle against the revealed word of
Aristotle and the bible…….a voice that lasts a long time,
becomes the revealed word of tradition and authority…….
something to be venerated, but not challenged and certainly not
accused of being wrong………for the infallible ones are never wrong……
they are simply misquoted or misguided… but never wrong…….

if my words last long enough, they too will become the revealed
words of tradition and authority and they too will be venerated
and prayed to as one of the infallible ones…………sometimes,
misquoted or misguided, but never wrong………

Kropotkin

after work has tried to kill me over the last few days, I am back

we have our forms of philosophy:
engagement, retreat, healing, way of life and spiritual forms of philosophy…

let us look at one in particular, the philosophy form as a way of life…

in looking at philosophy, we see philosophy as an intellectual form of
thinking…it doesn’t engage with the emotions and it doesn’t engage
as far as philosophy being a way of life…

and philosophy began its journey, not as a theoritical exercise that
philosophy is now, but as a way of life… how are we to live?
and the answer would be, we would live as a philosophical life…

the problem with philosophy today is that it doesn’t provide a way of life for us…
philosophy for us, is the dry boring facts that Descartes said this and Nietzsche
believed this and Kant meant this… but what about those things having
some meaning for us… If we truly believed Nietzsche, then we should
base our lives on his principles that he laid out… we should become the person
that Nietzsche thought we should be… a philosophy is meant to be lived,
not studied and analyze and compared to each other… we must live our
philosophy, not just study it…

when I was younger, I was a pacifist, I didn’t believe in violence and
I commited myself to non-violent actions… so I lived my life
in regards to being non-violent…I walked away from some situations
that would have been violent, to avoid violence…

I not only had the belief, but I lived my life in support of that
belief… as an anarchist, I did not commit any act of violence…
I lived my beliefs… not as just an intellectual exercise, but as a
way of life… I was an anarchist, so I lived that life… I was off the grid,
didn’t have a car, didn’t have a bank account, didn’t pay taxes…
I engaged with my beliefs as a way of life……………

if you have certain beliefs, then as a practical matter, you must
engage with those beliefs to the point of attempting to use those
beliefs as a platform for a way of life…………….

philosophy not as a intellectual exercise but as a belief system to
some way of life……………it is not enough to say that Descartes
tried to create certainty as a basis for knowledge, but how does that
translate into a way of life?

how would we use each philosopher belief’s to create a way of life for us?

Let us take Nietzsche, how would we use his philosophy to create a way of life?

could we use Nietzsche philosophy as a guide for a way of life?

Would we want to? is it a way of life worth living? I would say no… we
couldn’t use Nietzsche’s philosophy as a guide to a way of life…….

but upon reflection, there are very, very few philosophers whose
beliefs could be used as a way of life……… Not Descartes, not Spinoza,
not Hume or Kant or Hegel, the first one that comes to mind is Kierkegaard…
he engages us into thinking about living our life on the basis of some
philosophy……………….the Existentialist are really the group that hold
beliefs that could be used as some basis for a way of life…….

so what beliefs do you hold that matches your way of life?

do you even live you life based on some philosophy?

is your philosophy a means to a way of life?

can you even use your philosophy as a way of life?

few can……….

what philosopher would you used as a way of life?

Kropotkin

of the three Kantian questions,
what can I know?
what should I do?
and what ought I hope for?

the question of philosophy really seems to lie with the second question,
what should I do?

Indeed, what should I do, does rank high on the questions of life…

what should I do, isn’t tied into what should “I” do,
but what should I/we should do… as we don’t exists in a vacuum,
we are social creatures and exists in the midst of billions of my fellow human
beings… so the question about what should “I” do is really a social question
about how do I fit into an already created world that has the many roles a
human can be, already laid out… in other words, our possible choices
for what can I do, is a path that has been laid out for me…

if I want to be a doctor, that path is laid out, I go to collage then medical school,
then an internship then……… the road to being a doctor is very clearly laid out…

as is the road to being a lawyer or a teacher or a policeman……. the path to
a career is very clearly laid out to us… and it requires schooling…
where we get trained into the occupations we might wish to do…

but schooling has another function, which is to indoctrinated all of us
into being good citizens and worker bee’s for the state and its religion,
capitalism………

what am I to do… as a question doesn’t seem to have any answers outside
of the approved course of schooling and indoctrination into what society
expects us to be………recall the greatest crime of humanity, which is not
murder, but insubordination… clearly laid out in the bible with the story
of Adam and Eve…and rebelling against the approved course of schooling
and indoctrination will leave one being punished by society………….

what am I to do? must, must follow the approved path of society or
be labeled the insubordination names, like anarchist or troublemaker
or deviant with the threat of being cast out of paradise like Adam………

(has it ever occurred to anyone, that the garden of Eden, was really
a nightmare… think about it, all you could do was wander about in
a garden and do nothing…outside of praising god, for god really,
really, really wants praise which means god is an egotistical maniac
and we best got out of the garden to escape that egotistical maniac)

anyway, we need an reevaluation of values in regards not only to
our values, but to the path to being human… for that path
doesn’t seem to lie along the set path that we have before us
in deciding what are we to do, in regards to our making a living…

but that itself is a problem for the question of what are we to do,
must that question really be about our choice of making a living…

for there seems to be so much more to existence then just making a
living……. and that leaves us with another question, if we aren’t just
about making a living, then what are our possibilities?

what are we to do, does that really mean, to make a living or, or
does that mean something else?

Kropotkin

let us look at this another way…….

let us think about values… what values do we want, what values
should we strive for, what values are we against?

let us look at the old testament…… look at the value offered
by the god in the old testament?

we have a whole lot of vengeance and hate and a lot of smoting
which is god who "strikes hard, or hit hard, to strike down, injure, slay…
the god of the old testament is a violent god, a vengeful god, a vindictive
god… so let us try this, let us say, we creating god… why would we have
created such a god with any redeeming values? the values this god offers is
of negative values…why the need to create a god with such negative values?

which leaves us the question as to why follow such a negative god?

let us look at the value of the new testament… Jesus says
let us look at new values, a new way of approaching life matters…

and he speaks of love and charity and compassion… a 180 degree
turn from the god of the old testament…

these values are values worth emulating, for these are positive values,
values worth holding, worth living by and worth raising our children
in these values, not the values of the old testament… but the values
of the new testament…

ok, so today, read the news, see the events going on…
are the party of treason, the GOP, promoting positive values like
love, charity, compassion?.. no, the so called, alleged Christian
party doesn’t champion such values of the new testament,
like love and charity and compassion… not if they are tearing
children away from their parents or denying held care for people because
of pre-existing conditions, or reducing the amount of money old people need
to feed and house themselves in reducing social security or medicare………

are the values the party of treason promotes, really the values of the new
testament?

so create a god, a god in your image……. what would that god look like?
what values would that god promote?

do as the people of the old testament did and create a god in their image?

what would that god look like and what values would they promote?

Kropotkin

as suggested in the last post, we need to understand
what values are really offered in the bible and in god,
specifically?

the question of god and values takes us pretty far into theology but
I think its a trip worth taking for what it says about us today…

We have the biblical idea of god, the Judeo Christian that has
existed for thousands of years………… and we have values…
so what values are offered by the Judeo Christian religion?

as I pointed out in the last post, we have two different, separate
value systems…one in the old testament and one in the new…

the old testament god has values and what are those values?

the new testament god offers us a mean, vindictive, petty, egotistical, violent
values among other negative values…

the new testament god offers us more positive values of love, charity,
compassion, pity and some negative values like guilt and being passive……
or as Nietzsche called it, slave morality…………

which set of value would you rather follow?

as for me, neither set of values seems to me to be worth anything because
of the negativity in each………

although if forced to choose, I would choose the new testament values because
they seem to have more positive values attached to them…

so let us try this thought experiment… what values should a god hold
that would allow us to follow those values?

in other words, if we were to follow a god’s values, what would those
values look like?

we would begin with the emphasis in the bible on the words,
thou shall not………… thou shall not take thy name in vain, for
example… why didn’t god use the positive values……
instead of following negative value in “thou shall not”

why not have positive values like “thou shall”
and why the punishment needed to enforce such values…

the more interesting question arises when we ask ourselves,
why did the Jews originally feel the need to state their values
in such a negative statement such as “thou shall not”
and why did they accept such negative values to begin with?

why follow a god whose values system is not a value system that is
based on a negative value system instead of a positive value system?

and what values did the ancient Jews expect people to follow?
for the Jews, it was about obeying the law…… obeying the law
of god……… so in part, the value of the Jews was about our old friend,
the original sin of disobedience……. that the Jews made
disobedience a major part of their religion leads us to question
that religion……… is the idea of obeying the law of god, really,
really the point of existence? to reach the holy goal of heaven required
one to follow this basic point of obedience… one must obey to reach heaven…
to follow the law… is that the point of existence?..………

why not love or peace or the other new testament values?

that the Christians felt the need to change the some aspects of
the values of god, but they still left intact this one basic point,
to reach heaven, one must obey the law, the word of god…….

so, why is obedience so important in religion?

is that really the value we should be concerned with or
are there other values that we need to concern ourselves with?

so, ask yourself, what are the values of god?
and should we obey those values and most importantly,
why, why should we obey those values?

this is step one…

Kropotkin

so in the last post, we asked why values did god have?
and here we ask, what values should god hold?

is it enough for us to understand the positive values of Jesus
or must we act upon the values of Jesus? again, a question
of disobedience…

so what values should one’s god hold?

let us imagine a god, so what values should god hold?

let us think about this in terms of other religions…

the Greeks for example, their gods were humans, who had
human failings and human attributes but these gods were
superhumans… they had superior powers that man did not have
but they had the same failings of man…

so what does that say about the Greeks that they needed their
gods to display human characteristics?

the Judeo-christian god doesn’t display human characteristics…
but the Greek gods do…ask yourself, why?

what does this say about the Greeks and what does it say, about
the Jews and the christians who followed the Jews…

so if we were to follow the Gods of Greece, what would those
values say about us?

they are human, all too human values that the Greek gods had………

but we dismiss those values, why? because for some reason, we must
have a god that is perfect and inscrutable and has his own
reasons for whatever happens?..…… what kind of god is this?
and what values does this god offer us? the random, unpredictability
of god, the Christian god, does match the randomness, the
unpredictability of life as we know it… so perhaps that is the point
of the Judeo-Christian god…… to prepare us for the random,
unpredictability of the universe…………………
and our only answer for such unpredictability is, god has his own
reasons for such actions or unpredictability as it may be…………

perhaps that is the only value of the Judeo-Christian god,
to give us some solace for the unpredictability of the universe…
to allow us to set the blame for such unpredictability on a random
and capricious god… that is the Christian god………

let us look further into this by understanding the Buddhist god…
and the Buddhist universe that is about suffering………… the point of
existence is to escape the suffering that is the lot of all living things…
let us take that as the value the Buddhist god offers,
nothing positive, escaping suffering………

but if god, the Buddhist god had anything to do with the creation
of the universe, then why did they create as the main value of existence
suffering? why is suffering the value of the Buddhist god?
and escaping the suffering as the point of existence…
why value does that offer us?

it is a rather limited understanding of the universe…
the entire point of existence is to escape suffering…….
I would hope that existence is something more then just
escaping suffering or some other limited value…………

and that is the problem of religions…… the values offered
are limited……. in the Judeo-Christian religion, the limited
value offered is one of obeying……… to escape this existence,
one must obey god… and in the Buddhist religion, one
must escape suffering……… such limited understanding of
the human existence… to obey and to avoid suffering…
is that really it? is that really the point and being of existence?

are those really the values that bring us an understanding to the
human condition?

is that the failure of religion in that its understanding of the
human condition really exists in the simple act of either obeying
or the escaping of suffering? We understand the human being
as being much more complicated then just the act of obeying or
the act of escaping suffering…………

why not engage the entire human being… the entire range
of what it means to be human… not by a negative
perception of what it means to be human… “thou shall not”
or to escape suffering?..………. what does it really mean to be
human? not just to obey or to just to escape suffering……
such a limited understanding of what it means to be human…….

for we are such diverse and complex creatures that one simple, limited
understanding of what it means to be human such as obeying or
escaping suffering, fails to properly value what it means to be human…

we are greater then any one single purpose goal of religion be it obeying or
be it escaping suffering………. we are creatures of many and diverse
forms of what it means to be human……… one form of one such answer
be it obey or be it to escape suffering, fails to properly understand
what diverse being we are… to account to us such limited values
as obeying or avoid suffering… is to miss the entire human condition which
is as wide a number as the stars in heaven…

we are a diverse lot, we human beings and what drives us can be
as diverse as the number of stars in the heavens………

we can be driven by hate and love and mercy and curiosity and
kindness and cruelty and often within seconds of each emotion
and we have such emotions that we cannot be as limited as
just having one such emotion as guilt or simply obeying the law
or avoiding suffering… we are far more diverse then that……

let us create a religion that celebrates and understand such diversity
of the human soul that we can be many people and many diverse
emotions often within seconds of each other………………………………….

reject the old school religions because they have failed to
capture what it means to be human… for being human
is more then just obeying the law or to avoid suffering…
it includes obeying and it include avoiding suffering and it
include such idea’s as avoiding and accepting guilt, and
such human possibilities as we have shown us capable of…….

religion must begin by explaining the human creature
in terms of our many diverse and often
opposite emotions and actions………………

our religions have failed us because they have failed to
actually explain who we are in all of our diversity
and possibilities…….

if you want a religion… find one that takes into account who
you really are or, or who you want to be……

and that is the next phase… religion that
explains who we are AND who we might become…

what values are the values that we really need and the values
that will help us become who we want to be…… a religion
leads us into the future, not into the past…
and we don’t have that religion right now……

and that is for the philosopher of the future…
to create a religion that answers our questions as to
who we are and what can be possible for us…
it tells us who we are and who we might become………

I await the religion of the future………

Kropotkin

another sleepless night in California…

as I lay awake thinking, I realized something…

in the traditional thinking about economics, in regards to the
Supply and demand aspect…the idea is that as something becomes
more scarce, due to demand, that that product increases in price…
so, if gold becomes scarce, then the supply and demand theory says, that
gold will become more expensive as the demand drives up the price…

however, as our supply and demand theory of labor shows that this is wrong…

we have a shortage of labor in this country… this is a fact… in every sector
the demand for workers has left virtually every single industry short of workers…
and yet, the wages and salary of said workers has not increased… again
this is fact…the wages of the average workers hasn’t increased enough
to offset the increase in inflation… but the theory of supply and demand
requires that if we have a shortage of workers, the demand for workers
is very high right now, then the wages and salary should reflect this demand
for workers and the wages and salary should be increasing substantially
to offset the shortage of workers and yet, we know, again fact, that wages
and salary has not increased enough to reflect this shortage of workers…
in other words, the idea of supply and demand should, should be able
to show that wages/salary should be increasing by a great deal…
and they aren’t increasing, so, we can tell by the slow rate of increase in wages,
again not enough to offset inflation, that the idea of supply and demand in
economics isn’t correct because wages and salaries should be going through
the roof…… and they aren’t… so if a major tenant of economics,
this idea of supply and demand doesn’t show a increase in wages/salary,
then the idea of supply and demand is simply wrong……

this is a major component of capitalist theory, the idea of supply and demand,
where the market sets the prices of objects AND the wages/salaries…
then something is radically wrong with the theory and capitalism is
fundamentally wrong in its theory of supply and demand… and that
failure leads us to the conclusion that capitalism is built upon a
false theory, the theory of supply and demand……………

if wages/salaries fail to rise when workers are in high demand,
then the theory of supply and demand is a dead theory and
capitalism is simply wrong…

Kropotkin