a new understanding of today, time and space.

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

the question of values in our religious viewpoint…

the Buddhist belief that the basic idea of life is that
life is about suffering and we must somehow escape suffering…
the whole point of Buddhism is to find a way to escape the suffering
of life, of getting old and of pain and death, of loss…

and the Judeo-Christian belief is about obeying the law
disobedience is the greatest crime in the Judeo-Christian
world……. “thou shall not” and what happens if one disobeys?
they are punished for an eternity………

in Islam, the purpose of the existence is to worship god or to know him…

the very word, Islam itself, is the verbal form of the form IV
of the root and it means, “submission” or “surrender”
the whole point of Islam is to bow down to the will of god,
to surrender or become submissive to god…….

the god of Islam is a very abstract god, very much like the Judeo-Christian god…
and the values of Islam, that god is merciful, all powerful and unique…
and humans should have certain values…the Quran is about moral guidance…
there are 5 basic points to Islam or acts of worship… the creed or testimony
“I testify that there is no god, but god and Muhammad is the messenger of god”
prayer, charity, fasting, and finally pilgrimage……….

so we see the values of Islam, of god what expects of us……

so we see that in Islam that the value that is really expected is
this idea of submission or surrender to the will of god……

it is no different than a Christian saying, “put your faith in god”

so we see that religions seem to focus on one particular aspect of
the human being……… one religion demands surrender
and another demands obedience and another requires us
to escape from suffering………… or we shall suffer forever and ever……

there has yet been a religion that answers to or understands
the completeness that is the human being… for we are not just
a soul that simply yearns for a reunion with god… that is one
aspect of the human creature…………for each religion, in its own way,
makes a central point that the human being must be completed
by a reunion with god… and that reunion is found by doing the task
required by that religion… obedience by the Judeo-Christian,
submission by the Muslim, to escaping suffering by the Buddhist…
each religion has a central task that must be completed to reach
heaven and god……….

but is that task really the task that we humans should be doing?

because the understanding of the human creature by each religion
is one aspect of a human beings soul… obedience or submission
or escape…………

the religions don’t involve us as complete human beings…
they just apply to some partial aspect of our human nature…

the religions are incomplete until they answer the larger questions
of who are we and what are our possibilities…

“Who are we”……. we are some mixed possibilities of
a Einstein and Jack the ripper and Mozart and Ed Gein and
Lincoln and Stalin and Jesus and Ted Bundy……… in each of us,
lies each possibility of being each and every one of these people………

are we kind or mean or vicious or greedy or loving or musical or
artistic or do we torture for the joy of it……. yes………
yes, we are all these things and often within minutes
of each possibility……………

within us lies the possibilities of our human nature, both good
and evil……. but religions are simply representations of one side of
us and religions don’t capture all the possibilities that exists within us
human beings… Religions shine a light on a single possibility for us human beings…
be it obedience or submission or escaping… religions don’t
cover all the possibilities of what it means to be human… and that
is the failure of religions…….

religions don’t cover all the values that make up our human existence…
and values are what make human existence worth living for………

and until we have a religion that understand that we are looking
for values that make existence bearable………… and it is in this
question of values that make our current religions a failure…….

what values should we hold and why? Religion cannot answer this
question because religions are based on a single identity of the
human existence………… and we are so much more then a single
identity… be it obedience or submission or escaping…

we are all three values and so much more… and religions must
reflect that…………………

Kropotkin

how do we overcome the human condition?

first, we have to identify the human condition……

the human condition is among other things,
the tragedy of human existence…we suffer, we live and die,
often in pain and misery… the human existence is not a pleasant one…

the trick is to try to turn human existence into a more
pleasant experience… we can do this by two ways,
change the enviroment we exist in and that has proven hard
to do… or we can adjust how we look at human existence…

and that is the path of the ancient philosophers… learn to
adjust how we look at human existence…one such way, not necessarily
a way I would suggest, but to become indifferent to human existence…

turn away from both pain and pleasure and if either comes, to become
indifferent to both pain and pleasure…

to accept both pain and pleasure with equal indifference…
for oftentimes we react to pain or pleasure based on
nothing more then how we feel about it… the event that gives
us pain or pleasure is really neutral… it is our reaction to it that
creates the pain or pleasure… so, by not having a reaction to
either pain or pleasure, we aren’t toss about the waves of human existence…

the death of a brother can be a tragic event and we can wail and
cry and carry on for days on end and no one would blame us…
or, or we can simply accept as that thing that will happen to all of us
and it just happened to him… there is no need to wail or cry for days on
end if we simply accept and understand what has happened……

the death of a brother doesn’t need to become a emotional upheaval that
most people make it… it can simply be acknowledge and accepted as
another step in our human existence……… no need to wail or cry or carry on
for days on end………….how we approach such matters becomes a matter
of our understanding the human experience and death is part of the human
experience…………

so our attitude toward the human experience can lead us to a better
response to the human condition…………….

this is one possibility for our understanding of the human experience…

there are other possibilities in our response to the human condition…

the Buddha has one such possibility and the Jews have another response
to the human experience and the Christians have another response
and Islam has another response… we can respond to the human condition
with a religious response…

another possibility is by the acquisition of values that give our lives some value
and create values that give our death meaning…… ………
I would happily go to my death if it meant protecting my family from
grave harm…… that family creates a value that we can live by and die
by is the strength of having family………………

the human condition is about what we face in this life… and some
of it is bad and some of it is good and what is our response to
both the good and the bad…………

this question of the human condition is tied into the values we have
and the values we should have and the values we need to overcome……

Kropotkin

when born, we are born into the human condition…
but what exactly does that mean?

it means that when we are born, we are born with a series of
questions hanging over us……

and the Kantian questions, seem to offer us some guide as
to the nature of these questions…

What can we know?
what should I do?
what ought I hope for?

but perhaps, we can speak more directly to the nature of
the questions in regards to the human condition…

What can I know? When we are born, we have no knowledge,
knowledge that can tell us about what should we do or
what can we hope for…

perhaps we should change our knowledge question into something else?

perhaps the question should be, what should I know? but that leads
us to other questions like, should know for what?
what should we know to accomplish what?
to ask what we should know implies that there is some ending process
or an end that we should gain knowledge for…

if the goal is wisdom, then we should gain knowledge about how to
get wisdom…or the the end or the point of life is to meet god,
then our knowledge should be to that end… the point of life dictates
what the knowledge we should know… but we don’t have that…

We don’t know what the point of life is, so we can’t say what knowledge we
should be trying to get…if the point of life is to say, go into outer space,
then the knowledge we should be trying to get is knowledge specifically
tied into getting into outer space…

so the goal we have dictates the knowledge we need,
but we have no goal, so we don’t know what knowledge we need…

so the next question is, what should I/we do?

once again, the human condition is about what should we do?

should we be avoiding pain and suffering as the Buddhists think or
should we be making money/profits? Should we be making the goal
of life to be obedient? obeying the law? or should we be
gaining knowledge? what should we do, is a basic question
of the human condition…and one we cannot answer until we understand
what is the point/purpose of life. just as the question of knowledge needs
some point or purpose to make sense, the question of what are we to do, also
needs some point or purpose attached to it, for that question to make sense……

is the point of the human condition to gain knowledge that tells us what to do?

and we reach the final question, what should we hope for?

this question also implies some final point or purpose is needed for us to
be able to answer this question………

if wealth and power is the point/purpose of life, the answer to the question
of the human existence, then we should hope for wealth and power…….

we must hope for that which helps us answer the question of our human existence…

for the human condition is really the questions of human existence…….

why am I here? what should I do? what should I know? what should I hope for?

to be born, the very fact of existence forces us to ask these questions…
that is the human condition…… to be forced to wonder about why we are here?
what can we know? what should we hope for? what should I do?

if you don’t wonder about why we are here, then perhaps the indoctrination of
childhood has done its work and all your questions have been answered by
the myths, habits, ism’s and ideologies, biases, prejudices and superstitions
we were taught as children… perhaps, they are enough for you and you have
no need to ask further questions about why you are here, for that is the human
condition, the questions we are faced with when we are born…………………………

but the myths and biases and prejudices and ism’s we are born with,
we must overcome them and by overcoming them, we are faced,
really faced with the questions of human existence, of the human condition…

overcoming those biases and prejudices and myths of childhood, leaves us
with wondering, what is point of existence?

the human condition is simply us asking those basic questions about
why we are here and what should we do?

and we are left with another question, what about values?

how do they fit into the human condition and its questions?

values are simply a means of answering the question that baffle
us, what are we to do? what can we know? what should we hope for?

more on that later…

Kropotkin

so we have the human condition which is the questions
that we are born with… what can I know? what am I supposed do to?
and what ought I hope for?

the one question, what can I know? should really read,
what should I know? should I know such facts that the earth
is 93 million miles from the sun or the declaration of independence
was signed in 1776……

or should we know what is really important in life or what does it mean to be
wise? those types of questions are much more important……

so we have the human condition, which are the questions we face as existing
human beings… and what role does values have in this?

we have values which give us answers to the question of human existence/condition…

the three Kantian questions can be answered by the values we considered to be
important…….what can I know? I can know that love is a better answer to life then hate
or anger or greed……… what am I to do? finding love is one excellent answer
to the question, what should I do? or perhaps, being kind or looking for honesty…
each of these values are worth spending time on……

and what can I hope for? I can hope to find values that are worth living for
and values worth dying for………. values can answer the question
of the human condition……………

it is by values we understand the human condition… for values can answer
the questions posed by human existence or to say the same thing, the human condition…….

for being is simply a question of the values we consider important… to be is to
ask, what are the values I need to understand my existence… the human condition……

which leads us to a question, is existence to be a intellectual game……
you study others to discover what they believed in, or, or do you study
to discover what you believe in………… is philosophy supposed to be
an exercise in learning about what other believed in or is philosophy
supposed to discover the values we need to answer the question of
human existence/human condition

we have made philosophy into a dry, sterile, study of,
of remembering what Nietzsche or Descartes believed in, instead
of philosophy as a study into what I believe in and what are the values
that are important to me and what values are the answers to the question
of human existence…………

and the questions I asks are my questions………
but we can take philosophy and use it to answer
the wider questions of society… what can we know?
what should we do? and what can we hope for?

for our actions don’t exists in a vacuum, we are social creatures
and we exists in many different and diverse groups/systems…….

it is not enough to understand our own personal questions or values but
we must answer the questions of all of us, what should all of us do?
what should all of us believe in? what should all of us hope for?
what should all of us know?

for to be a successful human being is not just about our individual actions/
search for values… but for our society and culture to be strong and successful
and society knowing its questions of human existence/human condition
and the values needed to answer those questions of human existence/human condition…

it is about all of us………. we are in this together… like it or not and our
values must be shared values… it is not enough to answer our individual questions
and ignore the wider questions about the society we live in…….

for society exists too, and the same questions we face individually,
we face collectively and the same answers we find individually, are
answered collectively………. individual values are collective values
so what values should we have individually and what values should we
have collectively?

and how do those values solve the questions of human existence/the human condition?

Kropotkin

what are values? values seem to be something that says something about
us………
here is a list of values, not in any order and certainly by no means
any type of comprehensive list, just a list to give us some idea what a
value is……

excellence, wisdom, persistence, passion, valor, empathy, order,
efficiency, trust, devotion, truth, love, justice, curiosity………
and there are hundreds more values we could have listed………

so, values are something that says something about us…
and values are something that we can say about who we are…

I am persistent… that is a value statement…
I trust people… that too is a value statement…

I have empathy for people…a value statement…
I believe in order…ditto…

so ask yourself, if values say something about us, which values do
you have that say something about you? be honest…

what are your values?

Kropotkin

ok, so you have some sort of list of your values………

which values do you have that are your values or have your
values been indoctrinated into you? if your values match the values
of society, then it is quite possible, that your values were given to you
by society and you never challenged or overcame them…

let us take up the statement, truth, justice and the American way…

truth and justice are clearly values… but and this is important,
are they values worth having? should we in fact, promote these
values over other values? and if we should promote these values,
why?

what values are important for people to have?
and what values should a society at large have?
and once again, why? why should individuals have certain values
and why should society have certain values? what does it say about us
individually and collectively if we have certain values but not other values?

so, let us return to our saying, truth, justice and the American way…
so one value is truth… and here we are saying that truth should be
an individual value and a collective value… but look around you…
see the lies, both individually and collectively… is truth really an American
value? or do we pretend it is, to make ourselves feel better? I would say, we
pretend that truth is an American value because we aren’t truthful at all……
either individually or collectively……….

now should we be truthful……. yes, yes we should be truthful……
so our saying about truth, justice and the American way is really a
comment on something that we need to work on, not really a value we
currently have but we hope to have at some point in the future…

and is this also true about the word, justice… we don’t currently have
justice but at some point we wish to have justice? perhaps… perhaps……

so we hear the right speak about so called “family values”… but
what exactly are family values? can anyone actually name the
values that are considered to be family values or is the term
family values really devoid of any meaning and is just a political
term meant to pretend to say something but actually doesn’t say anything
at all……………

what are the specific values of your country? what are the specific values
that are promoted by where you live? and do those values of country,
match the values you have? and most importantly, what values
do you have and what values should you have?

and as Nietzsche said, what have you overcome? what values have
you overcome? think about it……… how does one overcome a value?

Kropotkin

in light of the values we may or may not have discovered
about ourselves, that leaves the question of what values
should we have? what are the values that make us human beings
and do I have those values?

does my society and culture have values and if so, what are those values
and what values should my society and culture have?

and most importantly, why? always ask yourself why,
when asking any sort of question…

so what values should America have and why?

Kropotkin

so, what exactly does it mean to
have a “revaluation of values”?

you have the values from your childhood indoctrination, the
myths, biases, habits, prejudices, superstitions of your childhood…

now most people don’t ever have a “reevaluation of values”……
they simply just carry on the values of childhood without ever challenging
them, or without ever having a “reevaluation” of those values

let us take patriotism……. USA, USA, USA, USA, USA…….
We’re number one, we’re number one, we’re number one…
chants taught to us a children, but does the fact that U.S in not
number one ever cross anyone’s mind? a “reevaluation of values”
would have one reexamining the “fact” that American is actually number one…….
but the more important question is really, what does it mean to be number one?

do we hold those values or facts that would suggest that we are number one?

we need to come to an understanding of what a country means and what values
would suggest that we are number one and why is it ever important to claim to
be number?

let us take another value, greed… it has been said and is believed that
greed is good, Gordon Gecko, but upon reflection, is greed actually good?

no, no it isn’t……. take a family… let us imagine a family where
greed is the dominant trait or value of the family…
run out in your mind what would happen in a family where greed
was the dominant value………yep, I see it too… that family
would be one of those dysfunctional families we have seen and heard……

values that keeps a family strong is love and hope and laughter
but values that can and will destroy a family is greed and hate,
and fear……. a family can only survive and prosper by having values
that are positive and upbeat…….greed is not a useful value for
a family to have because it will destroy the family and the family members…

and so goes from the small to the large, greed in institutions like business
and politics will also do the same and for the same reasons…………

greed will, in time destroy institutions in business and government
just as surely as it will destroy families who practice greed as a family value……

so what values are necessary for a family to survive and prosper?
and what values are necessary for a government to survive and prosper?
and what values are necessary for a society and culture to survive and prosper?

as systems are systems all over, pretty much the same values which allow one
system to survive is the same as it will take for any other system to survive…

human systems must have the same values to survive and prosper……

if one system has this value and another system has another primary value
and another system has another primary value, the systems cannot work
together or function together……… it is like trying to mate a cat with an elephant…
the two system are too diverse to ever create anything…the two biological systems
are incompatible and so is two systems with a different value systems…….

communism has one value system and capitalism has another value system…
they are not compatible with each other… for them to function together,
they must share the same values………

kinda like couples, if couples don’t share the same values, they will
not last… the same principle that works for a couple works for
institutions and works for governments… for different systems
to work, they must share the same values………………. and we cannot have
greed being the value of the economic system and the main value
for our political system being sacrifice…………

our various systems must share the same values or they won’t work……

so we must define and understand the values upon we base all our systems
upon…………. and such values as greed and hate and anger cannot be the
base values for any system because those values will cause the collapse of
a system because of the instability those values bring into a system……

values that are stable are the values we must install into our system and
any system… values live love and peace and charity and honesty…

we cannot have as our base values, values that destabilize a system…….

and greed is a value that destabilizes because it puts the objects of the greed
before the human being…… life must come before any value…for it is the values
that give life meaning, but life exists before the values……………life takes precedence
over values…………

as the wife wants to go shopping, I must leave you……

Kropotkin