a new understanding of today, time and space.

Peter,

The rational man is no longer rational that’s what modernity has brought on us maybe punishing us for the violation of the cross that pretty much fixed the divide between those with faith , and that means to me a vestige of what has always guided us has split off , and left us believers who are still holding on for a hero.

That mysticism and clairvoyance are the only remedies to unfortunates like us, since the great schism of The Church, (over the Catholic Demonic Child Molestation ) leaving us believers destitute in spirit .

But we holders on, in the supra rational-natural are merely digging in,
in defiance of those , who wish to squash the very innards of our Soul’s desire and purpose.

That is my stance on making any sense out of the Great Divide that modern man has to endure.

The Sessurian glean for any sign , has become an obsessive practice of negative reinforcement, getting comparative philosophy to further tighten the noose , until life as we know it will have its very essence driven out of the meaning of our existence.

“Fin de siècle”

often refers to the end of the 19th century where the
old Regime of thought and the political and the economic
were themselves negated by new thoughts, beliefs
and ism’s…… You can take the world, the world and
divide it up into two sides, the ancient world and the modern
world with the dividing line being the French revolution…

The end of the old Regime was brought about by, in part, by the
loss of faith in the “old ways” of the political and religious and economic
and the new ways of democracy, capitalism, communism…

but each side of the division had its fatal flaw…
both sides pre French revolution and the “Modern” world
had flaws in that the forces that control each,
are forces that we cannot see or control…

the old way had the religious church, state, cultural
that we know of as the “age of kings” and the long disputation
between the Catholic church and the “modern” Protestant religion…

and the Modern way in which the old forces of church and state were
being destroyed by the new forces of democracy and capitalism…
but democracy and capitalism and communism are all driven by
forces beyond “people’s” understand and control……

we have capitalism which is driven by the unseen and uncontrollable
forces of the “invisible hand of god”, the market forces which operate
outside of and beyond human control…and we have communism which
is driven by the forces of “historical materialism” in which economic classes
are driven to battle each other for mastery of the means of production…
and there is no room for a individual who has dreams and desires and hopes
to fit into this new world driven by forces that doesn’t care about individuals
dreams and desires or hopes…….

this new age after the French revolution is a nihilistic one where both
human beings and their ideals are negated in the pursuit of profits/money…
we are still living in this age…… this age of nihilism… which has
lasted since the French revolution…thus I say unto you… Fin de siècle…
we have reached the end and every end is a new beginning…….

but what shall our new age look like?
what shall be its ideals and principles and philosophies?
upon what values shall we begin anew?

and that is the question… we ever engage in changing
the values to which we live by and live under…

the values of the old regime were negated in the French revolution
and the new values created… and it is time for those values of the
French revolution be negated… and with what values shall we negate
the values of the 19 and 20th century? what shall be the 21st century values
upon we build our society upon? that is the question… the past (values)
and the present (values) equal the future (values)……….

and herby we see the failure of Trumpism… for it has no future…
just like the Nazi values Trumpism follows, values of hate and anger
and mistrust and greed and racism, Nazism/Trumpism cannot be used to
go into the future because those values of hatred and racism and anger cannot
lead us into the future… they are dead end values… we must engage in
a search for values which can lead us into the future…………not the old
Nazi/Trumpism values of the past…what are the new values that
can heal and unite us which is an escape of the Fin de siècle values of the past…

am I Jesus? no, I am merely john the Baptist… proclaiming he/she is coming
with the new values of the coming years… values which can carry us into the future…
values which are pregnant with the new possibilities and a new understanding of
who we are………

here we are at the end of the old age began by the voices of war between 1914
and 1918… we are to begin anew… with values that can take us into the future…
not just MAGA values which are empty and harmful because those values are values
of hate, violence, anger and greed and we cannot go into the future with those values…
hate can only bring us back into the past… and not the future…

so, what are our future values?

Kropotkin

I connect what I have written so far with the great question of our time
and it is a question that has no good answers but demands an answer…

Why does our “modern” age need or want superhero’s?

what is it about this need for superhero’s in our modern age?

I see the need for superhero’s as the same need earlier ages
needed god and for the same reasons…

the first superhero was Superman who was first published in a comic
book in 1938… think about that year…we have had almost a
decade of the depression and was very close to the begining of
the second world war…the rise of superhero’s coincide with
some personal need of ours to be able to combat the “forces”
of evil… we can easily substitute a superhero and god for this
need to punish evildoers… superman and other superhero’s
play god for a modern age that doesn’t believe in god anymore…
we need to find mythic means to fight off evil and…
the next great step in mankind will be the understanding that
we can fight and punish evil without any recourse to supernatural
means like god or superman…

so how do we connect this with the fin de siecle age we live in?

when we have lost the need for a god or a superhero, we are ready
for the next age to begin…

Kropotkin

as I attempt to understand, to know, I am increasingly
becoming isolated from our “modern” world…

“to know”… is as I am ever becoming more aware of, is an
emotional response, not an intellectual response…

My wife will often comment on things I have said with,
“I know”… and yet, I have far greater knowledge of things,
of idea’s, of ism’s… I am book smart, not that it counts for anything,
but she is emotionally smart…… something I have never been accused of being…

so I lack the basic emotional intelligence or skills that most people have…
so when I fail to understand why people are so invested in such things
as gods or superhero’s… I can’t tell if it is because I lack the emotions
necessary to understand such things or if it is really a thing that people
seem to need superhero’s in the same way people need god?

my own emotional weakness seems to call into question my understanding
of the world…does my failure to understand due to my own weakness or
is it really an issue? I can’t tell… I can only report my findings and move on…

sometimes, just sometimes, I look out at the world from my eyes…
and I know I am looking at the world from my eyes but I don’t see how
I am connected to the world…In the living room I see the couch and I see chairs
and I see the kitchen with its fridge and stove and here in the dinning room, I sit at
the kitchen table with my computer writing… I listen to the music in my ear buds,
Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm….but I am not one with all these things… I am
separated from, isolated from everything I see and touch…I don’t feel
a connection to any of this stuff I can see…and someone who is in touch with
the world, with their feelings and emotions might not be so isolated from
their environment… the religious person, the one who believes in god/superman
might see in all those empty spaces I see, they might see how each of those items,
the couch and TV and fridge and kitchen table are connected. that their
religious feelings might be the reason they can connect these items whereas
I don’t have any sort of religious feeling and so I can’t connect these things…
the world is connected through some third source and that source is what
we might call the religious or god…….

our connection to the world is made via these religious feelings…
we see the our connection to the world via our connection to god…
but what if, what if there is no god…and we cannot connect to the world
as an emotional response? we stand isolated and apart from everything…
that is as good of an answer/description as to what the “modern” world is, isolated
and apart from everything………individual atoms flying through space……
not connected to anything…… we see from this atomization of man that
we are disconnected, alienated from the world we see in a basic and fundamental
way… this atomization, fracturing of man comes from the acceptance of
ism’s and ideologies and myths and superstitions and biases that atomized
and fracture man…….capitalism and communism doesn’t unite mankind into
a united or whole… capitalism and communism atomizes and fractures/alienate
us from each other and from ourselves… I cannot see myself as whole because
the ism’s that surrounds us like the air surrounds us or the water surrounds the fish,
no longer allows us to be whole……. we have been negated, our values and our
very lives have been negated by unseen forces that we cannot control………

just as gravity surrounds and binds us, but we cannot actually see this
force of gravity… we can feel its effects but we cannot see it…
we are surrounded by forces that are unseen and uncontrollable…
the forces of capitalism, the invisible hand of god (market forces) and
communism, the dialectical materialism (also by forces outside of ourselves)

how do I connect to a world that is run by market forces or
the dialectical materialism of communism? The very existence
of these unseen and uncontrolled forces isolates and alienates
me from society and from myself………

I am a modern man… alienated and isolated by forces that I cannot see
or control…… I see the world as isolated and alienated… I am not
connected to the objects in my life and thus isolated from them…

how do I reunite myself with the world? is the path to a reunification
of body and soul, my body and soul, to the world via some desperate
human need for gods/superhero’s? I don’t know…
I suppose that my disconnect, alienation from the world could
come from such a small thing as becoming aware…… I am aware
of my existence and I wonder what that means… is that awareness
enough to cause me to become isolated from or alienated from
both myself and my society or my environment? I simply don’t know…

Kropotkin

Sittlichkeit: The ethical life…

these past two days have been spent in a little town called Jackson,
in California… we were visiting friends…yesterday, we headed
down the hill to come home… we stopped at a coffee shop to
get my wife some coffee… there the car refused to start with some
weird message about a “P” lever needing to be set… well, we called
the friends we were staying with and Hector came down… he is
an electrical engineer… so we tried all the tricks we could use
to start this car… as we were in the parking lot of a small church
on Sunday morning, people were coming and going…a gentleman
came out of the church, he was tall with a shaved head and tat’s
all over his arms and neck… I instantly pegged him as a skinhead…
as over the past two days, we saw a lot, a lot of signs, t-shirts
and hats offering support for IQ45… and so I pegged him as another one
because of his shaved head and Tattoos…but he was offering us help
and we were in no position to refuse him…it later turned out he was
a mechanic…and the tattoos he had, they said family on one arm and faith
on the other side…he stayed with us for almost 3 hours trying to start our
car… finally before AAA got there he managed to start the car through some
hack he had found online… we were then able to drive home never turning off
the car… but the lessoned learned was I prejudge, I was prejudiced
against him because of his appearance… so, we return to
Sittlichkeit…. the ethical life…is my act of bigotry, of
prejudice really the ethical life? I really don’t see how…
this Sittlichkeit really is about our beliefs, our actions…

how we face every single situation is another
possibility for us to act ethically…if we prejudge,
or act upon our prejudice, we are not being ethical…
we are not engaging in an ethical life…….we can judge
ourselves in the ethical sense that we do not act or judge
based on preconceived notions of the other person, which
is based on some superficial, some accidental fact about
a person, be it the color of their skin or the clothes
they were or their age… don’t be like Kropotkin…
don’t prejudge based on looks or skin color… which
means we must not judge large groups of people
any different they we judge individuals… in fact,
the word that must be understood in terms of the ethical
life is “JUDGED” we judge all the time and mostly based
on a superficial understanding of people…we see someone
in a suit and we judge them differently then we would
judge someone in rags……. it is in this judging that
we must learn to become ethical… we must learn to
hold our judgements in order to avoid practicing
bigotry and prejudice… for if we practice bigotry
and prejudice, we are not acting ethical because
bigotry and prejudice is based on a superficial
understanding of both individual and collective people,
be it white people or black people or Hispanics or
any group or individual………

I failed to act ethically in my prejudgment and
bigotry…… I don’t throw myself off a cliff now,
no, I simply learn from this and learn not to
judge until I have actually had some contact with
or some interaction with individuals or collective
people……

I failed to act ethically……

Kropotkin

It is thought, like Hegel, that history was
the growth of freedom… His “story” of history
is the rise of freedom… from the ancient world where
the only person who was free was the King… then later,
freedom was (taken, given, stolen) by nobles and the church,
the history of freedom is going from the one, to the few, to
the many and where it exists today, to all…….

but other concepts can fit into Hegel’s format and I think that history
can use other examples instead of freedom… we can take the concept
of awareness… history can be said to be the story of awareness……

how we have become aware, from the one or the few to the many and hopefully
to all…but why awareness? Because from awareness we can better understand
our past, present and any possible future. To grow, to truly have authentic personal
growth, we must first become aware of, or have a better understanding of
those childhood indoctrinations that we were given as children…… Socrates
said, Know thyself, that can only happen if we become aware of who we are
and what is our possibilities… if we can become aware of our personal story
in the midst of our collective story… I have a personal story of birth, hearing loss,
moving many, many times, landing in California and staying here for over 40 years
and my soon to be turning 60… each aspect of my story is part of the collective story
of us and the collective story of us, that which we call history, is part of my
personal story… my personal story lies within the flow of history in general…
my personal story is impacted by our collective story of capitalism and democracy
and religion…… my personal story does not exists alone… it is included within
our collective story and the collective story is reflected within my own story…
and it is only by becoming aware can I begin to accurately chart my own
story…I become aware of the small and I mean small role I have played
in our collective story while others have played a larger role in our collective
story…which has impacted me and has impacted you…

our story, our collective story is made clear by our becoming aware of
our past, present and future role in our personal and, and our collective story…

when I tell my own personal story, it has, as all stories have, many,
many other actors besides myself… you have some leading actors in
my personal story, my mother, my father, my brother and sisters,
my wife and my daughter… each of these people have a personal story
as well as a collective story… we name that story, family…….

at times, I have leading actors like close friends and workplace
and school, but as with all stories, actors come and go from a story…
and we have our bit players in my story… people who had some brief
impact in my life and then they disappeared…… and each person has
their own personal story in which I was a leading role or I too was a bit actor…
performing my role and then leaving the stage…

this awareness, this understanding of our various roles, be it a
leading role or a bit role, tells us, in part, who we are and what
are our possibilities…

my role in our collective play, solely as a bit player, where I
work a minor role of a checker in a very large grocery chain
and I have had other minor roles in our very large story of
capitalism and democracy…… I can bare witness to but
have no influence upon those collective forces of the ism’s
and ideologies and superstitions and biases that we collectively
have and hold……

if I had one message to offer it would be this…
become aware… try to understand who you are
and what is your role in your own personal and collective
story………

what is your story?

Kropotkin

we have to understand that matter cannot be destroyed…
the amount of mass in a closed system must remain the same…
so we can convert matter into something else but the total
amount of mass in that closed system will remain the same…
so we can convert matter into energy and the result will leave
us the same amount of mass in our system……

the next thing is that the matter that exists in our body
has existed since the beginning of time, since the big bang…
it has been converted endless number of times from matter
into energy and back again… this has been going on since the
big bang… so any given cell in my body has existed since the big bang…
I am eternal… for the cells in my body has existed since and will
continue to exist from the beginning of time to the end of time…

and you too have existed since the beginning of time and will continue
to the end of time… as each of your cells has existed since the beginning
of time…… as there is only so much matter in the universe, it is logical to
understand that our individual cells has combined again and again and again…
in the 14 billion years of the universe existence, our individual cells have
combined into various objects, tree’s, grass, stars, planets, animals,
amoeba…… our individual cells have been friends, neighbors, lovers,
enemies and at times, piles of shit…………

we are transient, accidental collection of cells that
has been formed and reformed billions of times over the last
14 billion years and we will continue to be formed and reformed
over the upcoming years, until one day, billions of years from now,
time ends… and the process of our atoms, our cells can no longer
be exchanged from one to another…the process of matter and energy
can no longer be exchanged…………

This is why we cannot longer hold that most dangerous
of thoughts, the most dangerous idea that man has ever had…
the belief, the wrong belief that there is an US versus THEM…
we can no longer this false and phony idea that there is some
validity to the notion that there is an US and that there is a THEM…

every single aspect of modern life is full of US versus THEM…
we have sports and economics and political and social themes
full of US versus THEM…….there is no such thing as US verses THEM…

as our cells have over the billions of years been exchanged and interchanged
between each other, how can their be an US versus THEM when
the reality is that there is only US…… we are connected
to everything because we can be exchanged on a cellular level
to everything… we can eat meat and process fruits because
we are simple converting those cells into our cells and at some point
in time, our cells as matter can become animals and fruits and tree’s and…

there is no difference between any object and any other object because
we can at become or exchanged our matter into any other object…
remember matter cannot be destroyed, it can only be converted
and our cells have been converted into millions of other objects
and will continue to be converted into millions of other objects
for more billions of years…… there is not such thing as an US versus THEM…
for we are one… we simply hold different forms today… tomorrow we
will hold different forms, our matter, our cells, our atoms will be
exchanged into some other form, maybe a tree or a dog or a star?
who knows? I for one don’t know……

so in the midst of all this constant and continually exchanged
of atoms that has lasted since the beginning of time and will continue
to last until the end of time, how can we say, US versus THEM?

that US versus THEM is constantly changing…… we are creatures that
exist within time and time is one continuous, ever changing process of
cells and atoms being converted into something else…….matter and energy
cannot be destroyed, just converted……so how do you get US versus THEM in
light of the fact that matter and energy cannot be destroyed?

Kropotkin

so in light of my above post about US versus THEM, how can we
have or even think about Sittlichkeit, the ethical life?

If we understand that we are ever changing and transient
beings, here today as humans, there tomorrow as a dog or
grass or another person or a pile of shit? who knows what
we will be converted to next, what our individual cells, our individual
atoms will become next, then how do we hold to the ethical life?

If we understand that there is no THEM, there is no other, there is simply
other objects that hold cells and atoms that we have been a part of
and have converted over the billions of years and they have converted
and been part of us… there is only US……matter that has been converted
billions of times and will continue to be converted billions of times before
it is all over (and we will be there at the end as individual atoms and cells)

if there is only US, then we must engage in Sittlichkeit, the ethical life
as if we treat matter, all matter as US… to be ethical means we
are simply treating ourselves as best we can… for there is no other,
no object that is separate or apart from us for we can be exchanged for
any and all other objects in the universe, our separate and individual cells and atoms…

there can only be US…so let us treat all atoms with honesty and respect
for we are part of and they are part of……. US…….

for the old man who smells and the cute young girl and the dog who bit us,
and the tree’s and the grass and the sky… we are all interchangeable…
and that atom interchangeability means there is no other, there is no THEM…
there is simply US… The dimwit who supports IQ45 is also part of me, part
of US…for we are interchangeable in the fact their cells and atoms can
change and be part of me and I can be a part of them……

so anyone who supports an US versus THEM mentality is simply
ignorant of what we really are… simply transient beings who happen
to hold this particular form today, maybe tomorrow we split up our
cells and atoms and become something else… the atoms in my arms
dissolve into base atoms and then get integrated into some other collection
of atoms becoming something else…… and the cycle goes on forever…

how can there be an US versus THEM when we are so interchangeable?

Kropotkin

limited time today…

The best way to describe and understand reality, especially our reality,
is to understand existence as being transient, accidental…

which in large part why people are so insistent on looking
for certainty in existence…

we want certainty because our lives are so transient……
here today, gone tomorrow… could be the motto of life and the
motto of human existence…

so much of our live is not only transient but accidental…
my existence was fundamentally changed with the loss of my
hearing and it was an accident as so much of our lives is accidental…
we are born on one side of a line and we are called Americans,
born on another side of an imaginary line and we are called Mexicans,
born on one side of an imaginary line and you are French and on the other
side of the line, you could be German or Dutch or Italian… again depending
on which side of a line you can’t even see………accidents of birth determine
what nationality you are or what is the color of your hair or if you are handicap…

we must understand this very basic nature of existence which is its transient
and accidental……….

so this search for certainty is a search for something that in human existence
is not possible… the very essence of human existence is transient… both in
form, bodies and in spirit which is our laws, government, philosophy, history,
economics… we see these things of ism’s and ideologies and biases and
superstitions of being not transient… for example, we see the ism of
democracy as being permanent, but it isn’t… it too is just as transient
and as accidental as we are…

we cannot seek our understanding of the universe, of reality as being
stable, fixed, certain… for the universe and reality is accidental
and transient…… today, the ocean is a certain color… in the past, our ocean
was different colors because it had different elements in it… and the moon,
at one time, the moon was far closer to earth then it is today… the physical
nature of our reality today is different because of the transient nature
of physical reality…

we see forces like gravity as being fixed and stable and ever present,
but even forces like gravity, so called laws change and flex depending
on the situation…even gravity is not absolute… it too is accidental
and transient…will gravity exists the same as it did in the beginning, during
the big bang and will gravity be the same at the end of time… no,
the so called fixed forces like gravity and electricalomagnatism will
change over the years……… it might be why the universe will end because
the four forces, the four laws of existence will change over the many of billions
of years……

even the universe is accidental and transient… if it is born, it will die…
just not today and not for billions of years, but yes, at some point, even
the universe must end…and that is the interesting part… the length
of time that an object gets is accidental… we humans get roughly 70 years,
some tree’s might get 500 years, some flies last for hours and the planet
might get a billion years and the solar system might get 9 billion years…
we never know how much time, how transient matter is…… but matter
is transient…we know this, the only question is how long does that matter
exist for…not if it will last forever…………

that is the basic fact we must learn to come to grips with,
that we exist in and we ourselves are transient, accidental…….

begin your understanding of reality, of the universe there…

Kropotkin

if it is matter, it is transient…

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
if it is matter, it is transient…"

But Kropotkin, didn’t you aready say that we have existed since
the begining of time as atoms? and that we shall continue to exist
until the end of time… why yes, yes I did… so what about this
contradiction?

it is a contradiction only if you don’t understand that as forms, and
everything you see is a form, people, dogs, tree’s, cats, the sun,
galaxies are all matter that has form… the forms are transient,
but the underlying matter, the atoms, are forever… so our forms
come and go at a rather rapid pace, but the atoms that make up
those forms exists forever…and so we are transient because the
forms that make up our bodies is transient…

think of it like clay… from clay we can make a wide variety of forms
the forms made by the clay are almost countless but and this is the important
part, the clay still remains… the atoms still remain… just the forms
created by the atoms are transient…

this is the begining of modern philosophy… not the idea of
movement which has dominated philosophy since Newton
created his physics and for the next 200 years motion dominated
philosophy…

Kropotkin

here we touch upon the old themes of ours…

What is the value of ART?

I believe that ART is a listing of human possibilities…
through ART we see what are the possibilities for us…
we can be smart or funny or embrace numerous emotional
possibilities that exists in ART………we can love and be loved
and be accepted or rejected and be brave or cowardly… in
fact the possibilities in ART are far too numerous to even
be mentioned…

But today in the year 2019, we see ART differently…
for some, some… ART is about the human possibilities…
but for some, ART no longer presents what is possibile for us…
we have become indifferent to the possibilities that ART gives us…

the value of ART has been present and noted for centuries…
it is an means to escape and to titlate and to educate and
to advance answers to what it means to be human…

But ART itself suffers from the same problem that all matter
has and that is ART is transient…the most famous painting
in the world is most likely the MONA LISA… and perhaps, perhaps
in a few years the MONA LISA will no longer exist because of age…
and entropy… and recall the ART of the Greeks and Roman which
has dissappeared because of passing of centuries…

now one might say, we still have the ART of the Greeks and Roman in
their plays and buildings and poems… but what that ART means to
the Greeks and Romans is very different then what it means to us…
The play “Antigone” by Sophocles means something different to
the Greeks then it does to us… just as democracy meant something
different to the Greeks and Romans then it does to us……

but upon reflection, perhaps ART as we know it, is an attempt to
understand our transient and accidental nature……. in the play “Antigone”
by the end, everyone is dead except the “villain” Creon……

the very nature of the play is focused upon our transient nature…

we live and we die and in the end, we hope it meant something…

does it?

Kropotkin

I was looking for a book, I have 5000 books scattered over
two closets and two bookcases in the living room…
and in looking in the hallway closet, I found an old notebook of mine…
not that unusual, as I have probably 100 notebooks of old writings
around here somewhere…as I knocked the notebook unto the ground
and in picking it up, I began to read its pages……. the notebook isn’t dated
and I almost never date them… I began to read and I found I recognized the
words intellectually as being concerns of mine at one point in time, but
I didn’t feel any emotional connection to the words… they were empty words
on a page… a slice in time of who I was at that time… and quite often
that is ART… a slice in time of where the author/painter/sculptors do their
work… ART is just a moment in time in the artists life…
I can intellectually tell you about that time in my life but I can’t
emotionally tell you…I have changed, evolved into someone else…
I am old now and I hold thoughts of an old person…just as I cannot
connect to the Plays or philosophy of the Greeks or Romans…
their ART is an instant in time, a moment taken…….
and my, to loosely use the term, my ART is also a moment in time,
a slice of who I am at the moment of creation… try reading
Dickens… Charles Dickens was the most popular writer of
the 19th century… He captured a moment in time for the Victorians
and he understood what their inner quest was… We don’t have
an artist working in any medium today who speaks to our 21st century
sensibilities and needs like Dickens spoke to the Victorian age……

we are much more fractured in our understanding, our sensibilities,
in our needs of the world then the 19 century was…….

once again, we are faced with the issue of reuniting our fractured souls…
how do we begin to cure our alienation, our disconnect from ourselves, from
our society, from the ism’s and ideologies that once so formed who we were in
our childhood indoctrinations……

How do we begin the process of becoming Catholic, which of course means
universal… how do we become universal? how am I suppose to connect to
you and to society and those ism’s and childhood indoctrinations?

first of all, we must escape our romantic past that still holds
America hostage… the romance of rugged individualism, of
rages to riches stories, IQ45 is still held hostage by phony romantic
notions that prevent him from growing as a human being and as he is
held hostage, millions of Americas are also held hostage by the
demonstrably wrong ism’s and ideologies of the right wing…

wrong as they are leftovers beliefs from the Romantic era that existed
in Europe from the French revolution to World War One…read the
manifestos and writings from after the French revolution and you will
see how conservatives have based their entire prejudice on the old
romantic era…read the conservatives and the Romantics side by side
and you will see how the conservative movement is the romantic
movement carried to today…we cannot overcome 21st century
issues and problems with 19 century solutions derived from the Romantics
writers…

one question asked is, is Marx writing also based on Romantic notions?
why yes, that is why his solutions are in dire need of being corrected
and modernized…which leads us to where we understand that
the questions and answers we have in the 21st century are not questions
or answers from the 21st century, the questions and answers we do have
are from the Romantic era, from the 19th century and that is we have
floundered in our times because we are not asking or understanding
21st century questions and answers with 21st century answers or questions…
we are grappling in the 21st century with 19 century questions and answers…

we must update our questions and answers with 21st century questions
and answers…

In one month, exactly, I shall turn 60… I cannot ask the right questions or find
the right answers if I find myself with questions and answers based on when I was 25 or 40…
I must ask and answer with an age appropriate questions and answers… my
25 year old self and my 60 year old self has nothing in common outside of
a body that has been battered and beaten over the years…

I must question and answer myself with questions and answers needed of a 60 year
old… and we must question and answer ourselves with 21st century questions and
answers…

Kropotkin

talking with my mom… I could/should write a book titled
“talking with my mom” anyway, talking to my mom and she
was talking about my siblings, 3 sisters and one brother…
and how each was different as a child…my older sister wanted
to be in charge and my younger sister was always running away from
home, she never got past the end of the driveway in all those attempts
at running away and my brother was always and still is, by the way,
involved in his “thing”… he never paid much attention to anything that
wasn’t his current passion… as for me, my mom says, everyday when I was
4 or 5, I would come home from school, once inside the house, I would
sit on the bottom of the stairs and shake my head, saying, “I didn’t learn to
read today” and repeating that, “I didn’t learn to read today”……
even as a very young child, I had a passion to learn,
to understand, to know things…

today, the only difference between me now and me then is this, today
I sit at my computer and say, “I didn’t learn what it means to be human today”
and in various ways, I would repeat myself… I haven’t change much…

my mom says that she would distract me by taking me into the kitchen
and having a bowl of Ice cream… I think that is what I shall do right now…
then and now, my favorite ice cream is Vanilla ice cream…
I may not have found out what it means to be a human being, but
I am at least consistently… boring…

Kropotkin

I had a whole set piece of thought I was going to
lay down this morning…I was going to connect the Romantic
viewpoint of individualism and nationalism with the failed thoughts
of Hitler and IQ45 and conservatism… and as part of my argument,
I was going to use my friends at Wiki article on “Romanticism”…

well, this morning I started to read Jacques Barzun book, “Classic,
Romantic and Modern” and my whole plan went to hell in a handbasket…
I don’t know where I will end after finishing this book, but already, I see
part of the “Modern” problem comes from the fact that we “Modern”
are so alienated and disconnected from each other and from society because
of the “fact” that we “Moderns” don’t have or we haven’t publicly set
out our problem to be solved… every generation has a problem to be solved,
that is what defines a generation, the question every generation must answer,
and our generation hasn’t yet understood what is our questioned to be solved,
what is our problem to be solved?

Kropotkin

the question of philosophy and of science and history is this,
what is the question/questions to be solved?

Theology doesn’t have questions, theology has answers and that is
the failure of theology…….

The ancient Greeks thought the question was the search for wisdom…
in which they thought that truth/wisdom was beauty… the truthful was
the beautiful… which is why Socrates was such a revaluation, he was
truth but he wasn’t beautiful…that was part of the mystery of Socrates…
for the Greeks, the ultimate prize or final purpose of philosophy was
to sit in contemplation of god…(the greeks took for granted the existence of god/gods)
and the proper role of man was to sit in contemplation of said god/gods in heaven…
and the Christians took over this idea…….

so for the next thousand years, the goal was to get to heaven so one could
sit in contemplation of god…

Then came the rebirth, the Renaissance where the question of this contemplation
wasn’t question and then came the science and the philosophers, Galileo as science
and Descartes as philosopher…but the goal of the contemplation of god remained…

then came Kant who shifted the question for the first time in over 2000 years…
for Kant the question was about self determination…Sepere Aude… dare to know…
dare to think for yourself………

This new question, this new statement… how are we to become
self determining creatures…how do we become free from the authorities
that have determined for us, the bible, god, Aristotle, the church, the state…
are all authorities… how do we begin this search for self determination…

that was the new mission statement of philosophers… how are we to become
self determined? Then shortly after Kant came Hegel and Hegel great
contribution was to discover history and its influence on philosophy
and philosophical concepts…the concept of freedom is not rooted
as an ahistorical concept… the concept of freedom has a history
and Hegel’s book the “Phenomenology” is a history of freedom…
today we wouldn’t think of a concept without some understanding
of that concepts history and that was because of Hegel…

but it is time for another mission statement for philosophy
and philosophers…and Marx should us the way…

He said, “it is not enough to understand the world, we must
change the world” but here we use the lessons of history…

we must contemplate concepts and their history, yes…
but then we must use that understanding to create
a goal for us as individuals, as a society, as a culture,
as a people to reach for and eventually as a species…

we must no longer isolate ourselves as individuals or in small groups
or even as a state or some accidental trait like being white or being
an American… we must think of ourselves writ large…which means
we are part of an ever larger group of people… we can no longer think
of ourselves as just part of a family or of being an Californian or being
an American or being white or handicap or whatever accidental trait
we have……

we exist as and are part of the whole… I am Kropotkin… I am not just
white or male or handicap or an American, I am part of something
bigger… I am part of the human species and I am part of life…
and then we must create a meaningful goal that incorporates
who we are as human beings and as part of life…

I am part of life as part of life I must engage in life as a partner,
not as someone who waste resources just to keep my fat ass in comfort…
I must recognize that being human is not the end of the story but the beginning
and we must act as if we are part of the earth, not in charge of the earth…
to fight to save nature is the fight to save ourselves… if we preserve the
forest and trees and the sea, we are preserving us for we are part of the
forest and trees and the sea……

we must have an reevaluation of what is our place on earth and within
that reevaluation, we must come to an understanding of the proper
place of human beings within the context of the earth and all its
diversity…we are part of that diversity and we are part of earth
and we exist as part of, not in charge of, but part of life…….

we must expand our understanding of what it means to be human to
include our place on earth and within life…….and as we begin to
understand, we can begin to change how we think about resources
and their use and in our case, their misuse…human beings tend to
think that the universe is about them and we must learn that the universe
isn’t about us or us being human…

it is about life and we are just a part of life and not even the most important
part of life…………reevaluate your values and include becoming part of life…

lose your ego and learn to join a greater cause then human beings, the cause
of life……

and then we can become the catalyst of change that places human beings into
their proper context, as part of life and only a part of life…

Kropotkin

praise to the lotus eaters…

for they ever exist in another room in the house of man……

we, we moderns are so consumed with the practical details of life that
we sometimes forget to simply be… and thus we praise the lotus eaters…
for they are another side of the human experience…

Kropotkin

your second to last post was very touching, krackpotkin, and not badly done. the lotus eaters one was good too, i’m pretty sure. but what is this thread, anyway? one of those open journals like d63’s got over in the sandbox? well if it is, I HEAR YOU, BROTHER. i hear you loud and clear. and i might be the only one with the exception of serendipper. i don’t know if you get around these threads, but the big dipper’s got a good handle on things. the rest couldn’t care less; you might as well be talking to that produce cart you push around at the grocery store all day.

speaking of grocery stores, i actually replied to one of your monologues about that a while back over at my failed forum. i can’t find it now, but in it i suggested that you quit your job, sell everything you own except for your backpack, and become an expat over in southeast asia somewhere. this life you live now… stocking shelves for 10 bucks an hour all day and then pouring your heart out in a few posts that nobody here cares about, well… that’s no way to live, man.

and don’t you go worrying about ‘spreading the marxism’ . marx is alive and well (recall that he had no last words; last words are for fools who haven’t said enough) and coming to a planet near you. let the pros handle that… you just worry about getting the fuck out of that job and onto a beach somewhere where you can listen to michael bolton in peace. and don’t tell me you don’t like michael bolton. they play it all day at the grocery store. by now you should know every one of his songs by heart.

found it!

this is not unlike the myth of sisyphus, except instead of pushing a boulder up a hill, you’re pushing del monte green bean cans across a scanner only to have them roll back on you. but to answer your concluding question; no, you don’t have to wait. what you need to do is something outrageous, because if you’ve got nothing to lose, you’ve got nothing to lose by doing something outrageous. you need adventure, unfamiliar places and people, a complete change of environment. i say sell your house and everything in it, research foreign country currency exchange rates and travel abroad. but don’t go to stockholm because nobody goes to sweden. you need a cheap country where you can turn your stacks into bigger stacks, maybe buy some citizenship and/or property, and spend all day in coffee shops and overcrowded buses touring cities, ruins, ancient cities, ancient ruins, and ruined cities where you can talk to the city’s ancients. but don’t ruin it for them… nothing’s more cantankerous and depraved than ruined ancients. most of them don’t even know america exists. don’t tell them it does. you’ll find other expats just like you who once worked in the produce section of some grocery store and were finally like ‘fuck this’. i’m not kidding man, try it. what’s the worst that could happen? typhus, maybe, but unlikely if you’re careful. and watch out for pick-pockets. south-east asians have it down to a science.

somebody please tell kropotkin to read this. i know some of you sonsabitches snooping around here are from ILP… so be a good sport and tell him for me. kropotkin needs our help. look at the guy. he’s a mess.

  1. been there done that. Alas, the soul grows weary of every and any situation and soon the grass back home tolls another country walk in those ol familiar places, be it a distorted visage of a reactionary fluke,
    there ain’t Norton’s like home, always return even of a known current nostalgic delirium. Plus K has family and he is responsible for them and tjeuay not.share his
    wanderlust.

May be, I’m all off. If he had portfolio like those post war west bank settlers , with more then a knack for personal impressions, or any channelled expression . THERE, he may be in for an incontrovertible regret.

What say?