a new understanding of today, time and space.

let us think about what we do know and what we don’t know…

We know that we humans, are transitory, temporary beings…
we are finite…

we know that we are matter, which means we are also energy…

we share both these traits with everything in the universe…

we know the universe is transitory and we know that the universe is also
made up of matter which means the universe is also energy……

one might ask, what about space and time? what can we know about them?

well, we know that time itself will end at some point in the future in billions of years…

and we know that space is some form of matter because it bends………

space is flexible and bends so it is something… we just don’t know what

and we know light bends……. so it is something……

and that means that space and light are matter and energy…thus they are
like all other matter in the universe…………

but matter is only a small percentage of the known mass in the universe……

we think that dark matter and dark energy is the bulk of the universe……

we think… but we don’t know thus we can only guess and that is not
our goal today… we are only talking about things we know……

everything we do is transitory… our words, our buildings, our ART,
if it is made or done by humans, it is transitory………

as living matter, we are a product of evolution…

we are determined by evolution to have certain processes which we
cannot exists outside of ………….

thus we must exists within certain parameters…… we must eat
and we must drink water and we must breath and we must sleep
and we must remove excess waste and we procreate and
and we must have feedback loops to inform us of what is going on in
our bodies and environment and we are finite…….

these facts are the same for everything biological in the universe…

for everything biological must exists with certain processes in place for
the biological matter to exist………

these are the things we know

let us begin our work on things we do not know…….
that which is anything metaphysical… beyond the physical…
we cannot know anything beyond the physical…….thus we
cannot know if there is a god or heaven or hell or angels………

we cannot know if there is an immortal soul…

we cannot know anything outside of what we experience and what our
senses can tell us……

as we exist with certain properties that is shared by all matter and energy,
we can make reasonable guesses as to the nature of the universe because
we share those traits with the universe………….

now the living matter in the universe may be quite different from what
we understand to be life, but it must follow certain rules as all life must
follow certain rules to be life…….as you understand how there are many
different types of dogs and all those dogs look so very different but dogs
must follow certain rules to be dogs and if they don’t follow those rules, they
are not dogs… they are something else……… but dogs are still living matter
and as such, doges must follow the rules of existence which is existence is finite,
temporary…and matter is both matter and energy……….

thus we have the basis for all philosophy…… matter is finite/temporary…
and matter is both matter and energy………here begins our understanding of
what it means to be human… that we must follow certain rules to
be considered human……

now what is the next step?

how do we make the next understanding of what it means to be human?

Kropotkin

ok, so we understand that we human beings are matter/energy.

we have energy… so the question becomes, how or in what way do we use
that energy? We have noted that in the past, say during the long period
of the hunter/gatherer stage of human existence, our energy was
dedicated toward procuring the necessary items for our continued
existence, thus we spend energy on gathering food, clothing, shelter,
educating the young so they knew what to do to surviving… in fact,
anything we do, we must expend energy to do that anything…
so the gathering of and expending energy is one of the primary
functions of human existence… even such a task as sleeping
requires energy to do so………. so one of the key questions of
human existence is this question of energy…….

how are we to gather the energy we need and what are going to
expend that energy on?

so think of human existence as a question of energy expenditure…
how we get it and what do we spend it on?

so far we haven’t gotten to any questions of values or anything besides the basics,
but now we reach the point of the questions of values… for it is values that
help us make our choices as to what should we spend our energy on…

we can spend energy on creating ART or we can wage war or we can dance the
night away… the choice in being human is what are we to spend our energy on…
and values help us decide or determine what we should spend our energy on…

I am old… I have far less energy then I used to have… so I can use my off days
watching TV or going to movies or to reading or to doing what I am doing right now…

I have limited energy, so I must expend my energy carefully, with real thought behind it…

when I was young, I could waste my energy because it didn’t matter, I had plenty of
energy to fuel me… I could be inefficient and wasteful with my energy… it didn’t matter…

so when we think in terms of energy, we cannot allow ourselves to focus exclusively
on energy to fuel our cars or home or airplanes… we must engage with
an understanding of we humans are energy and plenty of it…… so how are we to
spend that energy? sending kids to war is a wasteful and inefficient way of spending
their energy… we must be smart in how we are to use our energy, both
our mechanical and our biological energy…as with anything, energy
in the form of tree’s and oil is limited… but other matter has energy…
we can discover new ways to convert matter into energy…
for any matter can be converted into energy… we just have to
figure out how…but because there is no loss in either matter or energy
in the universe, we really have a source of energy as long as there is matter
in the universe. we can turn anything into energy……. we just have to make sure
it is not a finite resource that we are converting…if we can convert water into
energy, that is great however when we run out of water, we then have some
serious issues……. but the overall amount of energy/matter in the universe
never changes…… that is the point… and we must use this knowledge to
our benefit…….

so human existence is a question of energy and how are we to spend that energy?

Kropotkin

One of the pursuits of philosophy has been
pursuit of the basic principle of the universe…

what is the driving, basic principle that makes up our universe?

that basic, driving force is energy/matter…….

we have answered one of the primary questions in early philosophy…
the universal that is everything is energy/matter…… that is the basic
principle of the universe…….

for their is nothing on the other side of energy/matter…

it cannot be reduced into something else… this conversion
of energy into matter and matter into energy is the most basic
and fundamental principle of the universe… everything begins
and ends here……

now the question becomes, does energy have a goal?
does matter have a goal to achieve or is energy/matter directionless?

if we look at the forces of the universe, gravitation, electromagnetism,
weak interaction and the strong interaction… we see that they are not directed.
they simple act without foresight or understanding of cause or effect……

they simple are…

to assume that the energy/matter in the universe is directed is to assume
something that we cannot know…… how do we connect this directionless
energy of the four forces in the universe into our understanding of what it means
to be human?

as evolution is a force, just as gravity is a force, we see that evolution has
harnessed energy into us… we have energy because we are living matter…
and to be living matter is to be energy… evolution simply took that energy
and did something with it… evolution is directionless but it always uses
energy to maintain the forms that matter takes…to study evolution is
really the study of historical form living matter took…dinosaurs
are just energy taking form and all that life that existed before humans…
that was simply energy taking form…… and there was no design or purpose
to the form that energy took… it simply is nothing more then a formula…

take time, billions of years and add energy/matter and
and life will take hold…even inhospitable environment’s can
support some form of life even if it is a single cell organism.

it took over 4 billions years for human beings to be created on planet earth…
it is not a fast process… and given its nature, it is not an efficient process…
for energy by not being directed is not a efficient process…… but we can direct
our energy… and that separates us from the animals, we can direct what
we spend our energy to and we understand how energy works…it is this
question of energy that separates us from all other life…… we can combine
our energy and achieve goals such as the building of houses or the creation
of ART or whatever…

the question of the state, of government is a simple one, how are we going to
direct our collective energy? on what are we going to use our energy for?

here comes the question of values… for values direct the use of our energy…………

are we to use our energy to gain positive goals or are we going to use our energy
on negative goals? love is a positive energy and hate is a negative energy
and greed is an negative energy……. and hope is a positive energy………

our values helps us decide on what goals we shall achieve using our energy……

so the question of life is simply a question of what are we spending our energy on?

so the Kantian/Kropotkin questions of, what am I to do? What shall I hope for?
what may I hope for? what values should we hold? are really questions of
how are we to use our energy… to what purpose are we going to use our personal
and collective energy on?

and energy has a personal and a collective usage…… so how are we going to
collectively use our collective energy… is really the question the state faces.

upon what are we going to use our energy on?

and the list is open, far and wide… we can expend energy on
eliminating poverty or going into space or we can use our energy on wasteful,
inefficient projects like war or hate………the choice we have as human
beings is really a question of what are we spending our energy on…

Kropotkin

In the beginning was energy…….

in that statement lies everything we need to know……

that the universe was created as energy…………

and energy can be converted into matter and matter into energy…

and all the mass of the universe that the universe began with, the
universe will end with…

here begins our next idea which is entropy: 1. a thermodynamic quantity
representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion
into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder and
randomness in the system…2. a lack of order or predictability;
a gradual decline into disorder…

the same amount of energy/mass exists in our universe, but
the energy in the universe dissipates… it doesn’t change the amount
of mass in the universe but it simply bleeds off…and it bleeds off
in a random manner… there is no rule by which we can predict
the amount of dissipation in any mass… as I grow older,
I don’t have the energy I once had and that is entropy… a random loss
of energy which has dissipated…I know I know I cannot eat as much food
as I used to eat… In my running days, I could eat two large pizza’s and
wonder what was for dinner… these days, I might be able to eat a
potato and be full… I am taking in far less energy these days and it
shows in my outtake of energy…One needs energy to have energy…

the intake and outtake of energy is roughly even… if the outtake of energy
is more then the intake, we lose weight and if the intake is more then the outtake,
then we gain weight… so the mass we eat and the mass we lose must be roughly
even… it is a formula… A = A…and that is why your weight remains roughly
the same over the years…the intake and outtake are roughly even…

but as my entropy continues, I shall continue to lose energy as I age…
that is what old age is, the natural loss of energy……

every question of existence begins and ends as questions of energy/matter/mass…

the question of the state… the government is one of energy…how are we
to expend the energy we have as a people and mechanically……

the conservative and liberal question of the value of the state must now
be understood as questions of energy/matter…

how does the liberal idea fit into the energy/matter use of the universe?

how does the conservative idea fit into the energy/matter use of the universe?

Kropotkin

when understood what we see is this:

the universe is energy and the forms we see cows, cars, dogs, stars,
water, TV sets are all just energy in different forms… we mistake the
different forms for being something different but the reality is every form,
matter we see is simply a different arrangement of energy…

looking past the forms, we see energy and there is nothing past the energy…

Kropotkin

I have stated that emotions are energy…so we have
emotions like love and hate and anger and greed… I have labeled
these emotions either negative or positive…… now we must ask,
what makes an emotion like love positive and worth pursuing
and a emotion like hate a negative emotion and not worth pursuing…

emotions are energy… and love is an energy and take love and see
what it does to people… it energizes them, it empowers people,
love builds and creates… walk into a place with love and it
has a certain energy to it… a energy which builds into something…

now let us look at a negative energy… hate… hate is another energy
but hate reduces energy, hate dulls energy, hate nullifies energy……

walk into a retail store and “feel” the energy of the store…
feel the energy of the employees… if the store employees
are hopeful and full of positive energy, one can feel it… you can tell…

walk into my store and you have negative energy because the employees
have no hope, no positive energy, no love…it is a rather depressing
store to go into because it has so little energy and why? Because the employee’s
have lost hope, faith, energy in what they are doing…

look at the energy level of the people of the United States…
and the people with hope, love, the positive energy are the ones
who have energy… IQ45 is a low energy guy because he promotes low
energy values like hate and anger and greed…the United States had more
energy during the Obama years because he promoted positive values like hope
and love…

because human beings are energy, we are very aware of energy…
we are susceptible to the energy people put out and positive energy people
we react positively because high energy builds us, allows us to rise, high energy
rises and grows into something bigger all around us…I have been in
positive crowds and I have been in low energy crowds and the feeling
was different and quite noticeable…you have a boost of energy in a high
energy crowd and your energy is lowered in a low energy crowd……… we feed off
of this energy…… human beings quite literally feed off of energy… remember
we eat matter in which we get energy… and we are matter/energy……

and that is what America needs now… a boost of energy in the form of
positive energy…… we need to increase our intake of positive energy
and we will feel better about ourselves and about America………

Kropotkin

Now what does this mean?

we are the same material as the universe, matter/energy.

we human beings are the same, matter and energy.

And as matter/energy, we have the same needs and same wants
and same desires…… It becomes a matter of degree’s… some
need love a bit more then others and some need to feed a bit more then
others and some need to control a bit more then others, but the same
needs and wants and desires that exists in me, exists in you and in everyone…

the question becomes, if we all have needs and wants and desires, how do
we approach that? In other words, the formation of the state is simply
a means for us to achieve our needs, wants and desires without infringing
on the rights of other? If we want order and stability in our society,
we cannot act upon our impulses, impulses are simply needs, wants and desires,
for society to function, we must control our impulses. To think of a society
where we are unfettered in our attempting to achieve our needs, wants
and desires is to think of Hobbes original society…where it is every
person against every other person and “Life is nasty, short and brutish”.

this question of how are we supposed to answer our needs and wants
and desires without destroying the society we live in, may be the primary
question we humans face. Needs, wants and desires must be directed
toward some objective that doesn’t also damage society. We must be able
to have some means to achieve our needs, wants and desires but remain within
the framework of maintaining society. Now most theories of doing so are theories
of sacrifice, of renunciation, of asceticism, theories which try to deny those
needs, wants and desires. And to a certain degree, we must sacrifice who we
are to maintain order and stability within every organization we are part of, but
renunciation is not a action we can maintain and hold. Renunciation cannot
be a way of life, it must be a part of, but not the key factor in our life.

One of the key questions of life is this, how do we deal with our needs, wants
and desires that exist within us?

It could be properly said, that a human being is simply a creature that
makes it needs, wants and desires,a primary goal in its life.

Now one of the things to understand is we often desire and pursue
things that are harmful and detrimental to us… we pursue such harmful
things as related to our negative instincts. We pursue and expend energy
on such things as hate, anger, greed, lust… negative instincts…

but what we should be doing is pursuing positive instincts, love,
hope, peace, justice… we should be expending energy on matters that
are beneficial and help us, not destroy us.

we must become aware of and understanding why we must pursue positive
goals, wants, desires and needs. Again, it becomes a question of energy.
Positive goals create positive energy, we can expand and build upon
positive energy like love and hope and justice… negative energy like
hate and anger and greed decreases the amount of energy a person has.
when we are angry, we cannot build upon or expand upon that energy.
It can only destroy, not build and that is the problem with negative energy.

so the next aspect of society/the political is to make the pursuit of positive
energy to be a desired goal. And to a certain degree, society/state does that,
but the society/state also, to a certain extent, promotes the negative,
anger, hate, greed and lust. The materialism of our modern age is a
negative pursuit, buy our goods and become more popular or sexier or
more desirable. This materialism is built upon our negative instincts of
greed and lust among others. In other words, this pursuit of materialism
is another form of society trying to get its individual members to expand
energy on something. But it is a wasted goal to expend energy on such
negative instincts because it can never fully satisfy our needs, wants and
desires because we always want, need and desire more and more and more…
Materialism is really just another addiction like drugs and booze and gambling…
and it is a convenient addiction for society because it allows powerful
and wealthy individuals to become even more powerful and wealthier
because they hold the means of production… they own the businesses that
are tied into this addiction of materialism. YOU want people to become addicted
to your products because they will buy more and more and more…
Just like a drug dealer, you need people to be addicted to your product,
be it material goods like cars and TV sets or even be addicted to the
concept of materialism… recall what the Bush jr. said after 9/11 in
response to a question about what people should do?

He said, “people should go out and buy stuff”.

Yep, he said that. a good drug dealer he is. Keep the people addicted to your
product…

so what is the answer? we must become aware of the dangers of our materialism
and our futile attempt to feed our needs and wants and desires with materialism.

We must begin a reevaluation of what is our needs, wants and desires…
in truth, we really don’t need that much. we can happily survive with very little
and that is the answer of the mystics and the religious… be happy without
materialism because that materialism isn’t important and it isn’t that
important. and we must redo society and the state to address this question
of what is truly important… and thus we have Marx and his ilk……

you can understand political and social theory better if you think about
this question of how are we to achieve our goal of meeting our needs, wants
and desires without disrupting society…………

Kropotkin

this question of needs, wants and desires are place into
context when understood in our current, 2019, time…

we see what our unfettered attempts to feed our needs, wants and
desires have done… we have seen both the large scale damage,
climate change and world wide pollution and the massive extinction
event that has occurred during our watch…….to our small scale damage
done to our souls…we cannot however much we try answer or fulfill
our wants, needs or desires…I just filled a need by eating dinner, steak
actually, but that need will need to be filled again in the morning and again
during lunch and again and again and again, for the duration of my life…

Have you ever heard of a person who had sex once and said, yep, I’m good,
my needs and desires have been filled?

nope, the desires of food, fame, fortune, booze are never filled or sated…

for people, filling a need or want or desire is not a one time thing, it is an ongoing
lifetime thing…just as we need to evaluate our quest to become who we are,
we need to evaluate our needs and wants and desires… why do I want
that person or why do I “need” to attempt to make as much money as I possibly
can… why do I want to be a millionaire or why do I want to be famous?

we can only begin to understand ourselves if we not only become aware
of ourselves intellectually but within our needs and wants and desires…

we are driven by our needs and wants and desires and perhaps it is time we
understand that driven behavior of needs, wants and desires…

It is not enough to say, “evolution made me do it” for we are the sole
creatures of matter and energy that can override our evolutionary
demands within us…….we can act outside of our evolutionary DNA, the
code that dictates who we are and what is possible for us… we can say no to
the evolutionary demand or we can say yes to becoming something new…

that is the true nature of being human… we can rise above our evolutionary
coding and be something else besides our coding…….

no other animal, that we know of, can do that…….a dog must act like
a dog and a cat can only act like a cat and cows must be cows but human
beings, we can override our coding and become something else……

all animals have a fight or flight coding in them… it is evolutionary coding
that allows animals to survive another day but we humans, if we are strong
enough, we can override our fight or flight coding and do something different…

we can overcome who we are, within our genetic coding, and become more human…
which means we can overcome our coding… we can rise above our coding……
that is what it means to overcome our coding…… we are determined by evolution
to be a creature we call human beings… our coding determines who we are
but we can overcome that coding……. we can rise above the coding of
hate, anger, greed, lust…… we can recode ourselves to hold as our values
love, peace, justice, hope……………it is hard to rewrite our coding, but the
people who have counted for something, Gandhi and Jesus and MLK
and Mohammed have all given us the tools to overcome our evolutionary coding…

it is easy to just say, no, I can’t overcome my genetic coding and I will simply
be what my codes say I am to be… but the great ones have shown us
the way to overcome our base coding, the way to be more then just a
another determined (genetically) animal…to be human, to be fully human
we have to rise above our genetic and evolutionary coding………

that is the path to being human… rising above our genetic coding……

and we see by following our genetic coding of greed and lust and anger,
we have damage both ourselves and our environment… to overcome the
damage we have done to both ourselves and our environment, we must
rise above our coding and become who we are, not just animals that follow
our genetic coding, but human beings that is matter and energy and all that
that means… which is we accept our place in the universe as part of the
great universe, not as beings with ownership of the universe, but as
fellow participants with our brothers and sisters of matter and energy which
is everything in the universe……. we are not above or below the universe
of matter and energy, but we stand part of and united with the universe of
matter and energy…

Kropotkin

As it is wants, needs and desires that by their being an addiction,
bring damage to both ourselves and society……. what better way to
understand this by the ism of capitalism. We see that in capitalism
is the lower instincts that are taken as our template for who we are as human
beings…greedy, lustful addicts that demand our daily fix of whatever is
for sale today……. we are what we buy… and we buy junk to fulfill our
addiction to materialism………This explains why ART is so unimportant these
days… we no longer have the eyes to see ART as something that can change
our perception of the world or who we are… we go to ART exhibits to
see famous ART, not to get a new understanding of the world or an
understanding of who we are. I recall seeing the Mona Lisa in Paris…
We arrived fairly early and waited in line and once we got into the Louvre
museum, we headed toward the stairs toward the Mona Lisa, but there is a
very famous statue of Nike of Samothrace on the staircase itself and I didn’t even
realize that it was there…so we paused to see this statue, all the while
people were racing past us and I mean running and they were running to get
to the Mona Lisa first. You have to get by some pretty good art to get to the room
where the Mona Lisa is, but these people didn’t care about that… the goal was
to be able to say, “I saw the Mona Lisa in person” It wasn’t about whether
the Mona Lisa was good art or bad art, that didn’t matter… it was about
being able to claim an experience, not the art itself…….and few even realize
that on the other side of the Mona Lisa is a very good painting…but the goal
isn’t seeing ART and/or experiencing ART… it was about boast to come, not the ART.

ART be it painting or sculptures or novels or poetry or architecture, when you
look at ART, what do you see?

In our capitalistic, materialistic culture, ART is devalued, negated because
it cannot be bought and sold like our TV sets or our cars… you can buy
a copy of the Mona Lisa but why? Art doesn’t feed our addiction to materialism…
and for an addict, it is always about the next fix and insofar as ART isn’t
able to feed your fix, what value does it have?

Capitalism is about feeding your lower base instincts of greed and lust
hate or anger, in fact, capitalism isn’t about if something is good or bad
or dangerous or pretty. Capitalism is about making the sale, making money,
and not about values that bring us closer to our being human, really human, not just
animals that can only act upon our instincts……

the only value that capitalism has is money… everything else is unimportant,
negated………… we are matter and energy… what does money mean
to us when we are the same material as the universe itself…….
everything we can buy is the same as us, matter and energy…
but ART is something beyond matter and energy… it tells us something
about the matter and energy that the universe is made of… it tells
us about the possibilities of being human…

so what does ART mean to you?

Kropotkin

Yes, we are matter and energy but the part I wish to focus on today is
the matter part. We are matter, human beings, and as such we exists in
time and space. Human beings are, by the long hunter-gatherer years,
social beings…… we can only survive as part of a group…and evolution
has written survival into our genes, our genetic coding and these genetic
coding is very powerful in all animals… so for us humans, we are coded to
survive. As we must exist within a social society, we must then understand
what it means to be within society… now this society can be small, a family
or several families uniting together for survival, as it was for a million years
during our long childhood of pre-history or it can be large, as we have nations
with billions of us now. The size doesn’t really matter because the goal of
social society remains the same, survival. Now think back to the hunter-gatherer
society. We have small family units combining to create a larger society of
perhaps 75 to 100 people. To maintain order and allow survival in such
a group, the begining of what we would now call government began.
One person or perhaps a small group of people were in charge.
How they came to be in charge is different in each social group…
perhaps an election, perhaps the eldests, perhaps the best hunter or
the strongest person may have put into charge… it is hard to guess upon
what method was used, but the question of who is in charge and
how they are chosen has been an problem for human beings since the begining of time.

so you have some leadership, based upon some agreed upon method, which
is the beginning of government. That right there is the beginning of government,
the founding of leadership within a society and the method of choosing that leadership.
And for what purpose does this government exists? To allow the group to maintain order
and to better be able to survive the harsh conditions of the time.

We fast forward to Socrates and Greek society. Socrates felt that the
social society goal, mission, was for the individuals member and the society
at large was for the “common good”. In other words, we individuals worked for
and promoted the idea of society was for the “common good”. And it was clear
for Socrates at least, that the common good was for people to strive for
arete, excellence. Socrates goal was for society to be better, people had
to be better and the way to achieve that was for people to become aware of
and strive to work in their own soul… make society better by making the
people better, the individual people living within that society.

This idea of the “common good” has been lost in our modern society because
we are so atomize and isolated from each other and aided by
such ism’s as capitalism which is individual greed which somehow, by
the invisible hand of god, somehow makes society better. But it has never
been explained how the greed of man which drives our modern capitalist
society has within it, the ability to somehow benefit society… my greed to
achieve some materialistic goal as wealth or property is not connected to
any known method to help or improve or make society better. In fact, I would
suggest that this greed which is a vice, a determent to individual success is
in fact a danger to both the individual and the society. We have made an
addiction the central aspect of modern society. the constant drive for
goods that have an momentary high and then we want more and more,
just like an drug addict or alcoholic, we need more and more of our fix,
which in modern society is the drug of choice, materialism and the buying
of goods, wealth.

But in this drive for our addiction which is modern society, where is the
common good? How do we reach an understanding of the common good when
we are fix upon and driven by our need to be wealthy which is the
ability to have the wealth to get our daily fix of buying worthless goods.

This has been lost, the idea of the common good. This idea of the common good
has been lost in the face of nihilistic ism’s like capitalism and rugged individualism
and Ayn Rand’s false and dangerous ideology that deny the concept of the common
good. Modern society very survival depends upon our return to the old and forgotten
concept of the common good. Now the old idea of the common good ask for and
got the understanding of individual sacrifice for the good of all. But the modern
concept of sacrifice is done in terms of such nihilistic goals as in the pursuit
of money/profits. We are asked to sacrifice our souls and body for the
betterment of soulless and nihilistic entities like corporations and
the ism of capitalism. This sacrifice isn’t done for the betterment of
the common good, but for the betterment of those who own the means of production.
The pursuit of wealth and profits is nihilistic because it denies, negates both
our body and our values. The common good is not a negation of our body or
our values……… it affirms and raises our bodies and our values… we achieve
the common good when we strive for our higher values like love and peace
and justice and charity. when we deny our higher values for the lower values
we negate and deny our higher nature, our better angels.

The common good requires each of us to reach the higher values of
what is possible. when we reach for our lower values, our instinctual values,
we are no better then animals… being who we are is determined
and instinctual. Our genetic coding from which we come from is
fixed and determined in everyone, but to reach our becoming,
we must rise above our genetic coding, our instincts and become
fully human… that is what it means to become fully human,
to rise above our genetic coding and no longer be animals…
animals can only act upon instinct and their genetic coding…
if we just follow our instincts and genetic coding, then we too
are just animals, nothing more………

But I am not an animal, I am a human being because I can rise
above my instincts and my genetic coding. I can love and
desire peace and justice and charity which is our higher values,
our more human values…….

but we can only achieve this within a society.
and the only means we can achieve this, is by order
and tranquility which is the goal of government.

so the solution to our current problems of
the lack of justice and peace and disorder is
to work on this idea of the common good, not
by using your energy to achieve wealth and material goods.
These are false goals and damaging to your body and soul
and to society. For the pursuit of wealth is nihilistic. The negation
of people and their values. The pursuit of wealth is the pursuit
of the lower instincts of animals. We must reach for the higher values
of being human. and by that, we will become a better society,
we will value the common good for we can see how the common good
impacts and improves us.

The common good is reached when we begin to understand, to know
ourselves and then reevaluate and then becoming who we are. The path
to a better society lies in our becoming better people with better values
because we understand that reaching for higher values makes us
better people. Those who reach down, who follow lower values, instincts,
are not engaged in becoming who they are, they are not engaged
in becoming better people, they are not engaged in pursuing the common
good. This idea of the common good is tied up in the pursuit of
becoming more human, tied up in our engagement with becoming
human beings who rise above our lower instincts…….

If you want to improve society, improve yourself……

Kropotkin

So let us continue to understand this in other terms…

the Kantian idea and enlightenment idea of self-determination
that one frees themselves of dependence upon authority…
now think of authority as being “instincts”… self-determination
means rising above authority, instincts, to become more human.

Nihilism is the negation of human beings and their values.
By self-determination, we rediscover what it means to be
human and what our values is and ought to be.
Instead of following authority, which is the following the
lower instincts, we rise above those instincts and become
aware of our higher values. We rise above authority and nihilism
and become who we are by our knowing thyself and then
a reevaluation of values and then becoming who you are……

the process may be individual, but the gain is society’s gain,
we then become aware of the common good by our understanding
who we really are. We see how we benefit and gain by our
inclusion to society and the benefits of our social inclusion outweighs
any loss of freedom. From our new understanding of who we are, means
we can begin to pursue values that are the real values of being human,
not false security which can’t really be achieved but by the pursuit
of justice, which is equality and that can be achieved……

Our understanding of who we are means we can engage with the values
that aid in finding and understanding what it means to the “common good”.

To engage in the modern pursuit of our addiction of wealth and materialism,
means we go deep into ourselves, but to find the common good, we must
reach outward, we must become aware of and interested in what benefit
and helps the society at large… because without that society at large,
we individually cannot survive. we are dependent upon that society at large,
and so it is in our best interest to engage with and improve that society at large,
even when it cost us something, something like some of our freedoms.
but our sacrifice is not in vain when we aid and benefit the society at large.
Unlike when we sacrifice for the pursuit of wealth and the ism of ideology,
for there is no personal or society benefit when we sacrifice for the
the pursuit of wealth, we just are engaging in the negation and nihilism
of our self and our values………

Self-determination is the means by which we can understand
the real purpose and role of our individual self… we can
see what values are the values by which we can truly become
human… the higher values, the farther away from instinctual values
is the closer we become to becoming human, fully human…

What values are your values?
You can only find that out by no longer accepting
the words of authority. Engage in finding your values
by self-determination… and then become who you are…

Kropotkin

Upon reflection, this notion of capitalism, that somehow
the greed and materialism of capitalism brings about
the betterment of society, is nothing more then a
metaphysical account of the “hand of god” as an justification
for the lower instincts of greed, lust, envy, hate and anger, among
other lower instincts that are driven by capitalism…….

Some humans that are not self-determined, believe they
need some justification for their greed and lust and they find
this justification in a metaphysical concept that is the “invisible hand
of god” that drives our materialistic age of capitalism…….

Kropotkin

I have been thinking about this for some time, well since yesterday anyway…

I have already presented the concept of the “common good”
which was presented originally by Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle…but one has to understand the basic premise
of their argument…….

To the Greeks, it was only in the Polis, the city, that man could find
his Arete, his excellence and the only place where a man could become
a human being, not a barbarian. They accept and understood that was in
a civil society which they equated with the state, that someone could
become who they are. The emphasis that Plato place on the state wasn’t just
theoretical jibber jabber, it was the emphasis that the Greeks placed on
the State. To engage with the “common good” meant you were improving the
most valuable tool a Greek had, the polis, the city.

To engage with the Polis, that there was no higher goal of the citizen,
wasn’t contested by any Greek…The Greeks engage with and understood
that they were social creatures who needed the state to find their better natures.

the idea of modern rugged individualism or Ayn Rand nonsense wouldn’t have
made any sense to them… the individual cannot survive on their own, we need
the Polis to survive and become even better, find our Arete.

This is a truth that we have lost and if we are to survive, we must recover
that long lost truth… that alone, we cannot survive and we cannot make the
best of who we are…it is only in our engagement with others, in a civil society/state
that we can we make it.

The idea of the “common good” was continued by virtually every single philosopher
since Aristotle……until we reach America in the 1900, where the idea changed
names and became the “public good” but the same theory. It has many different
definitions which is part of the problem with the notion of the “public good”.
You can almost state the “public good” as almost anything and many dangerous
ideas and policies have been done in the name of the “public good” including
the Holocaust and the atomic bomb and IQ45 tax cuts……so one has to be aware of what the
proponent of the “public good” is actually advocating, but the essential nature of
the “public good” must have actions that actually benefit the “public”. As the
sign on America’s wall says, democracy, then we must conduct actions
and policies that benefit its democracy…… not any particular small group like
people who donated to your campaign, or as we call them in my house, bribes…
the “public good” must actually engage and benefit the public, so we include
education and healthcare and social security and Medicare… in other words,
things that are socialistic, as the Greeks knew to be true, we must discover
to be true that the only path to success we can know individually or collectively
must be together, capitalism is not a sustainable ideology and the only path left
is working together and combining our assets and then collectively disposing
of them to benefit the “public good”……….socialism accepts the proposition that
many hands make light work… if we work together and with purpose, we
can solve many, many of the issues that plague us today…….

which leads me to my last point, vision… who among our leaders
have a vision that leads us to some goal or destination? we see the younger
leaders like Kamala Harris trying to create ad hoc decisions, but they
aren’t leading to some overall, comprehensive goal or vision of where we
want to be and where we need to be…It is not enough to fight against global
warming, you must endeavor to fight global warming within some vision of
where we want to be in the future……. the solutions we seek must exist
within some overall plan or destination we want to reach…it is not
enough to create solutions to immigration if we don’t understand immigration
in the context of past, present and future and of where we want to be
in the future.

some goal is needed to create some understanding of what steps we
must take to reach that goal…… even if and especially if the goal is
far into the future…… we must begin to plan not just the next quarter
or to the next election, we must plan 5 or 10 or 20 or a 100 years into
the future. We must engage in the long game of the human race…

for the “public good” demands that we not only focus on the past
and present but on the future and a future where we will not exist…

I am transitory, temporary and you are transitory, temporary… the
polis, society the state will all go on after we die… the society, the state
doesn’t need any one individual, but the individual needs society, the state…
in order to exist, to survive… this is an essential fact of life and we must
think of our goal, our destination in light of the fact that when we die,
we will leave our children and their children, a better life… and that takes
planning, long term planning and thus we need to have a vision, a goal,
a destination for us to reach for and that goal will decide, determine what
steps we must take to reach that goal………who among our leaders have
a long term plan, a vision of what tomorrow will look like? None right now…
and thus, I haven’t found what I am looking for, apologies to U2…….
in our current crop of people seeking to become president……

Kropotkin

let us take as our guiding principles,
certain ideas that can act as guides into our
vision of the future……

All human beings are created equal…….

that human beings are transitory, temporary…

that the search for truth begins with doubt, not wonder…

that the pursuit of “life, liberty” is fundamental but not the
pursuit of “happiness”. No, a thousand times no. This error has
lead humans far astray from what should be their journey……
what should be in its place? the third phrase should read as this,
the pursuit of “life, liberty and the journey itself”…

for all of human existence is a journey from birth to death…
what is the point or purpose of life… to die……
that is the final end game of life,

to die: to sleep, No more:
and by sleep to we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural
shocks that flesh is heir to, tis a consummation devoutly to
be wish’d. To die, to sleep: sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there the rub;
for in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause:

Indeed, in this passage of the bard, we see another principle, we discover
the function of ART as it gives us pause, to see another possibility
that exist for us, that in death, we might dream but what dreams must,
give us pause…we imagine our possibilities as human’s and we call that
ART.

so the next example of guiding principles is simple, we must dream
and we call those dreams ART. ART is simply dreams taking form…
and we must express those dreams in some fashion and we have ART.

Another guiding principle is, we must have a vision, a goal, a destination
of where are going, both individually and collectively…Martin Luther
King said, " I have a dream" and that dream is a vision, a goal…and
when the founding fathers said, “all men are created equal” that is another
vision, another goal.

I too have a dream, Kropotkin’s dream is that all human beings have
as their guiding principle, the dream of justice… where all exist
in a state of justice, both individually and collectively……
and what is justice, Justice is just a term for equality…

and the cynics and parties without values or hope, shout,
"Utopia, you speak of Utopia… “man will never reach a state
of justice because we are built too differently. I am different then
my fellow man. My state of justice means I must be treated differently”.

and to all who declare themselves above equality, I say unto you.
If wanting justice for all, as a goal for all, makes that vision
a Utopian dream, then let us dream for Utopia. Let our vision of
another day, be a vision of what we call Utopian. Why must we force ourselves
to dream small, why must our vision of tomorrow be so shallow and narrow.
Why not dream big, why not have a vision of tomorrow where there
is justice for all. It is a goal, a vison worthy of being pursued, not this
puny vision/goal of our pursuit of our materialistic theology, where money
is god. NO, let us dream big where we pursue our dreams of where
justice and not security rules the day. and if it be called Utopian, so be it…
I am not afraid of dreams that benefit the entire world…

and the party of no, shouts, “Naïve” “Innocent” “Dewey-eye liberal”

and I ask, why, why am I “naïve” and they shout back, you can’t dream big…

“Why, I ask”

and finally they reveal the truth about themselves, these naysayers and “realist”…

“We cannot dream big. We are not capable of having large visions.
And because of that, we must deny any who dream big, who have a
vision that answers for all of us. To dream big, to imagine utopia is antithetical to us
because we are incapable of such grand visions, of such power of imagination.
We abhor those who can dream big, of those with visions of utopia because
we are unable to dream of such sweeping grand visions…… we have limited, narrow
dreams and visions…and that makes us suspicious of any who can dream larger
then we can… and that is why we call liberals names… we have small and
insignificant dreams and goals and visions… so we must belittle those who can
dream big”

and the truth wills out, for it is jealousy that drives those who
deny the dreamers of large visions………

I want a world where the values are values of love, peace, hope,
charity, justice and honesty……. I want a world where we wake up
every day with hope in our hearts. If that be called a utopia, then
so be it…I dream of a utopia where everyone can become who they are
and I dream of a reality where dreams really do come true…

I dream of a world of hope and justice and love… I see a vision of
humanity where we live in peace and happiness… and if that is called
a utopia, then so be it… I dream of utopia… and you should to…
for that is the only way we can make utopia real, possible… it is
by our dreams and our actions that will make utopia real and possible…

so call me such names as you see fit… for I shall be dreaming of a future
where we wouldn’t even dream of calling someone names…….

I have a vision…and if is utopia, I plea guilty for I desire to live
in a world where we have peace and justice and love… why dream
of anything less?

Kropotkin

a question that has faced “Modern” thinkers is this question of
self-reflection… In other words, we see the universe, reality,
through the lens of “what does it mean to me”. Self -reflection
is about seeing reality, the universe through the lens of our “soul”…
but what if, what if we need to see the universe, reality, not by self-reflection,
but by our relationships to other things in the universe.
that is to say, I understand who I am by my relationship to the civil society,
by my relationship to god, by my relationship to other people…….not by
self-reflection. Seeing who we are by our actions and interactions with others,
individually and/or collectively… not by any self-reflection that says, I am Kropotkin,
and I understand reality, the universe through my understanding of who I am
and what is possible for me…my value that I understand life is justice, is
that just or not, that is the lens through which I see the universe…that is
just one way to discover or see reality, the universe… the way of relationships
says, that I discover who I am, is by my relationships with others, with the state,
with god… So I learn who I am by my understanding of my actions and interactions
with others/the state/civil society instead of discovering my relationships through
some understanding of what it means to be Kropotkin…I Kropotkin, I am a liberal,
so I see the world/reality through the lens of my being liberal which I gained through
self-reflection… no, I understand I am liberal by my actions and interactions and
relationships in the world and that tells me I am a liberal…This question of through
which lens we see the world is one of the basic questions of modernity…….

Do I see the world through subjectivity or do I see the world through the actions
and interactions and relationship within the world and I take that knowledge back
to my subjective self and thus learning the “truth” about the world?

we must at least visit the possibility that we see ourselves and learn about ourselves,
about who we are, by our experiences and interactions with the world instead of
having self-reflections and then seeing the world through those self-reflections…

How do we see the world/reality?

by what method?

Kropotkin

these modern leaders who want to be king, they proclaim their solutions
to the problems of the world, my solution to immigration is not a wall, but
comprehensive immigration reform or the solution to poverty is………

and they see the ying of the world, the troubles of the world and
the gigantic issues that seem to have infected the world…
but these leaders lack the vision or the sight to see the yang
of the world which is the beauty of the world, the vision to see
a world of hope and kindness and justice that does exists in the world…
they see the problems but not the hopeful and positive things in the world…
for that too requires a vision, a insight into what is and what is not…

we see the problems but not hopeful nature of what it means to be human…

we humans, we need, desire, demand hope and what hope demands,
requires and needs is a vision of tomorrow and what is possible tomorrow…

for our tomorrow can be a place where justice and love and peace does
exists, not only for us, but for all of us…

Our leaders see the issues, but not the vision or the dream of a better place
that can be found if we just dream and then act upon our dreams…

I see a tomorrow where there is justice and love and peace…
but our leaders can only see the problems created by man,
but what of the vision to make all our tomorrows possible?

that is lacking……

it is not enough to say, I see injustice and hatred and anger and greed,
we must do more and dream more and act upon those dreams/visions.

Dream of a utopia where we have justice and hope and dreams and
love and peace… dare to imagine that possibility… that is what ART
does. it dares to dream and imagine those possibilities.

but the naysayers and “realist” might say,

"but utopia has its failings and it is possible that utopia might be a nightmare…

yes, that is true, but until we dream and act upon our visions, we can never
find out… and I would rather find out then just deny its possibilities because those
possibilities might, might not work out……….

working for an impossible future is preferable to just existing in a world lacking
in hope and justice and peace…….

Someone once said, “workers of the world, unite! you have nothing to lose but your chains”

people of the world, unite! you have nothing to lose but your injustice, your despair,
your misery… Unite and become who you dream of, unite and discover
your possibilities… what do you have to lose but your anger and your hate and
your bigotry, your intolerance and the hopelessness that exists in our world today……

it is not about the struggle of the classes against each other, but about the possibility
to achieve something beyond just class consciousness… to achieve the possibility
of becoming human, fully human… rising above or overcoming those lower
instincts that hold us back from becoming human… the fear and anger and hatred
that is the lower instincts… rise above those lower instincts, those lower values
and dream of world that has justice and hope and charity and peace……

dream big or go home……

Kropotkin

Heidegger spends a great deal of time dealing with concealed
and unconcealed…things are concealed and then unconcealed…
this uncovering happens as a historical event, but let us take a closer
look at what it means to travel from concealed to unconcealed…

Christians believe in god and jesus and heaven and hell, in
fact they take all the ideology that goes along with believe in god…

we know that belief in god was very strong and is strong today…
but let us take Nietzsche’s word when he said, “god is dead and we have
killed him”………this type of concealment where god had died but
we didn’t know it, we didn’t even know we killed him…
then Nietzsche unconcealed it, revealed the “truth” that god was died……

Now think of the 19th century, from the Napoleonic wars to the death of Nietzsche,
in 1900……… how could Nietzsche discover that “god was dead” if it was
concealed, how did he uncover it? what was his evidence for the statement
that “god was dead and we had killed him”?

I received some truths that had been concealed from me and now
they are unconcealed, uncovered…

I don’t hide the fact I hate my job and the corporation I work for and
after transferring me to a store much further away, that was the last straw,
I sent out resumes and contacted people…….and one honest person,
spoke truths to me and uncovered my reality……. I am too old
and have worked too long at my company for anyone to hire me…
I am unhirable… pure and simple… this truth has brought some
uncomfortable truths to the table for me………

when we are young, we have possibilities, choices, options,
door open when we are young…… as we grow older, our choices,
our possibilities, our options grow ever smaller… doors once opened,
no longer open… I no longer have choices, options, possibilities to find
another job… I am too old… and the truth announced itself to me…
I have been reduced to only two working choices and that is the outcome of
being old… I work at my present job in my present company and be unhappy
and miserable or I retire and I can’t afford that… so as we grow old
the fact of life is we have our choices and possibilities ever reduced, grow
smaller………but given this unconcealment of my ever reducing possibilities
and choices, I must find out what possibilities and choices, I do have?

and after a rather bitter day mulling over my reduced choices and possibilities,
I’ve come to realize that I can still exercise my possibilities and choices, here
as I write and read and think…….I can still find my possibilities within the
words and art I create here at ILP……. as one door in my life closes, I can
find other possibilities and choices in my writings………in my working life,
I must work until I can retire or I die… that is my only two choices but
in my art, and I call my postings here, ART… for it is the act of creation
that I engage with here and, and it reveals to me, my still existing possibilities
and choices………

yesterday was a day of uncomfortable truths, but my reality isn’t solely based
on my working status… I must find my truths elsewhere and that will be
in my studies……

one door closes and another opens……

Kropotkin

I just had a thought, so think of this as an thought experiment
more then my usual ramblings…

modernity…and what separates modernity from what came before…

think of how things were done before technology and science…

most of the world for most of humanity’s history has grown their own
food and/or hunted and/or fished… if you wanted to eat, for most of history
you either grew it or you hunted it… that has been the human way for
since the creation of humans and in fact, that is the way it is for animals…
to eat, you found your food, you killed it, then you ate it…
that has been the way of animals for over a billion years here on planet
earth…

now at time the technology grew from spears to bow and arrows to guns,
but the idea was still the same, the tools used changed…

for American frontier families, they grew their food and then went into
town and traded that food for other goods they needed… but the
meat/fish was found, killed and eaten… you had an immediate
direct relationship with the processes that allowed you to exists…

to grow the food, you needed plows and other tools that farmers
needed to grow their food………

there was no separation between the actions of the human being
and how they lived… if you wanted to eat, you had to find and kill the food
and if you wanted to grow stuff, you had to grow the stuff…… there was no
mediation between human’s actions and how they lived…in other words,
you had direct control over your food and how you got them…

think of the modern world… If I want to eat, I go to the store, I buy
the food and we use appliances to cook the food…
compare that to the way of life for a million years…
If I was hungry, I had to go find the food, kill the food and prepare the food
myself or get a family member to do so…

we were in direct contact with the way we lived, the tools we used were
limited in how they were used…the modern person who is squeamish about
blood or killing animals would have died before 1800 because they had to kill and prepare
food to survive… of course this was before modernity…

now as I said, we go to the store, buy the food and pay money for it…
so clean and neat and without any idea of how that food was prepared…
we simply take it for granted……

or to say this another way, between us and the basics of life, exists
our tools, technology, machines… our means of how we survive
is separate and apart from us by technology and machines…

we exists and someone else who we don’t know and have never
meet, has already taken care of the “modern” needs of survival…

we exists and the basics of life is separate and apart from us……

we have no contact with or are completely separated from a millions
years of existence…out tools and technology and machines have
isolated us from what human life was like for a million years……

we exists and between us and the basics of life exists some sort of
mediation, tools, machines and technology and even money…

of course we feel alienated, remote, an estrangement from
our existence because we are living our lives vastly different
then all life previously, human and animal…….

we humans have had over 15,000 generations of human existence
since the beginning of modern humans, since the beginning of
“modern” times, say the French revolution, we have had 9 generations…
(at roughly 25 years per generation)

9 generations isn’t enough time to adapt or learn to cope with the radical
changes that has happened since the French Revolution…my great grandmother
was born in 1849, thus I am 4 generations away from 1849……
so personally, I am roughly 6 generations from the French Revolution…
not much time………

so how do generations adapt so quickly over so short of a time to
go from living a life that in 1789 would have been familiar to
Julius Caesar, some 2000 years ago, to living a life that would have been completely
unfamiliar to someone like Napoleon in the short span of the 230 years
since the French Revolution………

we have become separated, apart, alienated from the human existence that
had lasted for over 300,000 since the rise of modern humans………

so let us think about history for a moment…

the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans were part of the cycle of human existence
that went from the rise of the city to the Medieval times… The Greeks for
example, felt they were part of a long past that went back into the unknow past…
they felt at home with the long standing tradition that the were part of and had
lasted for a couple of thousand years…that collapse and the new age began…
but this new age had much of the same process that had lasted for a million years…
Human beings lived off the land… thus the political and economic and social
order may have changed, but it didn’t change the fact that human beings still
existed by living off the land… that didn’t change until the start of the industrial
revolution or roughly 1789……….and within a hundred years, the modern world was
not only born but brought into fruition… we can easily see the modern world
by 1900… phones, cars, airplanes came a few years later, but at the French Revolution,
you cannot see the modern world, not yet…the machines and science and technology
wasn’t there yet…the science and machines and technology which has divided us
from the previous 15,000 generations of human beings…

and now the 64,000 dollar question? is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Kropotkin

when thinking about it, metaphysics makes sense when
one is in immediate contact with living off the land…
you hunt, you fish, you grow stuff on land… that is immediate, direct
contact with how human beings have lived for 15,000 generations…
you are in touch with all those ancestors who lived before you because
you are living your life in the exact same way they did… tradition
is strong because tradition is a way of life…

we moderns have no contact with our traditions, because we
don’t live our life as the prior generations did… we have become
apart, separate, alienated from that way of life that existed for a million years
and a billion years before that…

and having a god or a religion makes sense in the midst of a history that
has existed for several hundred of thousands of years………
but as we don’t have immediate contact with or better said, we have layers
of science and machines and technology between us and the basics of life,
we don’t have the same connection to the past that had existed for
15,000 generations of human existence…

even in the urban environment of existence, it really didn’t change much
from Egypt to Greece to Rome through the Middle ages through the rise of
the modern city, Paris, Rome, London… … until the French Revolution,
living in the city was pretty much the same everywhere because the city
life itself didn’t really change from Greece to 1789… the rise of science
and machines and technology, that changed city life to what the modern
city is today…the connection that existed in the city that was there
since the ancient times, change because of the rise of science, technology
and machines………the very act of living is different today because of the
science and technology and machines that exists and we haven’t come to
grips with what that means yet………before the French revolution,
life in the city was pretty much the same outside of local differences,
but now life has changed and, and this is the confusing part,
travel from one city to the next, and there is a certain sameness,
a certain local feel, but each city is tied and connected to each other
by science and technology and machines that makes every city seem to
be no different, again outside of local differences…… so, San Francisco
is different then Chicago, having lived in both, but they are connected
by the science, technology and machines that exists within both and tie both
together…….if someone dropped you off in an American city and didn’t tell
you what city, without asking someone, how long would it take for you to know
what city you were in? As every city has cars and public transportation
and streets and tall buildings and everywhere exists the same stores,
7/11 and Walgreens and rite-aid and Burger King and MacDonald’s and Wendy
and Macy and Sears (before they fell) the Gap and Nordstrom’s…

the sameness of our American cities is scary… and something of a connection
that human beings need…

this sameness that is American cities also existed in various cities in Europe
not because of the fact that cities didn’t really change for the average person…
Paris of 1500 and Paris of 1600 and Paris of 1700 was remarkable the same city……
And London didn’t change that much over the 300 years and during the Middle ages,
the cities didn’t change that much, from 600 AD to 1500 AD, Paris wasn’t that different.

a citizen of 800 Paris could have easily gotten around during the 1500’s, the only difference
was the city of Paris was much larger, but the life within the city was still the same with
people leading similar lives, doing the same jobs, getting around the same way, it wasn’t
that different from 800 Paris to 1700 Paris…their lives were the same, they lived the
same, the taxes was the same, the churches were the same, the food was the same…
life was no different in 800 as it was in 1700… but life was completely different in
Paris by 1900… and science and technology and machines changed Paris enough to
make it unrecognizable to someone from 800 or even 1700…….

we must understand this change before we can understand what it means
to be “moderns”… Modernity cannot make sense until we understand
what it meant to live in the past…….

Kropotkin

we must locate modernity in our understanding of the past…
recall our standards for understanding: compare and contrast…
one of the ways we reach an understanding of anything is to compare
and contrast things…am I a better person today then I was
30 years ago? I need to then compare and contrast who I was 30
years ago with who I am today…another path to understanding lies
with our engagement with others… now others can be anything else
in the universe… and that includes ism’s, ideologies, biases, superstitions,
prejudice…so I can better understand being human by comparing
who I am against animals or plants or walls and other human beings……

now is my understanding biased because I can only understand by my
one viewpoint, my subjectivity? I cannot see the universe or reality in your
shoes or in your viewpoint… I am limited to having just one viewpoint or
place to stand where I can understand the world…….and that one viewpoint
or place to stand is limited by history and experiences and by my accidental
birth in a particular place and family…… I have a hearing loss and you most likely
don’t… my understanding of reality, of the universe is changed by the very
act of having a hearing loss… just as your understanding of the universe, reality is changed
by you having all your hearing…….so ask yourself, who has a “better” understanding
of the universe? You or me? to me that is an irrelevant question for it has no
possible answer because we can never know that answer… because “better” requires
some form of comparison or contrast and what are we to compare and contrast
“better” to? it all becomes just a subjective understanding of the word “better”……

so we begin by understand modernity by comparing our “modern” lives with
the lives of people who existed before us…

first of all, most people in history had a very short life expectancy, during the
Roman empire, the average life expectancy was roughly 25 years and I can’t see
it being any different from the height of the Roman empire to 1789…perhaps
give it to 30 or 32 after the middle ages…next, the average person rarely
traveled more then a 100 miles from their place of birth… just the amount
of movement by human beings has dramatically increased… next, the average
person for most of history was a farmer. Today, we have more human beings
living in cities then living on the farm, world wide… that alone makes
all the difference in the world… for city existence is vastly different
then a farm existence…in the city, we experience far more in a year
then the average farmer in the middle ages experienced in a lifetime…
and that fact is vital………for it is within these experiences that we
compare and contrast ourselves to… I cannot know if I am a bigot for example
unless I compare myself with others and it seems clear that I am not
a bigot comparing myself to the bigots that inhabit ILP……
and that is just one way we can find out or discover who we are
and what is our nature…now some clowns here have tried to
tie anti-Semitism with being liberal but that can only happen if
you twist the entire understanding of being liberal and anti-Semitism into some
unrecognizable definition.

thus we return to Socrates and his dictum, know thyself……
and we can only know ourselves in relations to others…

and so by comparing the fact that we moderns, experience
and travel and live longer then the prior generations means
our understanding of the universe is different from those
other generations…we live in modern world where we have
science, technology and machines… the average person during
the last 100,000 years didn’t have those things. those facts of “modernity”
means we view the world vastly different then those who didn’t have our
modern tools of science and technology.

Our understanding of “Modernity” is view by comparing and contrasting
what is our modern experiences compared to those who existed before us…
we see in those difference what modernity means……

the loss of ism’s and ideologies that existed in the past came about from
the way people came to understand themselves… you can see that
when you see the rise of Christianity in the ancient world… you can compare
and contrast Rome from the time of Caesar to the fall of Rome in 476 BC…
we see Rome slowly change during those 500 years… for example,
the Rome of Caesar had engineers and builders who could build grand, fine
buildings but by the time of the fall of Rome, you didn’t have any body
who could build or construct those wonderful building of ancient Rome…
the knowledge and technique was lost during those 500 years and wasn’t
rediscovered until the Renaissance……

Modernity is more then another time period… it is about the comparing
and contrasting of the experiences and events and people of previous times
compared to our modern times…and in that comparison and contrast,
we can see why we have lost our faith in god and religion and most forms
of ism’s and ideologies……. we are atomistic and isolated from the past
in ways we haven’t even discovered yet… but that doesn’t mean we must
return to the past…as has been noted before, you can’t go home again…

we must not go back to the past… we have only one direction we
can move and that is forward… and any who call for a return to the past
must find out the past is no longer a home for us… we cannot go home again…
we must find our way forward…… but that doesn’t tell us the new ism’s
and ideologies and prejudices and superstitions that we must now
hold in order to be at home in this modern world… no, it doesn’t…

Kropotkin