a new understanding of today, time and space.

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

so what exactly is “modernity”?

if we compare our current situation to the situation of someone in the
past, say, 1700, France… you can say that the average person was a farmer,
who lived to say, 35, who was born into the Catholic church and the King of France
had been King since 1643… all of these are part of the identity of someone who
was living in 1700…their families had probably owned the land they worked on
for generations…the average person didn’t travel that far in their life, perhaps
a couple of hunred miles away from their home…

we understand the human condition by the possibilities that exists in
that time period…the average person, I shall call Rene, didn’t go to
collage, most likely had a limited education, probably couldn’t read, as the
number of nobles were around 600,000 in a population of 22 million and the
money always goes to the wealthy nobles or the church,
thus Rene was also living on the edge of poverty…
and until recent times, the possibility of a famine was always in
mind… Rene lived a hard, brutal, short life and because of that
he needed all the help he could get and that came from the church
and its all-encompassing hold over life in rural france in 1700…
you were born, lived and die within the hold of Catholic church…
and average person like Rene most likely didn’t object because
his life was so transitory and difficult.

Now compare that to your life…

and now we see modernity in its full exposure… it is the difference
between a person’s life in 1700, Rene and your life today…

we feel alienated, disconnected, atomized by life today because
the factors that comforted Rene does not exists today…

perhaps Nietzsche was right, god is dead and we have killed him…
and it might be those factors of life, the church and the small village
near the land of Rene, that all gave solace and comfort to Rene… his life
was a life grounded into the traditions and experiences he had living
in his very limited life……compare that to your life or maybe I can compare
that to my life… at one stretch, my family moved over 10 times over
4 states in 10 years… I had no stability, nothing that was a shared experience
during all those moves outside of my family and books…compare my life
with Rene’s life…… I had a completely different experience then Rene
and that difference is called “Modernity”. Also in play with the difference with
Rene is all the science and technology and machines that exists in my life that
didn’t exists in his life. I have never killed a animal in my life… I have never
picked fruits and vegetables in my life. I have never fished in my life……
I am separated, apart from the experiences that Rene had, that he needed
to have to survive… and those difference is what we call, “modernity”.

god is dead and we have killed him… we killed him when we became
separated from, alienated from, that which keeps us alive,
the basics of life… I have never build a shelter and I cannot fix a car,
I can’t tell you how an stove works nor how the computer works…
I use these things all the time and my shelter was built for me
and my car is fixed by someone else and my food is prepared
by someone else… I am mediated from my life by the tools,
science, technology and machines that exists in my life……

that too is “modernity”… our separation from the basics of life…

I stand here and the basics of life stand over there and all these things,
tools, science, technology and machines stand between me and the
basics of life…it creates a different reality, experience for me, then
it does for Rene who had to find his food and fix his food and repair
his hovel with what was at hand and fix his wagon with whatever he could
find…and then he would go out into the field and plant his crop
and raise that crop and then sell that crop for whatever he could get…

I woke up today, it is my day off, I came into the kitchen and turned on
the TV and then I took my various pills that I need, then I microwaved something
for breakfast… I am wearing my headphones to listen to music and I did read
some but I have mostly spent my morning writing here… compare my day
with Rene’s day…… that is “modernity”

Rene’s life was grounded in the fact he was a farmer and his life was grounded
in a life that his father had and his grandfather had and his great grandfather had…
with a church his father and everyone before had, with a state with Kings
and nobles that been there for a thousand years…he didn’t travel and he couldn’t
read and his experiences are the experiences of a French famer in 1700… limited,
at best………

I am not grounded by my experiences, I will work again on Weds, standing for
8 hours while I scan and input codes into the computer… weighing fruits
and vegetables and chit chat with the customers in a brightly lit store full
science and technology and machines…….as I now work much further away from
home, it takes about an half hour to drive home in my car, mostly in ugly
traffic… I reach home and perhaps my wife will make me dinner by using the
stove or more likely the microwave to cook my dinner…….

My daily experiences are so different from Rene’s that we could be
from different planets… and that difference is “modernity”

now the question arises, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

and do we, must we change ourselves to become more grounded?
or should we just learn to change and adapt to our new reality, our
new understanding of what it means to be human?

many, many questions are here… and I don’t know the answers…

Kropotkin

so we have tried to understand modernity as the
difference between, compare and contrast, the lives
of people before say, the French revolution and today…

but that compare and contrast lies in only one direction, the past,
what about the comparison between today and tomorrow, the future?

is society moving in the right direction? is my life “better” off then
my created person described in my last post, as Rene, is my life better
off then Rene? Depends on what is the standards used?
I am economically better off then Rene, I am not faced with possible
famine nor will I starve to death… but and this is important…
I can fall a great deal further then Rene… he is basically one small step
from complete poverty and homelessness whereas I while solidly lower
middle class, within missing three paychecks, I could face poverty
and becoming homeless… I have further to fall then Rene…
and that is another experience Rene will not face……

but the question still remains, how are we to face the future?
the conservative demands a return to the past, but we cannot
go home again… we can never return to the middle ages or
even the 1950’s… for better or worse, we are here, right now
in 2019 and we must decide how we are to engage with 2020 and beyond…

so much of our thinking is engage with ad hoc thinking… that is to say,
we deal with, focus on fighting the fires of our times with solutions
that are meant to solve those small scale problems…we see homelessness
and we answer with increasing the budget to better improve their lives…
but that is a ad hoc solution because it doesn’t engage with the reasons
we have homeless people… a solution must deal with a small scale
immediate solution when we must really create a large scale, comprehensive
solution that is a sociality solution for the homeless arise from
issues and problems within our society… homelessness is not
an isolated, individual problem, but a problem that stem from
our system and our choices within that system……

every problem I can think of that plagues society stems from
society in some fashion and every single problem must
be solved from a sociality standpoint. we cannot create small scale
ad hoc solutions for problems that stem from sociality issues…
homelessness is a problem because of the way society is organized
and arranged and can only be solved on a sociality level…

the same is true with every single problem we are faced with, from
poverty to homelessness to children’s lack of food to climate change
to pollution to overpopulation to income inequality and so on……

we cannot simply use an half ass a solution and call it a day…

we must be prepared to rethink and reorganize our entire
society if we are to successfully engage with and solve our
myriad problems…

but one might ask why? if you ask that you have failed to understand
the entire point of society and government……
the use of society and government is to find solutions to a problem
or problems facing a people…society/government is a problem solving
method for individuals… we use government to solve problems that
are not possible on an individual level…for example, on an individual level,
I cannot successfully live my life without the various solutions that
the government has provided me such as police, fire departments,
sewage plants, road and hospitals… these governmental solutions
to problems free me up to engage with my life and my own search
for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”………

without these governmental solutions, life is as Hobbes describe it, is…

“Life outside of society would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”

it is society/the tools of problem solving like the government that
has created our “modern” way of life…….

and then we are still faced with the question of the future…

but the conservative demands that “government become small
enough to drown in a bathtub”

and the conservative works for and demands a small government
all the while ignoring the fact that it is the government as a solution
that has created our modern and somewhat successful modern world…

so it becomes a question of what problems, issues that currently
bedevils us that we must find solutions to and we must engage in
all the tools, science and technology that we have along with
that other tool, government to find solutions to our problems…

for that is really the path into the future we must engage with…
what are our problems and how do we find solutions to those problems?

that is the path into the future or a least one possible path into the future…
we can go into the future with the understanding that our engagement
with the future is about solving our problems and what tools do we use to
solve those problems like global warming and poverty and overpopulation…

that is one possible answer to how are we to face the future…
but there are always other possible answers to
this question of, how are we to face our future…

Kropotkin

to make sure its clarified, we have serious issues such as
global warming, income inequality, poverty and pollution…
these are not 4 distinct and separate issues or problems,
these are 4 connected and interrelated problems/issues…

there is not one answer that will solve any one of these problems,
there is only an overarching, overall solution to these problems…
anyone who says we must solve poverty by raising taxes is not understanding
the issue… we must not advocate ad hoc solutions to distinct
and separate problems/issues because there aren’t distinct
and separate problems/issues… they are simple part of the overall
problems and issues we face…

Kropotkin

and so one might say, ok, what is the overall solution to
our overall problems… and they are still missing the point…

the answer lies with and begins with an overall understanding of what
it means to human and what are our possibilities and what is our future
goals… the solution begins with changing our understanding, of
our beginning with Socrates, know thyself and then understanding
what values are really our values and what values are values we
were taught and indoctrinated with as children and then
overcome those values by a reevaluation of values… of finding out
what values are really your values and not indoctrinated values of childhood
and then becoming who you are…which means become those values you
have reevaluated… if you are indoctrinated with “american” values of
martial values and a concern with security and in your reevaluation you
decide your real values are values of justice and hope and love…
you then have reevaluated your values and now you must live
your life with the new values, become who you are by living
your life with your new reevaluated values… and we haven’t even
done this basic step and thus we are unable to see our way to
any type of solution that will solve society issues/problems because
we are still back with our indoctrinated values and any solution we then
come up with will simply be ad hoc solutions because we haven’t
become who we are and thus we are alienated from, disconnected
from our real values… instead of doing as we do now which is
follow our indoctrinated values which have no point because
those indoctrinated values cannot answer for us or suggest to us
any solutions to our current problems…so to make this clear…

as a child of three, I was indoctrinated with values that are meant to
solve my three year old problems… I am now 60 and those values meant
to solve my problems of three, my indoctrinated values, cannot even begin
to solve my problems of my being 60… my indoctrinated values are not capable
of solving my current issues/problems… I must have values that are relevant
and current to solve my 60 year old problems and issues…

that is the same thing within society… we must have and use values that
are current and relevant to our issues/problems at the time…
indoctrinated values of childhood work in childhood, but as we grow
they become less and less effective as solutions until one day, they
no longer work as solutions and we must adapt change our values to
match our current age and situation in life and we have to do so individually
and collectively………that is why we are alienated and disconnected from
ourselves and society because we are using childhood indoctrinations to
solve adult problems and issues…….

Kropotkin

so let us continue our understanding of our possibilities…

when conservative demand a capitalistic, past solution to
our modern problems, they are demanding a childhood
solution to our present age problems……

when someone defends capitalism as it stands today,
as a system in which private greed and individual
goals are somehow meant to solve the societies problems,
the so called hand of god, that is meant to somehow in
some way that has never been explained, to make society
work… then are using a childhood solution to an adult problem

for as adults, private greed doesn’t solve or help our modern
problems/issues… for greed and anger and hate are childhood
solutions to problems… in other words, capitalism is a childhood
answer to adult problems… capitalism worked when we
were in that situation, with those experiences, but today,
we have adult problems and capitalism with its emphasis
on childhood solutions of greed and the every present cry of
the child… me, me, me, me, me, me…no longer will work
as an adult… we cannot say, me, as an adult… we say, we
and that is an adult solution… and so we must address our current
problems/issues with adult solutions and as capitalism is a childhood
answer, we can no longer go with that solution… as adults we
find that engagement with other human beings, cooperation
is the adult solution to most of our problems, issues…
and so to understand that in adult terms, we must no longer
use childhood solutions like capitalism to solve our problems/issues…

we must use adulthood solutions and that means we must cooperate
and work together, so the adult solution to our problems/issues is
really socialism/communism… we must work together and in doing so,
we can together to solve our problems… the political and economic
system of adults is not capitalism but socialism/communism…

so anyone who says, MAGA, make America great again, is using
childhood solutions to solve adult problems/issues…

we must find and use adult solutions to our adult
problems………and using solutions from the past, our childhood,
is no longer possible for those solutions were right for that time
and stage of development, but that time, that age was 3…

we are now adults and we must use an adult solution which is
not the indoctrinated solutions of childhood which is great for
solving the problems of children… but we are no longer children…
and children solutions will no longer work for us……

we don’t need to MAGA, make America great again…
we need to discover new solutions that make sense with
our current problems and issues… and childhood solutions like
MAGA and “follow the past” will no longer solve our problems/issues…

to be a conservative and demand the past solutions to current adult problems
is to demand we use 3 year old solutions to solve adult problems…
and my 3 year old solutions cannot and will not solve my adult problems/issues…

so, we must consider adult solutions to adult problems and socialism is
the best one we can use because it is adult in it a solution
that is adult, working together and planning together is what
adults do… we aren’t just about our own personal goals, for an
adult, it is us, not me………… and socialism is us and capitalism is me…

Kropotkin

as is my habit, I usually stop my reading and writing in the afternoon…
So I was just watching CNN killing time before the Warriors play in
an hour and I see this news report saying that there is some sort
of town hall meeting in which Sen. Warren will announce
several policy programs that she will institute as president…
for example, she wants to break up tech companies and have
universal child and health care… which are fine policies but
and this is important, they seem to be ad hoc suggestions that
have no overall vision or goal to reach… they are individual, separate
policies that have no relationship to each other… there is no
plan or a unified plan to overcome our problems… just individual
policies that exist isolated from each other…and therein lies
the problem……. we have seen this movie before and it has lead
us nowhere because to be effective, you must have an overall
plan or a goal for us to reach for individual policies to work…

what is the overall plan of Sen. Warren? I doubt she could even tell
you and that is the problem… what is the vision and how does
the individual ad hoc suggestions help us reach that vision?

if you look at the past and see the great human beings, they all
brought to the table, a vision, a goal they want to reach…

look at the people running for president and not one has a overall
vision or overall goal that they want to reach… it is simply ad hoc
suggestions that are simply band-aids on our problems instead of
a philosophical underpinning that allows one to achieve a goal or reach
a vision…we must have this philosophical underpinning of where we are going
and then and only then, can we begin to describe our plans for reaching our goals…

in other words, we have a vision and then we think about what it takes
to reach that vision/goal… for example, we want to eliminate poverty…
what changes do we need to make in policy and in our viewpoint of the world
do we need to reach our goal of eliminating poverty… we have a goal
and then we find the actions to take to reach that goal… Sen. Warren
has the actions to take but do they reach a goal or achieve a vision of
tomorrow? She has never vocally said out loud what is her philosophical
underpinning or what vision or goal she wants to achieve…
the goals or vision determines the actions to be taken………
and as we cannot see the vision, we cannot see if her actions will achieve
those goals or the vision…

Kropotkin

ok, we have a vision…
and we decide that our vision is MAGA, “make America great again”
so, how do we create policies, decide upon actions that will make
America great again… However, my own vision or goal is to make
America the greatest country on earth…that is a subtle difference
between making America great again and making America the greatest
country on earth…

so how do we go about making America the greatest country on earth…
by what means or actions would we take to make America the greatest country
on earth?
First of all, we have to understand what it means to be the greatest country
on earth… by what standards will we use to reach our goal of being the
greatest country? by standards, I mean, are we to use such standards
as economically or socially or militarily or some other standard to decide
upon that will make us great…… so, we might say for example, we are the
greatest country on earth because we have the greatest military on earth…
thus using military strength as the criteria for being the greatest country
on earth or perhaps we might us the economic standard, we are economically
the greatest country on earth… but are those really standards we should use
to judge if we are the greatest country on earth?

let us look into history… we see that the Athenians were the greatest
navel power on earth and by that, they achieve their greatness but
you must note that Athens only achieve their greatness for a very short
period of time, about 100 years… not much greatness…

so we try the economic standard for Athens to be the greatest country
on earth………and once again, we can say Athens was the greatest country
for only a very short time…so by using those two standards,
we see that using the economic or military standards for greatness
leads us to see that greatness on those terms has a very short existence…

let us examine Rome… Rome was the leading economic and military power
in Europe… the greatest country on earth but the fact is that Rome
was the greatest power for a relatively short time, maybe 500 years
and then it completely collapsed…… trying to tie greatness of a country
into an economic or military power has it limits because a country
can achieve greatness for only a short time before it falls back to earth…

let us look at how we might achieve greatness in America…we must look
at other countries, compare and contrast, and see what seems to make
great countries… and we look at Europe and we see that the most successful
and stable countries in Europe are countries that don’t have very big
income inequality… everyone is roughly in the same middle area in wealth…
you don’t have great wealth and you don’t have great poverty………

and by looking at other countries in history, you see this too is a factor…
income inequality is a sign of a country that might be great for a short time
but income inequality brings about instability and chaos… for example
Athens during its greatness didn’t have tremendous income inequality…
it certainly did have income inequality but it wasn’t to the extent that America
is today… Rome had real problems within its society because of its
income inequality and one can make the argument that what finally destroyed
Rome was its income inequality… the wealthy and churches didn’t pay taxes
and the tax burden grew too great on everyone else to allow Rome to survive…
a lesson for modern times……

and when we look at other “great” countries we see similar stories,
of temporary greatness either militarily or economically but
not long lasting at all… and we see this too with America…

now this leads us to another question, is greatness really a function
of military or economic strength? I don’t think so… I see greatness
coming from having our individual members of society being as strong
as possible… and thus we must be achieving goals as eliminating poverty
and income inequality… citizens must be roughly equal… justice which is
equality must be the driving force of any society striving for greatness…
not military or economic strength.

let us look at individuals that have been “great” and we try to see what made
them great…… we begin with Jesus… Jesus didn’t have either economic or military
greatness… he was a poor man who message, in part, was that for people to reach
heaven must not be rich, they must give away their wealth to achieve heaven…
and he had 12 apostles and at most he had maybe 150 people within his circle
who paid any attention to him… the greatness he achieved had nothing to
do with wealth or military…… Martin Luther… he had neither wealth or
military strength… and yet, he was great and changed the world in a dramatic
and profound way without the usual trappings of wealth or military…

Gandhi, he too was a poor man who preached peace and nonviolence…
and he too changed the world… Martin Luther King, poor and peaceful…

we see individual greatness doesn’t need wealth or a military behind them to
achieve greatness… greatness isn’t about wealth or about the strength of any
military behind them……… so why should we make greatness about wealth or
the military when we see individuals being great without any wealth or military
to back them up………

we need to redefine what greatness is to include what is actually greatness,
not wealth and not military… but purpose in life, a vision……

and understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to
become who we are… that is greatness…that is a goal devoutly to
be reached…did Shakespeare have wealth or military to achieve greatness?
Now some did reach greatness by the military, Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander the great
reach greatness by military means… and look at how they ended… none of them
had a particular dignified ending… you can include Hitler or Stalin and see what
havoc did they achieve… millions dead and fated to be hated till the end of time…

we must reevaluate greatness to be something besides wealth or military because
neither path is the path to greatness… real greatness is written not by wealth or
the military but by a goal, a plan, a vision of what we are and what is our possibilities…

Lincoln was great not because of wealth or the military, but by a vision…
Einstein was great not because of wealth or the military but by a vision…
Newton was great not by wealth or the military, but by a vision……
Hawkins was great not by wealth or the military but by a vision…
Socrates was great not by wealth or the military but by a vision…
philosophers and thinkers and scientist are great not by wealth or
the military but by a vision………

we must follow greatness by following a vision, a goal and not by
embracing wealth or the military…… we want to be great or if
we want a country to be great, we must embrace a vision or a goal,
not wealth or the military………

reach for greatness…

reach for a vision……

Kropotkin

let us continue on about greatness…

We have spoken about Athens but let us further understand it…

we often consider the greatest explosion of creative thought to be
Athens from roughly 480 BC to about 380 BC……
it wasn’t wealth or the military that drove this unprecedent creative
explosion…we remember Athens because of its buildings, the philosophers,
the ART, the many first that Greece founded from math to science to history
to philosophy…

we turn to the renaissance and we see the same thing… an explosion
of creativity that has enthralled the world since… and that creativity had
nothing to do with wealth or the military…you cannot attribute genius
to wealth or the military…….and genius is greatness and that has nothing
to do with wealth or the military……. so, we cannot continue to define
our country “greatness” with wealth or the military because greatness is not
found there…

we can and must redefine what greatness means and then act to reach
for greatness… the theory tells us the actions… as theory is
the underpinning of actions…… our modern world is built upon the
underpinning of the science that drives the technology and the machines…
without the science, the underpinning, we cannot create the technology or the
machines………

what is the underpinnings of our modern world?

what are the philosophical idea’s that give our world its shape?

we have the religion/theology of Mammon….

we pray to this god all the time… this religion is a nihilistic one,
it negates people and their values… it is the religion of the GOP and
IQ45…Money above all else… that is the GOP mantra……
money above people and their values…….nihilism… pure and simple…

no, our philosophical underpinnings cannot be a nihilistic one……

we must have as our philosophical underpinning a hopeful,
positive philosophy…… we must begin by acknowledging
our addiction to this ideology of materialism…….

then we must place people and life above materialism or money…
and for many, many, this will be hard to do because they have lived
with their addiction for so long that changing will be hard to do…

we can do worse then replace our addiction with a pursuit of greatness…
we can begin to replace nihilism with creativity by building, creating art,
engaging with love which is the basis of all creativity…… the overflowing of
the heart is the basis of all ART… this overflowing can be one of the many
emotions we human beings feel, from sadness to anger to hate to love to despair…
our heart overflows and we must release it, express it and ART is the means we
use to bring the heart back into moderation…think of a boiling pot, without
a valve to release the steam, the pressure within the pot grows and grows until
it becomes dangerous… we release the steam from the boiling pot and there is
no danger to us…… the human heart is the exact same thing as a boiling pot…
we must release the steam or we get burnt when it explodes……

one might say, Kropotkin, you are talking about several different things,
what exactly are you talking about? I say unto you, no, no, I am talking
about the exact same thing when I talk about greatness and nihilism
and ART and releasing steam from the human heart… they are just different
sides of the human experience…we cannot separate out who we are into
distinct and separate parts… we are one and the same… and the myriad of
feelings and thoughts and instincts that drive the human soul, all come from
us, the human being… and we must learn to harness and love all aspects of us…

we can only reach or achieve greatness once we learn to become who we are,
and learn what are our possibilities… for art and greatness and love and
becoming all rise from our possibilities…… and possibilities means what is
possible for us to become… it is possible for us to find greatness within us
and it is possible for us to become great artist and it is possible for us to become
great human beings, like Gandhi and Martin Luther King………for love and greatness
and hope and our possibilities are all found within us, within who we are……

our philosophical underpinning is simply a statement of what we believe is
possible for the human soul………

Kropotkin

one way to think of modernity and people in the past, people like
my made up Frenchman name Rene… look at Rene… he was a farmer,
a church goer, catholic, he existed under the Ancient Regime, the political
and social system of the Kingdom of France for 500 years……

but how many different roles did Rene have to play? very few… farmer,
churchgoer, taxpayer, possibly husband and father…

now let us take Kropotkin for example, he is a worker thus must present one
face to the management or as I have recently noticed, be banished…
another role is husband and father and we have taxpayers just as Rene did,
but we have many different and diverse systems in which we play our roles
and each system requires us to play a different role…we are a consumer, voter,
citizen, sport fan, participant of such internet games as presented here on ILP,
with each system comes a different role, a different Kropotkin…

I act and interact with hundreds of people every single day… I probably meet and greet more
people in one month then Rene has met in his entire life…

and that too is part of the difference between the modern and the world before
1789…

the grounds of our existence is different then the grounds of existence for
Rene and everyone like Rene who lived before the French Revolution…

think of a farmers life and then think of your life… a vast difference and
one that marks the difference between modernity and the past…
our basic existence is mediated by all the science and technology and
machines we use every single day and Rene existence was about the fields
he was working on and the seasons that affected his crops and animals and
birds that might eat his crop and saving his soul from everlasting damnation…

none of Rene concerns are our concerns because we exists in modernity
and Rene did not…….

Kropotkin

we have so many assumptions that we live under…
for example this idea of American greatness or American exceptionalism
which is America is great by being virtue of being America…this hubris
is a path to failure… for with any person, group, city, nation, we must
work every single day to become great, greatness is not handed to us,
it is worked for every single day…sports teams don’t just rest once
they have won a championship, no, in fact once you win a title,
you have got work even harder to maintain that title because
everyone is gunning for you…if America is exceptional then we must
work every single day to remain exceptional… the same is true of American
greatness… but I return to an earlier point, what makes America great?
how are we to define greatness? we just assume that we are great without
actually understanding the basis for our greatness…

and the same lies true for the greatness of our values… what values makes America
great? can we even define those values? Can we point out people who follow those values?

the problem is we assume so much in regards to what America stands for
and what being American actually means………If you are a white nationalist,
I would maintain that you don’t stand for American values because documents
like the declaration of independence stated things like this: “All men are created equal”
it doesn’t say, all white men, it says “all men” thus the color of one’s skin is irrelevant
in regards to the statement in question…and we have clearly expanded the
statement to include women, so the statement in question is really this:

“All human beings are created equal”

and they are… to attempt to negate people based on the color of their skin
or their religion or their nationality is an attempt to deny the founding fathers…
you cannot claim to be a patriot and still try to negate human beings based
on their skin color or their creed or their nationality…

and this the problem with white nationalist like the ones who exists on ILP,
they are nihilists, they negate people and their values and that is nihilism…
nihilism is not positive as it engages in negative values and negative instincts
like hate and anger and greed and lust among others…

and those who negate people because of who they love or their social or
economic or political beliefs are nihilists… if you negate someone because
they are gay or they believe in socialism, you are a nihilist…….

IQ45 is a nihilist because he negates which is to say he is racist
and bigoted and sexist and anti-sematic……… he negates people
based on race, color, sex, even if they are handicap… that is nihilistic…

now one might say, it isn’t nihilistic because we bigots and racist and sexist still
hold values… really, what values would those be?

I suspect the bigots of the world don’t even have a coherent understanding
of what they value because that would require some thought as to what they
believe and their negative beliefs/instincts are really emotional reaction’s to
the world, not a rational understanding of the world…I believe that the bigots
of the world can’t even logical state what is their core beliefs because that would
mean they would have to think about their beliefs and for the bigots and racist
of the world it isn’t about thinking, it is about how they feel, their emotional response
to people…….

again, for the instinctual people of the GOP/right wing, it would require some attempt
to think about their beliefs… but to put it bluntly, their negative/instinctual
beliefs are really assumed beliefs because they have never actually given any thought
to the nature of their beliefs…and we return to the many assumptions that
we live under………….

Kropotkin

in trying to understand our modernity, I was thinking about the
ism’s and ideologies that we have and then comparing/contrasting
our current ism’s and ideologies with ancient ism’s and ideologies…

for example, we have two prominent ism’s that are THE 20the century
ism’s, communism and capitalism………

but as I have previously laid out, both ism’s are less path to freedom and
more a path to our enslavement… by that think about capitalism…
I have laid out in great detail how capitalism is nihilism…I am not free
in a capitalistic society because I am simply a small and insignificant pawn
in capitalism…my role is simply to create more profit so that those who own
the means of production can get wealthier… I am means to greater wealth
and it is not my wealth that is increased… in my 40 plus years of working,
I have nothing to show for it outside of a body and soul that has been severely
damaged… because of the pain I suffer from working, I need pain pills
and sleeping pills to go to sleep… I am in pain every single day and that is the
result of my working for 40 years… my soul was crushed years ago…
and for what, I cannot retire… the various economic downturns have left
me with no money saved up…I cannot quit my job, I cannot afford it,
I cannot go anywhere else because no one will hire me, I am too old…
I am a victim of capitalism as are millions of people who suffer under it
damaging affects…and why? because it is said that somehow under
capitalism, the “hand of god” will benefit society… in 40 plus years, I
have yet to see how this “hand of god” of capitalism has benefited society…

but communism has the same problem of the individual being merely a
helpless pawn while communism with its historical dialectal materialism
that operates above us and controls us in a soulless relentless fashion…
we have no personal determination in either capitalism nor in communism…
we are simply ships that bob above the seas while the sea of capitalism and
communism try to sink us and with no care as to who we are or whither we
have consented or not… and I think that is the real problem, we have no
control or say over either capitalism or communism… an small example,
is my recent transfer to another store… I wasn’t asked, I wasn’t told about it,
I was simply transferred without any consent or approval by me… and that in
a nutshell is capitalism…actions taken about my life without any input
from me… and that is also communism… for we have no input
into the forces that dominate communism, the dialectal materialism…
where we are simply crushed under the wave of historical forces that
we have no say or control over……

and that is the failure of ism’s from Catholicism to Hinduism to Islam to
really any religion and to the ism’s of the economic and political…
we have no freedom and no say over our fate in ism’s and ideologies…

the Enlightenment and Kant basic point was that we needed to
become free of authorities that would tell us to do, like the bible
and god and Aristotle and the Church…… but what the enlightenment
never saw was that we cannot be free of the ism’s and ideologies
long enough to engage in what Kant called “Sapere Aude”…dare to know…
we cannot think for ourselves because we are trapped within ism’s
and ideologies that so completely dominated our lives……. we are
simply pawns to the final goal of these ism’s and ideologies…
pawns to god, pawns to capitalism, pawns to communism, pawns
to religion, pawns to the economic and pawns to the political…

so I would guess the real battle is to become who we are and
by doing so, hopefully… maybe, become free of these ism’s
and ideologies that have collectively crushed and destroyed
our bodies and souls…………

so the question becomes, how are we to be free of those ism’s and
ideologies that have trapped us within the complete control over
our lives… where we have no control and no say over our lives…

does the modern vision really mean to recapture our voice
and to recapture control over what it means to be human…

we are not, as religion and politics and economics and ism’s all say,
we are not disposable pieces that can be discarded, once our
role of enriching the system without any benefit to ourselves,
happens……

I am a human being and I demand that I am treated with respect
…and what gives me the right to make such a demand?

I am a human being and that is enough to demand to be treated
not as a ends to such means as in profits or a pawn in historical
dialectical materialism… I have value for myself, in myself,
and by myself…this is a radical call… I have value, not just
as a worker or as part of an ongoing struggle for the classless state…
as my call for an escape from ism’s and ideologies really is a call
for all… recall your Marx… he said,

“Workers of the world, unite”

but we are not just workers as seen by Marx, we are human beings…
we should unite but not as workers or as citizens or as mere pawns
in a capitalistic system or tools of god to create the final state
of heaven on earth… under Catholicism, we are just disposable
tools that simply act for god to bring about this end state… what
a sad commentary about the role of humans… we have no value
outside of bringing about Armageddon…

if you want to be free, truly free… you must become free of ism’s
and ideologies that tell you who you are and what is your role
in the specific ism or ideology…

but how are to achieve this state of being free of ism’s and ideologies
that so dominate our modern life?

the first step, as always, is to become aware of our current status
of simply being pawns or tools of the ism’s and ideologies that
currently exists… we have no other purpose in life except
to fulfil our role within the specific ism and ideology…

but I say unto you, no, a thousand times no…

I have value outside of and beyond the role of pawn
and tool of the dominant ism’s and ideologies of the 21st
century………

the modern goal of humanity is to become free, to escape the bonds
of slavery of the current ism’s and ideologies like capitalism and communism
and Catholicism and of any religious, social, economic or political system
that desires to crush me in the name of that ism or ideology…

the path to freedom is to become free of ism’s and ideologies…

but one may ask, without ism’s and ideologies, how are we to know
what our values are, how are we to know how to act or how are
we to know what is important in life?

or said another way, the Kantian/Kropotkin questions
of “what can we know” “what are our values” “what can we
hope for” “what should we do”… ism’s and ideologies
can answer those profound questions but ism’s and ideologies
answer those questions by enslaving us into those ism’s and ideologies…

we are no longer slaves to ism’s and ideologies that demand
to control us, leaving us without any say or control over our very
nature, over our lives………

the next revolution is to free ourselves from the dehumanizing
and nihilistic ism’s and ideologies that control our lives……

“Human beings of the world, unite, for you have nothing to lose but your chains”

Kropotkin

can you imagine a world without ism’s and ideologies?

I can… I can see a world where when someone is down
and out, we help them, not because of some ism or ideology
but because they are a human being… nothing more and nothing less…

we don’t need to act because some ism or ideology requires
us to act, we can simply act because we are a kind people…
and ism’s and ideologies quite often prevent us from simply
being people… we often act within an ism or ideology
instead of being people, being human………

if we free ourselves of ism’s and ideologies, we simply
act from being human… our action are simply actions
of us being human beings, not as democrats or
Catholics or Republicans or socialist or capitalists, but we
act because we are human beings…not as
members of some ism or ideology…

I can see a world where there is no ism’s or ideologies…
a world that is free of the crap and soul crushing
ism’s that demand your body and soul as a price of
doing business within that ism/ideology…

try to imagine a world without ism’s an ideologies…

government isn’t about helping some because of their
allegiance to the government and denying help to others
because of their allegiance to other ism’s and ideologies…

no, government helps all regardless of their allegiance,
their allegiance to any form of ism or ideology…
government simply helps people, helps human beings
simply because they are human beings, not because they
are Americans or white or male or religious…

“Government of the people, for the people, by the people”

that isn’t about ism’s or ideologies or some accidental
properties you were born with… no, you have value simply
because you are life…and life has value, be it human or dogs
or grass or birds or cows…… life is the value itself…
and life doesn’t require ism’s or ideologies to be judged…

life is the judgement itself…

adherence to ism’s and ideologies means we can negate
and deny value to humans or to life… ism’s and ideologies
are nihilistic because it allows us to negate in the name of that
ism or ideology and be negated in the name of that ism or ideology…

a ism that negates human beings like communism or capitalism
or Catholicism is not a ism that we can follow… for negation ism’s
are nihilism and we must, must discard ism’s and ideologies for
this very reason…we cannot accept or allow nihilistic ism’s or
ideologies to dominate our lives… and the only way to accomplish
this is to no longer accept ism’s or ideologies… or said another way,

we must negate the negation… and by doing so, we become free to
become who we are… we are not capitalist nor are we communist
nor are we Catholics or democrats or American’s… no, we
are human beings who happen to be capitalist or communist…

but if we no longer our ism or ideology, we simply become
human beings…and we can dream and pray and love
and enjoy who we are without recourse to any ism or ideology…

the dream then is to become human without any ism or ideology…

we have a goal, a destination… now all we need is to figure
out the steps we need to make this possible…

what will it take to remove the damaging and destructive
ism’s and ideologies in your life, in our lives?

Kropotkin

it is 2019 and we have millions if not billions of people
who are alienated and disconnected and isolated from not only
their peers, their countries, the current ism’s and ideologies…and yes,
even alienated from themselves…….

let us look at one aspect of this…

think of the theories that have been use over the last 500 years…
social, political, scientific, economic, biological…

an example of this is Copernicus “Heliocentric theory” where he
“moved” the sun to the center of the solar system and the earth revolved
around the sun…think of this theory…it is entirely removed from
any consideration of human beings… the sun and the earth do their thing
and it has nothing whatsover to do with humans…

now think of other scientific theories… think of Newton and gravity…
his theory of gravity has nothing to do with human beings… it is a theory
of objects that aren’t human beings…

think of evolution… it has nothing to do with human beings except to explain
how human beings are part of evolution and a dam small part I might add…

natural selection and random mutations are an interesting theory but they
don’t address human beings as much as they address life itself…

Now think of Einstein and the theory of relativity… once again, humans
beings are missing from the theory… we exist only to give examples of
how relativity works, not as part of the theory…

let us examine other theories, Freud for example…he talks about
the subconscious and unconscious mind… things that we are not aware of…
things we have no control over and yet, still dominate out lives…
we are driven by impulses and emotions, instincts that we cannot control…
and the entire point of freudian psychology was to uncover, unmask these
impulses and by doing so, we learn to understand and yes, perhaps even control…
but note that we are not in control of the subconscious or unconscious mind…

let us think about other theories… I have touched upon Marx’s theories
where economics is the substructure of human existence but not microeconomics,
no, Marx deals with the big picture, we individual human beings are small drops
of water in a vast ocean of history as it completes its drive to bring about a
“workers paradise”… note the term worker’s paradise, it is an overall, look
at who we are, but it doesn’t mean that the individiual worker will survive…
for in Marx’s vision of the future, individual workers are simply the tools through
which the inevitable march of history creates its worker or classless state…
and it is not only possible but inevitable that many workers along the way will
be sacrificed to the alter of historical inevitable… and thus if you get crushed
by history, hay, it had to happen and be glad you could play your role in
the bringing about of historical inevitability… but once again, you have no
control over, no say over your role in this mass historical theory that has no room
for individuals…

and I have quite often touched upon capitalism and how its “hand of god”
is quite willing to destroy individual human beings in the name of
progress… “progress” we have no say over and no control over…

by these theories, you get the theme which is we have many theories
of existence and they all seem to work in leave individual’s with
no say over and no control over their lives, their own existence…
and thus I would say if you have dozen’s of theories that are scientific,
economic, social and political that leave individuals without any say in
their lives or no control over their lives, then you can see why we have millions
of people who have become alienated, disconnected, isolated from society
or from each other or even alienated from themselves…… our theories
of human existence aren’t theories of our individual self, but theories of
all of us and leave us without any recourse or possibility to have any say over
or have any control over……. our vast theories exclude us individually…
and make us part of a mass movement or even without any hope to influence
the theories of us… economically, politically, socially, scientifically…

how can I engage with theories of who I am and what am I to be when
all those theories exclude me from having a part in those theories…

Kropotkin

But Kropotkin, it sound like you are saying abandon all ism’s and
ideologies… say it ain’t so, Joe?

But it is true… the next step along this journey is to eliminate ism’s
and ideologies along with our childhood indoctrinations of myths, prejudice,
habits and superstitions……… but Kropotkin, how are we to know what to do?

I say unto you, you already know what to do… the rules of life which are
basis of our knowing what to do, we already know… you just don’t know
you know them……… for example, we don’t need someone to tell us we
need to cooperate if we are to succeed… we know that already… this is
stuff we learned in Kindergarten………that is why we teach this to children…

the stuff you learned as a kid, stuff that is pre-ism is the stuff we need to know…
we learned to be nice to other children, not because of some ism or ideology,
but because the other kids are no different then you… and that is in part what
we learn with ism and ideologies… we learn that people are different because of
the different ism’s and ideologies they might hold… but biologically, we aren’t any
different… we have the same blood and the same bones and the same heart and lungs
and skin and senses… this is why we can have organ donors, our body parts are
interchangeable…if we were so different, we couldn’t have organ donors……

the same rules that I should live by are the same rules you should live by…
and for the same reasons, they don’t need an ism to validate these rules…

you are kind to people even if they don’t hold to your ism’s or ideologies…
no, you are kind because they are the same as you, human and we are kind to
animals and plants and tree’s not because they are human but because they
are life and we are a part of life too… we have similarities, not differences
with life……… the rules of being human are about kindness and love and peace…
the reason why we don’t encourage strife and violence is because as life,
strife and violence doesn’t allow us to achieve our goals… and our goals as
human beings are no different then our lives… we want to love and be loved
and to have the basic necessities to live as everyone else……. most people don’t
ask for more then they need… and by allowing some to have more via capitalism,
(an ism) we violate the basic principle that we treat people equally, with justice……
this is not an ism or an ideology to treat people equally, it is simply the price
of being human and of being life……. but because if we remove ism and ideology
from any consideration of how we treat people, then we come to the realization
that we must treat people equally, with justice…it is the ego of some that
allow them to think they must be treated better or that their children must be
treated better because they can afford it or that they have a title or a name or some
fame……. no, the path of justice which is equality doesn’t care who you are
or how much wealth you have, you get treated the same as everyone else…
because the treating of people better because they have a “name”
or some fame or some money is to bow down to some ism or ideology…

we already know how to treat people equally… but we don’t because we
think we might gain some benefit or some advantage by treating some
“better” then others… but that is false…the fundamental rule of
existence is to treat people just, which is equality…ism’s and ideologies
want unequal treatment of people for ideological reasons…

how are we suppose to live without any ism or ideology?

by treating people equally… and we cooperate and we share…
because those actions are not ism or ideological driven…

we can survive and I would suggest we would thrive in
a society or culture where we have eliminated ism’s and ideologies
and prejudice and habits and myths and superstitions……

because we would be existing based on our immediate needs and those
immediate needs of a human being are really quite small… and if we reduce
our “Needs” to a smaller rate then we will have enough to share with everyone,
no one goes without… unlike our current world where millions, indeed billions
go without every day but some few lucky ones because of an ism or ideology
gets to live far better lives then the vast majority of humanity…

remove ism’s and ideologies, and the world becomes a better place, indeed,
I would suspect it would become an utopia… perhaps, but a person can dream…
and that is another benefit of eliminating ism’s and ideologies, we begin to
dream of a tomorrow where we can achieve our dreams and our hopes
and our possibilities…

Kropotkin

think of the world today…

we have ism’s and ideologies up the wahoo… and then think about
history… the history of human beings is the history of the conflicts
between ism’s/ideologies……. for example, the Holocaust, that is
an ism brought into form and the result, the death of millions…

in fact, take any event we can think of historically, take the Peloponnesian
War… that was a war of ideology, the Athenian ism’s versus the Spartan
ism…take the on going conflict between Christian’s and Muslims that
has gone on for over a thousand years… two ism’s attacking and destroying
each other over what? different views of heaven? a differently name god?
if you think about it, it is tragedy of immense proportions… two religion
trying to end each other because they call their god a different name,
one is Allah and the other Yahweh… and for that people have died…

and each calling themselves the “One true religion”…

Think of the cultural wars of the last 40 years here in America…
that is nothing more then two ism’s fighting over values…a whole
lot of vitriol because two viewpoints can’t agree with each other…

and think of the wars that have killed millions over the years and fought
because of ism’s and ideology…… every war is a war of ism/ideology…
my beliefs are better then your beliefs and I am willing to fight you over
my “superior” beliefs…… what a sad excuse to kill another human being…

you might say, ism’s are the way we know the rules of the game and the
map we need to guide us into the future…

I say, ism’s have caused the deaths of millions and have caused untold amount
of suffering and damaged in the lives of countless human beings……

are we both right? No, for we can find out the rules of life without resorting
to ism’s/ideologies and we can discover our path through life without ism’s/ideologies…

but to do so, we have to actually think and study and understand what
life is and what is our purpose……… using an ism or ideology or prejudice or
myths or superstitions to understand life is an very lazy way to understand life…

using someone’s else cheat sheet as it were instead of finding it out yourself…

perhaps a familiar saying might give us a hand here…Sepere aude…
Dare to know… or dare to think for yourself…….
don’t rely on age old ism’s and ideologies as a base line to guide your life…
dare to think about your life as your life and use your values, your goals,
your vision…to find the path or journey you need to take, to become you…
to become who you are………

to engage in ism’s and ideologies is to engage with ism’s that have
been around for thousands of years… Christian values have been around
for 2000 years… that doesn’t mean that we should continue to engage with
Christian values just because they have been around a long time…
we should engage with the values that come about from our own
engagement with a reevaluation of values…if people would
actually engaged with a reevaluation of values, the “time-honored” values
that we know today, wouldn’t be here… they would have been long dead
and buried… because they don’t have the ability to adapt and change with
modernity… the question of modernity has completely changed what values
mean something and what values are worthless………values that worked in
the middle ages cannot work in our ever shifting engagement with the modern
values created by the circumstances of modernity, the result of the industrial
revolution and our alienation from society and each other and from ourselves…
and the nihilism that fill our lives so completely that we can’t even tell
just how nihilistic we have become because of ism’s/ideologies of capitalism
and communism and the false promises that are political, economic, social
and scientific… promises that are false because they offer us ism’s and ideologies
that cannot deliver their vaunted promises of reaching our ideals… and why can’t
they deliver their promises? Because our ism’s and ideologies are tainted
by the inherent nihilism that exists within each and every ism and ideology…

to free ourselves from today’s ism and ideology is to be free of the nihilism
that exists within capitalism and the nihilism that exists within communism
and the nihilism that exists within Catholicism and the nihilism that exists
within any religion… it is the nihilism within every ism and ideology
today that corrupts and taints our modern ism’s and ideologies……

Kropotkin

but Kropotkin, you have stated the search is for the values
we should be living by, not the ism’s we have but don’t
the ism’s we have create the values we have?

if we have values based upon the ism’s such as our
values should be capitalistic values, then those values
are corrupted, tainted by the ism’s nihilism, regardless of
the ism or ideology……… no matter what ism or ideology
we choose, the ism/ideology has tainted or corrupted its
values thus making it worthless for human beings to follow……

the only way to escape the inherent nihilism within ism’s and ideologies
is to not follow ism’s or ideologies…….

to follow ism’s and ideologies, be it religious or historical or political
or economic or social is to find oneself ensnared within that ism’s
nihilism……

we make life’s decisions based on situational ethics and given situations
can change and adapts, we too must have answers that change and adapt…
ism’s and ideologies are lacking in the possibility of changing and adapting
to the rapid changes that exists within our modern times……

to hold fast to an ism during a period of change is to hold fast to
something that cannot change and adapt to the changing conditions
that occur…….our ism’s and ideologies cannot change and adapt to
changing conditions but that doesn’t mean we are left hanging in the wind…

no, we can hold to values like justice and peace and charity and use those
values to adjust to changing conditions…we don’t need ism’s or ideologies
to hold values like love or justice or peace or charity…we replace ism’s
and ideologies with values like love and justice and it is those values
that is our map into the future and our guide as to what actions we should
or shouldn’t take…….we can use values as a guide into the future…
we can use values to form and understand the rules of life instead of
ism’s and ideologies…ism’s and ideologies are too rigid and inflexible
to allow us to adapt and change to our everchanging conditions…
but values are not rigid or inflexible, they are adaptable and changeable…
because sometimes you can use values to not accept someone or something,
but you can use values to decide not to love someone……. in other words,
we can make a choice as to what or where we use our values. We don’t have
to use our values at all times and in all places… we have a choice as to
when we love and a choice when we practice justice and when we practice
peace or charity and we have a choice as to who we love and who gets charity
and who gets peace……and sometimes we choose to love the wrong person
or we practice charity or justice on the wrong person………that is a risk,
but we mustn’t shy away from making choices because we might, might
make the wrong choice…… compare this making choices with the choices
one has with ism’s or ideologies… take capitalism for example, we cannot
choose to practice some parts of capitalism and not practice other parts,
capitalism as in communism and as Catholicism or any religion is not about
the choices… you cannot pick and choose which aspect of communism you
want to follow, it is an all or nothing type of thing… but following values
is a pick and choose type of thing, you have a choice that ism’s and
ideologies don’t have………

the question of the modern age is a simple one, it is a question of
how do we escape nihilism. that’s it…… and the escape from nihilism
means we must free ourselves from nihilistic ism’s and ideologies…

Kropotkin

as a liberal, I hold to certain values like justice and love and peace…
do I practice my values on a consistent basis? No, no I don’t and that
is my failure… in fact, we could rewrite history as being a failure
to follow our stated values……. we practice double standards and
lie and pretend about our values… that is to be human…
but I don’t want to be a lower value human, I want to raise
myself to be HUMAN, fully human and I want myself to both follow
my values and become my values… if I value justice, then
I must become justice and that is what we mean when we
say, becoming who we are… to not only voice our values, but
to live our values… our actions and our words match and show everyone
what our values are without us every saying what those values are…
we become justice and by acting justly, everyone can see our values…

becoming who we are means becoming our values and living those values
to the best of our abilities… and sometimes we fail, failure is
really the most common action of all humans, to fail is to be human…

it doesn’t mean we stop trying or we simply accept our failure, no,
it means we try to become who we are with resolution and hope and
continued effort… this is the only battle worth fighting in life,
the battle to raise ourselves to our values and become those values…
that is the real fight… to become ever more human…

Kropotkin

From my frame of mind, given the manner in which I understand nihilsm out in the world of actual human interactions, this makes no sense.

From my perspective, “isms”, whether deontological, ideological or theological, start with the assumption that there is a font – Reason, God, Nature – that we can turn to in order to make a distinction between “the right thing to do” and the “wrong thing to do”. That, in other words, we are obligated to anchor our moral and political values to that font.

Nihilism on the other hand starts with the assumption that such fonts are merely historical and cultural concoctions/collaborations. Systemic fabrications that any particular human community can make use of in order to create “rules of behavior” that propel [or compel] social, political and economic interactions.

As a moral nihilist myself, I have come to conclude that there is no essential or objective set of values. There is only a particular perspective embraced by any particular individual in any particular context. Here and now. And that the “best of all possible worlds” would seem to be one that revolves around some measure of democracy and the rule of law: moderation, negotiation and compromise.

Instead, there are the nihilists who own and operate the global economy. Many of them root “morality” in wealth and power. Or the narcissists and sociopaths who configure right and wrong into that which sustains what they construe to be in their own best interests.

For some though, when they link “isms” and nihilism, they are really talking more about means than ends. Clearly, down through the ages, there have been any number of “isms” – either God or No god – that, in embracing any particular Kingdom of Ends, were able to rationalize almost any means to sustain it.

ok, let us start with this… I believe we, you and me, understand
nihilism differently… we define nihilism differently…

my handy dandy dictionary says this:

Nihilism: the rejection of ALL religious and moral principles,
in the belief that life is meaningless…

Philosophy: extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the
world has a real existence.

Historical: the doctrine of an extreme Russian revolutionary party,
c. 1900 which found nothing to approve of in the established social
order…

I however reject these definitions as inadequate…because they
fail to accommodate the nihilism of the 20th and 21st century…

I believe that nihilism is the negation of human beings and their values…
this is what capitalism does best, negate human beings and their values…

to understand your “fonts” is to force one to see or understand
the world in a way that doesn’t allow one to adapt or change with
the changing conditions… you must engage with the world within the
set parameters of that set, “font” or ism…as I understand that you believe
there is no “set” “objective” values that allows one to engage with the world…
and you don’t need an “set” or “objective” value to engage with the world…
because there are no “set” or “objective” values in which to engage
with the world, in this I agree with you, but and this is important…
it doesn’t mean you can’t simply decide upon a value and go with it…
it doesn’t have to be a “set font” or a “objective” value…the values I have
promoted, values like love, peace, hope, charity, justice are values I promote
because I believe these are values which are of greater use to the society
and the individual to allow survival… negative values such as hate and anger
and greed are negative values and by their very usage damage, harm society
and the individual who uses them……

I promote positive values because I believe that they are of greater
value to the society and to the individual…

Let us take the values of IQ45… values of hate and greed and anger…
and what has these values led to? why more hate and anger and greed…
hate crimes are up by 30% and all driven by the promotion of these
destructive values lead by IQ45…

this promotion of destructive values has severally damage, hurt
our society in wide variety of ways… mistrust and anger and violence
has risen since the election of IQ45 and all because of his promotion of
negative values… if we want an more just society, if we want a “better”
society, if we want to live in a society worth living in, we must engage
with positive values, values that enhance and drive us toward our
“better angels” as Lincoln said…

you say, you can’t tell which values are values worth engaging in, but
I say, that you can tell by their effect on society and their effect upon
you… I can see that positive values are values which allow me to
become a “better” person… now you may disagree with me and say,
there is no way you can tell if you are “better” because of values, but
I say if you compare those who promote negative values of hate, anger,
greed, lust like IQ45 and Hitler and Stalin and capitalistic values,
and compare those who promote positive values of love and peace
and justice… you will see that those who promote positive values
allow human beings a better chance of survival and survival of the
species is really the name of the game… that is the end game of all
our actions whither we see it or not…and negative values damage
and hurts our chances of survival as a species…

I think that the only end goal we can realistically aim for is
the survival of the species and the positive values we promote
better allows the survival of the species………

Kropotkin