a new understanding of today, time and space.

It appears that there is circular reasoning in the sense of De-differenting the object of identifiable nexus between the mode -function of the reasoning with its pre-representational value.

Such is present in St. Anselm’s circularity unto the rationalism of an either/or solution.

There is a necessity for minimilization ad-almost toward (forth) toward an absurdum, because it cries for understanding.

The sense of blending identities is the very mode of seeking not merely resembling ground, but identical, is another confusion brought on by rhetorical begging of the question.

The simple act of quoting paraphrase, would have cleared that issue. Simple syntactical usage mask logical conscription of underlying lack.

This is as true here, as Nietzsche’s use of dramatic contradiction parlance between Plato and Voltaire. It is built on what really can not be proven to exist, but has perpetually a function , therefore has an absolute requirement to be constructed.

Otherwise, the building of the edifice would have never built even a foundation. Apart from a goal-consisting in planning and design, it would never had taken off the ground, …

Trump is using this duplicity incurred, into a circularity of political manipulation, to subliminally degrade arguments as statements of fact, There by leading in a direction of further and further sub marginal divisibility, where past the infinitely imperceptibly different becomes an presumed ideal. Then appearances melt into reality.

I thank Meno for his contribution to this thread,
however his points are not my points, his message is not
my message, I cannot speak to Meno’s point as they are not
thoughts I engage with…

let us think about the 20th century… how was it nihilistic?

was the 20th century nihilistic because people no longer held
beliefs? no, not at all, in fact, people held on to their beliefs
so strongly that they fought two world wars defending their beliefs…

no, the lack of belief certainly wasn’t a problem during the 20th century nor
is it a problem in our 21st century…no, the reason the 20th century was
a nihilistic one was because the beliefs people/society held, negated and denied
human beings and their values… the values of capitalism and the values
of Nazism and the values of the soviet union were all the same in that
they negated and denied human beings and their values… they did it in a different
way with different values, but nevertheless, they negated human beings and their
values…thus the 3 main value systems of the 20th century were negative
values, a negation of human and their values…nihilism…

if a political or economic system devalues or dehumanizes people, it is
a nihilistic system…and that is the major political and economic systems
of the 20th century…and so far, the major political and economic and
social systems of the 21st century are also nihilistic… but people have, at last,
become aware of this negation of their being and their values… thus the anger
and resentement toward capitalism and representative democracy which no
longers represents us and our concerns… a representative democracy which
give no voice or control by the average person… a representative democracy
which no longer is “of the people, for the people, by the people”… which is
a negation of us and our values… the only people and values recognized by
our representative democracy is the value of money and those who have money…

it is no longer “government of the people, for the people, by the people”
we have a government “of the rich, for the rich, by the rich” and that kids is a
negation of our democracy, a negation of the values that made America
worth living in and worth dying for…and we individually are negated because
as the wealthy buy influenced and power, our person, our values become unimportant
to what the wealthy want and what they are paying for…and until we have a democracy
that is “of the people, for the people, by the people” we shall be continued to be negated
in our person and in our values… and that is nihilism………

and the same goes true for Nazism and communism as practice by Stalin which
was really just a pretext for a dictatorship and all dictatorships negate
and denies human beings and their values… that might be the defining
definition of a dictatorship…negation of human beings and their values…

Kropotkin

I thank Meno for his contribution to this thread,
however his points are not my points, his message is not
my message, I cannot speak to Meno’s point as they are not
thoughts I engage with…

let us think about the 20th century… how was it nihilistic?

was the 20th century nihilistic because people no longer held
beliefs? no, not at all, in fact, people held on to their beliefs
so strongly that they fought two world wars defending their beliefs…

no, the lack of belief certainly wasn’t a problem during the 20th century nor
is it a problem in our 21st century…no, the reason the 20th century was
a nihilistic one was because the beliefs people/society held, negated and denied
human beings and their values… the values of capitalism and the values
of Nazism and the values of the soviet union were all the same in that
they negated and denied human beings and their values… they did it in a different
way with different values, but nevertheless, they negated human beings and their
values…thus the 3 main value systems of the 20th century were negative
values, a negation of human and their values…nihilism…

if a political or economic system devalues or dehumanizes people, it is
a nihilistic system…and that is the major political and economic systems
of the 20th century…and so far, the major political and economic and
social systems of the 21st century are also nihilistic… but people have, at last,
become aware of this negation of their being and their values… thus the anger
and resentement toward capitalism and representative democracy which no
longers represents us and our concerns… a representative democracy which
give no voice or control by the average person… a representative democracy
which no longer is “of the people, for the people, by the people”… which is
a negation of us and our values… the only people and values recognized by
our representative democracy is the value of money and those who have money…

it is no longer “government of the people, for the people, by the people”
we have a government “of the rich, for the rich, by the rich” and that kids is a
negation of our democracy, a negation of the values that made America
worth living in and worth dying for…and we individually are negated because
as the wealthy buy influenced and power, our person, our values become unimportant
to what the wealthy want and what they are paying for…and until we have a democracy
that is “of the people, for the people, by the people” we shall be continued to be negated
in our person and in our values… and that is nihilism………

and the same goes true for Nazism and communism as practice by Stalin which
was really just a pretext for a dictatorship and all dictatorships negate
and denies human beings and their values… that might be the defining
definition of a dictatorship…negation of human beings and their values…

Kropotkin

wow, never done that before, multiple duplicate posts…sorry…

Kropotkin

if one were to ask me, what is one thing that is
the connection between all human beings, I would
answer… the basic connection between all human beings
is the need for the story, to tell a story and to hear a story…
for a story places us into context and we see what possibilities
exist in that story, possibilities in how we might act or feel or be in
that story… that is the value, strength of ART… it is the value
of creating context for human beings within a story…

a child is born… as all children are born… born into a historical context…
this child was born upper middle class, so the stories or the narrative
the child heard was a middle class narrative, the child’s parents were
liberals and so the stories the child heard were liberal narratives…
and as such, this child didn’t recieve much religious teachings,
and those religious teachings are just another set of stories…

the child was born in the midwest and so the stories were of the
middle part of the country…the stories of Lincoln and the stories
of the values of the founding fathers… these stories gives the child
some context, something to compare his life to… as the stories of
the founding fathers were offered as positive, lessons to be learned,
the child was made to believe that those stories were lessons for
the child to reach… but this is not just a story of a single child,
for every child born in every home receives stories… stories
of the values that the parents wishes to pass on to the child…
each story is a value based story and it point was to pass to the child
what values the child should have, be it bravery or honesty or courage……

that is the value of stories, it passes values from parents/society to the next
generation…what values do you want to pass to the next generation?
the stories we tell children are those values……

the child reaches a certain age, be it 12 or 22, but at some point, the child
becomes an adult and the stories that informed the child about values,
no longer reach the adult… the stories of our childhood no longer
have any value to us because we have grown up, we have moved
beyond those simple children stories… this growth creates a crisis
of sorts…because if our childhood values, our childhood stories are no
longer useful or beneficial, then what stories should we value, what stories
should we listen to?

We discover that our experiences, the things that happen to us and that
we do or make happen… are also stories… and then we listen to those
stories… experience itself creates a story… and because of experience,
the story, we now have a new way of understanding our reality… a new way
of understanding our context within the state, culturally, economically,
politically… experience creates context which allows us to place ourselves
within the boundaries of existence……

experiences replaces stories… but what about those who never made
the transition from stories to experiences? these people still believe the stories
even though experience has shown these stories to be false or not true or incomplete?

quite often what happens is the people don’t learn the lesson from experiences…
or learn the wrong lesson……. if I taunt a dog and get bit, I should have learned
the lesson that one doesn’t taunt a dog… but sometimes people, (oftentimes for ego reasons)
believe that the lesson learned is different then what should have been learned…
for example, if you taunt a dog and get bit, some might learn the lesson that dogs
are evil and deserve to be hunted out of existence…people learn different things
from the same experiences…….

one lesson learned is that from being a child is that possibilities are endless…
you can be anything you want to be… but soon experience teaches us that not to
be true… some have no skill in math and so becoming a teacher in math isn’t very likely…
we discover that doors open, possibilities exist and we only need to enter… to
discover what our possibilities are…but at the same time, we find doors closing…
by experience, I find that I have a fear of heights and so, becoming a pilot isn’t
a possibility, that door closes… from experience, we find that many of our childhood
dreams are no longer possible or no longer feasible or even desired…
doors close, possibilities end…as we grow older, doors once open… are no
longer opened… doors close…the possibilities that existed in youth, no longer
exists as we grow older…the stories that we can become anything we want
is simply no longer true… a child’s dream of playing baseball for a living
falls to the wayside because we know we aren’t good enough, experience
has taught us…another door closes…

and as we go from adult to middle age to old age, the possibilities
that once existed, no longer exists, door after door after door closes…
the possibilities that once seem endless, now seems to be limited…
and what of the stories we heard as children? They no longer exists
for they are seen for what they are, children’s stories…of benefit to
children, not to the rest of us………

the story of our lives, the narrative of growing older is the same for
everyone… from endless possibilities to door after door after door closing…

the story of our lives, of each individual’s life may differ in its
details but remains the same for all of us in it general details…

as we age, we find/discover what the words, pain, really means,
and what the word, loss, really means and what the word, despair,
really means… for we experience these words as we age…
we lose parents, children, brothers and sisters and we know loss…
and we know despair because we experience it and we know pain
because we experience it… from pain of our partners cheating
to our children stealing from us and other such stories of living…

and those days are filled with emotions… but over time, we find
the pain or the loss or the despair grows less, it might never disappear
but power to affect us grow less……

the story of existence for human beings is a story of powerful experiences
and lessons learned and of possibilities growing and then narrowing…

the story of existence is a story of the vast number of emotions we
experience as we travel through this life……

there is a flow to all our lives… a story to all our lives… stories
of possibilities and a stories of experiences and a stories of emotions
and each of us experience the same story from our own
viewpoints and so we can know what others are feelings when
they experience those lessons and possibilities and emotions…

so construct your life, not as isolated events, I was born, but as parts
of a story, a narrative about who you are…and how the narrative
of who you are changes as we age and experience… we have a story
to tell, but the story will change as we grow older and our stories should
change and adapt to meet the changing needs and experiences of our lives.

or think of it this way… we all exist within the river of life, of human experience
but within this river, because of our different locations, we might experience
the river differently, we are all drops of water within the river, and so
some might hit the rocks and some might be swallowed
by the fish and some might evaporate, but the river remains the same…
the individual droplets within the river have different experiences but they
still exists within the river…and that is the human story… we are just droplets
within a large river of life… and our experiences reflect the different possibilities
within that river…

what is your story?

Kropotkin

philosophy is just another story we tell about the human experience
as history is another story and politics and math and economics
are all stories about the human experience… your vision of history
is just another, different story and your vision of politics is another story…

we have many, different and diverse stories we tell about the
human experience…and amoung those many stories, how are we to tell
which story is the “right” one and which one is the “wrong” one? that is another story…

Kropotkin

and we exists as parts of, aspects of our story… but what if, what if
the story was only part of the puzzle?

we exists as pieces within a story, so how does one escape being a piece
of a story? how does one become separate, apart from the story one tells?

the dialectical requires us to evolve, to be part of evolution…

so, we are part of story… what is the next step? what is the evolution of
the human being after we are part of the story? we then stand
alone… outside of the story… but human existence is dependent
upon our standing together, we must cooperate or die… that is the human
experience, we exist together… how do we stand apart from what is the
basic, most fundemental aspect of human existence?

we have two aspects of human existence, the physical the body and we have
the inner part, the mental aspect of human existence… the physical aspect
of us must stand with and part of the human experience, part of the human
collective…

but mentally, mentally we can stand apart, different from others…
I can choose to see myself outside of the human collective
and I can exists outside of that human collective…
in my thoughts and in my story………

this a most difficult understanding of what it means to human,
we can be part of the human collective and we must be within
the human collective for we are social creatures born of millions
of years of evolution to be social and to be part of a collective…

and I can say yes to that because I benefit from being part of this
human collective, part of the human experience…

but my story doesn’t need to be written in terms of the human collective…
I can write my own story of who I am and it doesn’t need to be a part
of the human collective…we write stories of human beings…
I can write my own story as a human being, being part of the human collective…

my story is of my vision of what it means to be human…
it doesn’t have to match the collective story of what it means to
be human…but I write my individual story as a part
of the human collective……….

how do you see yourself? that is your story…
do you see yourself as the “ubermensch” then that
is part of your story which is apart from the human collective
story…

most people write their story as members of and part of the human collective…
I am a mother… or I am a businessman or I am a citizen or I am white…
each of these statements are parts of a story, but they are part
of someone who thinks of themselves as part of the human collective
and their stories are of themselves being part of the human collective…
being a ballplayer or being president or of making millions of dollars,
that are stories of individuals within the human collective,
being part of the human collective, as members of the human collective…

can you write your story, while still being part of the human collective,
can you write your story of you outside of the human collective?
can you vision yourself, mentally existing outside of the human collective?

few can and even fewer would want to…….

write your story and see how it connects to the human collective,
how it is part of the human collective story…….

Kropotkin

ok, given the construct that people must, must exists within
the human collective, as we are social creatures and must exist
together to survive, individual survival is impossible, as we must exist
within the collective to survive, what exactly does freedom mean?

we cannot be free of the construct of human society, of the human collective,
for that path lies death and more importantly, it is by the comparsion
and contrast we have with other humans that help us define who we are…
we cannot become who we are, alone, isolated from others…

we can only become humans with the help of the human collective…

so once again, what does freedom mean?

freedom to or is it freedom from? are we free to choose or
are we free to get away from something?

to survive, we must have the state, we must reside within the human
collective of schools and culture and streets and work and sports…

we are determined by evolution to exists within this human collective…

to break free is not possible, so what does freedom mean?

Our freedom lies within the choices we make within the factors
that we cannot escape, evolution (biological necessities) gravity, entropy,
the forces that created the universe are forces we cannot escape…

but we have choices and those choices is the freedom we have…

I can choose to be a mean person or a kind person or a loving person,
or a just person……

I cannot choose to be anything other then a person, but I can choose
what kind of person I will be…….

we can choose the values by which we can live with…

that is the freedom we have…

choosing values that give our life meaning… for meaning isn’t found
in those forces we have no control over, we can’t find meaning in
gravity or in evolution or in entropy… but we can find meaning in
the only real choice we have as human beings, in our values…

in fact, you can use the word… value and meaning… interchangeable

but what of nihilistic systems like capitalism and communism and any religion
that ends with an ism, such as Catholicism………

why choose a system that negates you and your values, your meaning?

why choose capitalism or communism? when all they do is negate your value?

so what is left? deny the deniers and what is left?

what is left to make a choice about? what choice can we freely make now?

Kropotkin

freedom has been the basis for which the right claims that it
needs its security… for without security, you cannot have freedom
or so the argument goes… but let us try this…

security to pursue the American dream…but what exactly is this dream?

a big house, two cars, a wife/husband, two kids and a dog named spot
and a cat named missy…

but think about that… isn’t the American dream a very conservative one…
it isn’t about actual freedom nor is it about a course of action to take,
it is about property and the ownership of property is a very conservative
position… as property owners, one is tied down to maintaining
and keeping said property… (We own property, so we know) but
this engagement with property ties one down to a conservative,
security understanding of the world… the point of laws according to
conservatives is to protect property… read your Locke and you see how
much time he spends defending property… laws aren’t about
freedom or about pursuing dreams or the big picture stuff
like what should I believe in or what should I do or what
should I hope for? Laws aren’t about the possibilities of life…
and property aren’t about those possibilities either…

the ownership of property is considered to be the goal,
the destination, but what lies on the other side of property ownership?
there is no equation with property…for example, an equation is
E=Mc2… you have two equal sides, but having property doesn’t leave
us with an equation… property is P… P = ? what could be on the
other side of the equation… it certainly isn’t happiness or freedom
or knowledge or a higher belief……… the need for property is
ego, greed… for several years, I didn’t have a place to stay…
I didn’t live in an apartment or a house… I lived in a small room
where I worked…I didn’t have a bed or any furniture or any way to
cook food or even a spoon… I just had a foam pad I laid down
and a sleeping bag…in this room, the door didn’t even lock…
I kept most of my books in storage which was really the only
property I owned and in fact, books are still the only property
I own…I don’t consider anything in our condo as mine outside
of the books……I am free in regards to property…
as everything I own could be boxed up in about 20 boxes…
my entire adult existence could be held by a small u-haul truck…

I don’t have security per se, I don’t own anything of value…
(all the property we own, is owned by my wife, its in her name,
I don’t even own a car, it is in her name, the last time I owned
a car was probably in the 1980’s)

security is not a factor for me and to pursue security within
the confines of property is conservative… I yearn for something
beside security, I dream of justice, which is equality and I yearn
for freedom to pursue my goal of, not knowledge, but my goal
of wisdom… and wisdom comes from the understanding
of who we are, who I am and what should I do, and what should I believe in,
and what values should we hold? my engagement with
values isn’t predicated upon security, but upon the freedom to think…

for you can take away my freedom, put me in jail and I can still
engage with values and the understanding of who we are…

my pursuit for wisdom isn’t predicated upon security…
and the pursuit of who we are isn’t predicated upon security,
so why engage in something that doesn’t help you become, who you are,

I have called into question one of the basic values of modern day America,
which is the pursuit of property because this pursuit of property
is about a value that doesn’t help us become who we are, and
property is about ego, look at what I own, almost a status symbol,
I can own… but the real question you should be asking yourself is this,
what values are my values? and what should I hope for,
and what should I do? The Kantian/Kropotkin questions
of existence, not what property I own…

the engagement of ourselves with ourselves should be the goal, the
objective of life, not the pursuit of property which doesn’t help
learn who we are and what is possible for us given
the restrictions we have upon us by biological and social
and natural determinism like gravity and evolution and other
forces we cannot control or have any say about…

Kropotkin

Join the club inhabited by most philosophically inhabited , Kropotkin.

See what a difference a comma can make? (My mistake)

it is not the noise I can make, but the silence
I can keep…….

went to dinner tonight and for ego and vanity, I babbled
about knowledge, things I know… useless babble that no
one at the table thought about or even cared… and yet, on
I went, babble about facts and knowledge that meant nothing…

it is not the noise I can make…I can babble about the population
of New York or the signs of France until I am blue in the face…
and it was my ego and my vanity that I was trying to build up…
and I couldn’t shut up to save my life…

I was trying to impress and awe people who didn’t give a shit
and it was all just noise meant to make my ego feel better…

I don’t need to babble about useless information for the betterment
of my ego, my vanity…

I need to work on the silence that I can keep…

I was looking for validation, for some acknowledge, of my
superior knowledge and it was all for ego… vanity…

It is not about the noise I can make… I may as well barked like a dog,
for all the good as my babbling was tonight, but it is the silence I need
to engage with…

Maybe I didn’t get enough acknowledgment as a child or maybe I just babble
and can’t help myself… either way, I didn’t engage in anything resembling
wisdom, I engaged in useless babble about facts and information
that any idiot over two can find on the internet…

it is the silence I can keep that I must work on…
and not engage in mindless babble of facts and knowledge that only
shows my ego at work…

I am sure this couple had a very good laugh at my expense on the way home
and I deserved it… for I tried for something I don’t need, validation for who I am…

Kropotkin

I think part of the confusion in philosophy is the failure to
see that philosophy has two sides, two parts to it and because
of this, we make philosophical mistakes. These mistakes lead
us to make wrong or false conclusions…for example, properly
understood, there is a objective/subjective question, but that
question of the objective/subjective, only exists within the
technical side of philosophy…the one side of philosophy is
the technical side, the logical side of deconstruction, the language
games, the logical positivism, if X is this, then Y is this side of
philosophy, the limits of knowledge… the philosophical side
that is technical, logical, mathematical…

and it is good, but it is not the only side of philosophy…

we have on the other side of philosophy, the existential side,
what am I to do? What is the meaning of life? What should I
hope for? What values should be my values?

these questions of philosophy are the personal side of philosophy…
the anguish cries of of existence that keep us up at night…
on this side of philosophy lies hope, fear, terror, joy, sadness…

on the technical side, lies the questions that are impersonal and don’t
rock our world… on the personal questions lie the questions that rock
our world…

I clearly stand on the side of the personal, existential philosophy
but we must be clear when we think or write about philosophy,
that we understand what side of philosophy we are engaging with,

think of it this way, technical philosophy is the “hard” side of philosophy,
like math and physics and chemistry are the hard sciences and
the soft side of science is psychology, sociology and political science…

philosophy exists in the same way, we have the hard side and the soft side…
their goals, methods, means are quite different on each side of the equation…

college is helpful for the hard side of philosophy but to question
one place in the universe doesn’t require college, it just takes
the strength to question or to doubt oneself……

and so I follow the path of Socrates and not follow Plato or Aristotle,
because Socrates was about the existential questions of life and
Plato and Aristotle were about the technical aspects of philosophy…

and this is why I follow Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and not follow
Kant or Hegel… for K and Nietzsche wonder about the meaning of
existence and Kant and Hegel are about the technical aspects of
life……

so who you follow revels your inclination side, technical or
existential………

so who do you follow?

Kropotkin

Human beings are a science formula… E = Mc2…
and we are part of this formula as everything is part of this formula…
and in our vanity, our ego, we are convinced that we are the only conscious
beings alive, the only one who knows of existence…every other animal
exists but they don’t know they exists, whereas we know…….

This consciousness is what separates humans from all other creatures…
or that is what is believed, in our vanity……

when I was younger, I suddenly realized the “truths” of this world…
I would die… and everyone around me would die…… and all life
will, at some point, die… leaving a desolate and empty universe…

and I cried from this knowledge, of the empty and lonely universe to come…

but this was before I discovered time… the universe is billions of years old
and will continue for billions of years more and the tears I shed, was for a universe
billions of years from now… after I realized that, I didn’t feel quite so bad…

so the next connection I made was that time needed to be added to
the formula of existence, so we needed to add time to E = Mc2…

and then if we add time, we have added space… so E = Mc2 must
be a formula that includes time and space…so some mishmash of
formula’s must be engaged to fully understand life and human beings……

this is the technical side of philosophy…… but this isn’t all of philosophy…

the tears I shed over the empty universe is also philosophy…

Kropotkin

The two different points of human philosophy are
individuality and collectivism… people’s philosophy
and needs revolve around these two points…
individuality or collectivism…….

and how do we reconcile these two points?

for we must try to achieve a collective society for we
are social creatures and we discover who we are by
comparing and contrasting ourselves with others in the polis…

but we must find our individuality within the polis/the collective…
how do we engage with both prospects?

for quite often, this individuality threatens to tear down the collective…
and the collective threatens to destroy individuality in the name of the security
of the society…

I may be a party of one, but I don’t see the need for conflict between the needs
of the one and the needs of the many……. we can work for, engage with each
on their own level……… you can be an individual in the midst of a collective society…

and that should be the goal, the destination to be reached…… to engage with
our individuality in the midst of society……

but to do so means we cannot legislate in stone……. we cannot be so inflexible
that we cannot adapt and change…………we must learn to dance while
we conduct the business of the people……….

society must be allowed to exist, but the needs of the individual must also
be allowed to exist……. this “pas de deux” between the state and the individual
is the goal of what we are searching for the proper mix between individual
and the state…….

so, the future of government is to learn to dance with the individuals within
that society………

Kropotkin

So one of the questions we must work out, is the proper
relationship between government and the individual…

what does the individual need and what does the state need?

The individual needs the benefits of society, the clean roads
and the hospitals, the schools and regular garbage pick up…
for government does the things for individuals that if we had
to do them would simply take up our entire day… government
does the dirty work so we don’t have to and thus we are left
with time to achieve our own goals… whatever they be…

Government needs security and order and taxes to keep
and maintain that security and order……. to keep individuals
safe so they can get on with their task of driving the society…

society/state is the substructure of existence… it allows the mail
to be delivered and the snow to be plowed and a place
for children to learn the skills necessary to become individuals,
not citizens and not consumers/producers…… but individuals…

and in return, we individuals engage each other to improve ourselves
and that is the goal of being an individual… we go from birth
to death and in between is about us as individuals, becoming
who we are……. but we must sacrifice some of our freedoms
in order to become who we are… there is a cost to every action
and the cost of us becoming is in the certain freedoms
we lose and the price of society is paid in taxes…….

we are limited in our actions… we cannot yell fire in a crowded theater
and we cannot harm by actions or inaction, other people…… the rules,
the game of society must have certain rules to function…and these rules
must protect those who cannot protect themselves, thus we have laws
protecting the young and the old and the disabled.

so we don’t have absolute freedom, we have enough freedom to engage
in our goal of becoming human, fully human…where instincts no longer
rule our lives and we have control and a say over what is to become of us…
not only politically, but economically and socially…… it is not enough to
just be able to vote politicians out of office or to buy or not to buy a product…
we must have a voice, a say in what happens to us and we must have some
control over what forces we can control… as we cannot control natural
forces like gravity or evolution, we must have control over our choices…
this is why I argue for direct, direct democracy… we can no longer
hold to indirect democracy or representative democracy as it no longer
represents us… as it has been usurped by money in which “our”
representatives are bought and sold like cheap cars………

the phrase “government of the people, for the people, by the people”
is not an empty phrase, meaningless babble which we can ignore…….

this phrase, “government of the people ………” is the essential phrase
that we must adhere to…… in the people’s hand like the power of government
and not with special interest or large corporations or wealthy individuals…

and in a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”
we can have a say in our engagement with becoming better human beings…
but it is not enough to have a government of the people if we are still
held in tyranny by economic means as we are today…it is an entire package…
to find our individuality, we must fight for it both politically and economically……

you want to be free as an “individual”, we must eliminate profits/money
as a goal to be desired…as long as we practice nihilism by our pursuit
of profits/money, we shall be held hostage by economic and political
forces……

the path to our becoming free, to become individuals, begins with
with the governmental and economic forces that negates human beings
and their values…and we must fight with every resource at hand to
remove, eliminate businesses and their pernicious hold on all levels
of society, from ground up………

the tyranny that is affecting all of us isn’t governmental tyranny, but
economic tyranny. How all our lives is being dominated and controlled
by big business and we must fight that, tooth and nail……

to become an individual, you must be free of those forces which
hold you hostage to their demands…this why the current climate
leads us to saying that big business and big government is dominating
our individual lives… once we reduce big business, we reduce its affect
on government……. you want to equalize the current state of America,
so that it is much more of a balance between individuals and government,
you must begin by reducing big business and its pursuit of the theology
of Mammon…

to restore the individual to the rightful place of being a dance partner
with government, we must remove the interloper into our dance, big business…

Kropotkin

Immediately I point out how abstract and “general” these descriptions/assessments are. My interest is more in folks taking the manner in which they have come to understand and define nihilism “down to earth”; to intertwine a world of words into actual human interactions.

Also, how extreme they are. As though nihilism must be made applicable to everything. The laws of nature? Mathematics? the empirical world around us? the logical rules of language?

Nope, we are told. To the true nihilists, all are meaningless and absurd. And both existentially and essentially.

Me, I’m more for narrowing down what specifically is construed to be meaningful or as existing in the course of living our lives from day to day.

Fine.

From my point of view, however, moral nihilism revolves around situating existing values out in a particular historical, cultural and experiential context. Contexts understood from the particular vantage point of “I”. And then assessing the extent to which these values can be demonstrated [deontologically, ideologically, theologically etc.] to be the obligation of all rational and virtuous men and women to share.

You attack capitalism as the antithesis of rational and virtuous human behavior. Others attack socialism [or your own set of values] in much the same way. Okay, how then is it to be demonstrated once and for all who is closest to the “best of all possible worlds” here. My point instead is that value judgments of this sort are the existential embodiment of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Instead, in my view, you take the discussion back up into the clouds:

In my view, a classic “world of words” “general description” that is not made applicable to a particular context in which existing values held by existing liberals and conservatives are challenged from a perspective like mine.

Note for me any well-known political narrative of the day that does not basically argue the same thing?

How is this not just one more particular set of political prejudices? Accusations that those who embrace Trump’s conservative agenda can then turn around and level at the liberals?

But that’s the point. It’s the being able to believe that it is either one or the other set of values that would appear to motivate the objectivists. It is this wholistic frame of mind that allows them to embrace the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”.

It is to this mentality [left or right] that I introduce the components of my own narrative: moral nihilism.

I simply put a positive spin on it by suggesting that from this perspective one can then champion the idea of “moderation, negotiation and compomise” as the “best of all possible worlds”.

The rest is then political economy: the role that political and economic power plays in sustaining human interactions out in the real world.

Until you start seeing this as a frame of mind that all political idealists are able to make regarding all that they deem to reflect positive values, I’ll probably never persuade you [or them] that it is in fact the psychological reward of being able to ground “I” in one or another Whole Truth that is of fundamental importance here. It is not what is believed but that something is believed that counts most of all.

Or, rather, so it seems to me here and now.

It is what the idealists and the ideologues and the objectivists have to lose here, that I tend to focus on. No one wants to think like I do.

Peter Kropotkin: a perspective that is just arbitrary as my perspective? all values, all viewpoints are
just as arbitrary as the next value or the next viewpoint…you cannot give me
any more of a reason to “believe” your viewpoint, then I can convince you of my
viewpoint…every single on of us, stands on some arbitrary mountain and proclaim
ourselves “king of the hill” and the hill is, desein or conflicting goods or what is
best for society…but at some point, at some point, we have to get off the hill
and do something, believe something even if that something is illogical and
stupid and lacking any context…yes, values are arbitrary and there is no
way around that…your view is just as arbitrary as my view as arbitrary
as anybody’s view… now, you can either let that freeze you into doing nothing,
believing in nothing or, or you can just make an arbitrary decision to accept these
values for no other reason then it sounds good.

to stand on the hill of desein, conflicting goods, political economy is just
as arbitrary as any hill I wish to stand upon… it may be “up in the clouds”
or whatever, and it may be objectivist you may decide, but I cannot see
any valid reason for picking any viewpoint over any other viewpoint unless,
unless we just arbitrarily decide upon some values and then so be it…
those values we arbitrarily decide upon, see Kant by the way,
and then we live and die by those arbitrary values…

and at no point do we reach a point where we can definitely say,
yes, these are the values of mankind and for all time…
it is just another mountain we stand upon and shout for our
arbitrary values… yes, yes, we get it… but what is our alternative?

to call everyone who doesn’t agree with you “objectivist”, doesn’t solve
anything… it doesn’t answer our questions, it doesn’t answer the question
that demands an answer…I grapple with this question of values
and their arbitrariness every single day… and I get no closer to the
truth… values are simply an arbitrary decision… both societal and
individually… yes, I get that and so what?

at some point, we must act upon values which are arbitrary and debatable,
ok, so be it…we cannot hold everyone/anyone to our standards, be it
liberal or be it desein or conflicting goods or political economy…
for every standpoint we take is arbitrary… make no mistake,
your viewpoint is just as arbitrary as mine… the question becomes
do your answers solve the questions that need answering?

I say no…… you are just as hung up upon your viewpoint as the
rest of us “objectivist”… it is the nature of the beast…

Kropotkin

One might say that the “world” is “cold” or “harsh”
or “indifferent”… but the world is none of these things…
the world is and we then attribute to the world some
ideas or values or viewpoint that seems to match whatever
the world seems to be to us… so, a tree falls in a forest, it just does,
there is no value or viewpoint we can attribute to the act…
let us say, that tree almost hit me, it was mean or vicious or
deceitful or whatever value we care to say, but the tree isn’t
any of those things… it is simply being a tree… with no understanding
of anything outside of itself… it falls because it is a tree…
to make it anything more then a tree doing tree things is to
humanize that tree…to create a viewpoint that doesn’t exist…

the tree is just a tree… nothing more, nothing less…

now we might try to turn that tree into something more then a tree,
it might have feelings or we might say it was a good tree… but frankly
to add features to the tree is to make a false claim about the tree…

the tree doesn’t know or care about you, the tree doesn’t have any feelings
of any kind toward you or your world……

so when we say “the world is a cruel world” we are just taking our emotions,
adding to the world beliefs and feelings that doesn’t exists, we humanize the world
in a way that doesn’t exists……

the world isn’t cold or inhuman or indifferent or mean or cruel or anything…
the world isn’t anything… it just is… and we take our thoughts and put
into the world…

humans and their society can be cruel or mean or indifferent,
because humans and their society have a choice… it can decide…
to say the world is cruel is really to say, human beings are cruel
or human society is cruel… of course, you then have to make clear
what it means to be “cruel”……. but my idea of cruel maybe quite
different then your idea of cruel… so, we get approximations of what
“cruel” is……

so we have in the society vs the individual clash… society wants/demands
certain things and the individual wants/demands certain things………

part of the confusion between this society/individual clash is the difference
between the very words society uses and the individual uses…

so the society may claim that the individual has a “duty” to society,
but what does the word “duty” mean, exactly? it may be different from
person to person and from person to society…

I disagree with the comment that the individual has a “duty”
to society… but more on that in a minute……

which has a greater “duty”? the society or does the individual?

I would suggest that the society has a greater “duty”
to the individual then the individual has to society…….

why? think about society… what is the society made of?
individuals…the society cannot function without individuals
but the individual can function without society, its not very pretty,
but it can be done…………

we can replace society with government and get the same result…
so, we have society/government that is made up of individuals…
the goal is to create a society/government within which individuals
can become who they are…………

so, what does that society/government to look like?

government must be the tool of the people, individuals,
government does the dirty work, the chores that make it
possible for people to engage in their own vision of what it means
to be human……… we can have a socialistic society and still reach
our goal of having a society in which we find our own truths…….

it is not about having a government that can be drowned in a bathtub,
but about government actually working for the people…… if we control
the government, we can set it to task that are too much for single
individuals to do… there is a pothole in my street, it would be too much
work for me too personally patch that pothole and still conduct my business,
whatever that business is, but we have government to take care of that business…
so by having the government working for us, we can take care of what we need to
take care of…government no longer tells us what to do, we tell the government
what to do…this idea of democracy is where we take control of our government…
power is no longer in the hands of the bureaucracy or in the branches of government…

we, the people, in order to form a more perfect union……….

government of the people, government for the people, government by the people…

so how do we make this happen?

the first step, as always is awareness… we must become aware that there
is a choice, we can decide to reclaim our government… make government of
the people, for the people, by the people…………we can no longer trust those
who say, follow me… for I know best… don’t follow them, follow your own
mind, your own heart…if you want the government to be of the people,
then you must act and be an agent of change… fight for government
that is just a tool for what we want and what we need……….

the next step is to understand that we are in this together… it is not
about you vs me, it is about us banding together to get those things
done that need to be done… we need to educate our young…
and the cost of educating them is nowhere near the cost of
having an uneducated America………… one man, one vote…
regardless of the man’s wealth or title or status… the poorest among
us get the exact same power as the richest man in America and by
taking control of our government we can make that happen………

Kropotkin… poor deluded Kropotkin……… that can never happen…

and I say unto you, the world doesn’t exist, for we make it so…
the tree’s are just trees and the sea is just the sea and they do their thing…
but we humans, we make the world evil or cruel or indifferent… we value
and we judge and create opinions about things and the world…
the world doesn’t know or care what we decide about it……

if the world is cruel or indifferent or evil, it is us that is cruel or
indifferent or evil… the world isn’t but we are……

we decide or give meaning to what the world is, we act
to make the “world” better or nicer or cleaner…

and we can create or make the society/government better, different
or even if we choose, not exist…… that is our choice… that is the
great answer of human existence… we have the choice… we can decide
what kind of world we live in and what kind of government/society we want…

decide then you need to make your decision as to how to achieve your goal…
but it takes all of us to reach the goal… individual decisions lead to
an overall group actions……………. you say the world is corrupt… I say it is
corrupt because you allow it to be corrupt… we can end corruption by simply
exercising our ability as human beings to act, engage with who we are
and what are our possibilities…….corruption only exists because we allow it…

but Kropotkin, you fool, there are forces in the world, holding it hostage,
keeping us in chains, so, why are you being a passive person to being held
hostage? I choose to fight being a hostage even to death…… why are you
so afraid? Ok, my dear confused Kropotkin, there is no chance of winning against
the forces allied against us… So, who cares if we can’t or don’t win…
I would rather fight and die being a hostage then being a hostage that
is indifferent to being a hostage……… we make the world what it is…
what world do you want to make it into?

all that it takes is two things, first courage… then second more courage to
think about the possibilities and the possibility for change……
we must plan and then act… become aware of the possibilities
then try to create the possibility of change…….

Kropotkin

Kropotkin,

A tree may be a tree is a tree is a.tree , but when it does , and some unfathomable day, its buried under all the dirt, grime and amnesia of the past, it turns into a diamond.