Peter Kropotkin: I wonder why we have periods of great philosophers?
for example, we have a time period where some of the greatest thinkers
of the world existed within a one hundred year period…
and why? what was happening that force/allowed all these thinkers
to engage in their thought at roughly the same time…
Confucius: 551 bc- 479 bc
Socrates: 469 bc-399 bc
Buddha: 560 bc-479 bc alternative dates for the Buddha is 480 bc to 405 bc
Heraclitus: 535 bc-475 bc
Pythagoras: 552 bc -496 bc
Sun Tzu: 544 bc- 496 bc
Mozi: 470 bc-391 bc
and before this you have Zoraster roughly from 1500 bc to 1000 bc
and Loazi around 600 bc…
so why? why do we have this explosion of thought all over the globe?
why do we have so many thinkers and philosophers and theologians
from this time period?
K: the above post has gotten me to think about why this explosion of
thought occured at this point in time…One possible reason might
be because the old way of doing things, the old vision no longer fit
the reality on the ground… they were trying to use an old map
for new terrain and that is a recipe for disaster…the old answers of
the gods of the land, sea, and air and sun no longer fit the terrain,
the reality of the times and so people began to search for new answers,
for a new map of reality. Or to think about this slightly differently,
if the old answers were working, then people wouldn’t have bothered to
search for new answers… only when the ism’s and ideologies are failing,
do people begin to search for new ism’s, new ideologies.
Before the listed philosophers were born, the historical context was a different
thing… for example, we know that in Greece for example, there was a long lasting
civilization of which the Greeks cities fighting in the Trojan war were part of…
but within a couple of hundreds years after the Trojan war, Greece was invaded
by Nomads from the North and these people, as yet unknown people, pretty much
destroyed the home grown civilizations of Greece and for a period of roughly
400 years, during a mini Dark ages when Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey…
civilization was dark in Greece…the light of civilization began to creep into
Greece beginning around 600 BC and was in full bloom by 450 BC………
and the same happened to India… there was a well established civilization
in the Indus valley which was destroyed by invading tribes… there was a period
of Dark ages and then slowly, India began a climb back to civilization and this
was documented by the rise of thinkers and philosophers beginning around 600 BC
and went to the Buddha who lived roughly during the same time frame
as Socrates… and I don’t believe that is a coincidence… I believe that the
destruction of the home grown civilizations in Greece and India, force people to
reevaluate and rethink their basic values and beliefs…but this reevaluation
had to wait for civilization to recover to some point where the state was stable
enough to allow such a reevaluation…….this is part of the relationship between
individual and the state… the individual cannot begin their quest to an reevaluation
until the state has stabilized enough to allow such an reevaluation…
You cannot get a Socrates or a Hobbes or a Hume or a Kant until
the state and society are stable enough to allow such thought to occur…
In the Dark ages, the number of great thinkers were few and far in between because
the state and society wasn’t stable enough to allow the freedom to engage in such
thinking…………
so one of the criteria of a Buddha or a Socrates is a stable state/society…
that much is evident… the second thing that must happen is
some sort of overturning of the longstanding ism’s and ideologies
of the past… this overturning can be an invasion or a war or a plague
or some other natural disaster that forces people to reevaluate their
thinking………….
let us look at America right now… we aren’t quite at the point of
an reevaluation because things are relatively good and stable…
but once the forces of darkness that IQ45 represent win the day, that
disaster will force people to reevaluate, rethink the entire ism’s and ideologies
of the day… soon, soon I believe that there will be some rebirth of thinkers
and philosophers in America… because such as rebirth can only come after
“the flight of Minerva” as Hegel called it…….
however even today, people are beginning to question the economic system
that is America… that capitalism is the greatest economic system on earth
is under debate today is a very good sign…….
we are still lacking in thinkers and philosophers who are prepared to
begin the reevaluation, the rethinking of what it means to be an American
and what it means to be a human being……….a thinker/philosopher who
will take the Kantian/Kropotkin questions seriously and reevaluate
the basic questions of existence that, as of right now, are not being
addressed because the system and its ideologies are still functioning
and stable…… once the system begins to develop the problems and issues
of that system, the reevaluation will begin… and we begin to see this
in America with the income inequality being just the beginning of
our decline… does that mean the decline of America is inevitable?
no, not at all. It just means we are beginning to see the cracks in the
wall and we need to address those cracks before they spilt open
the society/state………
Problems like income inequality and overpopulation and pollution
and global warming are visible signs that the current system is
in failure… problems like these problems don’t occur if the system
is working and working correctly… the myriad of issues and problems
of the modern day is a warning, a sign of system failure and we must correct
the system before it crashes down on our heads………failure to address
the system failure before they crash means that we will crash the
entire world because of the interconnection of the world…
one part failing can cause entire system wide failure…
such as a lung or heart failure can crash the entire human system…
whereas if the arm has issues, the human system will most likely be able to
survive… and the U.S is a key part of the entire world wide system
and so if we fail, we take down everybody… that is the nature of the
modern world…….so we must address our problems/issues in a serious
manner and not be a clown like IQ45 who is making a bad situation, worse…
so what you gonna do? are you simply wait and hope the system works
itself out or, or are you going to be active and attempt to
understand and change the system in such a way to avoid a system collapse……
“what am I to do?”…………
Kropotkin