if humans have a superpower, it is the amazing act
of denial… what me, I never did that…
there are those who read the last post and think, nope, not me,
I believe in god and I will go to heaven… even though you have
never given a second thought to the real meaning of religion
or what it means to go to heaven or even becoming a better person…
the parable of the good Samaritan is something other people do,
not you… but that infinite practice of denial allows you to escape
responsibility for actions, taken and not taken………and therein lies
the human capacity to avoid taking responsibility for our actions or inactions…
our superpower as it were………
I am saved without doing anything or believing in anything…
the power of human self deception cannot be overestimated…
we deceive ourselves all the time over many things, great and small…
to dress this up a bit… we are engaged in self deception to avoid taking
responsibility for our actions and this self deception is allows us to
behave inauthenticly……without any thought to our real selves…
we say one thing and act another way…
and example is “I say I am Christian” and yet I want those who bring food and water to
immigrants in the desert to be punished… to be punished
for acting Christian…that is what that amounts to… to be punished
for acting upon the words of Christ…for being a good Samaritan…
one should be punished…
that is being inauthentic… your words fail to match your actions…
and that is what denial brings us to… being inauthentic to who we
really are…
the amazing superpower of people will mean they will never be able
to connect my words of engagement with who you really are and
what you claim to be…
and this inauthenticity we have individually, also exists collectively…
we American hold ourselves to be that shining city on the hill,
a beacon of light and goodness for the entire world to see and emulate…
we have failed that test, time and time again over these last 20 years…
when we torture people, when we put children into concentration camps,
when we punish people for being food and water to immigrants in the desert…
we are no longer that shining city on the hill, that is a beacon of hope and
light for the world to emulate…and yet, we still believe that we that
city on the hill… the power of denial is America’s greatest superpower……
and until our words and actions match, we shall be lost, alienated,
disconnected from ourselves and the world…….
what are you words? and do your actions match your words?
that is the great question of our time, both individually and collectively…
you’re scaring me with all this buddha and jesus talk, pete. it’s a sign of exhaustion and surrender. i seen it before, many times. you gotta believe me when i tell you the only reason that shit has stuck throughout history is because it proved to be useful by those in power in their efforts to make the ruled class more manageable. all religions, from paganism to monotheism, emerge from within a practicing caste system in which the governing political structure overseeing the material relations between people has taken, and preserved, the form of a exploitative hierarchy. for the greek peasant working a farm twelve hours a day, the opiate was a friday night dionysian festival where he could get drunk and dance around naked with the aristocrats that got rich off his labor (class divisions were temporarily suspended for such festivals). a little catharsis to keep him happy. for the american grocery store produce manager named pete who works eight hours a day, the opiate is critically rethinking the role and purpose of guys like buddha and jesus. what you want is a substantial raise, dude… not salvation. same thing with the greek guy. but these sonsabitches have made you believe that there is something more to life and that rather than take up arms against em, you could just as well settle back in your chair with a good book on eastern mysticism and/or professor so-and-so’s introduction to the life and works of jesus christ.
you need to stop asking what jesus the spaced out hippy would do and start asking what kropotkin the anarchist prince would do.
K: you misunderstand me on so many levels, one has to be patient with my answers…
I am engaged on several fronts here…
I am challenging the great America problem of how our words and actions don’t match…
we have become alienated, diconnected from society and ourselves because of this
diconnect between our words and our actions… I am guilty, you are guilty, we are guilty…
individually and collectively… our words don’t match our actions and that is a real problem…
second, exhausted? surrended? Not at all… I have simply shifted my focus onto other
matters…matters that should matter to you…
third: I am speaking of the things that mattered to Kropotkin, anarchist prince…
he wrote about decentralised communist government based on mutual aid, mutual
support and voluntary cooperation…he advocated peace… anarchism has two
differnent and diverse schools of thought, one, the violent school… overthrow
the government by violent means… and violence has never accomplished anything…
but the other school of anarchism which flowed from Jesus is the non-violent
anarchism that has been followed by Kropotkin, Tolstoy, Gandhi, MLK among
others… I am walking in their footsteps… following the path of non-violence
to accomplish societal change by changing the minds and hearts of those within
society…you want to change society… begin by changing yourself…
match your words with your actions…begin to think about how to better yourself…
think about what it means to be human… begin to investigate the Socratic
method of “know thyself”………ask yourself about your values and are they
they values you need to become yourself…and become the values you are…
match your words with your actions…
that is the heart of and the meaning of my questions… I have not gone south
or have surrender… I am simply asking my usual questions from a different
standpoint…
it is late, although not 3:00 AM late,
and I am tired and I hurt to the point of not being able to
sleep…so here I am……
In thinking about my exchange with Promethean, he wondered if
I had “surrendered” or was “exhausted” because I had shown weakness
in expressing the desire for peace or love… we have become such a
martial society, that calling for peace is considered a sign of weakness
or having “surrendered”…real men don’t call for peace, we use terror
and violence to uphold the peace… peace based upon the use of violence
or the potential use of violence… think John Wayne… the very definition of
an American… and a user of violence and intimation to enforce the peace……
to think a man weak because he calls for peace… is that what the
American definition of a man is, one who uses violence or has
the potential of violence? if one proclaims for peace, is he less of a man?
a peace based upon violence or the threat of violence, isn’t really peace,
it is the absence of violence with the threat of violence always present…
that isn’t peace………
according to 75, I must be weak or have surrendered or am exhausted
to want to call for peace or to call for love… it is just another
way of saying, what a wuss… he wants peace and love, instead of
what “real” men want, which is the threat of violence or violence itself…
How do we understand what it means to be a man or an American
or a human being, given that some expectations for a man, involve
violence or the threat of violence……. and apparently, our
expectations for an American also involves violence…
but given that America is a violent society with our being at
war over 90% of America’s history, we are a martial society…
one that is comfortable with violence and with the threat of violence…
and what of Men like Gandhi and Jesus and MLK, who have declared for
peace and love? are they not men because they call for peace and love?
to proclaim a man’s role is a violent role is to make men a myth, a stereotype,
a prejudice……. a “real” man doesn’t engage in peace or call for love,
no, a “real” man engages in violence and the threat of violence…
must we understand men in terms of our lower animal instincts?
the lower instincts of violence and hate and anger and lust and greed…
are these “men’s” instincts?
we can and must learn to engage as people in those higher instincts
of love and peace and hope and charity… not because they are male or
female instincts, but because they are the higher human instincts…
our better nature or our better angels as it were……
and in doing so, we are not engaged in “Male” or “female” traits,
but in human traits and with human instincts…
being male or female no longer matters if we engage in
the higher instincts of love and peace and hope and……
it is enough for us to find our higher human self instead of becoming
a better man or a better women…….
for some, it is because their words do match their actions that they become so alienated and estranged from society. others, who neither have to say or do anything substantial, remain in a trivial tedium by comparison. for such people, matching or not matching words to deeds is of no great consequence and hardly noticeable at all. but all this is relative, though; i don’t mean to depreciate the importance of people saying what they mean and doing what they say… only that for most people, this wouldn’t prove to be a great discrepancy. if words and deeds are trivial and insignificant, what matters whether or not they match? see what i mean?
and here again:
regarding myself, there is such a beautiful irony here that i don’t want to touch it.
what if a fellow came along who had not only found that violent disobedience to the state was necessary and warranted, but that such violence would also achieve more in correcting the negligence of the state than any peaceful reform ever would… and even by accident? lol @ that irony! what if an anarchist fellow, who had no interest in ‘bettering’ the state, took to his personal revenge against the state (as a result of some betrayal at the highest level) which incidentally resulted in affecting greater change than would those deliberate actions of the peaceful (who were not betrayed) ever would? the former, completely indifferent to the effects of his deeds for the whole of society, happens to accomplish by accident as a result of his own personal war, what the latter, who makes a genuine concerted effort to change society, fails to accomplish because of the impotence of their deeds. is this not a glorious irony, bro? shirley you see it. one does with a trifle concern and with half the effort, what the other sets out to do, but fails, with the greatest of concentration and twice the effort.
for the former, what he accomplishes amounts to an effortless favor… to throwing a few scraps to the people; your war is not my war, and what i do is not for you, but my victory will incidentally be your victory too. take whatever you want when i’m done here.
absolutely not, provided that he was capable of and prepared for war… that he actually was in danger of war… that he had something to lose. only under these circumstances can the resolution to be peaceful have any substance or currency. i’m afraid that too often those who call for peace are incapable of anything else… and then demand to be noticed for their virtue. ha!
“Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.” - nietzsche
regarding myself, there is such a beautiful irony here that i don’t want to touch it.
75: what if a fellow came along who had not only found that violent disobedience to the state was necessary and warranted, but that such violence would also achieve more in correcting the negligence of the state than any peaceful reform ever would… and even by accident? lol @ that irony! what if an anarchist fellow, who had no interest in ‘bettering’ the state, took to his personal revenge against the state (as a result of some betrayal at the highest level) which incidentally resulted in affecting greater change than would those deliberate actions of the peaceful (who were not betrayed) ever would? the former, completely indifferent to the effects of his deeds for the whole of society, happens to accomplish by accident as a result of his own personal war, what the latter, who makes a genuine concerted effort to change society, fails to accomplish because of the impotence of their deeds. is this not a glorious irony, bro? shirley you see it. one does with a trifle concern and with half the effort, what the other sets out to do, but fails, with the greatest of concentration and twice the effort.
PK: once again, you spin tales in the air without any examples…as I was anarchist for
many years, of the non-violent variety, I have learned that violence isn’t the answer
to what ails society… over the last 200 years of violence against the state, exactly
how many times has violence been successful in generating change in the state?
75: for the former, what he accomplishes amounts to an effortless favor… to throwing a few scraps to the people; your war is not my war, and what i do is not for you, but my victory will incidentally be your victory too. take whatever you want when i’m done here.
PK: if one proclaims for peace, is he less of a man?
[/quote]
75: absolutely not, provided that he was capable of and prepared for war… that he actually was in danger of war… that he had something to lose. only under these circumstances can the resolution to be peaceful have any substance or currency. i’m afraid that too often those who call for peace are incapable of anything else… and then demand to be noticed for their virtue. ha!
“Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.” - nietzsche
[/quote]
PK: ahhh, a Nietzschian… now this hot mess makes sense… my first
philosophical position was as a Nietzschian… oh, how I loved to dream that
I was the ubermensch and how far above the herd I was… and as I grew older,
I realized that had Nietzsche lived long enough, he would have
rejected his entire philosophy as childish drivel…
the urge to violence is the urge to obey the lower, animal instincts…
to destroy is the instinctual urge of a child in the throes of those animal
instincts, nothing more…it is easy to destroy and commit violence…
it is the natural, instinctive action that we all have…
the reason Jesus says, “blessed be the peacemakers” is because
to seek peace means you have to rise above your natural instincts
of violence and destruction…to seek peace means you are becoming
a human being, not an animal with animal urges/instincts…
to seek peace means you seeking cooperation and participation and
collaboration and reciprocity… you are seeking the higher creative
level of being human…a man seeking recompense in violence
is not a man at all, but an animal on two legs…
we humans, we are far too comfortable and at ease with our violence,
we must turn to becoming just at ease and as comfortable with
the higher levels of being human and that means becoming
comfortable with peace…the path of peace is the path to
order, unity, love, unity, concord………the path of violence is the
path to discord, disharmony, disorder, harshness, disorganization,
confusion…………
we cannot achieve peaceful order from violent means…
as a man, I am learning to become comfortable with peace…
I have learned that if I engage in violence, then I engage with my
lower, instinctual, animal self… I forsake my higher human level…
It isn’t a question about Nietzsche’s babbling about those without claws…
for if one lives in a peaceful world, claws aren’t needed…
seek peace and love with the vigor that others seek violence
blessed are the peacemakers…the ones who seek peace and love…
look at our economic system, capitalism… it is a martial version of
our political system… which is war by other means… capitalism is
about economic warfare… it isn’t a peaceful system of economics…
it is about conquering the enemy by economic means…
“to the victor, goes the spoils”
and the spoils in our martial economics is profits/money…
and thus we see that our entire way of life socially, economically,
politically is one of warfare, violence, anger, greed, lust… the
lower human instincts…
to hold to the anarchist economics of cooperation, mutual aid,
voluntary means of political system…is to hold to the higher,
human level of organizing a system…
people hold to systems as being like social darwinism… which
is the survival of the fittest system of economics, political,
social systems… but is a system of the wealthy/powerful holding
all the cards, really a system which brings about the greatest good
and value for all people? No, no it doesn’t… it certainly benefits
those in high places but doesn’t do jack for anyone who isn’t
strong or wealthy or powerful…
I hold that a system that doesn’t benefit all, doesn’t benefit anyone…
either we are about all the people or we are about none of the people…
competition isn’t the answer to our problems, but cooperation is
the answer…
we cannot hold to martial values be it socially or economically or
politically… the only possible answer lies in this particular statement…
“We the people in order to form a more perfect union…”
competition or social Darwinism or surrender to the values of
animal instincts cannot aid or help “we the people”……
the values we hold as a people, martial, violent values no longer
have value in this modern world… they had their place and use
at one time, but that time has passed… we must adapt and change
with the changing situation we find ourselves in…
and today, we find ourselves in a cooperation, mutual aid part of
human existence… perhaps tomorrow in another situation and
place, we find ourselves in a martial, violent place and we must
react with the appropriate response… but not today…
we must react to each different situation with the necessary
response…
you cannot answer different questions with the same answer…
ask yourself, what is religion? what is philosophy?
what is science? what is history? what is economics?
they are means of understanding the world around us
and by understanding, we can then create our response
the world… if we see the world as violent, we would react
violently, but if we see the world as being peaceful, we
react peacefully…
our political system, our economic system are violent,
cruel, vicious systems… and thus we react to the world
in a violent, cruel, vicious way…
but, but is the world really violent, cruel, vicious?
No, no it isn’t…
and that is the great paradox of the modern world…
we are reacting in the wrong fashion to our world…
we are mistaking perception for reality…
is the world a violent, cruel, vicious world?
Only if we make the world a violent, cruel, vicious place…
we are the creators of our own world, we are the creators of our own
values, we are the creators of our reality……
take control over your own reality, take charge of your own values…
become your values…….
if you take control over your reality and find it a violent, cruel, vicious
place, then you have been taken in by your own lower level instinctual
values… the animal values that we all have… if you see the world as
being of peace, love, charity, then you are following the higher values
of being human, not the lower values of being animal…
Nietzche was either an inadverdant mimic, or was capable to transcend that and reindulged in an ironic way to express his overvaliation referentially, to give the impression that he was the shaker and mover, but in actuality holding to the contrary: begging for a Devine reappearance, to save himself through his conscience.
He was really seeking to scare people as to what Dostoevsky meant by proposing what would happen if He did reappear, he would be crucified again.
Historical determination can not possibly not recure, it is implicit in the mind’s harmony, but not explicit in the mind’s eye.
I know this may not appear as comforting , but the cruxifixtion’s metaphor extends the irony You pointed out, by leaps and bounds, that only miracles can evoke.
Therefore , the focus should be on ideas that do the right thing, rather then accept the face value of a washed out materially returned ironic
Intent to will a manifest power of acquiring value in terms of the substance of said material.
Nietzche must have known that this contradiction would have the forceeable sacrifice through the depths of the underworld , through which he needed to travel, whereby everyone who believed in Him, mist see the depth looking back .
He knew this scintilla of a spark of an eigenblick, would be and must be the price by which the Father’s ire be resolved.
This certainty is hotly contested,to this day, and maybe AI at one point can .
I am with You unavoidably, to correct what o really suspect as an injustice pf historical misinterpretation.
Don’t hold it against me, at.one point You gave me carte blanche to post.
If You disagree with this assessment , I will delete it , or, let it stand as a testament to a differing interpretation .
Meno, you do have carte blanche to post as you see fit
and I have no problem with any interpretation you might
see fit to post……. post away…as does anyone else can
post as they see fit with any interpretation as they see fit…
However it doesn’t follow that I have to accept or agree with any
theory or interpretation that comes this way…
I did, I did. The post was a kind of synopsis to a epic trilogy that you haven’t yet seen.
So I think it’s time for me to tell you a story, pete. But I can’t tell it here, so I’m sending a car for you. You’ll be driven to one of my cafes on the east side of town. I will be there waiting for you.
K: curious, I just spent the last 3 days waiting by the driveway for that car…
Ummm but no one showed up…you must have forgotten about me…
anyway, a minor family crisis brewing…my daughter just got a new job which
she hates…so, she already made a decision to leave, but she was looking
for answers as to how… fine, so I made a few suggestions…it was clear
that she was making decision without any context to her life… it was
an isolated decision make without any regard to any other aspect of her life…
and I was trying to incorporate philosophy into her thought process…
she was having nothing to do with philosophy…she wanted to maintain
a very narrow focus on this job and this job only…but that brought about
some thinking about philosophy…philosophy is about theory but not about the
practice of life… think about philosophy… we have various theories about
philosophy… ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, metaphysics, logic, political,
but these are philosophy studied, not lived…
and that is the problem with philosophy… it is studied, but not lived…
until we incorporate philosophy into our lives, we approach problems just like
my daughter did… on an ad hoc basis…ad hoc solutions are temporary, improvised
methods to deal with a particular problem…
ad hoc solutions are non-generalizable and not intended to be able to
be adapted to other purposes…
what does it mean to be a man? we can have ad hoc solutions, a man is someone who
… but is that answer a temporary, improvised solution?
or, or we can finally answer the question, what is a man? in clear, definite
words that explain and understand what a man is… today, yesterday and tomorrow?
but Kropotkin, you have stated numerous times that an ad hoc understanding
is all we get in life…life is temporary, transient… and that temporary nature
in life extends to our understanding of what a man is?
different situations require different solutions… that is ad hoc by its very
definition………… you contradict yourself…
just like when we understood that good and evil are two distinct and different
things and then we begin to understand that good and evil are two sides of the
same coin and then we understand that good and evil are the same thing……
a contradiction can leads us to a solution if we understand it correctly…
a scorching day on the west coast
can’t find relief in any way
coming from the stylist
hair is looking sharp
turn the corner and the street is blocked
police cars with lights on
fire trucks with sirens
ambulance all blocking the street
parked in front of my building
the action is on the other side of the street
by the old man who fought in a war
which one I couldn’t tell
the stretcher came out
and the old man was on it
decades ago he survived a war
there is no defense against growing old
I had planned a quiet evening at home
just thinking about the Kantian questions
but that is thinking about theory
here I was faced with reality
one of the 4 sufferings of the Buddha
birth, old age, disease and death
of the four, I am most acquainted with disease
it has haunted my life since birth
old age recently found me
every day it reveals a new side
when I pronounced old age to be this,
old age denies and says, I am that
if someone asks me
what is old age?
my answer
will be swift and sure…
old age is the constant pain in my hip
and old age is forgetting where my keys are
and old age is discovering how slow I’ve become
and old age is the gradual retreat from the bustling world
and the last of the Buddha’s sufferings
is death…
and what is to become?
seeing long lost faces or a quiet sleep into eternity…
I don’t know………… I don’t know
would I say I am haunted by death?
no, no… I wouldn’t say so
I am seeking as to what is next…
as we grow old
the future closes the doors
the dreams of yesterday quietly become silent
growing old means we have but only one door left
when I was young, the possibilities were endless
door after door after door was open to me
I had choices beyond possibilities and dreams
old age presents me without choices or possibilities
my choices narrow until one day, a very hot day
the street will be closed off by an ambulance and firetrucks
some kid will see me surrounded by medics and fireman
taking me on my final ride to a death with dignity
death with dignity…
all death with dignity means is
I expire without drooling
and perhaps, perhaps that is all I can hope for……
now some might say, Kropotkin, you are being morbid
Kropotkin, you are being sad and depressing
Kropotkin, cheer up and join the living
smile and dance and drink the night away
but I say, why not face up… to what is to come
I don’t need to be in denial about death
if I am honest about what has been my life
I should be just as honest about what is to come
but those without courage will say,
but nothing will change, but nothing will change
and they are right and so what?
in death, will it matter if I am right or wrong…
in death, will it matter that I know all the presidents
and all the state capitals and the population of London?
that the earth is 93 million miles away from the sun…
will that matter as I take my final breath?
as I face my final moments, what will matter?
what faces will come to mind and
what moments will bring a smile
and what will be my regrets?
as I take my final breath,
will all the books I have read matter?
when I take my final breath…
what will really matter…
all those experiences that have made Kropotkin, Kropotkin,
will they matter anymore?
as I breath my last,
what will be my final thought?
will my final thoughts be the Kantian/Kropotkin questions
or will it be the regrets of my life
or will it be the trips of my lifetime
or will my final thought, be of my wife……
or are my final thoughts like this:
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more: it is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing”
galaxies spinning in space
star rotating
planets revolving
earth spinning around and around and around
think of all that life moving
migrations, immigrations and our daily commute
life in a constant dance of movement from here to there
striving, reaching, struggling constant movement.
define life one might ask
change, development, movement, action…
hustle, motion, industry, response…
ceasless activity that lasts a lifetime and beyond
and here, today I practice
idleness, respose, inertia, inactivity…
I am anti-life… practicing my indolence
all that motion of life… is making me dizzy
one of the questions I have asked
upon what should we spend our energy on
should it be mindless, ceasless activity?
perhaps we should be mindful of our energy spent
for even here in silent rumination
the planet spins
and the earth rotates
and the stars travel to unknown places
taking me along with them
my meditation has journey to distant space
without me ever moving a muscle
engross in reverie and still moving
I have no more ambition left in me
I cannot think of anyplace to be
progress… doesn’t mean a thing to me
voices becomes background noise
as I sit here
life intrudes from all directions
noise, light, action, request for tea,
cats begging for food
it is hard to muse and meditate
when the world is demanding attention
my only claim is for peace and quiet
why is disorder and commotion…life
where is the quiet needed for
introspection and reflection
how can I hear myself think
in the midst of all this… life
how do I engage in these questions of mine
when life itself demands my time
how do I find peace and quiet
when life comes at me from all directions?
I have read “western” philosophy and I have read “eastern” philosophy
and I have read Marxist history and I have read Greek history
and I have read English poetry and I have read Japanese poetry…
we define and label and organize our readings and our days
and our lives into labels and definitions and categories……
one might categorize Kropotkin as Marxist and old and senile…
I am not the labels you wish to make me…
I stand outside of any categories or definitions you wish to put on me…
just because it is easy to label or categorize or define a person doesn’t
mean that person is how you label or categorize or define them…
what is the difference between “eastern” philosophy and “western”
philosophy? a label, a category, a definition……
labels and categories are simply artificial terms we use to define
something… to label something…
there is no difference between eastern philosophy and western
philosophy except for the focus or the viewpoint of the philosophy…
both seek answers to questions that we have because of the existential
questions we have from being born………
I am born and by being born I am faced with questions…
“what am I to do?” “what should I believe in?” “what should I hope for?”
these questions face every single human being regardless of when or where
they were born…
you… yes you too face these existential questions
of human existence…
and philosophy and books and plays and music, we see and hear and read are attempts
to answer these existential questions of human existence…
so it doesn’t matter if the book we are reading says “Oriental Philosophy”
or if it says “Western Philosophy” or says it about political philosophy
or economics or history or a biography… all of these books attempt to
answer the fundamental questions of human existence, the existential
questions that we face because we exists………an answer is an answer
regardless if that answer is posed by a man or women or an American
or a Frenchman or currently living person or one who has been dead
for centuries or someone from the east or west… because
think about it… even the term east or west is artificial
because east or west depends on where we are standing at that moment…
our labels and our categories depend on where we are standing
at that moment…a label that makes sense at one moment
doesn’t make sense if we change our viewpoint…
to say I am reading a book about eastern philosophy only
tells one I am reading a book about philosophy from China
or India or Japan… It doesn’t tell the important story
of the answers that those people found in regards to the
existential questions that arise at birth…….
we like to label and categorize people and idea’s for our
benefit and our convenience… that labeling and
categorizing doesn’t change the other ideas, meaning or purpose…
to return to an old idea… the Nietzschean idea of becoming
who you are… to become who you are isn’t about the labels
or categories you might find yourself being listed in…
to become who you are rises above such petty idea’s as labels
and categories… what does it mean to be a western philosopher
as a label or a category when one find the values that
define who you really are… to become who I am, means
I have found values that are me… I no longer have or hold values
that are someone else’s values or society values that were
indoctrinated into me as a child… America holds martial,
violent values that aren’t me… as long as I hold those American values,
I am participating in the label and category game…
but as soon as I forsake indoctrinated values and begin to
hold values that I have found or selected or hold and use
those values to define who I am, then it no longer matters
if those values are eastern or western or American or French
or Chinese or male or female…
the labels and categories we hold only define us if, if
we reach those values through our own discovery
of those values…….
according to the bible, human beings were good until the
original sin of Adam… and we have suffered from this
original sin ever since… but what truth can we find from
this understanding of people?
if we are flawed from the original sin, then we cannot find
salvation on our own… we can only be saved by outside forces,
be it god or some other force… Marx believed that outside force
to be dialectical materialism… the only way to be saved for Marx
is to hold believe in and act within dialectical materialism…
and for modern human beings, the only way to be saved or to
find salvation is to hold in the “modern” values of capitalism
and in American exceptionalism……….
both are outside forces that can save us, but should we even search
for a method of salvation? do we need to be saved? I hold that we
can find our answers within us, as part of us… we don’t need to have
outside forces of god or ism’s/ideologies to save us………….
are human beings naturally bad/evil or are human beings naturally
good? I am not sure that is even the right question…
we are both depending upon how we define human beings
and how we define good or evil…
I can be good or I can be evil depending upon the criteria
we use… according to strict bible believers, I am evil because
I don’t believe in god, but according to other understanding of
what it means to be human, I am good, depends on how you
define good or evil, that gives us the answer to whither I
am good or evil……
to be evil is by definition, to be flawed… but flawed
meaning what? I have read of a man who wanted to end all
vivisection and I can say that is a good man, but that man is
Hitler, so is he good or is he evil/flawed?
what is good and what is evil/flawed depends upon how we define good
or evil………
I have argued for the elimination of capitalism because capitalism
makes the pursuit of profits as being nihilism, the negation of human
beings and their values and to pursue profits means one negates
and negation is evil/flawed, no matter who or what gets negated…
the act of negation, of nihilism is flawed/evil according to Kropotkin…
I believe man is naturally good unless corrupted by such nihilistic theories
such as capitalism…and American exceptionalism………
and Marxism and religions which put god first and people second like
with Catholicism………any religion which puts god before people is
nihilism, because it negates people and their values……………
the goal of philosophy is to find solutions to problems…
to ease one’s mind over the vexing problems which confront
us as human beings…and solving problems bring about ease of mind
and comfort as we live out our days… but, but what if that is wrong!
what if the point of philosophy to stir up people, to create
confusion and misunderstandings and bring about discomfort in
the mind and soul of human beings…
what if we are approaching this the wrong way…
peace of mind and the salvation of the soul is a false
and erroneous belief that human beings have…
let us engage in dangerous and mind blowing thought
experiments about what it means to be human…
let us explore our discomfort and anxiety about life by
engaging in discourse about such uncomfortable matter
such as maybe the political answer to our human problems
lies with chaos and anarchy and disorganization instead of
the steady, organized peaceful existence we think we need…
let us engage in possible solutions by entertaining all, ALL possible
solutions to whatever ails us, creates problems for us…
perhaps we might find the answers we are seeking in solutions
that we don’t necessarily approve of or even think of…
the correct solution to our political problems might lie
in some engagement with chaos and the correct solution
to the question, “what am I to do?” might lie with
idleness and quietude and passivity instead of action
and movement and energy and busyness that we normally
associate with the question, “what am I to do?”
expand our possibilities to include answers that may not be logical or
even make sense but might be the solution to our eternal questions
of human existence……
the existential questions we find ourselves in might be best answered
with answers we don’t even have yet… but can be found in questions we don’t
even think need to be answered…
explore ALL possibilities even if it doesn’t make sense, perhaps
especially if it doesn’t make sense…
K: I would say that the Greeks were wrong when they wrote that
“Man is a rational creature” as a definition of man… My take
is that “man/human beings are problem solving creatures”
If you look about your life, you see solutions all around you…
books for example are a solution as to how to communicate the knowledge
of our species over time… without incurring the problems that happen
when knowledge is transmitted over time, verbally, as it was for hundreds
of thousands of years…cars are another attempt to solve a problem
as it stoves and microwaves and refrigerators and telephones…
every thing we do involves solving a problem………if you are tired, problem,
then you rest… solution…philosophy is the same thing… it is a problem
solving method… just as logic is a means of solving problems…
and science is a means of solving problems and mathematics is
a method of solving problems…
the real thing to understand is the nature of the problem we are
trying to solve… that is the question of philosophy… attempting to
clarify the problem we are attempting to solve…look at the problem
by changing our viewpoint in relation to the problem……
an example is my attempt to understand the nature of the problem
of modern existence… we are born in a modern world and what exactly
does that mean? what is the modern world and what problems are created
by being born in a modern world…“What am I to do?” and “what should I believe in?”
are questions that haunt the modern world…I shall explore the one of the problems
of the modern world which this question of the battle between faith and reason in my
next post…………should we be human beings who have faith or should we be human beings
who reason? this question or battle between faith and reason could be the demarcation line
that one could realistically use to understand the history of human beings……………
so, what problems are you trying to solve and what method are you using?
to think of the problem of human existence as being a quest for salvation or
to escape sin means you are going to use religious methods to solve that
particular problem…you must understand the problem before you can decide
upon the method you are going to use………how do human beings think? that
is a scientific problem which requires a scientific method…