a new understanding of today, time and space.

what is philosophy today?

it is the study of what other people thought about certain concepts…

we don’t engage in philosophy as a way of life…

for example, I might read Hume and have my thoughts
engage in what Hume is saying… but once I put the book down,
I return to whatever I was doing…the concepts that Hume wrote
about don’t influence my actions or my behavior in any way, shape or form…

we are modern Christians, we philosophers…… we read the concepts
and then we go on with our lives without having any change in our actions
or behavior… the words means nothing to our actions or behavior…

we might read how Christ spoke of love and then we put the book down
and cheer how families and children were put into a concentration camp…

we deplore words against the bible but we fail to put those words into
actions that the bible said to…….thou shall not kill…
mere words that have no impact in the real world because we might
say, say that we are Christians but we don’t actually act upon the
words of the bible…our engagement with the bible exists only
in reading the words…not in our actions or in our behavior…

we believe in the words as long as we don’t have to actually
put those words into actions……

Christians and… and philosophers……

we praise the words and then just do whatever the hell we want,
regardless of what the words might want us to do…

if we are suppose to be moral beings, then it is not enough to
read the words once a week and call ourselves Christians/philosophers…

no, it is not enough…… we must take those words and put them into actions,
put them into behavior… if we don’t take those words into actions, then we
are just engaging in mental masturbation… using those words to make us feel
better about ourselves…because we pretend, pretend to hold those words to
be dear… but if we don’t put those words into actions, behavior, then we
aren’t Christians, we aren’t philosophers…

the words and actions don’t match…….

if the words we read and the actions we act upon don’t match…

then we are not, in any aspect of the word, Christian or philosopher…

if we hold that we must act morally based upon the word of Kant…
then we must act upon those words… not give them lip service…

so are you a philosopher? then the words you read and the actions you
take must match… they must… or you are not a philosopher……

you are a mere dilettante: a person who cultivates an area of interest,
such as the arts, without any real commitment or knowledge……

J’accuse… you of ILP of being dilettantes……. if your words don’t match
your actions, you are not a philosopher…if you read moral philosophy
and you actions are not moral… then you are a dilettante……

what say you? have you the courage to face this or do you
try to escape by accusing me of something… do you hide your true
self by pretending you are a philosopher and don’t match your words
and actions? Dilettante……

most people here are nothing more then fakes and dilettantes, if
they read philosophy and don’t match the words of the philosophy
with actions that match the philosophy……

you stand accused…….

Kropotkin

Hey peter, still breaking the keyboards I see.

Hit 50 myself a few years ago, definitely puts you on the big think path. I think it’s a bit pessimistic to acuse the posters here of a simple dalliance with whatever philosophy is. To me it’s a positive, even if what poster x writes is meaningless recursive trash. People grow and change as we have at our rarefied ages. Questioning, thinking and writing is a start many never make.

With all their rough edges, complexes and reflexive venom, they are part of our hope. However meagre.

K: why, hello Tab…I think age has a way of making one aware of things that weren’t
apparent of when you were younger…

a few years ago, I began a full blown study of philosophy and that search
has lead me to a new understanding of who we are and what is the point of
all this bullshit…I fight the fight to wake people up… I like to glorify my
thought as a modern day Socrates… stinging people to wake up…
how many have heard my call, I couldn’t say, but even if I have influenced
one person to gain some awareness, I believe the work has been a success…

anyway, I hope all is well with you… still Teaching?

I hope you stay around a while… your “experienced” voice is much needed…

Kropotkin

Done so much teaching now I’m almost retired. Good to see you still around too.

Guess I’ll stick around till I don’t - I liked your view of historical context added to current events as a shock-absorber, too much outrage is fuelled by simple novelty. “How could this happen…?” Yells everyone. “Well duh, it happened 50 years ago and a 100 years ago, and 250 years ago before that… What else were you expecting…?” Yells anyone who’s read a bit of history. Tools change, events stay the same. Well, erm, kinda sorta etc. Not sure whether population density and mass communication speeds things up, or slows things down, both I expect.

Anyway, a belated happy new year to you, hope the next decade brings a little less disaster than the last.

Tab, Tabby, I’ve also had the pleasure way back well not way way back, & happy new year to You to, but time erases a lot of memory.

However the self learned man in Sartre’s ‘Nausea’ has no time to teach others for he is too busy to learn himself.

250 years is a lot of time, and Jefferson was instrumental, living in Paris, to forge ideas that helped to forge the architecture of the Constitution.

A new boy in town, like the Eagle , decoded Nazi messages, and you can enter there but can’t exit. There is no exit from the impasse.
Because, that is where this phenomenon, this epoch got stuck.

when thinking about people, what do they pursue?

wealth, titles, fame, immortality, happiness……

if you look at these things, you see that they are not, not
within us, they are things outside of us…our engagement is
with things outside of our reach…let us say, I am engage in
trying to get a promotion at work, I am pursuing a promotion…

I can’t get that promotion by myself… it is not within me…

a promotion is something outside of me, given to me by others…

I could work until I die and never get that promotion because it
is something that is out of my control…out of my hands…I have seen
good and valuable workers being passed over by management to
the promotion of idiots and bloodsuckers and brownnosers…

why are you pursuing something that is outside of your control?
why pursue something that doesn’t even benefit your life?

you might say, I will make more money if I am promoted… as if money
has some value… it doesn’t have any value…

money has value only, only because we have agreed to that proposition…

it has value because for those in charge…it is a way to control people…

think about it… if you get money, enough to pay for your basic necessities,
food, water, shelter, health care, education… then what is next?

that level, that bottom level of existence is the animal level of existence…
that is what animals do… simply spend the day attempting to gain the basic
levels of existence, food, water, shelter… if that is all we do, then we are nothing
more then animals… it is the next steps that make us human…if we think of
the bottom step of gaining our basic necessities as the beginning step of human
existence, not the primary step of human existence…as in the use of money
in modern society in which money is the one true goal of society… but not the
next steps of the pyramid of Maslow’s… where we must go after we have
gain our basic, bottom step is to the next step of the pyramid which is
safety/security… and that is easy enough for us to achieve… most of
America is fairly safe and secure… the next step is the love/belonging
level…this rises far above the basic bottom step of the pyramid…
to love and be loved is a basic human need… to belong is as strong
a need in humans as food and water is to us…the next step/level is
to have the esteem of friends, family, co-workers… but notice that each
level is needs that lie outside of us…we cannot have safety or love or belonging
inside of us, as traits we give ourselves… those lower levels are given to us by
outside forces, beyond our control…

the only level or stage that lies within us is the top? level and that
is self-actualization… and that stage is for us to become who we are…
to realize our possibilities, our potential for who we are……. that is the first
stage that is truly human and only possible by humans…

the drive is not to gain wealth or get titles or promotions or
second or third houses… no, those are things given to us by outside
forces… the only true path to becoming human is to seek out the
higher level, the self actualization level…and we humans, we dick around
with the small, insignificant matters of pursuing money and titles and
promotions that can never offer us anything of value or of worth…

we dick around with matters that are unimportant…
instead of an engagement with who we are and what is possible for us…

I try to engage with being moral every day… at work, I handle
hundreds of dollars a day, if not thousands of dollars…
people quite often hand me more money then they should
and I promptly give the money back… not because I might be fired
or punished, but because it is the right thing to do… it is the moral thing…
it isn’t my money…I don’t take what isn’t mine…that is doing the moral thing,
doing the right things lies within me… it isn’t outside of me, it is me…
and I can control that… and I choose to engage with the values of honesty
and integrity as values to live by… to become my values… not because
anybody expects me to, but because it is a clear choice I can make, I can
pursue these values and feel pretty good about myself… I am making choices
based on my possibilities…based upon what I want to become… not just
another animal/human, but to become fully human and pursue values
that lie beyond just an engagement with seeking the basic needs of human
existence… something animals do… I am rising above animals by
making choices about who I am, by the striving to reach the last level of engagement
of self actualization… that is the important thing… to reach the last
level of our human possibilities, not to sink to the level of animals and
engage with seeking the lowest level of human possibilities of seeking
food, water, shelter, health care… but by reaching for that which is
above me…

the human existence, the path of human beings as gone from animal
to animal/human and we must make the next step to rise above
animal/human become fully human…

what have you done today to rise to being fully human?

Kropotkin

you are left with a choice, a final choice as it were…

do you continue to engage as a animal/human… which means
you only deal with the bottom layers of being animal/human,
spending your days trying to gain food, water, shelter, education…

now one might argue that for many millions, that is their choice…
they cannot choose anything else because they have not enough to
feed themselves or their family or shelter their family or get an education or
have health care… that is the failure of society… to deny these basic and
fundamental rights of being human is to deny them their human existence…

if people cannot feed themselves, regardless of why, the society takes
the blame… because society has enough to take care of everyone one on
earth… but for the fact, we have trillions being spent of defense, the
military and we have trillions in the hands of a few thousand people…
that money alone could feed and house every single person in the U.S…

what is more important having a very few have dozens of vacation homes or
having millions of people having food and shelter?

you say, well Kropotkin, you would deny people the incentive to create great wealth
if they can’t keep it… that would prevent people from being a Bill Gates or a
Henry Ford…building America…… and that is simply putting the economic as
being the basis of being America… a principle I deny…

the strength of a country, any country isn’t its economic prowess, but
in the civilization it creates… We, we in America live in a great country
because our taxes have created a city/state/country worth living in…
it is in the social and civil structure that makes a country worth living in…

it is the roads and hospitals and bridges and schools that makes America
great, not how much our GDP has grown last month……

we put our emphasis on the wrong thing…… putting humans before profits…
is the path to greatness, not putting profits before people…

so, we have a choice… we can continue to exists as animal/human…
that is to pursue wealth or titles or promotions or fame… unimportant
matters that have no benefit for anyone…… does a title help you
become a better person? no, will fame make you wiser? no, will you find
justice in having a second vacation home? I don’t think so…

the pursuit of matter of the lowest level of food, water, shelter,
leaves on permanently on the level of animal human, and the game
as I have made clear is to rise, rise to becoming human…

to go from animal to animal/human to becoming human…
to think about the higher, self-actualization of us…….

to discover our possibilities and be able to chase and achieve
them… that is the goal of being human… to become self-actualized…

what is your possibilities and what would it take for you to achieve those
possibilities?

that is a far more profound question then asking how much you made a year?

money that, because of expenses, will be gone in a very short time…

money and fame and title are a nothing more then a fart in the wind…

Kropotkin

so given what I have laid out, what is the good?

we do good when we help others to achieve their possibilities…
when we help people to achieve their fundamental needs of
food, water, shelter, education, health care… when we help people
to gain the bottom layer of basic human needs, we are helping them
to be able to achieve the goal of reaching the top of the drive to
travel from animal/human to fully human… but that path of
achieving self-actualization only comes if the lower level of
the human needs are met… so, the journey to become human
requires us to help everyone attempt to make their own journey
to self-actualization…

so, if we help people on the road to rising higher on the pyramid of needs,
from the lower basic needs of food and water and shelter to safety/security to
love/belonging to esteem to the next step, note I didn’t say final step, but
the next step of self-actualization…then we have done good… we have done
the right thing… the thing that matters more then the superficial goals of
fame, wealth, titles, houses… mere nothings these things are……

but to help someone grow from animal/human to human… that is a
task worthy of being human……

Kropotkin

if I don’t choose to follow wealth or fame or titles or
promotions or any of the shallow or superficial aspects of our live…

then what? what should I be doing? should I be practicing Ascetism or
living in the wilderness or hiding in my room?

nope… as noted before, if we are living alone, isolated from
everyone else, we have no need for philosophy or morality
or ethics or politics or history or any other social tool…

the question becomes how do we become aware given our
complete inclusion into modern society?

the trick begins once we begin to understand our addictions…

we are addicted to money and the purchasing of material goods…

it is a substitute for our lack of any type of moral center…

we try to be happy by thinking our happiness is tied into material goods
and wealth… but if you are always trying to get the latest gadget or
newest too, the iPhone 11 is an excellent example of thinking that
by buying some new toy, we might gain some happiness……

but materialism is only a temporary fix… and like any other drug,
the high only lasts so long before we need another fix of conspicuous
consumption…a new car or that second vacation home…….

we can engage in something besides the ongoing buying and selling that
dominates our lives…

but it doesn’t mean we must engage in Ascetism… we don’t need to
hold our bodies to harsh treatment to properly engage with what I am
talking about…

what do human beings really need?

we need the basics for sure, food, water, shelter, education, health care…

but we don’t need anything beyond that… we can get by on two meals
a day and nothing fancy… we have animal needs that must, must be
taken care of but we don’t have to make those needs into a fetish…
the end all, be all of existence…we can fill those basic needs with
basic, not fancy foods as we can with very expensive gourmet meals…

we can feed and clothes ourselves fairly cheap…
if we avoid conspicuous consumption in our eating and clothing habits……

it is in shelter that complicates matters but we can just as easily live in a small
one room apartment as we can in a 15 room mansion…

in other words, we can easily pare down our needs, our basic animal needs,
to a pretty minimal level… and easily still exists…

as for our other needs of Maslow’s pyramid… those needs aren’t just
physical needs, the need for safety/security doesn’t need a physical,
actual fence or living in a gated community…our safety/security needs
as all the above higher level needs are not physical, but mental, psychological
needs to be met…

in other words, the only physical need in Maslow is the lowest need level,
all the rest are mental, emotional, psychological needs…

now agreed that if we fear for our lives, it is hard to met the higher levels
of being human, the need for love/belonging or esteem or self-actualization…

but the truth is, we in America and we in the west, Europe, Japan,
Australia, New Zeeland and large parts of south America are actually
fairly safe and secure…

if we don’t listen to the fear mongering of the right, the GOP and IQ45
that try to sell fear as a means to getting elected, then we can see that
we are relatively safe and secure… sure crime happens, but the fact is
and has been documented, that the amount of crime around the world
has fallen over the last couple of hundred years…the world is safer today
then it has been…….

“the only thing we need to fear, is fear itself”

so we need to realize that the higher levels of Maslow pyramid is about
fulfilling our inner needs… love isn’t about a physical need, but it is
about a psychological need…

that is why we don’t need to run about like chickens trying to
fulfill our physical needs with such stuff like wealth or power or
material goods or titles…….

we have to fill our mental, emotional, psychological needs, but
not with physical goods like cars or wealth or houses…

we can fill our mental, emotional, psychological needs by becoming
aware of what those mental, emotional, psychological needs are…

once again, we return to Socrates and his dictum,

“to know thyself”

and “the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

if we examine our lives and we can see that we are trying to
answer mental, emotional, psychological needs with foolish
addictions like wealth, power, titles, promotions, material goods…

you cannot answer mental, emotional, psychological needs with
physical, material goods………

and that is where we have been going wrong… trying to answer inner needs
with outer material goods…

round hole… met… squire peg

inner needs can only be answered by inner goals and answers

and outer needs can only be answer by outer goals and answers…

we cannot eat love… and love is certainly an answer to a question but
not the answer to the question of, how do I meet my physical need for food…

and food isn’t the answer for the question of, how do I feed my need for love?

we must seek the right answer for the right question…

so seek what it is you are attempting to gain?

are you attempting to gain the bottom level of food, water, shelter?

then working and making money is the right answer…

but if you are attempting to gain love or esteem or the highest level,
self-actualization, then food or shelter isn’t the right answer…….

the right answer must fit the right question…

so, so knowing thyself is the proper place to know and understand
what needs you are tying to fulfill… either physical or mental/emotional/
psychological needs, then you must approach the problem with either physical or
mental or emotional or psychological answers… it depends upon what needs
you are trying to fulfill…

we don’t need fancy houses or expensive cars to attempt to answer
the question, what needs am I trying to fulfill?

that is why we don’t need to engage in a search for money or wealth or
fame or titles or power or promotions…

they don’t help us answer the question, what needs are we trying to fulfill?

we can engage in our daily lives but with the question of needs and what answers
should we engage with, on our minds…

I can go about my daily life of working at my crappy store and still be able
to engage in the questions about, what needs am I trying to fulfill?

I can still engage with my family and watch TV and root for the Niners
to go to the Super Bowl and still be able to work out what needs are my
needs……

all it takes is carving out “me time”… time to think about, to contemplate
what it means to be human and what needs am I trying to fulfill?

we don’t need to practice ascetism or anything so radical…

we just need to devote some time in our lives to think about what it
means to be human or what needs am I attempting to fulfill?

to make the goal, not to be wealthy or famous or have fancy cars
or titles but to make the goal an understanding of who we are
and what does it mean in our lives to become self-actualized…….

it just takes time for us to be alone with our thoughts

and nothing can proven to be harder then making time for us
to think about who we are and what is our place in the universe
and what needs am I trying to fulfill?

don’t escape life… simply make time to think…

Kropotkin

part of my objections with the whole materialistic/corporate life
is that they deal only with the basic, bottom level of existence…
of the bottom level of physical needs…… what exactly do
corporations offer us? only money, promotions, titles…
the basic ego driven things of no value…

the capitalistic world cannot answer or fulfill the higher level
needs of human existence… needs like love or esteem or
safety/security or self-actualization…

the capitalistic world can only deal with the lowest level of
our needs…of feeding or clothing or giving us shelter or health care
or an education…….

the capitalistic world cannot answer our questions of our higher needs…

this basic failure of the capitalistic world is why I continue to
criticize the capitalistic world… because it only deals with
the physical needs of human existence…

we can operate within the capitalistic world if we engage our
thoughts to the fulfillment of our higher needs outside of the
capitalistic world… we cannot, cannot fulfill our higher needs
within the capitalistic world because it is only focused upon the
bottom layer or level of human existence………

that is why we must grow beyond the bottom level, basic level
of human existence that is the capitalistic society…

our economic and political and cultural system must become
something more the just an attempt to engage with only our
physical level of existence…we must have an economic,
political, social system that engages with us on our higher
human levels…

that is the value of communism…… it attempts to deal with
humans on a higher level then just the physical level that
capitalism deals with…communism fails when it deals
only with our lowest level of existence…… we must seek
out economic, political and social/cultural systems that
rise above being just merely about our physical, bottom
level needs of food, water, shelter, health care……

we need to embrace social/economic/political systems
that attempt to reach higher then just the physical needs
of human existence……

our need for safety/security and love/belonging and
esteem and finally self-actualization must be included
into our next social/political/economic system……

a rather tall order but a necessary one……

capitalism is a failure because it is only focuses on the
physical needs instead of the higher needs of being human…

communism a step further into a focus into the higher levels
of human existence but only a step… it does focus on
the belonging need of human existence and humans must
met the need of belonging but communism cannot fulfill
the other human existence needs of safety/security or
love or esteem or self-actualization…

so the search is now clear… how do we find a political/
economic/social system that helps us fulfill our basic
human needs of safety/security or love/belonging or
esteem or the most human of all, the self-actualization
level…

the goal we are trying to reach is the goal of us reaching,
both individually and collectively, the goal of
reaching the level of self-actualization…

of being able to reach our full potential of us…
of being able to find and fulfill our possibilities…

again, both individually and, and collectively……

what social/economic/political system will allow us to do just that?

and that is the question.

Kropotkin

When we think about the “final” goal of the Greeks
and the Christian, that of the ever contemplation of
the eternal, be it an idea, the Greeks or be it god,
the Christian, I reject this idea…

there is no growth in the forever contemplation of god or the idea…

it stagnates and remains fixed for ever… and I reject that…

the human path is the path of adaptation and change and evolution…

we evolve from the lowest level of human experience, the bottom
level of trying to fulfill our lower needs of being animal/human…
of attempting to fulfill our need for food, water, shelter, education,
health care… but the real question of human existence is not
to contemplate forever god or an idea but to grow or evolve to
the next stage which is safety/security and then grow or evolve to
the next stage which is love/belonging then evolve to the esteem stage
of human existence and then to the next stage of human existence
which is to become self-actualized… which means to explore our possibilities
of being human and fulfilling them…

but I say unto you, that is not the final stage… for what comes after
our becoming self-actualized?

that is the question… for every stage means that there is another stage
waiting for humans to reach and explore… so there is another stage after
self-actualization… at this point in time, I cannot know it, but
those in the future might and must know it and that will become
their new attempt to reach and obtain…for within every level, every
stage lies the formation of the next stage… within the bottom stage of
fulfilling our basic necessities of animal/human of food, water…etc…
comes the germ of the idea of safety/security and within that level lies
the germ of the next stage, the love/belonging stage and within that
stage lies the germ of the next stage, the esteem stage and within
that level lies the next level, the self-actualization level
and once we reach that, the next stage will become evident to us…
because the next stage after self-actualization will have the next stage,
the next level embedded within it… so within self-actualization lies the
next stage, the next level…and once I reach it, I can see my way clear to
the next stage, the next level……something above self-actualization…

I hope I live long enough to reach my self-actualization stage…

so, where are you in the stages of life?

Kropotkin

the failure of philosophy today is because philosophy
is a “theoretical activity” instead of being part of our soul…

it is not enough to know what a philosophy like say, Kant, said
and wrote…we must have the courage of our convictions
and live out Kant’s philosophy…or if we believe in Hume,
then we must live within Hume’s philosophy…or perhaps
we must live within a school of philosophy like perhaps
the Stoics school or the existentialism school of the 20th
century…it isn’t enough to hold philosophy as a theoretical
activity, we must engage in philosophy as a way of life…

not by practicing asceticism in a monastery but as the Greeks practice
philosophy… in their homes, on the streets, at their work…

do you have enough courage of your convictions to actually
practice your philosophy out in the streets, in your home,
at your work?

But Kropotkin, I don’t know my philosophy……

and that is the point, isn’t it?

you haven’t done a reevaluation of values within yourself to where
you know what values are yours and what values were
indoctrinated within you as a child and in modern day America,
as an adult… by the media, by the state, by the church, by the
culture, by your education, by your work…….

we cannot even begin to exists within our values because we
are unaware of our own values… we have no clue as to what values
are really us… and not the values of indoctrination…

“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

and who has the courage of convictions to actually begin
an examination of one’s life?

not just a physical examine but a mental, emotional,
psychological, historical, philosophical and yes,
a religious examination of what it means to be you…

to explore what it means to be you, is an exploration of what
it means to be human and to have and hold, our human failings
as something to be explored and understood…

who has the courage to publicly expose their failing?

few, very few have the courage of their convictions to
explore their failings in public……

I am man… and I hold a multitudes within me…

I can have a very short temper, I don’t have the patience
to deal with people that I had when I was younger,
I can be very mean and cruel to others, oftentimes
without even meaning it, I am quite often insensitive to
others and their feelings… I just don’t care enough to notice…

I try to be the model of consistency at work…and I don’t bring my
problems into work…if you come into my line any day of the week,
I will treat you exactly the same…and speed you out of there as fast as
possible…I tend to gossip at work…I am very nosy…I want to
know what is going on at all times………

my failings and there are plenty of them, are what make me human…

how do I correct my failings? by first becoming aware of them,
to examine my life… to know thyself………

that is the first step of every single activity we humans must engage with…

what failings of my many failings should I work on? that depends upon what my
goal is as a human being…….

I tend to exists within my own head… I am inner directed, not outer directed…

this means I engage with the universe less then I engage with my own idea’s,
thoughts, values… I hold long discourses with myself…
of which are these very writings… just another form of a discourse with
myself…I tend to be cold and distant and apart from people…
I can go days by myself and never feel the need to interact with
anybody else…

my engagement with the world has grown less and my engagement with
my self has grown more…I am becoming much more aware of my engagement
with the world in terms of the positive and negative values……

I try to face the world with the positive values of hope and love and peace
and charity and honesty… and I try to stay away from negative values
of hate, fear, greed, lust, anger… and when I digress into negative values,
I try to hold myself accountable for that failure…

I am a work in progress… from infant to extreme old age, we change,
evolve, adapt and become…as I grow older, I am slowly becoming
the person I want to be … I am going from animal/human to becoming
human… where I am in control of who I am and I am in control of my passions
and emotions and feelings…by engaging in my higher angels, I am becoming
more human… when I engage with the lower, negative, animal aspect of me,
I am becoming less human and more animal… the more I engage in reason,
understanding, control…the more human I am…

when I engage in the lower instincts of the animal, they control me,
the are in charge… when I am the higher values, I am in control of them…

and that is my goal… to become engaged in my higher human
nature of me…………when I lose control, that is the animal
inside of me being in charge, when I gain control over myself,
that is the human aspect of me, being in charge…

so, so who is in control over you?

are you animal/human? or are you human?

Kropotkin

I don’t strive to become a better American or a better
philosopher or a better Christian or a better worker…

I strive to become a better human being…
that is my goal…I try to engage with my higher, more
human values of love and peace and honesty
and hope and charity and toleration…

and my understanding of who I am revolves around my
understanding of the values which drive my life…

the values I am striving to become, not just values
I study as a theoretical possibility but values I engage with
on a regular basis with other human beings…….
while I am at work, while I am at home, while I am shopping
and eating out and watching movies… the higher, more positive
values are the values worth engaging in because those are the
values that make one more human……

and that is my ultimate goal… to become more human…

to travel that path from animal to animal/human to being fully human…

to go from operating on instincts to a combination of instincts and reason,
to becoming fully human by operating, by being reason…not instincts…

Kropotkin

so earlier, we laid out the Kantian/Kropotkin questions of
human existence… “What am I do?” “What should I believe in?”
“What should I hope for?” “What values should I hold?” “What should
I spend my energy on?”……….

How does my new understanding impact such fundamental questions
that we human face from the minute we are born?

“What am I to do?” and the answer is, become human…
we have gone from animal, no different then cats or dogs
or bears, to animal/human, where we still are animal in form
and needs but human in our attempting to overcome our instincts
of the animals… we cannot overcome our form or needs, but we can
overcome our instincts and we can become our values… something
that animals cannot do…

“What can I hope for?” I can hope for the courage to overcome
my animal instincts that can control me… where I let anger
and fear and hatred and greed and lust dictate my thoughts
and actions…I have no control when I allow those negative
values to dictate my thoughts and actions…….

but I am in control when I answer to the higher values of human
existence… love, peace, charity, justice, hope…….

when I make a choice to become my values of peace and hope
and justice, I make a choice to become human and follow my
human values…not the animal side of me, but my human side…

“What should my values be?” I have laid out that argument…
we should become our higher, positive values, not only for our own
sake but for the sake of the human race and for the sake of the living…

I am not attempting to become a better American, a more patriotic American,
nor am I attempting to become a better philosopher or a better worker or
a better citizen, no, no and a thousand times no…

I am attempting to, with values of the higher nature, to become a
better human being…….to hold my self to the highest standard possible…
as with any journey, my journey to become the best possible human being
has its ups and it downs…but I keep striving and engaging with that which
is best within me… the higher values of existence of love and hope and
charity and justice and peace and all those higher values of being…

but I don’t make my journey in isolation or engaging in the renunciation of
the body…I embrace who I am and I take my journey in the midst of
the polis as did the Greeks… they searched for their higher being in
the midst and chaos of the city as do I…….we cannot become who we
are in isolation, apart from everyone… no, the path to becoming human
lies squarely in existing with our fellow human beings… for we learn best
from talking to and engaging with our fellow human beings…

I can learn best how to become a better human by being engaged
with my fellow human beings in the city…

as we engage with our fellow travelers, we can compare and contrast
our words, actions, needs and goals with others… and that comparing
and contrasting is how we learn to become better human beings…

that is why the whole isolation of the monastery, the ascetism that
dominated the middle ages didn’t create better human beings…

the lessons to be learned are best learned from our engagement
in the city, with the people of the city…while working, while
studying, while screwing, while eating… you cannot replace that
engagement with others by isolating oneself and engaging in dialogue
with oneself…….

the Kantian/Kropotkin question becomes, “How do I best become human?”

by our examination of who we are and what is possible for us…

to know thyself and to become aware……

to discover what values I have are simply values that were indoctrinated into
me or are they really my values…

to have an reevaluation of values whereby I examine my values to
see if they are really my values…or someone’s else values indoctrinated into me…

to overcome any indoctrinated values and seek those values which
are really are me… to become who I am…

the path to become human is a long one… we have, as human beings, engaged
in this path for over a million years, we cannot expect to become human, to
overcome our animal side overnight…the journey, the road map we need to
take in our journey is clear, but do we have the courage to embark on a journey
that will leave many tormented by what is and what could be…

by asking the Kantian/Kropotkin questions, we can see where we are
and where we can hope to be…“upon what should I spend my energy on?”
another Kantian/Kropotkin question and that question is answered by
the understanding that the goal is to become human…

in the days and weeks and months and years, began to ask yourself,
have I become more human? have I begun to escape that which makes
me animal…my animal side is the negative, attributes of being human
the being under control of our additions is being animal,
the being unable to control our words or actions is being animal…
to engage with anger, hatred, lust, greed as a solution to our problems
is animal.

the road is from animal to animal/human to becoming fully human…

when do you start to make that journey?

Kropotkin

But Kropotkin, are you insisting upon reason above faith?

Faith, we live in faith every single day… I have faith that I
will wake up in the morning, I have faith that my wife will
return safe and sound after her job…I have faith that I will
remain in “sound mind and body” until the work is done…
I have faith that the dumbest man alive won’t blow up the
planet while being president…

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are create equal"

I hold this statement as a statement of faith…

faith, no more then reason, are expression of being human…

animals do not have faith, nor do animals have reason…

faith is a tool, just like any other tool, faith keeps us from blowing our
brains out when all looks dark and dismal…I have faith that tomorrow
the sun will shine and the birds will sing…but to me, and perhaps only
to me, does faith look a whole lot like hope… I believe one can use
faith and hope interchangeably…and hope is one of the higher aspirations
of man…

so, there is room for hope/faith in our understanding of what it means to be
human…….

when all looks lost, hope/faith is what allows us to continue despite
overwhelming odds… when a human being loses hope/faith, life loses
all meaning…we might be fine physically and mentally and psychologically,
but once one lose hope/faith, we have lost…game over…regardless of
what else happens, once one loses faith… it is the end…

so we must make room for hope/faith in our understanding of what
it means to be human…the power of hope/faith to get us up every
morning cannot, cannot be underestimated…

maybe, just maybe, today is the day that its turn around and
and my life gets better…I can only hope…

no, we cannot so easily dismiss hope/faith in the modern scheme of things………….

so, I am not saying, either we accept reason or we accept hope/faith…
there is no middle ground between the two… there is always some middle
ground between any two antagonistic or opposing viewpoints or idea’s…
we just have to search for them…in fact, we might even pursue the idea
that hope/faith and reason, are just two equal and opposing idea’s but upon
reflection, faith and reason are two sides of the same coin and upon further
reflection, hope/faith and reason are the same thing… if we look at it
hard enough……

so, is hope/faith and reason simply the same thing?

Kropotkin

that we use reason to gain universal and necessary judgements
about the universe… like Kant…

I don’t think we need to attempt to discover universal truths/judgements
when I am not sure that there are universal truths/judgments…

but that doesn’t dismiss reason as a another tool in the toolbox…

we simply have to become aware of the uses and abuses of reason…

we cannot say, it is either reason or faith we must follow…

reason has its place just as hope/faith has its place…

we just can’t depend upon reason to work out universal truths
and judgments like Kant’s moral/categorical imperative…

but I can use reason to work out what is my best course of action
in understanding what it means to be human… I can use reason
as a tool to create understanding…just as I use hope/faith as a tool
to get up in the morning to work my crappy job… I hope it is a better day
at work today… I know rationally that it is going to suck at work, but
with hope/faith, I can muster enough hope/faith to think, perhaps,
maybe, today will be different. It will be better today…
and I am forever disappointed… but perhaps, perhaps tomorrow
will be better, I hope/have faith…

reason tells me that work will suck, yesterday, today and tomorrow…
I cannot escape the nightmare that is work, at least not until
I retire, which at this point, is the same day I die…….

I can use reason on a small scale way or means of understanding my
role or place in the universe… I may not be able to make such
large scale pronouncements that Kant or Hegel or Spinoza made, but
I can use reason to make small scale understanding of what it means to
be human……and what it takes to go from animal to animal/human to
human… fully human…and reason is the tool I use to make
that judgement……

so, reason isn’t oppose to faith, reason is simply another tool, just
as faith is a tool…

Kropotkin

to expect the universal truths to come from either
reason… Athens or universal truths to come from religion, Jerusalem…
is to first ask, is there such a thing as universal truths?

I have stated before, I don’t accept the idea that there is such
a thing as a “universal truth” that is a judgement of some nature…
for example, a universal truth is “because Adam sinned, all human kind
is cursed with the original sin” that sort of “universal” truth, it isn’t
very plausible or likely…… it is simply a justification to sin without
consequences……

“all men are evil” is another example of a universal truth, that is simply
wrong based on just us looking at the people around us…

universal truths are very hard to disprove…… an example of this seems to
be a slam dunk… “all human beings die” and yet, I am not sure this is true
because we haven’t been able to and won’t be able to examine everyone
who has ever been born… there might be a case, a human being that has
lived for centuries… I cannot know either way… I must remain
agnostic to the idea of universal truths and judgments because I simple
don’t have the information necessary to make such a judgement…

I must reserve my judgment until I have all the facts and in
the case of universal truths/judgement, we can never have all
the facts, so we must reserve our judgements in the cases of
universal/judgements…

but then Kropotkin, you cannot proclaim yourself to be an atheist because
you don’t have all the fact within your possession…

I have reason, which on a small scale can offer up answers to
many of the vexing questions of human existence…

I see no prove of a god…I cannot imagine a situation where
it becomes necessary to imagine up a god… I cannot imagine up
any necessary reason for god… I have no evidence for god’s existence,
I have no reason for god’s existence…now can I expand that into some
universal truth/judgements? I don’t think so… for everyone has their
reasons to believe or disbelieve in some universal truths/judgements…

but locally, within my field of vision, I cannot justify the use of or the need for
god, nor can I find any evidence for such a being…….

hence, I call myself an atheist because I am not trying to reach some
universal reason about such matters, I am simply stating my local truth…
there is no god… I can’t speak for you, but for me, there is no god
and there is no proof of such a being…I reasoned that out…
whereas someone else might reason out otherwise… that is the nature
of reason… it is a locally applied use of a tool we humans have…

Kropotkin

I am a philosopher…

I am supposed to seek the truth…

but I don’t…

I commit blasphemy in the philosophical circles by not
seeking the truth at all cost…

What truth? Whose truth?

I cannot say…

is my truth more “real” then your truth?

I cannot say…

is my truth, more true, then your truth?

I cannot say……

I cannot even say what the word “truth” means…

for I don’t know……

I cannot even say what reality we are trying to describe…

for I don’t know…

I cannot say what the word “understanding” means…

for I don’t know…

for I am ignorant of such matters…

I cannot tell you what is real or true or even understand such things…

I can only ask questions about what they mean…

I have been misinformed about such things… from childhood…

my childhood indoctrinations from the state and society and church and media…

they lied as to what is real and what is true and what is understanding…

the purpose of those indoctrinations weren’t to inform or allow understanding…

no, those indoctrinations were meant to get me to obey…nothing more…

to be a “good” citizen, to be a “good” Christian, to be a “good” Patriot…

and by “good” that means only one thing… to obey, to follow the rules…

what is the great crime of modern society?

Insubordination…….

to prevent the crimes that bedevil societies…

defiance, dissension, rebellion, revolt, revolution, noncompliance…

these criminal acts, all of them……

and what do these criminal acts have to do with “TRUTH”?

For the question becomes, who decides what is the “TRUTH”?

Society, the state demands to be the only arbiter of what is the “TRUTH”…

If I as an individual decide the “TRUTH” for myself, I am a criminal…

for I dare to subvert the power of the state by declaring the truth is

outside of the control, the domination of the state…

but I cannot tell you what is the “TRUTH”…

but to search for the truth outside of the state’s indoctrinations

is to commit the cardinal sin of insubordination………….

I am a heretic because I don’t subscribe to the state’s indoctrinations…

and so I am labeled, radical, liberal, socialist, communist, anarchist,

and why?

because I seek the “TRUTH” outside of the state’s sanction indoctrinations…

and what are the state sanction indoctrinations?

Money, Patriotism, profits, martial, materialism, religious, obedience…

all the phony idols, we American’s bow down and pray to……

I oppose each and every one of these sacred tenets of America…

instead of praying to the state’s indoctrinations…

I seek values worth living for, worth dying for…

values like love, peace, hope, justice, charity…

Un-American values because there is no profits in those values…

and profits are the real religion in America today…

all bow down and pray to the holy ghost of profits…

bow down and pray to Mammon… our real heavenly father…

I shall not bend the knee to such false and nihilistic values…

and what is the “TRUTH”?

Kropotkin

“Whoever is not of faith is sin”

St. Paul, Romans 14:23

and I am not of faith, so I am in sin……

and whomever is not of faith, of the indoctrinations
of the state, is sin……

the articles of faith in America…

Money, Patriotism, profits, martial, materialism, religious, obedience……

and I am not of faith, so I am… sin……

“Whomever disowns me before others, I will disown before my father in heaven”

Never a more patriotic belief was ever held……

For the father in heaven in America is Mammon, profits…

and for my sin, I am disowned before the father in heaven,

I am a poor man… disowned before the heavenly father…

and what is my great crime of insubordination?

I reject the values of America as being nihilistic…

nihilistic: devaluing and dehumanizing humans and their values……

do you hold faith in the indoctrinations of the state?

are you in obedience?

are you a good citizen or a good patriot or a good American?

then you are not… sin…….

but verily I say unto you… I would rather sin then
live in false and phony values that are nihilistic…

and what is the “TRUTH”?

Kropotkin

I seek to understand…

is knowledge and virtue… synonymous?

Socrates certainly thought so…

can one who has knowledge, because of knowledge
be virtuous?

or do the two have nothing in common?

what is knowledge?

Philosophy spent over 200 years trying to understand that
question… From Descartes to Hegel……

but has philosophy put in that amount of effort into
understanding Virtue?

why not?

in America, virtue is holding those values of
patriotism, profits, martial, materialism, money, religious, obedience…

and what of knowledge in America?

does American have any knowledge?

hence the dissociation of virtue and knowledge in America…

have we proven or disproven Socrates?

Kropotkin