first part: meaning/purpose
second part: Kropotkin issue’s
the question of meaning/purpose should dominate our lives…
but let try another tack… let us take at random musician like
Miles Davis… How did Miles find meaning/purpose?
clearly he found meaning/purpose in the creation of music…
he found his meaning/purpose in the creation of music…
We can look at another artist, say a Poet, Walt Whitman…
he found his meaning/purpose in poetry, right?
well, Whitman practiced that nameless love that bigotry stills
holds in contempt…so was Whitman engaged in his affairs as his
meaning/purpose and then wrote about them later?
I can tell you from personal experience that matters of the flesh
are as temporary as it gets… we don’t find meaning/purpose from
the engagement of the body in fulfilling its lust…
meaning/purpose with another person lies not in the physical but in
the deeper engagement of the heart with another… we find meaning/purpose
with another by our mental/psychological/emotional parts of our body…
that is why we can find meaning/purpose in events,
writings, emotional actions……. we think it is the physical
actions/events that cause us or creates in us meaning/purpose…
but the connection we have that is about meaning/purpose is within
the mental/emotional/psychological part of us being human…
it is that search for connection that is meaning/purpose……
we connect with someone and that creates meaning/purpose…
now what is the major problem with the “modern” age?
we are disconnected with, alienated from society/ourselves/ the state…
that disconnect, that alienation is emotional, psychological, mental…
and that is the source of our alienation and disconnect from modern society/state/
culture… it isn’t physical, it is emotional, psychological, mental……
you can connect physically with all the people you can but it still won’t
allow that emotional, psychological, mental connection to exists with
society/the state/the culture… you so desperately desire…
we think our connections must be of the physical kind, but it is within
our emotional, psychological and mental connections that we must make
that allows us to become human…
let us follow this through: the final days of the Roman empire wasn’t about
a physical action… no, the final days were about the loss of the empire’s
connection with its citizens… the people felt disconnected from the empire,
they felt alienated from the Roman Empire… and that is why it fell… it isn’t about
a physical reason why the Roman Empire fell, it is about the loss of the connection
people felt with the empire that caused it to fall…
let us fast forward to today… we see millions of Americans feeling
disconnected from, alienated from America…this isn’t a physical feeling,
it is a disconnect, alienation from psychological, emotional, mental
disconnection… alienation…from society……
the America is see today isn’t the America I grew up with…
the America of my youth was a “shining city on the hill”
that was an example for all the world to become…
we were the “Moral” society, the society striving the most for
such values as justice, equality, personal achievement…
we have lost those values and replaced them with the negative values
of anger, hate, lust, greed, bigotry, prejudice… we are no longer that
shining city on the hill because of our adapting negative values……
we no longer hold the high moral ground… simple as that…
we no longer fight or engage with the higher standards of
human existence……… we engage with the lower level of
using extreme measures to defend our selves… when we
engage in such examples of Torture and assassinations
and such laws as the “patriot act” to reduce personal freedoms
and liberties, then we are no longer the city on the hill…
we are now like everyone else, just wrestling in the mud over
petty concerns about how much taxes we should pay…
we no longer consider the bigger, overall questions of morality
or what is right or what is possible…we have abandon the larger questions
that matter most and we have grown small and petty… that is not living
on the city on the hill…
you say, Kropotkin, these questions which you consider to be small and petty,
they are important question… and the fact you think they are important
questions show us how far we have fallen…important question are questions
that signify what kind of people we are, not how much we pay in taxes or
the partisan petty politics that people play in D.C… but the important
questions are the questions that define us as a people, as a state, as
a culture…to play petty politics over who has power and who writes the
bills aren’t important…these things too, shall pass…….
no, the valuable, important questions ask us, what does it mean to be human?
the valuable questions don’t ask us petty questions like, should homosexual love
be legal? no, the question isn’t about homosexual love, but the important questions
ask about the big questions like love, not who is loving whom, but is love happening?
the questions we should be asking are questions that allow connections to occur,
questions of bigotry and prejudice and nationalism, alienated and disconnect
people… are you white? that is a disconnect question, the only questions that
matter are questions that ask, do you love? Questions that matter don’t ask about
specific color or gender or race or creed or sex preference of people…
the questions that matter aren’t interested in the accidental properties
of people like skin color or nation you were born in or your nationality,
the questions that matter ask about what it means to be human…
regardless of your accidental traits……
does demonizing color people or people from other countries, does
that help people connect or does that disconnect people?
the answer should be clear but because we are no longer the shining city on
the hill and we don’t care about understanding what it means to become human,
we don’t know that demonizing people regardless of their race, color, creed, sexual
orientation… that demonizing people is to negate, dehumanize people, it is to
be nihilistic… the defining belief of our modern times is to hold to nihilism,
the negation and dehumanization of people… if we hold money to be of higher
value then people, then we are practicing nihilism…
our modern age has made nihilism the defining answer of our age and as such,
we no longer are the city on the hill… if we practice nihilism, then we
place money/profits over people, if we put such ism’s and ideologies over
people, like nationalism over people, then we are practicing nihilism…
one might ask, why are we no longer the shining city on the hill?
it is because we practice nihilism…our economic ism of capitalism is a study
in nihilism because it put money/profits over people…
if we ask the important question and all we can ask, is how much does this cost?
then we have fallen victim to nihilism…if we put material goods over the
needs of human beings, then we are practicing nihilism…
so what are the big questions? Questions that are engaged with people
as beings with needs that must be met… the irrelevant questions, the
unimportant questions are about the cost of programs or projects or
the tax rate…where people are secondary, at best, to the
materials/money/profits in question
we are disconnected, alienated from society/the state/the culture because
the society/the state/the culture has by its practice of nihilism, put
us second or even third in the overall priority in the land…
if we put the defense of the people first, then we are putting people
second…the primary point is the word, defense, not people…
and we have failed as a society/ as a state and as a culture…
if we put ism’s and ideologies over the needs of people…
and this is why the population of America has become
disconnected, alienated from America…
we are second, at best, to the nihilism that makes money/profits
and the pursuit of materialism/capitalism first……
we are no longer the city on the hill because we practice nihilism over
the benefit of the people…….
Kropotkin