a new understanding of today, time and space.

I have come to the conclusion that we “moderns”, we are sick…
we have an illness… and as a philosopher, I am reminded by Socrates,
that we must cure the Illness of society, an illness that no physician or
psychologist can cure… because the “Human condition”
is one of mental illness…

even a cursory look at history can provide us with enough evidence
to convict the human race of being ill…think of the games of
the Romans, the “bread and circuses” of the people…watching others
die horrible and gruesome deaths isn’t something that I can consider
to be something normal…the very need to watch others suffer is a sign
of mental illness…

and we don’t need to go back into history to see this mental illness…
we just need remember Nazi Germany… the entire holocaust is one
more indictment of the human race mental illness…

and today, we have lock up children into concentration camps because
their parents, their parents has enough gall to seek a better life for themselves
and their children…

and we have no problem allowing people to suffer without health care and
any possibility of having health care… the nerve of them to want good health…
without having to go bankrupt to have good health…why tie up health care
with holding a job…no job, no health care… that tell us our priorities…
a job is more important then having health care…

it is a mental illness that makes the pursuit of money, more important
then the pursuit of wisdom or the pursuit of love or the pursuit of
justice or equality…

when we make money/profits more important then people’s lives, we
are engaging in mental illness…

so how do we philosophers overcome this mental illness?

we reevaluate what is really important…we see that life,
life is more important then money or profits or material goods…

the entire educational system is directed toward creating
workers, to work in our mentally ill system of capitalism…
which puts money/profits over the heath and welfare of the
worker and the consumers…

until there is some recognition that we are perpetuating a system
which degrades and negates human beings, we cannot begin to
work our way toward having healthy mental health…

and that is part and parcel of the current mental health crisis,
we are engaged in degrading and negating human beings for
such pitiful goals as money/profits, wealth, material goods…

until we become aware of just exactly how mentally ill we are,
we cannot come to grips with some sort of solution to find a cure…

everything you believe in, comes from a mentally diseased state…

how are you going to go from being mentally ill to mentally healthy?

it all starts with awareness of being mental ill and that is what
is needed… an awareness of who we are…

Kropotkin

think of the conservative mantra of hate and anger and
the threat of violence…

now think of those of whom we have put up statues…
think of Gandhi and the Buddha and MLK…

think of what those people stood for… did they stand up for hate or
violence and anger? No, no they did not… why have we put up statues
to those who have advocated peace and hope and love… because
that is the road we must take to escape our “modern” mental illness…

to promote such destructive ism’s and ideologies as capitalism
and communism is to take the path of more mental illness…

capitalism promotes the negation and denigration of human beings
so if you approve of capitalism, you approve of the negation of
other human beings…I don’t see how you can spin that to be anything
other then mental illness…if you see someone putting others
down to make themselves feel better, you would call that a mental illness,
and you would be right…our modern age is one where every ism and ideology is
an aspect of mental illness…

we must first see what is happening before we can find a way out…

how do we find salvation? how are we to be redeemed?

we must find our way of our the collective mental illness that
makes our age, the “modern” age…

we must seek to find out what is “not mental illness” and follow that
path and it seems that those who we put up statues to, they are the
ones who are mentally ok… they have put people ahead of money/profits
and they have paused to understand what is really important in our lives
and they have seen the beauty of the moment… something we cannot see at all
because we are in the grips of a mental illness that allows us to put children
into concentration camps and put money/profits over peoples lives and
fail to see the beauty of the universe around us… because we are too busy
making money and having experiences and building houses in the beauty of
tree’s and forests…

anyone who thinks it is a good idea to send children to school in the midst of
the worst pandemic in our lifetime, clearly is mentally ill because they are
putting the economic before children’s lives…existence comes before
anything else… and we must put lives before money and material goods
and cars and…

in other words, because of our mental illness, we have lost perspective on
what really matters… we no longer know what is important and what isn’t…

so, what is important? do you know?

Kropotkin

Nietzsche attack upon such ism’s and ideologies as Christianity is
because, according to Nietzsche, Christianity made human beings
“weak” and that “weakness” has corrupted our Modern age…

because of Christian “morality”, western man has become
weak because Christian “Morality” is about bringing about
weakness in human beings…

slave morality which was championed by the Christian church,
is anti-life, anti-body, anti-sex… these “ideal’s” are what have
weakened human beings in the west…

the “herd” mentality is one designed to raise the weak to compete
or even destroy the “strong”…

whereas I hold that the “herd” mentality is held because of the failure
to overcome our indoctrinations of childhood…

we haven’t overcome… that is the “herd” mentality…

and this is one of the differences between Nietzsche and myself…

whereas Nietzsche hold that democracy is “herd” mentality, I hold
that we can use democracy to become who we are…

Nietzsche held that Goethe basically made himself… he created
who he was and for Nietzsche, Goethe was the quintessential
human being…the “higher” man…and what made Goethe the
quintessential human being?

he was self directed, he made his own “rules”, he was rational,
he was autonomous…he was one of the great “creators” of literature
in history… he was able to find and fulfill his possibilities as a
human being, writer, thinker, poet, scientist, government official,
everything he did, he was great at it…

Goethe was anti-Christian… and in part, that was part of his appeal
for Nietzsche…and Goethe had no use for such silly concepts as
democracy and liberalism and other crutches used by the great
unwashed masses…he was above such things as ideologies and ism’s…

I hold that we can rise above such things as “slave” morality by
becoming free of such things by our overcoming, by our
escaping our childhood indoctrinations…

we can create who we are if we no longer hold to human beings
as being dependent upon such ideal’s as religions, political parties,
beliefs in such ism’s and ideologies as capitalism and communism…

we can escape the tyranny of ism’s and ideologies by
following our values instead of blindly following
ism’s and ideologies…

such ism’s and ideologies as democracies and capitalism is really
the beginning of the story, not the end…

because what comes after democracies and capitalism is the story,
not the end…what is next?

such isms and ideologies as democracy and capitalism and political parties
are in synch with our stage of evolution of being animal/human… but to
grow into becoming human, fully human, we must take the next step into
our future… and ending the need for such damaging and destructive
ism’s and ideologies as democracies, capitalism, communism, catholicism,
Buddhism, Christianity, political parties, and to find our growth as
human beings in our becoming who we are, not in our ism’s and
ideologies…

in becoming human, not just animal/human… that is where our growth
as human beings will come and that means we must walk away from
ism’s and ideologies that hold us hostage to viewpoints that
prevent us from exploring our possibilities as human beings…

Goethe wasn’t engaged with democracies or communism or
political parties or religions because they don’t aid us in our
becoming who we are… he engaged in writing or science
or writing plays as part of becoming human, not as an exercise in
ism’s or ideologies…

Goethe was seeking his possibilities, not as an participant
in ism’s or ideologies… he didn’t care about ism’s or
ideologies… he cared about becoming, he cared about what it
meant to be human, he cared about seeking his possibilities…
he cared about what values he held…

his book, “Faust” is an exploration of values…
are Christian values worth having? no was his answer…
what values are worth having as a human being?

virtually the very first lines of “Faust” is this:

“I have, alas, studied philosophy,
Jurisprudence, and medicine, too,
And worst of all, Theology.”

Goethe answer was to reject these ism’s and try to find
another answer…and Faust then to engage with
the use of lust and power… he tried the old method
of seeking women and power… and that was quite
a spectacular failure… his “Faust” is an exercise in
the modern techniques of seeking fame, money, power,
titles…

and his “Faust” failed… because seeking these “Modern”
methods themselves, are the path to failure…

the book “Faust” was an engagement with, what not to do
as a “modern” person…

after one seeks fame, and power and money and lust
and titles, what is left? an engagement with the values
we hold…

our search for becoming who we are, has nothing to do with
ism’s and ideologies and political parties and the "modern’
engagement with fame and money and power and lust…

becoming rational and autonomous, that is something worth
pursuing… because that is something that can lead us to
becoming who we are… seeking values is something
worth pursuing…

seeking the ago old failures of religions and politics
and money and power… they go nowhere because
they have no where to go… what happens when you achieve
money or power or fame… there is no place to go afterwards…
it leads nowhere… you can only work toward achieving more money or
more power or more fame, it cannot lead you to further growth as
a human being… that is the modern path of failure… to achieve
anything of value in the Modern world means you have no where
else to go… it is a dead end… money, wealth, power, fame, titles…
what is after them? nothing…

but values, to achieving values, that can lead to growth as a human being,
to achieve growth in going from animal/human to being fully human,
that is growth that can lead us to new grounds to what it means to
be human…

so the modern answers of religion and political parties and wealth
and power is not an answer because there is no growth as a human being
while engaged in those modern answers…

seek something different… become rational or autonomous or
seek your possibilities as a human being…

Kropotkin

seeking the “Modern” answers of wealth or power or titles or fame,
means you are not seeking becoming who you are…

those “modern values” don’t allow us to grow as human beings…

modern ism’s and ideologies are a dead end and lead us nowhere…

there is no further possibilities in modern ism’s and ideologies…

becoming Christian isn’t about being rational or autonomous,
it is about following the script that someone else wrote…

following ism’s as in capitalism or communism is to follow a
script that someone else wrote…

the same goes for any ism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Christianity,
Fascism, hedonism, scientism…

freedom, true freedom comes from seeking our own possibilities
of being human… what does it mean for me to become human?

I must walk away from constricting ism’s and ideologies that
deny me my possibilities of a being human…

and those possibilities are found in the values I choose to seek,
like seeking love, hope, charity, peace, justice, cooperation,
authenticity, balance, compassion, honesty… among some of the
many values I can seek of becoming human…

if I were to seek say, justice/equality, there is room to grow
if I were to make justice/equality as my purpose in life, my meaning
in life…seeking justice/equality as a value gives my life purpose
and meaning and in seeking justice/equality I have become closer
to becoming human, not just animal/human…

seeking justice/equality isn’t the dead end that our modern pursuit
of capitalism or communism or wealth or titles is…

today, we are not the end product of what it means to be human,
we are at the start of what it means to be human…
we are on the road to becoming human…

and that is our engagement with what really matters, not
our economic or political or social ism’s and ideologies that we might
follow… but to seek that which gives our lives values and meaning,
the values of existence… becoming justice or hope or peace or love…

that is the values of becoming…

Kropotkin

the question of ism’s and ideologies is to teach men to
become something of value toward the ism and ideology in question…

so, Christianity is about teaching human beings to be a good Christian,
and the state teaches us to be good citizens and the education system
teaches us to be good workers and the media is teaching us to be
good consumers… but who is teaching us to be human beings?
and who is teaching us about reaching values that allow us to
become human, fully human?

the state and the media and the church and the schools is teaching us
to be something but that something has little or no value in reaching
the real goal… which is to grow from being animal/human to being
human, fully human…

in other words, we are taught to be good citizens and good Christians
and good workers and good consumers… but these have no real value…

they are the mindless goal of being wealthy, having titles, gaining power,
being famous, to have a a lot of material goods that mean nothing if we
actually would engage in some sort of reevaluation of values…

for those goals of wealth and power and material goods are simply
childhood indoctrinations that we haven’t overcome yet…

what is truly important in our lives?

we don’t know… because most/almost all people
are afraid of exploring these indoctrinations of our childhood…
to see if those indoctrinations have any value at all…
to the goal of becoming human…

what goal are you reaching for?

who is your hero?

who has become what you ought to become?

in other words, we should follow those who have real value…

not Bill Gates or IQ45 or even Oprah… no, we should follow those
who have attempted to seek out their possibilities…

Da Vinci, Einstein, Goethe, Shakespeare, MLK, Gandhi, Nietzsche and
Socrates, Goethe…

these should be our role models… people who attempted to
discover what it means to be human… not with an engagement with the old
role models that history has provided, Caesar, Paul, Rockefeller, Henry Ford,
where the goal is wealth or power or fame or titles…

the goal isn’t what we can gain in material goods or wealth, but
the question is “what can we become”…

“how are we to live?” “what are we to do?” “what should we believe in?”
“what should we hope for?”

none of these questions have anything to do with wealth or fame or
material goods or titles or power… those things are just not important…
to the real point of existence…

what does it mean to be human? what does it take to become a real human
being? not just a worker or a producer or a citizen or a consumer or animal/human?

existence can have meaning or a point or a possibility if we
remove the phony answers of existence and concentrate on
the real goal or purpose of existence…

to answer the question… what does being human really mean?

Kropotkin

a reevaluation of values…

when I see land, what do I see?

for example, I live on the San Francisco Peninsula, right in the middle
of the Peninsula… and the land my condo sits upon is consider to be
valuable because of the condo complex that sits upon it…

but to me, land that has any construction on it, be it
condo’s or a house or a strip mall or a factory or a campus,
educational or business, facebook or apple for example,
has no value… it is worthless…

I can look to the west, on the hills above the freeway 280 and
see tree’s and forest and that land, that land is far more valuable to me,
then any land with construction on it…

so any land with forest or desert or hills or mountains are far
more valuable to me because they don’t have any sort of
civilization on them…

putting any type of building on land or making “progress” with the land,
actually devalues the land, makes is worthless… the land my condo is on
might be worth millions because of where it is, but in truth, because it
has construction on it, it is worthless… it is just another attempt
to create progress when progress isn’t just putting up buildings…

we have to redefine what progress actually means because right now
the idea of progress really negates and denigrate what it means to be
human… it gives a false idea of what progress really should be about…

whereas the idea of progress isn’t about the GDP or what land has been
destroyed in some false notion of what is progress…

progress is about going from animal to animal/human to fully human…

progress is about learning to live as a human being, while being
rational and autonomous and thinking about what it means to be
human… that is what progress really means…
not how much land can we destroy while building crap buildings…

that isn’t progress, that is wonton destruction to achieve false
and dangerous ism’s and ideologies like money, fame, titles,
and material goods…capitalism means the destruction of values
and putting material goods and money and fame in its place…

progress is understanding what values are our values…

progress is finding out what it means to be human…

progress means discovering what is left after
a reevaluation of values takes apart the installed, indoctrinations
of childhood…

progress is about discovering what it means to become who we are…

progress is about finding out what we humans are made of, not
how many buildings we can build and turning land that has value
into land that has no value…

Kropotkin

why am I an anarchist?

Because I hold that the highest possibility of human beings
is to be free and rational and autonomous, in both belief
and in actions…I believe it is possible for human beings to exists
without the need of isms and ideologies like communism and capitalism
and Catholicism and Buddhism and all the other ism’s and ideologies
that prevent us from living our lives…

I reject such notions as god, the Buddha, heaven, hell, sin, guilt,
racism, nationalism and hate…

we seek to become what we are… that has nothing to do with any of
these ism’s and ideologies that exists to prevent us from reaching our
possibilities…

if we are reaching for our possibilities, then we are not being control by
those who profit from us working and praying and shopping and producing
and consuming…

they no longer benefit if we are to seek new goals and new possibilities…
and that is there greatest fear… we become free of the insidious
influences of such ism’s and ideologies as nationalism and religions
and political ideologies that only promote those who own the means
of production for whom we waste our lives for, our 40 years of existing wasted
making them profits and allowing them to hold power over us…

why am I no longer a anarchist?

I see human beings don’t have the courage to break free of
the marketplace of idols that dominate our lives and destroys it…

we can only be free once ism’s and ideologies are destroyed
and demolished and no longer available to corrupt our lives…

we are too committed to our convictions and won’t conduct
an attack upon our convictions…

and until then, I am not a anarchist…

the goal is to be free and that means free of ism’s and ideologies
and hate and working 40 years to achieve nothing but wealth for others…

Kropotkin

I just now finished Nietzsche “Antichrist” I have just one more book
to read “Ecco Homo” and I will have finished off reading all of Nietzsche’s
books… and then on to reading some reflections on Nietzsche like Kaufman’s
“Nietzsche” and perhaps a couple of more “what is Nietzsche all about books”

and my research into Modern philosophy goes on…

Kropotkin

it took me all day, but I finally finished “Ecce Homo”
I have read all of Nietzsche oeuvre

now on to the commentary…

Kropotkin

In my long life, I can’t say I’ve met anyone of genius, of greatness…

someone who could inspire me to acts of genius or greatness…

that is why my role models, people of genius or of greatness,
have been in the books I have read…I compared myself with them
and not to anyone who is alive…MLK for example could be an example,
except he died when I was 9 years old… and his words of genius, of greatness
didn’t impact my life until much later…after I had already been reading about
genius and greatness for years…

or to say this another way, my overcoming wasn’t about trying to reach
greatness by following an example of some modern person, there was
no modern person, no one living, that, to me anyway, was worth following
or worth emulating…

I had no role models among the living…no one I could compare myself to
to give myself some encouragement that I could rise to become a genius or reach greatness…
I had no one living that gave me the strength to overcome their genius or
greatness…

and to this day, my examples of genius and greatness lies deep in the past…
Socrates, Descartes, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, and of course Nietzsche…

my own overcoming of who I was, had no modern examples to follow…

so for years, decades actually, I simply drifted along in my life…

I read and read and then read some more, but I wasn’t trying to become
or overcome anything…

and here lies most of humanity… not striving for anything but
trying to reach some low level fruits like wealth or fame or titles…
nothing really worth spending effort on but what else was there?

there were no other example to encourage people to attempt something
other then the simple mediocrity of the pursuit of wealth or fame or
titles… there were no other example outside of a Henry Ford or
a John d. Rockerfeller to overcome… seeking wealth was the only
goal offered by society as something, to become better…

seeking genius or seeking greatness was only allowed as long
as that genius or greatness somehow involved in the pursuit of
wealth or fame or titles…seeking genius or greatness only
was meant to seek the shallow goals of wealth, fame, titles…

was the goal to become a better version of ourselves? no…
was the goal to overcome our childhood indoctrinations
and become who we are, no…
was the goal to seek the truth even if that truth was
damming to the society? no…

the only truths that were allowed, were truths that were already
sanctioned and socially approved by society…

you can only seek that which has been officially approved by society…

overcoming the values of our childhood indoctrinations isn’t approved
by society… society wants us to make dear our childhood indoctrinations,
to put front and center, our childhood indoctrinations of the greatness
of America and the existence of god and the wonderfulness of capitalism…

as long as these values are sought for, society approved…
but seeking values outside of the social approved values
is forbidden…

recall the greatest crime of modern society… insubordination…
disobedience to society is the greatest crime one can commit…
if we disobey society and seek values not approved by society,
we are guilty of insubordination and disobedience…

but I seek to become something more then socially approved
values… my truths aren’t truths approved by society…

I want to become something more then who I am and that means
something not approved by society…and so I am left in silence
to ponder my truths in solitude and isolation…

but none of this came about because of those who were alive
and were my hero’s… because, their weren’t any…

all my role models have been dead for hundreds of years…

and so, I try to become a role model for others to break out of
the American dream and become something of value, something
that actually has value…and the American dream of wealth, fame,
titles, material goods are useless and in fact they are detrimental to
our real pursuit, that of wisdom and of overcoming our childhood
indoctrinations…of becoming who we are, who we really are…

which role models of yours has inspired you to become something more
then you are right now? who has inspired you to become something,
greater? who has forced you to the difficulty of rising to something new?

Kropotkin

the questions of engagement tells us that we
are “Modern” men…

if your questions are about, “how am I to get rich?” How am I to become famous?"
“How do I get a TV show like the Kardashian?” then you are a modern person,
through and through…

but if your questions are, “What am I to do?” “what does it mean to be human?”
“How do I become who I am?” “How do I become a better person?” then
you are a person out of time…

the Modern era is engaged in the nihilism of capitalism, of
communism, of catholicism, of consumerism…the modern idols…

the Modern age will be noted by its adherence to shallow and hollow
thoughts and beliefs…

as one gains “depth”, one grows out of the modern age and
becomes something more…

Kropotkin

so what “depth” do we engage with when we
“attack” our modern educational system?

Modern education is to create workers, consumers,
barbarians…

education is really meant to create human beings who wonder about
what it means to be human…asking, “What am I to do?” and “what values
should I hold?”

modern education is about teaching job skills and making workers…

and thus we have our failure in education…

education isn’t about teaching people job skills,
but it is about teaching how to be a human being…
and that involves art, music, history, and of course
philosophy…what does it mean to be human?
that is the true meaning of educational theory…

not the crap they teach in schools these days…

how to become a doctor or lawyer or a priest or a plumber is
about teaching knowledge and having knowledge doesn’t lead
anyone to the real questions of being human…

the earth is 93 million miles from the sun…

how does that knowledge teach us to become better human beings?

education isn’t about teaching us facts or knowledge, but about
how to be human…

Kropotkin

Nietzsche once wrote:

“life no longer resides in the whole”
(case of Wagner)

perhaps this is the best description of modern life I have ever heard…

but ask yourself, why?

Kropotkin

by what do we mean today, in our modern times, to
say, “He is an atheist” does that mean he doesn’t believe in God?

No, in our modern times, to be an atheist means to hold disbelief in
our “Modern ism’s” of capitalism, to deny nationalism, to speak
disparaging of America, these Modern beliefs is what people
believe in today…

and so I am a true atheist… it doesn’t matter what I say about god,
the belief in god doesn’t even matter today, the real convictions,
the modern convictions are our modern ism’s and ideologies…

So I deny the true convictions of people today,

I deny the truth of capitalism and I deny the truth of nationalism
and I deny the truth of Americanism…and I deny our pursuit of
material goods and money… and this is the real atheism of our
modern times…

Kropotkin

According to Kaufmann, Nietzsche greatest and most persistent problem,
was this…

“To escape nihilism–which seems involved both in asserting the
existence of god and thus robbing THIS world of ultimate significance,
and also in denying god and thus robbing everything of meaning and
value…”

so which horns of dilemma is Nietzsche going to get gored upon,
asserting god and thus taking away this world significance or
denying god and taking away everything of meaning and value?

for without a god to give us meaning, value or significance,
upon what do we now base our meaning, value or significance upon?

if we don’t derive meaning from god, then where or how do we
derive the significance of human existence?

what values is human existence based upon without god?

that is our modern question…and Nietzsche question…hence his value
to us “moderns”…he faced these questions before anyone even knew
they were questions and not just answers…

Kropotkin

Nietzsche asked before it was even a problem,
about the values we hold to be true…about capitalism for example…

“we hold these truths to be self-evident, that capitalism is the truth”…

and here is what Kaufmann says

“Kant moral philosophy appeared to him, (Nietzsche) a prime
instance of the finding of bad reasons for what one believes
on instinct…”

to hold bad reasons why capitalism is the greatest thing since slice bread
but one really hold to capitalism by one’s instinct, greed for example,
or hate or lust…not by some actual well thought out examples of
the greatness of capitalism…

Kropotkin

who holds to the theology of justice…
that justice is an “eye for an eye”…

the justice of an “eye for an eye” is really an instinct pretending
to be rational, logical, judicial…

but who has taken the time to understand what an “eye for
an eye” actually means?

who has had the wisdom to see that our theology of justice is
really nothing more then the need to hurt people who oppose us in
some fashion…

the judicial belief in an “eye for an eye” isn’t justice in any way, shape or form…
and never has been about “true justice”

an “eye for an eye” is about punishment, about taking our pound of flesh for
actions taken…

what is “true justice” is really about educational…

what does it mean to be a “just” person?

but our education system isn’t interested in teaching us in how to
be a better person…so our judicial system is about punishment which
is because we are too lazy to actually look into what justice really is…

if we see that most people who go into prison and recidivism
is the main result of going to prison, then our prison/judicial system
has failed…

either we educate or we imprison… and I for one, would rather
educate instead of imprison because clearly going to prison hasn’t
work on turning people into "good " people…if most people who go
to prison, at some point return to prison…

if we are going to “punish” people, let us truly punish them…

if one takes my leg, let us take his leg… if one takes money, take his money,
if one kills, then kill him… let us punish if we are going to punish…

But Kropotkin, that is cruel and inhuman punishment…
but sending them to prison isn’t somehow cruel or inhuman…

to remove people to protect society somehow means that society is innocent
of the creation of man’s inhumanity to man?

I say, that the very educational system helps create man’s inhumanity to man…

because we exists in a society that makes the pursuit of wealth and
power and material goods and titles has being more important then
people and their values… we practice nihilism in our modern age
and this means we punish those who harm private goods with more seriousness
then we do those who actually kill… property is more important then
people’s lives and that nihilism creates the conditions that allow
people to accept or understand that their lives have less value
then money or property… it is easy to kill when you have been
taught that money or property or material goods has more value then
you do or has more value then the people you see or know…

until we take seriously the concept that “all lives matter” we cannot
ever escape the devaluation or nihilism of our modern age…

either lives matter or property/material goods matter?

and our educational system, right now, teaches that property/material
goods matter more then people and their values…

if it teaches that jobs and job skills have more value then being a person,
we see the nihilism of the modern age…

we pray to the justice system because it is a theology, not a rational,
logical process we pretend it is…and because our justice system is
theological instead of rational, it will continue to fail…

as long as we accept the notion of justice as being an “eye for an eye”…

we shall continue to devalue and negate human beings…

Kropotkin

in the modern philosophy of existentialism, we find
that one of the criteria of becoming modern, is to
become “authentic” to rid ourselves of the “masks” that
we wear to fit into modern society…

as a husband, as a worker, as a citizen, as a consumer,
as a producer, I wear several different mask, as required by
society…

but the question of existence ask, “what does it mean to be human?”

and the answer we have, and right now the only answer we have, is
to point out the mask we wear…the mask of being a consumer,
the mask of being a producer, the mask of being a “good” citizen,
the mask of being a husband…

we cannot get to who we really are because of all the masks we are forced
to wear to get by in society…

we cannot be honest in modern society… because honesty, true honesty,
means we can approach the question of the values of our society and it various
branches…the state, the media, the culture, the church, the social…

if one shouts, “America: love it or leave it” they have accepted
that ism, that ideology without question… that there is not
any possibility of examination of that ism… we accept that ism without
any evaluation or reevalution… it is the “TRUTH”…

The point of existence isn’t to confirm the truth of “America: love it
or leave it” the point is to examine it and see if it is really of value,
does it have some value to us? I call for a reevaluation of values which
means we examine our values including “America: love it or leave it.”
and see if it is true for us…and what if it isn’t our values?

to hold to “America: love it or leave it” means we cannot engage in some
understanding of what it really means, to say or to hold to “America: love it
or leave it.”

should I engage in a honest understanding of “what it means to be human” and
ignore the entire question of what “America: love it or leave it” because to
engage with that question might endanger the hold of this ism or ideology people
have with this value?

in any engagement with who I am and what it means to be human,
all questions must be available to inquire into…

we cannot hold back on some questions because it might be uncomfortable
for some people…or it might damage the functioning of the state…

either we engage in all questions of existence or we simply don’t bother…

we can’t go part way into an investigation into what it means to be human…

it is an all or nothing question…

are you all in, in an investigation into what it means to be human?

Kropotkin

Good analogy , Peter.

How about fine tuning the masks, from a retro visual quality that can easily be grasped, easily , -as interpreted by Nietzche .

In the Birth of Tragedy, every role was represented by different masks , and there was this literal sense of understanding above as what and what they did, and who they became on account of what they did.

The point is, that wearing masks have become overly based on quantitative assessment, rather then based on formally arranged qualities.

It appears far more chaotic and haphazard to qualify by masks worn by the increasing quantitative changes that are becoming much more obvious as they contrive to undermine the trust and faith implicit in these roles. (masks)

thanks meno…

The question remains… where are we going to find
our meaning or purpose or goal in life?

do we find it in religion? do we find it in the values of
the state? do we find meaning in Art or aesthetics?
do we find meaning/goal in hedonism? or in stoicism?
or in some other ism or ideology like communism or
capitalism or catholicism, or Buddhism?

where will we find our meaning, our purpose in existence…
where will we find our goal in life?

or perhaps we find our meaning/purpose in the nihilism, the negation of
man in our modern age?

perhaps we might find our meaning/purpose in life by the values
we live by and maintain in our lives…

so that means we don’t just study or think about our values…

no, we actually live our lives based on our values…

couldn’t that be our meaning or purpose in life?

to have values as our way of life…

so, as the Christian is supposed, supposed to live their lives
by Christian values…actually live their lives by the values
and decrees of god…

we live our lives by the values we ourselves have found for ourselves…

this is actually the point of being autonomous…

create our own values and then live by those values…
live our life by the values we have created for ourselves…

that is exactly what being autonomous means…

so let us say, we choose freedom as our value that we have created
and now live our lives by?

so, we engage in freedom as the value we live our life by…
it isn’t speculation nor is it something we study and then forget while
we live our lives…no… a thousand times, no…

how do we determine what values should we live our life by?

are these values individual values? or are these values collective values,
values that everyone must engage in?

can we have individual values which we alone can engage in and still
have collective values that we all live by?

how do we have morality when we are individually autonomous?

when morality is about our collective being, our collective actions or
behavior…

seeking that by which we can live our life by isn’t easy…

how do we select how, by what values we are to live our life by?

individually or collectively?

do we select the declaration of independence as our guide of
actions, the way to live our life’s or do we select the communist
manifesto as our guide for the way we live our life?

do we select anarchism or do we select democracy or do
we select some other political systems such as dictatorship?

or do we select some economic system such as Marxism or
capitalism or even the hunter-gatherer economic system…
as the values we live by?

do we use instinct which means we select that which matches
our own feelings or emotional understanding of what it means of
being human?

or are we to choose our values via rationality or logic?

so, who, what, when, where, why and how becomes the question
of why or why we don’t pick any given, specific value system or
the values themselves?

so many possibilities… and that is kinda the point… we must seek out
our possibilities and explore all of them… even if they are on the icky side…
and yes, icky is the technical term for it…

we can’t be afraid to explore that which is not existence, human existence
at our best… sometimes humans are greedy and full of lust and hate and violence,
that is part of the human experience and the only way we are going to overcome that
is by acknowledging our less glories side of human existence…

we have to understand human existence in both the good and in the
evil side of what is possible for us…

why did ordinary people agree to work with and indeed operate the
Nazi’s death chambers? were they inherently evil? or were they
ordinary people who convinced themselves that what they did wasn’t
really evil but simple kindness? we know, know that by rationalizations,
people can convince themselves of anything, including that operating
a death chamber wasn’t really evil…

what made the holocaust possible?

what in the mind and hearts of human beings allowed themselves
to be part of Nazi evil?

and clearly millions of people became involved in it…

so why?

so, not only must we be able to explain the good in human beings,
but we must be able to explain evil at the same time…

and do we find that in religion or in the political or in the values or
in the aesthetics of existence?

if we can find the source of evil as well as the source of good, we
might find a way to overcome evil and even a way to overcome good?

so we not only need to find out our meaning and purpose but
we need to find out why evil is a possible choice for human beings?

what allows us to be good as well as evil?

so, meaning and purpose and goal and finding out what makes us
good as well as evil… dam, we have a whole to find out about
what is, or what makes us human… what does it mean to be human?

does being human mean we are good or that we are evil or are we something
else altogether?

Kropotkin