a new understanding of today, time and space.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
3001

From my frame of mind, this is you basically accepting that who you think you are in regard to the right thing to do about abortion or the coronavirus or capital punishment or Trumpworld etc., works for you “in your head” here and now. So why risk the comfort and the consolation that provides you in grounding your “self” in what you do believe by compromising with conservatives who from my frame of mind [if not from yours] are quite capable of thinking the same thing about you as well.

Let alone going down the path that now seems reasonable to me by assessing the extent tlo which your own particular “I” may well be the embodiment of dasein confronting conflicting goods and political economy as described in my signature threads.

I get that. After all, the last thing many folks here want is to end up thinking about these things like “I” do!

Indeed, if I could myself come up with a new way of thinking about them such that “I” was not nearly as “fractured and fragmented” as is the case now, I’d be ever so gratified.

As for God, it still seems reasonable to me to speculate that in a No God world, human interactions are essentially meaningless. That, in other words, meaning in our lives is derived historically, culturally, experientially, existentially, out in a world that is ever and always evolving in a swirl of contingency, chance and change. And then one by one we all topple over into the abyss that is oblivion.

Though sure there are any number of liberals and conservatives out there able to convince themselves that morally and politically they don’t need God at all to know that how they view themselves in the world around them is anything but essentially meaningless. Then the millions more able to convince themselves further that the virtues they pursued on this side of the grave assure them immortality and salvation on the other side of it.

The psychology of objectivism is no doubt buried down deep in our brain. Not many of us steer clear of it. Even assuming we have some measure of volition here at all.

The rest [from my frame of mind] is just back up on the skyhooks…

What can I say…?

Given what particular context in which both liberals and conservative – more or less sophisticated in their thinking – can provide us with sets of assumptions about the human condition that allow them to derive conclusions that, while at odds, are no less able to be defended.

And while you find yourself “not really caring about specific actions or specific political actions” how on earth can policies be broached, concocted, enacted and enforced, unless either the objectivists prevail in their right makes might world or all sides are willing to moderate their own convictions and through negotiation and compromise come up with actual “rules of behavior” in which all sides win some and lose some.

3002

IAM: And while you find yourself “not really caring about specific actions or specific political actions” how on earth can policies be broached, concocted, enacted and enforced, unless either the objectivists prevail in their right makes might world or all sides are willing to moderate their own convictions and through negotiation and compromise come up with actual “rules of behavior” in which all sides win some and lose some."

K: I don’t start with actions, I start with values…the “rules of behavior” are
derived from values…and some things are negotiable and some things aren’t…

this is the lessons learned from Gandhi and MLK… at times they did
negotiate and at other times, they did not… what was the demarcation line
between negotiation and no negotiation?

I would say values…

I will negotiate at times over certain actions and other times
I will not negotiate… why? because of the values I hold…

I will not negotiate over abortion rights… to ban abortion is to
deny freedom… we must allow women to make their own choices…

and those who oppose it, will say, we cannot allow women their choice
in this matter upon religious grounds…

I didn’t make this a religious question, the anti-abortion crowd did…

and based upon a religious question, we cannot make a political answer……

the two must remain separate… the political and the religious…

for upon the question of religion, will the state flounder and collapse…

forcing people to act in a manner consistent with your religion is vastly
unfair to those people… in other words, holding me to a religious
behavior, to a religion I don’t believe in… saying I must pray to god,
when I don’t believe in god is wrong… and the exact same thing
as forcing women to keep children based on other people religious precepts…

now the second aspect is the hypocrisy aspect… holding that lives are
sacred and must be protected, based upon a religion I don’t believe in,
and then promoting violence toward people… for example, hold to anti-abortions
feelings and then supporting the death penalty for example……
or allowing the police to shoot and kill to “defend” themselves
without any repercussions or investigations……

the defender of these hypocrisies will only focus on a
particular aspect of their beliefs… they will not connect
the two aspects…

the abortion issue is held to be completely and utterly
separated from the death penalty issue…
and yet, I see them from a larger picture…

and they do form a whole reality for me……

I hold that if we have form values, then by holding those values,
we can avoid such rank hypocrisy that the right holds to…

in other words, the right can hold distinct and opposing beliefs
because they are really “ad hoc” beliefs… not from real values, but
from shifting beliefs to match the current situation…
not permanent beliefs but short term beliefs used to
hold one over until the next situation requires a “ad hoc” belief……

it is easy to hold opposing beliefs if the beliefs are simply
temporary beliefs needed to cover a one situation or another…

my feeling is that how can I compromise and/or negotiate if the other
side is simply holding “ad hoc” beliefs that are temporary and used
to simply justify hypocrisy?

more later

Kropotkin

3003

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
IAM: And while you find yourself “not really caring about specific actions or specific political actions” how on earth can policies be broached, concocted, enacted and enforced, unless either the objectivists prevail in their right makes might world or all sides are willing to moderate their own convictions and through negotiation and compromise come up with actual “rules of behavior” in which all sides win some and lose some."

K: I don’t start with actions, I start with values…the “rules of behavior” are
derived from values…and some things are negotiable and some things aren’t…

this is the lessons learned from Gandhi and MLK… at times they did
negotiate and at other times, they did not… what was the demarcation line
between negotiation and no negotiation?

I would say values…

I will negotiate at times over certain actions and other times
I will not negotiate… why? because of the values I hold…

I will not negotiate over abortion rights… to ban abortion is to
deny freedom… we must allow women to make their own choices…

and those who oppose it, will say, we cannot allow women their choice
in this matter upon religious grounds…

I didn’t make this a religious question, the anti-abortion crowd did…

and based upon a religious question, we cannot make a political answer……

the two must remain separate… the political and the religious…

for upon the question of religion, will the state flounder and collapse…

forcing people to act in a manner consistent with your religion is vastly
unfair to those people… in other words, holding me to a religious
behavior, to a religion I don’t believe in… saying I must pray to god,
when I don’t believe in god is wrong… and the exact same thing
as forcing women to keep children based on other people religious precepts…

now the second aspect is the hypocrisy aspect… holding that lives are
sacred and must be protected, based upon a religion I don’t believe in,
and then promoting violence toward people… for example, hold to anti-abortions
feelings and then supporting the death penalty for example……
or allowing the police to shoot and kill to “defend” themselves
without any repercussions or investigations……

the defender of these hypocrisies will only focus on a
particular aspect of their beliefs… they will not connect
the two aspects…

the abortion issue is held to be completely and utterly
separated from the death penalty issue…
and yet, I see them from a larger picture…

and they do form a whole reality for me……

I hold that if we have form values, then by holding those values,
we can avoid such rank hypocrisy that the right holds to…

in other words, the right can hold distinct and opposing beliefs
because they are really “ad hoc” beliefs… not from real values, but
from shifting beliefs to match the current situation…
not permanent beliefs but short term beliefs used to
hold one over until the next situation requires a “ad hoc” belief……

it is easy to hold opposing beliefs if the beliefs are simply
temporary beliefs needed to cover a one situation or another…

my feeling is that how can I compromise and/or negotiate if the other
side is simply holding “ad hoc” beliefs that are temporary and used
to simply justify hypocrisy?

more later

and back………

so, we have the right advocating the “need” for guns…

but the value of guns is the use of violence…

either the actual use of violence or the threat of violence…

the use of or the threat of violence violates the spirit of
the commandment “thou shall not kill”…

but one might argue, we “need” a gun to protect ourselves…

and once again holding diverse and separate values that are in conflict
with each other…the only way this could work is that values are
held as isolated, separate, distinct, “ad hoc” values…

they call themselves Christians and yet hold to guns which are
the threat of violence…

how does one negotiate with those who are unaware that they
hold diverse and contradictory values that conflict with each other?

values that are clearly “ad hoc” because they are for solutions designed
for a specific problem, non-generalized and not intended to be able to
be adapted to other purposes…in other words, the solution to being
“safe” has only one solution in their minds, and that solution “guns” isn’t
adaptable to any other problem…ad hoc solutions are temporary,
provisional or improvised solutions to deal with a particular problem…

how does one negotiate with someone who only has “ad hoc” solutions
to permanent problems?

now there are those on the right who accuse the left of holding “ad hoc”
solutions, but that is less true…

but let us give them their wish and declare that the left holds
“ad hoc” positions… so we have two side holding “ad hoc” positions
that shift and change with each passing day… how do two sides
negotiate when each side has positions that move with
each passing day. there is no overall connections between
the actions/values of either side… the right hold to guns, the threat to
violence and still holds to Christian values which are the opposite of
the threat of violence…

so how does negotiations work when each side holds to values
that are not permanent? if we only offer up temporary, improvised,
provisional solutions/values, how can we hold negotiations?

or if only one side holds values that are not “ad hoc”?
And the the other side holds to solutions/values that
are nothing more then a line drawn in the sand, to
what are we negotiating?

which line in the sand we will hold to, until its
convenient to hold another line…

holding “ad hoc” values leaves one with no center,
no central place to hold onto to be able to negotiate with…

I maintain that the right holds to values that cannot be used
to conduct negotiations… “ad hoc” values cannot be the basis
of any kind of negotiations…but let us, once again, give to the left,
that which dominates the right, which is the left holds to “ad hoc” values,
a proposition I disagree with, but let us give it, then we cannot
negotiate because we have no center upon to which to agree to…

every value is a temporary, provisional value meant to be held
as long as the that temporary provisional value solves some sort
of problem, then that value is forgotten… we cannot
negotiate or find common ground when values are simply
meant to solve some problem and then forgotten…

if we negotiate upon the values of love, then we must make sure
that the value of love last from past to present to future…

so I ask you dear reader, what values do you hold that has held
you from past to present to future?

what values of yours come out when they are solutions to a problem
and then those values go back into hibernation once the problem goes away?

are your values temporary, provisional, improvisational…
or are your values permanent, lasting, enduring?

if you don’t understand the question, then research Gandhi’s values and
how they lead him to throw the British out of India.

see his values and see what actions he took…

are your values able to hold up to test of Gandhi?

or are your values able to hold up to the test of Jesus?

which are values of love, equality/justice, charity…….

what are your values compared to Gandhi or to Jesus?

Kropotkin

3004

it is interesting that, for some anyway, this virus has
us thinking about what is true or real in our lives…

we should be thinking about what it means to exists this current
time period, given a virus smaller then we can see with the naked eye,
has laid low hundreds of thousands of people…

how can one hold unto the previous value system which makes
the pursuit of materialism and wealth as the highest priority when
we can be laid low by such a small thing as a virus?

today, you have the motivation, the means, the opportunity to
examine what is truly important in your life…

that the materialism of capitalism and communism
leads us nowhere in thinking about what is next in our
endeavor to understand what it means to be human……

I have read the great works of thinkers like Goethe and
Dante and Jesus and Gandhi and the Buddha and not one,
one of the great thinkers that we reverie and build statues to,
hold that the meaning of existence is the materialism of
capitalism…

if the great thinkers, writers, philosophers don’t think the
answer is materialism, the pursuit of materialism and wealth,
then why should you think that the great materialism theories
of our time work?

to accept these materialistic theories without any reflection is to
violate the basic precept of Socrates which is the ’

“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

and one of the examinations of life is the examination of
what values we should hold and what values should
we hold in common, we cannot examine values without
some understanding that value are both individual
and collective…

value that seem to be suited for us individually
cannot hold for us collectively…rugged individualism
and the fable of the bee’s cannot be held to be
collective values…

but just as true is the understanding that values cannot be
conflicting with each other…… so you say publicly that love is the
answer, and yet privately, you act with domestic violence to your mate…

how does one reconcile such violent discrepancies?

by making them two distinct and separate actions that
are not connected in any way…to “ad hoc” your beliefs
and your actions…the other method is not to hold yourself
accountable for your actions… by justifying domestic violence
by self deception and personal dishonesty…

she deserved to be hit because she made me mad…
and other self deceptions we use to justify having
hypocrisy as our base mode of belief………

I don’t recall reading in Goethe or Dante or Jesus or
Gandhi about the use of self deceptions to allow
us to engage in hypocrisies……

and in our insincerity, we also have the false values
of materialism and the pursuit of wealth and power…

for within that pursuit of happiness, lies the empty promise of
materialism and wealth as being the answer to whatever ails you…
feeling sad, buy a new car, feeling depressed, go on vacation to
some high end vacation spot…it is the acquisition of wealth and
power and material goods that will cure you of all your ailments…

so says the ones who own the means of wealth and materialism…

if our media and state and society, all say, wealth and materialism
is the path to happiness, those who own the media and the state
and society, want you to continue their wealth and power.

it has nothing to do with you but with them being able to
maintain their wealth and power…….

so what values do you hold?

are they the values of wealth and power and materialism?

and what if you gain that wealth and power and all the
material goods you want? now what? there is no conclusion
to this pursuit of wealth or power or material goods…
just more of the same… there cannot be any other ending
when the only values are wealth, power, material goods…

look at the billionaires who keep working even though they have enough
money to buy whole countries… billionaires who are still working like
warren buffet…who is 89 years old…the only thing they are working for
is more wealth, more material goods, more power…the empty promise
of wealth and material goods……

the acquisition of wealth and material goods cannot answer the
important questions of life… what does it mean to
be human? what should we hope for? what can we know?
what should our values be? on what should we spend our energy on?
what are we to do?

look at the values of Jesus or Gandhi or the Buddha or MLK…
at no point do any of them advocate the pursuit of wealth or
materialism or power…

and if they don’t advocate those values, why should you?

Kropotkin

3005

we have created vast weapons and technology
and the tools of the modern state, the police state…

but we haven’t, as yet, grown our values to match who we are…

our values haven’t kept up with the rise of the technological
state we have created…

in essence, we are dealing with middle age life and technological,
with infant feelings and understanding…

we are trying to solve middle age issues with a childhood
understanding…… as if the information I had when I was three,
will solve the problems I have at 61… not bloody likely…

our values must match the events on the ground……
the values we need at 61 must match the values
we hold at 61, not 6 or 16 or 26 or even 36, but our values
must match our age…

and the same is true of us in our current place in life as a society,
as a state, as a people…

we must hold values that match where we are in our current
state of existence, individually and, and collectively…

the problem is, the values we hold are appropriate for us
at an earlier level of existence… we hold values for
our pre-modern world in a post modern world…….

values that worked when we were rural, agricultural, living in
small villages and towns…our values must reach our level of
existence that we live right now………

we hold to the biblical values of Genesis 1:28…

"God blessed them and said to them, “be fruitful
and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule
over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over
every living creature that moves on the ground”

but we live in a world where we can no longer afford to hold
to these values… we cannot engage in increasing in numbers…
from this increase lies the multiple problems that plague the earth,
overpopulation, pollution, climate change, income inequality, the
extinction of many and diverse life forms… we cannot hope to
survive the extinction of life on earth… even losing vast numbers
of animal life will place our own existence in jeopardy…

we can no longer exists within the values of our childhood,
our species childhood…our engagement has to be with values that
match the events on the ground…if we hold to past values, we are
set up for failure…….

the values we need to succeed are not the values of money, of materialism,
of the pursuit of happiness……

the values we need are the reworked values of love, made to fit in a modern
times…of inclusive values that bring human beings together, not separate them…

of justice/equality, of charity, of hope, the values of the aesthetic…
for we have lost the values of beauty and form and art……

they have been sacrificed to the god of Mammon…

you might say, love, peace, charity, hope, and justice are old values…

you cannot put old wine into new wineskins…….

new wine must be put into new wineskins…

we must match our values with the new reality we face today…

just as I must approach old age with value appropriate to old age…

my values of childhood, of being 3, will not suffice to enable me
to navigate my old age… I need values that are appropriate to
to being 61……I need to put the values of love and peace and charity
and justice into context of being 61… I must renew the old values into
being age appropriate for me… as we must renew the old values into
being appropriate to our new reality…an upgrade if you will…

to take love 1.0 and turn it into love 2.0…
because we are closer to the year 2000 then we are to 1.
and our values must take notice of that……

we have science and technology and machines that require us to
renew our values of love and peace and charity and justice…

for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction…

for every attempt to dehumanize us, we must double our efforts to
become more human……

to find ourselves, we don’t use science or technology or machines, but we find love
and art and peace and beauty and all those “inefficient” methods of being human…

for every attempt to create order by machines or technology will fail,
because we aren’t about finding order via science or technology…

but we can find order and energy with values like love and peace and
justice and charity and beauty……….

the old fashion method of renewal…reworking values to
match our 21st century selves…

Kropotkin

3006

I have stated that I don’t think that negotiations
and compromise is possible between the left and right
and I still hold to that…but Kropotkin, why? why can’t we
find a way to find a medium, a compromise between the two
sides?

simply, we on the left see human beings differently then
those on the right……

and the difference comes from our understanding of what it means
to be human…

the left see’s human beings as being as malleable, able to adjust
and adapt to the conditions on the ground…I am not who I was when
I was 6 and I am not who I was when I was 16 or 26 or 36 or 46…

I am 61 and I am someone who has to hold values and beliefs of a 61 year old man.

for the first time in my life, I see the end of my life as being imminent…
not today and not tomorrow, but sooner then later…

that very knowledge impacts the way I think of who I am and what
it means to be human…

I can see the impact of my live in terms of how the systems of
capitalism and nationalism and other negative, destructive systems
have had on my life…

I’ve worked for 43 years and I have nothing to show for it…
outside of the pain in my back and hips and neck and shoulders……
and I see that working for 43 years has left me with nothing……

capitalism is an empty promise of dreams fulfilled and those aren’t
your dreams being fulfilled, they are the dreams of the capitalists who
have gotten wealthy and powerful off of my 43 years of work…
while I gained nothing…

the pursuit of wealth and material goods doesn’t benefit you…
what do you get after decades of working? maybe a nice car,
perhaps, perhaps a house, virtually no retirement because that
all went down the drain in various market crashes…

you put food on your table… and a roof over your head…
that is what suppose to happen anyway… those are some of
the basic needs that must be fulfilled if we are to survive…

to work for 40 plus years to fulfill your basic needs and nothing more
is basically what animals do… they hunt their food until they die…
and we work to get food until we die, show me the difference…

one of the many lies of the modern world is in the alleged
dignity of working… there is no dignity in working 40 plus years
to achieve what animal achieve in their hunt for food…

we haven’t gotten any further along than animals…

and that is why we are still animal/human……

we haven’t reached the point of attempting to achieve
what is possible for human beings…we are still down
at the animal level… spending our lives pursuing food
and shelter until we die…big fucking deal……
my cat does that…

and until we begin to pursue what is human, we are no better
then animals…

and that is perfect for those who own the means of production,
the capitalists… because they also own the political and economic
systems, we are simply cannon fodder for them… lead into believing
that our sacrifice is for the betterment of human beings when
nothing of the sort happens… we sacrifice and that is all that happens…
we can nothing by it…

nationalism is also a fake, a fraud designed to
give us hope that our lives actually mean something……

it is the values of the right and their belief that human beings
are simply meant to be cannon fodder for the economic
system called capitalism…

don’t believe that?

then why the call from the right to restart the country, so
we can economically resume… putting the economic system
of capitalism before human lives… putting the pursuit of money/profits
before human lives………it isn’t safe to resume our way of life but
the right doesn’t care about lives… they care about money/profits
and they have even admitted that the old should sacrifice themselves
to help kickstart the economic system… and some have suggested
that restarting schools is acceptable because only 2 or 3% will die
from schools reopening…

money before lives…that is the right wing mantra…

how does one compromise and negotiate with someone who
is willing to kill 2 or 3% of all our school children, so we can
resume our economic system of sacrificing people in the name of
the god Mammon?

until we get our values straight, we cannot, cannot find the cure
for what ails us… and we are sick… sick, if we can consider
the deaths of people to be the cost of doing business…

sick, if we consider the extinction of entire species to fuel our
rampant materialism and desire, not need, desire for
material goods and wealth…

our current path of nationalism and capitalism and materialism,
is leading us toward the end of America… and if we continue to
feel that using people as cannon fodder is an acceptable practice
for business or for capitalism, then we are no better then animals,
in fact, I would consider us worse then animals because we know better…
at least animals don’t know any better……

of course dear reader, you will dismiss what I say because
you can’t conceive of what I say… and you will blindly follow
those who consider you expendable, thus in fact, worthless…

find your values before the machinery of capitalism
makes you the next sacrifice…

Cassandra

3007

perhaps I am going about this the wrong way…

think about it…we have people including the Lieutenant Governor
of Texas who thinks that we should sacrifice people to the CV-19
in order to reopen the economy… in other words, we should
allow people to die in order to reopen the economy…
putting the economy before people’s lives…

and that quack Dr. Oz who thinks reopening schools is more
important then children dying…he believed that 2 or 3% death rate
in children is acceptable loss of life to reopen the schools…

and others who say that seniors should be prepared to die in
order to reopen the economy…

when there are those who believe that money/profits have more
value then people lives…

what we have is an illness, a sickness…an psychological sickness
that allows one to negate people’s life for a thing, money…

no more, no more can these people proclaim themselves pro-life if
they believe that money take precedence over people life…

but it is not enough to condemn those who fail to understand
life has more value then reopening an economy or life has more value
then money/profits…

and the fact that people were too silent about this outrageous
negation of human beings and their values tells me that
the American society, the country called America is ill…

not physically ill, but spiritually ill and psychologically ill
and emotionally ill…

have we become so psychologically ill that we think it is
appropriate that we should let people die to reopen the economy?

the shining city on the hill never looked so far away as it does today…

have we so lost our moral compass that we think it is right and necessary
to sacrifice people so that the wealthy can continue to make money
from the work of others…

wealth isn’t self made, it is made upon the back of other people,
upon their sweat and effort and daily sacrifice that the wealthy
can own billions of dollars… bill gates didn’t become wealthy
by his own work, he became wealthy by the work, effort, sacrifice
and drive of the people who work for him…wealth is created
by workers……. and without workers, there is no vast wealth of
a Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett… it is only upon the back
of workers that wealth can be built on…

and so, workers are called upon to sacrificed themselves once again
to allow the wealthy to stay wealthy…

and this too is part of our society/culture’s mental illness…

we are urged to be a team player and help build this country wealth…

and yet do we benefit from this?

no, no we do not…a country greatness isn’t about its GDP or
the size of it military budget but we are told to measure who we are
by the GDP or the Dow Jones average… but neither one is about
what it means to be a human being or what it is we are actually
trying to do as a country…

we are prevented from seeing reality as it is because we are
ill, mentally and psychologically…

we hold beliefs and idea’s that are damaging to both our physical
and psychological nature…

if we believe that economic heights, the GDP and the Dow Jones
have more value then human values, then we are ill…

but what is the cure for our Illness?

is there some pill or some drug we can take that will allow
us to properly and correctly to evaluate and understand
what is truly important, to us as human beings?

to allow us to return Art and beauty and aesthetic matters
to its vital and important place…

a pill we can take that we help us to correctly value
what it means to be human…

to no longer value people in terms of money or wealth or
fame or power…

we value the wrong things… money, wealth, power, fame…
and that valuation is part of our mental illness…
we give priority to things that negate us, dehumanizes us,
devalues us………

and this wrong valuation leads us to think that we can sacrifice
people in the name of money/profits… this wrong valuation leads
us to think we can let 2 or 3% of children in schools to die if it will
allow us to reopen schools… this misguided understanding of values
is a mental illness…we have lost sight of values that can connect us
to each other and ground us… those who believe the old should
be sacrificed to reopen the economy are no longer connected to
what is important or what is truly of value… they are no longer
grounded in values that put human beings and their values first…

this mental illness is caused by the nihilism that surrounds us
in society, the state, the culture…to deny human beings
and their values is nihilism… and the basis of the values
that conservatives and the GOP hold…

To put the economy ahead of people’s life is nihilism…

and the problem is that this nihilism, this mental illness,
is so ingrained into people that they don’t even see it anymore…

nihilism is status quo…

and to be pro-life is to be anti-American……

and by being pro-life, I don’t meant the pretend pro-life movement
of the right because that isn’t pro-life if it holds to allowing death
in other forms… to hold that seniors should be willing to die to
reopen the economy isn’t pro-life…to hold that we can reopen schools
with only a 2 or 3% loss of life isn’t pro-life, to hold that the death penalty
is the preferred method of punishment isn’t pro-life…to allow the police
the right to kill and not be held accountable isn’t being pro-life…
to hold that workers should be cannon fodder to raise the GDP isn’t
being pro-life…to hold to the right of companies to hold its employees
in bondage isn’t being pro-life…the very belief in the capitalistic system
is to be anti-life…certainly not being pro-life…for capitalism isn’t pro-life…
it is pro-wealth, for money and profits and not about the lives about
the workers… concern for the life of the workers, that is being
pro-life… putting workers before profits is being pro-life…

American has a mental illness and that illness is called
nihilism…

do you see a cure for this nihilism?

Kropotkin

3008

the very act of asking, “which actions are moral actions”?
implies something very important…

in other words, if you have to ask if kindness is the right course for human beings,
it is clear you are infected with the disease of Nihilism…

if you cannot see why murder is wrong or why we can’t
send children to concentration camps or why sacrificing
workers to death to increase the GDP is wrong,
you are already infected with Nihilism…

one might say, Please Kropotkin, prove your point…
why kindness instead of being mean?..

why love instead of hate, why peace instead of war,
why should hope be a value for people?

If you ask these questions, you cannot see the damage our
modern age has done to people because of hate or war or
being mean…

why should we prevent the holocaust? why does the Holocaust matter?

if you ask these questions, then you are already morally compromised…

the same disregard for lives exists within the holocaust as does
the point that we should have seniors be willing to give their
lives to reopen the economy…or that 2 or3 % death rate is acceptable
to reopen our schools… you are morally and spiritually tainted…

what Kropotkin? no, I follow the laws, I have never been arrested,
I have spent time in jail… I have perfect morals… I follow the law……

and has following the law ever show us morality? it was legal to
hold people in slavery and it was legal to deny rights to women
and minorities and homosexuals and it was legal to sterilize people
without their consent and it was legal to deny a marriage between
a white person and a black person… and that law was still in effect
within my lifetime, and it was legal to have Jim crow laws
and it is legal to deny voting rights… as the GOP has done time and time
again over these last few years…

Morality isn’t about being legal……

Morality is about helping and improving the lives of people……

it is morally wrong to hit children… they can’t defend themselves
and hitting children harms them emotionally and psychologically…

so we don’t do that… it is the moral thing to do…

we can see what is moral by another test…
if people hide their actions and do it under the cover
of darkness, they know it is wrong and they are afraid of
being caught…

Moral actions can be done in the bright life of existence
immoral actions must be done in the dark, in the middle of the night…

you can use this to see what is moral and what is immoral…
the people who engage with life morally aren’t afraid of
showing their actions in the light of day…

immoral people hide under the rocks and wait for
the sun to go down to commit their actions, immoral actions…

that is why IQ45 doesn’t advertise his immoral actions
and does them under the cover of dark…and without
any comment…the government allows banks to take people’s
stimulus checks if they “Owe” money…and the government allowed
huge businesses to take the money meant for small businesses…
quietly and under the cover of darkness… it is wrong and everyone
knows it and so they do so quietly and out of sight…

it is morally wrong and by hiding their actions, they know it to……

we know what is moral… it isn’t that complicated…
you don’t hit defenseless people, you don’t steal from others,
you don’t murder…

and those who might say, but Kropotkin, it is complicated,
many factors are involved in these situations……it isn’t that easy…

let us take abortion, again…

look at those who oppose abortion, pro-life, they call themselves
and yet they have planted bombs and have shoot doctors
and harassed both patients and doctors…committee acts of
violence against those who favor abortion…

are these acts of violence really acts of morality?
is planting bombs and shooting doctors, really in the
spirit of being “Pro-life?”

the very violence protesters commit to those who favor abortions,
tells us that these protesters have no sense of what is really moral,
they have no morality if they are shooting people and planting bombs…
and they certainly aren’t pro-life…

those who are “pro-life” have been infected with an illness,
they are nihilists… they just don’t know it…and they hold to
nihilism as their base belief…

but Kropotkin, they could make the exact same argument about you…

and they be wrong because I don’t commit violence against the “pro-life” crowd
and I don’t advocate violence against people………
and I don’t hold nihilistic values that devalue and negate and dehumanize
human beings and their values…

to say, Kropotkin, they hold their values honestly and fairly… you can’t say
anything against them…

to say, that they are equal, the abortion crowd and the anti-abortion crowd,
is to say, that they are the equal, no difference between them,
they are very fine people on both sides…

is to ignore the difference in what they believe in…
and have hypocrisy about… pro-life isn’t pro-life until
they hold pro-life beliefs about every aspect of human existence…
not just abortion, but about the death penalty and police violence
and stand your ground laws and being advocates of equality and justice
between all people…for without justice/equality, there cannot
be a true pro-life society…… for being pro-life is more then being about
just the existence of life, pro-life must be about the quality of life,
to be pro-life is to be in favor of people having a fulfilling quality of life…

to be pro-life means to rise above just meeting the basic needs of people,
food, water, shelter, education, health care… no, pro-life is about the
entire quality of life for everyone…to allow people to rise in the basic needs
of people, to have security and safety and to have love/belonging and to have
esteem and most of all, the goal of life is to become self-actualized…
and then rise to what is above being self actualized………
to achieve our potential and possibilities… to reach that and help other
people reach those possibilities, that is pro-life……

to really become pro-life, we must engage in helping all people become
who they are… otherwise we are infected with the illness of
nihilism… which means we can negate and deny human beings
and their values…

we must expand what it means to be pro-life to include all
aspects of life…not just a fetus, but in being a human being…

Kropotkin

3009

art is simply an awaking to the possibilities that
exists for us…

what are your possibilities and what does it take for you
to reach or become those possibilities?

going to work or helping generating a higher GDP isn’t going to
help you find or discover what are your possibilities…

it is those things which have no value in our materialistic
society that will awaken us to our full potential or our possibilities…

things like Art and beauty and reading and dreaming and
just sitting on a rock and thinking…

things that have no value in our modern world because they
don’t create money or profits…….and which is why they
are actively discouraged, because they don’t add to the GDP,
but they do add to our understanding of what it means to be human…

you want to stick it to the man…

take a walk… look at art… create beauty…

the most revolutionary act we can do today is to
rediscover what it means to be human……….

Kropotkin

3010

As though values are not in turn “existential fabrications” rooted in dasein. And given the gap between how we think about that, so will remain our reaction to conflicting goods – at least taken out of this philosophy venue and plopped down into the real world.

For example:

From my perspective, what you won’t acknowledge as possibly being true about yourself here is this:

1] this is all argued from the perspective of a woman’s political right to choose rather than from what others insist [religiously, philosophically or otherwise] is the unborn baby’s natural right to live. And you don’t need to be religious to think like this.

2] that your own “I” here is derived more from the manner in which I construe human identity in the is/ought world as the embodiment of dasein. In other words, exploring your own moral assessment of abortion here as I did on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

Right. The conservatives views about the death penalty are hypocritical and ad hoc. As though they can’t turn it all around and make the same point regarding liberal views about abortion. Here liberals are insisting that it is immoral for the state to take the life of someone who was found guilty of taking another’s life himself, while women can abort the unborn babies inside them…human beings who could not possibly be more innocent.

I know! Let’s not call them human beings…let’s call them “clumps of cells”.

But, from my perspective – and that’s all it is, my own personal existential assessment derived from dasein – what both liberals and conservatives share in common in regard to either abortion or the death penalty is the conviction that one of them must be right making the other one wrong.

Reconfiguring into “one of us” [the good guys] and “one of them” [the bad guys].

On the other hand, at least they aren’t as grimly “fractured asnd fragmented” as “I” am here.

3011

as I have to be at work in less then an hour, I shall hold
off on any response until I can, perhaps, tomorrow afternoon,
again, after work…

Kropotkin

3012

IAM, as I have other concerns today, I shall return to abortion shortly…
but today… today is a couple of long posts written yesterday…

what is existence?

existence is an equation…

LIFE = DEATH…

night = day

intellect = emotion

life and human existence seems to be an equation
and the problem in life seems to exists because people
violate basic equations…we focus upon one aspect of existence
and that focus destroys the equation… an example of this is the
Buddha’s insistence upon suffering as the main focus of existence…

but suffering is just part of, part of the human equation…we suffer
and we grow old and we get disease and we die…they are all part of the
human equation, but not the whole human equation… that the Buddha seems
to believe…

we have to maintain the equations of life…

keep ourselves in the middle…not too high and not too low…

but Kropotkin, I have seen your posts extolling reaching for the stars
and being closer to Icarus then to Daedalus…yes, I have extolled
reaching for the stars… and at time, that is the best course of
action… and at times, it isn’t…perhaps the trickiest part of life
is knowing when to play it cool and when to go for it… most people
get this part wrong…when is it time to fail in a spectacular total overreach
and when it is time to be cautious…there is no handbook, no sure means of
knowing when to go for it or to play it safe…you just know… also just know
you have a better then average chance of being wrong…

one of the lessons I found when I was a rock climber is this…
when you set up a belay or a pitch to climbed… and for safety
purposes, you don’t set up a single piton, you set up two or even
better three pitons to hold you, so all the weight is not on
one piton, but spread out evenly… the weight is spread out
equally across three pitons and you are far safer if a fall should
happen…

so if you rely on just emotions or just on reason, you are using just
one piton, if you spread out the weight over a couple of different
aspects, you are more likely to be safe and secure…and right…

the human tendency is to specialize and I disagree with that
tendency…

and back…

and given the human tendency to specialize means we focus on smaller
and smaller things…

we don’t view the big picture anymore…… and think about it…
from what perspective can you see more from, the ant viewpoint
or the eagle viewpoint? and we need to think about things from
the air, from an eagle viewpoint… and we can’t from our narrow, focused
specialized, ground viewpoint…

existence, human existence is more then just specialization about a
narrow focus or any one single aspect of life like suffering or religion…

we must widen our viewpoint… we cannot just see everything from
just a religious or scientific or a social or a philosophical viewpoint…

we must broaden our viewpoints to include order and disorder…
we must focus on the primary aspect of life which is order and
disorder…how do we gain order or avoid disorder… recall,
enough disorder in one’s body and you die… existence is based upon
having enough energy or order to exist…

the battle of existence is the battle between existence and
disorder… entropy is the fight of life…
the battle is to maintain enough energy or order to maintain existence…

and the best way to achieve that is by achieving balance…
which is to say, moderation in life…

if the meaning and purpose of life is to hold to order over disorder,
then maintaining balance is the best way to achieve that…

so the answers we have are often wrong if we think about them in terms
of order and disorder and achieving balance…

so a philosophy of hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure fails as a philosophy
of life because it doesn’t hold to or maintain balance in life…to seek pleasure
as an overall plan of action in the course of life does work because we place
the pursuit of pleasure within its rightful understanding of what it means to live…

the old song of pursuit, of sex, drugs and rock and roll, isn’t moderation
and it isn’t balance… we must balance out our extremes pursuits…

but the right path isn’t the path of sacrifice and renunciation of life pleasures
isn’t right either…

we must exists within the middle path, between the pursuit of pleasure
and the renunciation of pleasure…in the middle…

the actions in life are not meant to be excessive but in control…

so if we lust, we act upon that lust and then we move on…

we control our emotions and our desires and our needs…
they work for us, we don’t work for them…

that is what we mean by everything in moderation…

we decide how must booze to drink, or how much food we eat
or our sexual practices… we control them, they don’t control us…

we act with intentionality… we act with intentions toward every
aspect of our lives…we decide, we hold our actions with
intentionality…we choose it, it doesn’t choose us…

life is an equation and part of that equation is our intentionality…
we control our reason, our emotions, our desires, our needs……

we stand in control over our lives and by doing so, we live in the middle…

for the laws of physics do apply to us… we know that for every action,
there is an equal and opposite action…we go too far in our pursuit
of pleasure and there is an equal and opposite reaction…

the laws of physics apply to us as well…

this is a vital piece of understanding what it means to be human…

we exists within the laws of physics and within the laws of evolution
and within the laws of gravity… we cannot change either the laws or
our place within the laws…

so given this new understanding, if the environment is extreme,
then our actions to it must be extreme… extreme must be reacted
with extreme… equal actions must have an equal equations…

but to react to moderate conditions with extreme actions through
out the entire balance of what it means to be human…
an moderate environment requires a moderate reaction,
an extreme environment requires an extreme reaction…

for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction…
the laws of physics demand it… and so by keeping the environment
moderate, we can react moderately…so, let us take up income inequality…
we have an extreme environment and that extremness requires
extreme actions… so if we have far less income inequality, then
we can react with moderation, not extremeness……

so if we keep our desires moderate, we can act with moderation…
extreme desires demand extreme actions…

so moderation, intentionality, control… these are the tools of
living life…

our needs need to be met, so we can still act with moderation in
regards to our needs… we don’t need to negate our desires, we
can just moderate them, we can control them…

this balance doesn’t require us to become monks or live in the desert…
we can live our lives with many moments of getting shitfaced or extreme passion,
or with love… and all that involved with love… but we must hold to an balance
in our lives as we sometimes act with wildness and extremeness…

nothing wrong with being out of control sometimes…but you can’t live your life
that way and there is a cost to being out of control and we are usually willing to
pay that cost of being out of control… but remember, there is a costs to our actions…

there is nothing wrong with desire or with suffering or old age or disease
or with death… there are part of the package of existence… don’t invalidate
them or renunciate them, simply accept them as part of the deal of being alive…

we don’t need to be afraid of death or dying… because dying is just like
puberty…it is simply just another aspect of life we have… you didn’t hold
a philosophy of puberty to get you through puberty, did you?

nope, it was simply something to outgrow… and death is just another journey
that we don’t need to worry about… it will come when it comes… to focus on
death exclusively is to miss so much about what is fun about life……. the brooding
about death is really not much more then a single minded focus on something like
specialization about philosophy or holding the viewpoint of the ant… instead of
the eagle…a birds eye viewpoint of life…

the next aspect of existence is the journey we take individually and collectively,
from animal to animal/human to becoming fully human……

we are still tied down to the animal side of existence…we must break free
of our animal side of existence and learn to grow to become human…
which is another way of saying, we take control over our lives, emotionally,
intellectually, physcologically and socially…….

pause here…

K

3013

I had no idea this post I wrote yesterday was this long…

dang…

ok, look at animals… they are all about fulfilling their needs
and once they are sated, they stop… because we confuse
needs and desires, we don’t stop…

and we need to gain control over both our needs and our desires…
especially desires… not negate or renunciate them, but control them…

we have to reach our possibilities which animals don’t have…
they cannot become anything more then they are…
a cat can only be a cat, and a dog can only be a dog,
but we humans somehow or someway, have been able to
outgrow our animal nature and become something new,
going from animal like dogs and cats and become
animal/human…and now we must see our way clear to the next step
of becoming fully human… we connect our understanding of entropy
we being human and we can see because of our growth, that we cannot
remain in status quo… we are either gaining in order, getting more energy
or we are becoming disordered, losing energy… we cannot remain in the same
spot of order or disorder…either we are rising or we are falling…
and with the idea of intentionality, we can choose to rise or we can
choose to fall…

we have choices animals don’t have… we can be mean or angry or nice or
strong or moral or immoral… a dog can only be a dog… it cannot be moral
or immoral and cats are nothing more then cats…so are we animal/human
or are we to be human, fully human?

it is our choices which define who we are because of entropy…
we cannot remain in one place… ever and our institutions cannot,
because of entropy, remain in one place… either they are becoming
ordered or they are becoming disordered…

we are ever changing, rising or falling according to entropy…
and we can make our entropic choices in regards
to our mental, emotional, psychological and philosophical possibilities…

become who you are…

we, because of entropy, are always in a state of changes… let us
control the way we change and the nature of our changes…

human beings are not fixed, set, bound creatures…

we are bound by our animal side to have animal needs,
and we are bound by our human side to have human needs…

the animal side wants it needs are met, food, water, shelter,
education, health care…

and the human side wants safety/security and love/belonging
and esteem and when we finally have our bodily and emotional
needs met, we can rise to the next stage which is to be self-actualized…
where we no longer just exists to meet our needs, but
we discover and choose our possibilities we can reach…

and the human, all too human side is the self-actualization part of us…

and then we rise again and become something else… because that is how
we humans roll, we continue to grow and change and challenge ourselves…
to discover what is possible for us and then meet that challenge…

Kropotkin

3014

ok, Kropotkin, that was one long post, what should I take out if it?

that in our own lives we should be trying for moderation, balance,
a centerness to our lives… think of the solar system…

why has our solar system lasted for over 3 billion years?

because it is balanced between the various forces of gravity
and thermodynamics… it is a balancing act between the various
forces working all the time on the solar system…

what values should we take as our balancing forces in our lives?

equality/justice is one of the main ones…to treat everyone equally
and with justice… and that should be the goal of our society at large…
what is good for the goose is good for the gander…

we carve out to many exceptions especially for the wealthy, powerful,
corporations… they must be held to the same standard we hold ourselves to…
and we hold others to…

we must engage between the state and the individual…

there is far to much antagonism between the state and the individual
and I believe that is driven mostly by the state… in its need to control our lives…

the entire function of the state must be reexamined…the state shouldn’t direct what
we are doing, the state should exists to make what we are doing possible…

there is no balance, no equilibrium between the state and the individual…

again, recall the solar system… there is balance and equilibrium between
the various diverse parts of the solar system… each planet is wildly different
and yet the solar system functions quite well, as a system…

that is our goal… to have diverse and individual people/planets, each doing
their own thing and yet still part of a whole, the state and the solar system…

how do you bring balance into your own life?

I don’t know… I don’t know your life… but as Socrates said and is
one of the most profound statements in philosophy…

“to know thyself”

and the second statement:

“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

examine thyself to understand how to bring balance and
moderation into your life…

to bring balance into my life, I need to get into touch with the
emotional aspect of who I am…

I don’t “do” emotions very well at all…
and that is something I am working on, every single day…

and my goal is to have a more balanced life, by being more moderate
in my actions and my thoughts and my being…

and the third task is to work out a philosophy which enables me to
make sense of this thing we call life and discover what it means
to be human in the midst of life…

to live a moderate life means we engage in living more in tune with
nature, living with nature, not destroying it because of a several thousand
year old injunction that was appropriate then, but is no longer valid and
appropriate now…

however with that said, that there are times when we need to be Icarus
and not Daedalus… sometimes, sometimes we have to go for it…

it is all a matter of timing…and other times, we must play it safe,
cautious, moderate……. it depends on the situation…

but we know that for every action, there is a equal and opposite reaction,
basic physics 101… and the same is true of consequences… when we go for
it, the equal and opposite reaction for going for it is severe, and when we
are moderate, cautious, the equal and opposite reaction is far less severe…

are you willing to pay for your consequences?

that becomes the question…

this question that an individual faces, an society/culture/a state,
also faces… a state should be cautious, moderate, play it safe
and not threaten it all by the toss of the dice in some desperate
gamble to win big…again, the consequences of going big are
far greater then if one plays it safe… moderate…cautious…

when I was young, I would gamble and put everything on
the toss of the dice and usually, I won… I ate for the next week
for example… but occasionally I lost and the consequences weren’t
pretty…

and this is why we have democracies… if everyone must suffer the consequences
then everyone should have a say in what happens to them…

we cannot hold people accountable for actions taken in their name in which they
had no say in…

and that is part of the equation we must hold to today………

holding people accountable for actions taken and that must include
corporations and the wealthy and, and the president…as of right now,
we cannot hold the president accountable… he cannot be indicted, according
to the justice department and he escape impeachment and all that is left to
hold IQ45 accountable is the vote… but I hold that isn’t enough and is far too little,
to late…we must hold people accountable in real time…and that is just
another lesson we must hold to… to be moderate is to be just is to be
held accountable is to be seeking our possibilities…

these aren’t different and distinct actions… they are all part and parcel
of the same factors at work and should be at the heart of what we do,
both individually and, and collectively…

what does it mean to be alive?
and what does it mean to be human in the midst of life?

Kropotkin

3015

K: I am finally ready to answer you, but not a point by point discussion…

the fact is until a fetus is born, it is a clump of cells… if it cannot survive on its
own, it is not a human being… but the fact is I must, in all fairness,
my own understanding of abortion…as I was directly affected by the
abortion issue…

my mom was pregnant with me in 1958, Minnesota… when she was 4 months pregnant,
my older sister went to friends house who had the measles, against my mom direct orders…
she was infected… the doctors told her that because of the measles, anything that was
being developed at the time would be damaged…I could have been born with no arms,
no legs, no mental abilities, severely damaged in countless ways… they told her
to get an abortion… in 1958… because my family was upper class, it would have
been very easy to get an abortion and call it a “procedure”… she did not
and when I was born months later, because I had all my bodily limbs, the
doctor called it a success… later they discovered my hearing loss and I have
limited finger dexterity… (which is why I took up typing in high school)
anyway… my life has been directly impacted by the abortion issue in ways
that most people have never had… and yet, I still, to this day, approve
of women having abortions… if my mom had, I wouldn’t be here… plain and
simple… but Kropotkin, why do you approve of abortion if you would not
be here if your mom had an abortion?

because it isn’t enough to just exist… life itself isn’t reward enough to
justify life…… to live, just to live isn’t enough for me…

existence must be something other then just existence…

life is about the quality of life… it doesn’t matter if you live to be
100 if, if your quality of life is terrible… I would rather live to 70
and have a better quality of life, then live to 100 with a bad quality of life…

I believe that everyone, everyone, as part of the basic needs of existence,
need love and belonging…and if we cannot give all children that basic
and fundamental need of love and belonging, I don’t think that they
have a good quality of life…and thus they shouldn’t be born…

I had love and belonging as a child…my basic needs were met…
but for a whole lot of children being born, they lack love and belonging
along with the basic necessities like food and shelter and education
and health care… why should we force children to
endure, yes endure a terrible quality of life just to satisfy some
need in us to hang on to life, no matter what?

life itself isn’t the criteria we must use to justify life,
the quality of life must be the criteria we use to justify life…

a commitment to life is a full and complete commitment…
if we cannot commit completely and absolutely to children, then
we cannot allow children to lead lives without the basic necessities
of food, water, shelter and love and belonging…

but Kropotkin, you are asking for a firm, absolute commitment
about life and there is no such thing…

then I say, we must allow women to have abortions
even if they have the slightest doubt… because life means to
much to commit to, unless we commit completely and absolutely
to it…

if we cannot commit to children to having an excellent quality of
life, we cannot prevent abortions because we owe it to them for
every child to have a great quality of life…

it isn’t about life but the quality of life that matters…

Kropotkin

3016

I demand a very high standard in regards to life but
we should demand a very high standard in regards to life…

one of the failures of the modern world is our failure to
commit fully to something… we half ass most everything
including our commitments…

which we should be very clear and firm on… if we are to
hold to life as being sacred, then we must hold to that commitment
completely and wholly… that life is sacred…… if we half ass it as we
moderns are wont to do, then we must be also hold to the proposition
that life has consequences and if we aren’t totally prepared to commit
to those consequences, then we must allow abortions…

if children are forced to be born without the basic necessities of life,
including love and belonging, then we are to be held responsible for
children being in prison for actions committed……. you cannot, cannot
force someone to act in one way and then blame them if something goes wrong…

if we force women to have children, then we are responsible for those children…

are you willing to be held responsible for those children who lack the basic
necessities?

I am not and thus I am in favor of abortions…

we force women to have children and then we take away all possibilities that
that child will have all the necessities they need to survive… including love
and belonging…

the consequences are not the child’s but ours to have…

every single child demands a commitment from society to
meet the child’s needs and requirements… if we cannot, cannot
commit to meet every single child born needs and requirements,
then we cannot ever ban abortions…

until society takes a commitment to take care of every child being
born, we cannot ban abortion…

the responsibility for life being born is ours, the entire society…

this is a hard commitment to make and thus we must allow abortions
to continue until society itself takes its commitments seriously…

a commitment to life and the child’s needs and requirements…

a commitment to the quality of life, not just the mere existence of life…

the road to the healing of society lies in our taking a serious commitment to
life and what it means to be alive…

and the basic point of this is that we are in this together…

we are not individual living separate and distinct lives
apart from each other…

we are as cells in a body…if some cells are sick and compromised,
then the whole body is sick and compromised…

we are one and together…

that is what it means to be human…

Kropotkin

3017

we must commit to life in a way that makes life worth living…

to meeting our needs, physical, mental, emotional, social and then
to able us to exists within society that allow us to grow
into being able to reach our full possibilities and our full potential…

to reach the level of self-actualization… to grow beyond just meeting
our needs and requirements…to become human… which means we
meet and then exceed our need for the basics like food and water
and shelter and education and health care and……

our quality of life isn’t just about eating and meeting the basic needs
of our body, physically as well as mental, emotional, psychologically, but
about our becoming who we are…it is about reaching our possibilities…

either we commit fully and completely to life or we must allow abortions…

there is no third course…

can you commit completely and fully to holding yourself responsible
for every single child being born?

if not, then we must allow abortions…

Kropotkin

3018

now some might ask, how does having a full and complete commitment
to life allow us to laughter and love and hope and charity?

our commitment to life doesn’t stop our need to laugh
and love and hope and being just…

our commitment to life actually improves our reaching the needs
of love and hope and being just and a commitment to charity…

for it is in those values of love and hope and justice and charity
and peace, among other values, that make life worth living…
it isn’t just life that make life worth living, it is worth living because
we can hope and love and laugh and dream and be just and have
charity toward all, with malice toward none…

those values are what makes life worth living…

we can commit to hold to the value of life and still hold
to love and hope and justice and peace and……

it isn’t about being right or wrong, or being correct or incorrect,
or being the higher human being…

it is about discovering what it means to be human…

and that has nothing to do with right or wrong…

I am trying to get people, including me, to reevaluate what it means
to be human… and I am trying to get people to see that to be human,
requires love and justice and hope and peace and honesty…

it isn’t about making people being hard or being able to withstand
the rigors of life or being able to whether every single storm…

no, it is about making human beings who rise above just
meeting our lowest needs of food and water and shelter…

the battle isn’t to withstand life, but to rise above it
and become human, not just animal/human…

conservatives are wrong because they focus on the material needs
of human beings, when the fact is, the essential part of being human
isn’t meeting our basic physical needs but meeting our other needs of
being human, which is mental, emotional, psychologically, philosophical,
and social… it is those needs we should be engaged with, we should
have already risen above meeting our basic physical needs… that is goal one,
but only goal one…we have plenty of steps above just meeting our
physical needs…of food and water and shelter and education…
those needs should have already been taken care of and they can
be taken care of if we took those physical needs seriously and
tried to meet them with every single man, women and child on planet
earth…impossible, you say, I say, you are still tied down to the old way
of thinking that the only goal of life is to meet one’s needs…

the meeting of needs is the basic building block of human existence
and then we rise to the next step, every step must be met is we are to
engage seriously with what it means to be human…

impossible…

I say to become human demands, demands that we hold ourselves
to a much higher goal of being human…

to become human, for every single person on planet earth becomes human,
that is the goal… and we must strive for the stars… to reach like Icarus,
to fly higher then ever before or die trying…

at times, we must reach higher then we ever thought possible…

and why not? what is working in our current world today?

we have to try something new or face extinction…

doing nothing is not a choice… recall our lesson
in entropy… we are either going up or we are going down…
there is no such thing as standing still, the status quo isn’t
possible in the universe…

so what choice are you going to make?

to grow or to fall?

think long and hard about your answer and then commit to that answer…

Kropotkin

3019

who should we emulate?

who should we follow?

I would say those who we have honored…

thus the “hero’s” are the ones we should follow…

thus we honor Jesus and Gandhi and MLK
and Newton and Einstein and Galileo and
Darwin and Hawking…

all people who didn’t make the search for wealth as their
primary goal… and that is the point. we can seek without
making money as our goal…

the search for wealth is the search for the lowest common denominator,
the lower values of greed and lust/ avarice… in other words, the
seven deadly sins are the sins of the pursuit of wealth…

we can also have as among those who we emulate being
Socrates and Plato and Spinoza and Nietzsche and Quine…

and did any of these people attempt to acquire wealth as
a goal?

no, let us take their pursuit as our pursuit…

and seek what it means to be human and alive…

Kropotkin

3020

in thinking about who I want to be, leads me to this…

I don’t want to become small and narrow, a specialist,
one who knows a lot about a very little area…
I don’t want to keep my nose to the grindstone…
the ant is not my hero…

I want to become large and engage the entire world…
one who knows something about everything…
I am not interested in thinking small or mucking about
in the weeds…

I want to have a birds eye view of existence…

to write papers of interest to those who hold my very specialized
view has no interest for me…

to wade into the deep waters of the unknown……

if the sun were the ultimate knowledge…
I would fly as high as I could, like Icarus
and risk burning and crashing……

but Kropotkin, you contradict what you said about moderation and
playing it safe…

do I contradict myself? very well then I contradict myself…
(I am large and contain multitudes)

Kropotkin