K: I know to a clueless young one like yourself, it all seems to be nonsense,
but hay, I too was young and dumb, once upon a time, just like
you are now… don’t worry… you will get it at some point,
when you grow up…
Kropotkin
in reading Heidegger, one of his concerns was about “care”…
but in thinking about “care”, I think it goes deeper then that…
“care” is important, but it is a part of something, not the whole of something…
and what is that “whole” of something? I think the answer lies in what
all human beings need… now one might say that all human beings need is
love, but even love is a part of something and so once again, what is the “whole”?
I believe that which unites all human beings is a need for “connection”…
we must feel connected to feel, “human”…
our very first feeling of connection is perhaps the most important one…
the connection we feel with this human being who feeds us and pampers us
and seems to love us… our mom… (as a side note, today is my mom’s
birthday… she is 86) that very first connection helps us learn to
make connections… we also connect with our father and our brothers
and sisters and then other family members…
we feel love is the same as saying, we feel connected…
our feeling connected is feeling connected to physical things, at first anyway,
we feel connected to our toys and our bed and our dog… but
as we grow older, we can connect to less physical things… we can feel
connected to ism’s and ideologies… we can feel connected to the past,
or to the nation or to nationalism or by feelings like empathy and care…
we can feel connect with/by history, psychology, social studies,
economics, biology… for if we look at each of these, we can see
how we are connected to each other…Marx thought our primary
connection was economic… hence his substructure was primarily
economic… (the substructure being the foundation, the basis of
human existence)…
how I view people and how I interact with people, depends upon
my connection with them… with some people, I feel no connection,
hence their existence is a matter of indifference to me…
but with some people, I do feel some sort of connection…
perhaps I feel a connection with certain people because I see
them wearing a hearing aid, as I wear one too, I then feel connected to
them…
I feel a connection to parents, because I too, am a parent…
perhaps I feel a connection to democrats and men and sports fans,
because I am too…to be connected means we feel in some fashion,
they are similar to us…that they view things the same way…
I may feel connected to some sports fan and yet that fan supports
teams I dislike, like perhaps the LA Dodgers or the NY Yankees…
so my level of connection changes within my understanding of
how similar we may or may not be…so our level of connection changes…
we might connect based upon our share love of baseball instead of
a shared love of a certain team, which is a closer level of connection…
let us look at someone like a psychopath… these individuals feel
no connection to other people… we hold that people who are
psychopath is a person suffering from a chronic mental disorder
with abnormal or violent social behavior… people who can’t feel
connections are considered to have a mental disorder…
think about how we find a location of someone in 3 dimensions…
we need to have 6 lines of connections to place anyone location in
space…we can do it in 3 but 6 is a little more specific…
now reverse that to go from the person out… we have lines
of connections from each person going to something…
that something, that connection is what ties a person to
being human… for example, what is the source of our
alienation and discontentment?
the lack of connections we have that allow us to be grounded as human beings…
if I am alienated from society, then I lack connection to that society…
if I am alienated from myself or my family, then I lack connection to
myself or to myself…
and here on ILP, we quite clearly see people alienated from society,
from the government, I point out UR and Observ… as two people
who are alienated from society and that alienation derives from
their lack of connection to the society and state as currently
constructed… the hold a greater connection to the person of
and the beliefs of IQ45… and thus they will lie and cheat
and even threaten physical violence to hold on to their connections…
they have no connections to liberals or what they call “commies” even
though nether one of them could even define a “communist”…
witness they call me a “commie” even though I have quite clearly rejected
the basic fundamental belief that a “commie” would hold…it is not their
ignorance, all thought they are incredible ignorant, it is their basic
inability to connect that defines their political and social beliefs…
I hold to certain beliefs, like cooperation and love and hope and charity,
and I do connect to people based upon these share beliefs…
and I do not connect with people who hold different, what I have called
negative beliefs, like anger, hate, greed, lust…and yet, UR and observ,
hold to these beliefs… these beliefs are their connection to IQ45…
and so, I don’t connect with these two, along with Pedro…
However it is easy, far to easy to vilify those who don’t hold to our
shared connections… which is why it is easy for IQ45 to
vilify those who don’t hold to his convictions… IQ45 practices
racism, misogyny, sexism and him and his ilk practice
bigotry, racism, intolerance and even violence against
those for whom they have no connection to…
women, immigrants, people of color…
even yesterday in DC, the “proud boys” took to the streets and
committed violence against those who didn’t hold to their
beliefs… they means they have no connection to those people…
and violence becomes easy if we don’t feel a connection to people…
ok, next step… next post…
Kropotkin
what are possibilities that can ground us?
for example, we can become grounded, feel a connection to,
the past, the family, work, nation, ism’s like nationalism,
empathy, shared beliefs… each of these can make us feel
grounded to the earth and to each other… that is the value
of connections… we become part of something if we
feel connected…and what if we cannot feel connected to
something? then we are suffering from a mental illness…
so how do we find a cure for what ails America at this time?
we see a divided country and what could cause us to become “undivided”?
by forging a connection to those who hold different beliefs…
we have many different connections between us and UR and Observ
and even padro…
we are first and foremost human beings… but perhaps we have
other connections…as I find it hard to believe that these three are
not white people because it doesn’t make sense for someone to
hold onto beliefs that make yourself a source of attack… so, I must
assume that these three are white… that becomes another source of
connection…I would assume these three are men… again based
upon the idea that we don’t hold ideas that alienated us from ourselves…
I would push the idea of being Americans but Pedro isn’t in fact American,
but I can’t tell about the others… are they really Americans? Because
that would be another source of connection between myself and these two,
UR and Obser…
as I seek connections between us, I wonder, would these three seek connections
to me? I doubt it because each of them holds to ism’s/values of isolation and hate
and fear and anger and greed…it would take much for them to overcome
their childhood indoctrinations… but it does happen…the path to becoming
fully human lies with overcoming our childhood indoctrinations and becoming
who we are, which is to say, becoming what our beliefs are…
the path to becoming human, fully human lies within our overcoming…
we overcome being animal to become animal/human, where most people
exists in, and then some, they overcome their animal/human side
and overcome to become fully human… these human beings are those
who we build statues to and who we hold up to as being exemplary human beings…
it isn’t enough to hold onto our convictions, but we have to outgrow them
and become something more…
I hold that those people who hold to positive beliefs are closer to becoming
fully human then those who hold to negative beliefs…the path for us
lies in us overcoming… I must overcome my positive beliefs and
turn the two into one…we are not about just one set of beliefs…
it is not about being good or evil, or white and black or up and down
our overcoming involves us taking two distinct and separate
beliefs like good and evil and turning them into
two sides of the same coin and then rising above the very notion
of good and evil…for they are the same thing…
good or evil is simple an arbitrary standards… which can be everything
or nothing… in other words, good and evil are simply interpretations…
of what is “good for us” and “what is evil” for us… that is how human beings
understand good and evil as, is it good or evil for us?
and so we define it as such… good and evil is nothing more
then does it help or hinder us in our daily life?
but connections is about whether it helps or hinder us, making
connections is about binding us to each other and to feel
safe and secure about ourselves and our lives…
the more connections we have to the world and to each other,
the safer and stronger we feel about ourselves and our lives…
in those terms, I hold that UR and Obser and Pedro,
feel few connections to the world… hence their great need
to hold onto their fantasy world where IQ45 is reelected…
I have a great many connections to the world, so, I hold
fewer fantasies that these three and hence, I can bear
to lose a couple of my connections and that won’t shake my
world… it won’t cause me to veer into insanity as it
caused UR and Obser and Padro to veer into their fantasy land…
where somehow IQ45 wins the election and we all live happily
ever after…
when IQ45 won in 2016, I was angry but I didn’t lose my
hold on reality… because I had other connections which
tied me into reality…I didn’t have to hold onto fantasies
to keep me sane or to hold my balance… I had other
connections which allowed me to accept the 2016 loss…
and that is my point… holding onto connections is what
keeps us keep tether to reality… what helps us maintain
our sanity and balance in life… I have family and work
connections and connections to the state and other ism’s which allow
me to hold onto the status quo… my study of philosophy is another
method of me maintaining connections to reality… it ties me into
the past and idea’s and people who make up the world of philosophy…
I can hold onto these connections even through the dark times that
is 2020… I hold that the reason UR and Observ and Pedro are
becoming unhinged is because they don’t have the connections
that tie them to reality that I have…
had IQ45 won the election, I wouldn’t have gone off the deep end
as these three have ranting and raving about the “deep state” or
conspiracy theories or “commies” or whatever else these three rant about…
I am more connected to the universe then they are and thus I would have
avoided their insanity…
it is the connections we make that allow us to engage in the past, present
and future…it is the connections we make that allow us to become who
we are and to overcome that who we were…
do you want to grow as a human being?
then increase your connections to life, people, events
and the universe…
that is the path of being human…
Kropotkin
Just got off the phone with my mom, to wish
her a happy birthday, and discovered we had
a death in the family…
a death, any death is sad… and this death is sad…
and there is nothing to do about it but feel sad and so I shall
engage with that sadness…
my world is changed and yet I am going to maintain myself…
and how is that possible?
because I am connected to things, people, places, ideas that allow
me to hold onto my sadness but not plunge me into madness or
hysteria or hatred for anyone or anything… my connections
allow me to feel sadness but not to plunged me into anything else…
I wrote about how these connections allow one to maintain oneself
in life and 20 minutes later, I am confronted with a death that
has shocked me…but I needn’t panic…because
by writings these words, I can come to grip with and
allow my grief to come to terms with itself…
my connections allow me to survive this loss and be sad…
and I know, know that I will be ok… the loss is not going to
damage me or change who I am and what I am trying to overcome…
and for other members of my family, their grief with be greater then
mine and I hope that they to have enough connections to overcome
their loss…
but what of those who don’t have connections to keep them in contact
with the human race? they will face truly tough times… because it is
those connections that allow us to withstand truly sad times that exists
right now…within myself, my family and even within society itself…
we can overcome anything if, if we are truly connected with each other,
our society, our state, our family… extended or connected family that
we all have or we should have…
the path into the future lies within the connections that we make
and that allows to hold serve while we face sadness and grief…
it allows us to face whatever comes with the right emotions that
the event, people and places bring to us, every single day…
today, I am faced with death and I shall overcome those feelings of
sadness and grief with the connections I hold to the universe…
my connections to my family, philosophy, even ILP is just another
connection holding me in place, in peace and in time of troubles…
Kropotkin
_
Sorry to hear of your loss Peter… I truly am.
thank you
Kropotkin
ragged day
unfocused mind
stories told
sadness unfolds
perfect symbol
a circle which is forever
birth and death
and life inbetween
today was a circle
life, death, birth, old age…
appearances by all today
Buddha searched on less…
soon the sun rises
the ache is still sharp
tomorrow, the ache dulls a bit
and soon, the pain recedes…
and someday, this ache will
become the misty past
forgotten but not forgotten
and your face… I can see no more…
It too has been lost
in the yesterdays
where it once held
pain and loss…
and today…
it is just a memory
forgotten and not forgotten
time erases all… even you…
Kropotkin
I really like it, Peter.
and regrets for Your loss.
its been a long day and I am tired, but I must confess
that I engaged in this notion of perspective…
we have lost perspective on what is important and what isn’t…
we have at ILP several members who are engaged in wild conspiracy
theories that have no basis in facts, but that is the point…there are no facts…
just like a belief in god, it goes against logic and rationality…
a belief in god only requires faith as does belief in these insane conspiracy theories…
but more importantly, these beliefs take away our attention from the matters of
existence…birth, life, old age, disease, and finally death… I saw all of this today…
someone died and someone was born, the circle that has existed since the beginning
of time…
I saw old age and disease today… life is fighting a lot of forces determine
to end it…and in this eternal battle between life and death along with old
age and disease, we forget in our daily struggles, these large eternal battles…
we are so focused on the tree, we forget the forest… those focused upon
the conspiracy theories forget that those theories are here today and gone tomorrow…
they have no substance, nothing is there and in the end, they blind us to
the really important matters of existence… the renewal of life in birth
and the return to nothing in death…as I have said before, the perfect
symbol of existence is the circle… there is no beginning and no end…
the births and deaths and pain and heartache and old and disease,
are all there, within that circle…
to focus upon one singular aspect of life, the conspiracy theories for example,
means we miss the continuation of existence that is shown by the circle of
existence… our attention is there when it should be on the far more
meaningful aspect of our existence…not the petty conspiracy theories
or the lies we tell ourselves to pass the day… everything is fake news for
example…unless, unless it confirms our biases of the day… then it is true…
and that takes away from the big picture of existence… our lives
and the births and the old age and the inevitable illness and then death…
these are the matter we should be focusing on, not the petty crap that fills
the newspapers… as if anyone reads the newspapers anymore…
ask yourself, what is truly important?
and if your answer doesn’t include the matters of life and death
and old age and illness and the renewal of existence in birth,
then you are focused on the wrong thing…
reexamine your life and your beliefs and see what is really important…
once you have reexamined those things and reevaluate what is truly important,
then the business of a real, true engagement with who you are can really begin…
you cannot know thyself, one maxim of Socrates that began philosophy
and the other, the unexamined life isn’t worth living… the second maxim
of philosophy…
so do you engage in the two maxims or do you just spend your days
focused upon a single unimportant tree like… conspiracy theories about the
election?
so what is important?
can you even tell anymore?
Kropotkin
K: it is just another attempt to engage with and understand life…
and all I have is words, just mere words which amount to nothing,
“a tale told by an idiot”…
Kropotkin
K: it is just another attempt to engage with and understand life…
And a very nice attempt. =D> Condolences.
K: it is just another attempt to engage with and understand life…
D: And a very nice attempt. =D> Condolences.
[/quote]
K: thank you…
Kropotkin
the real question of philosophy is context…
what is the context of something…
so, I say, I see a gun…
in this situation, context is everything…
do I see this gun on TV or in a movie or I was reading a book, say
the “Maltese Falcon” where guns play a role in the book
I see a gun… so will I shoot someone, will someone be shooting me
or will the gun be used in other ways, to beat someone, to intimidate someone,
to threaten someone?
we can use this lack of context to create meaning that isn’t there…
for example: “Michigan GOP electors barred from Capital building”
this statement looks damning but it lacks context…
and without context, this statement lacks reality…
if this statement had been given context, it would look like
the nothingness that it is…these GOP electors were of course, barred
from the building because they were illegal electors…
they had no legal standing of any kind… and this is how
we use context or lack of context to polarized people into or
out of actions that might be taken…
take this for example: “Liberals preventing Trump from taking actions”
and once again we need context… perhaps the actions that the village
idiot was going to take was to nuke NY or San Francisco… and now the
preventing him from taking actions make sense…
so, when ever faced with a statement, find the context, what does
the statement means within the context given by the statement…
quite often we find that a statement changes meaning once it is given its
correct context…don’t assume every statement has it correct context
already given…modern propaganda begins by removing context and leaving the
statement to stand on its own, when that statement can only mean something
or make sense within context…
“Only republicans love America” is a statement that demands context…for right now
the GOP is hard at work trying to destroy democracy… taking legitimate votes
and casting them out to benefit your candidate is destroying democracy…
so given context, we can see that statement as being wrong…
so give a statement its context and then make some sort of judgement
about the statement…
context about statements give us meaning and value of any statement…
Kropotkin
Which is true. Let’s look at the issue of whether pardons are an admission of guilt.
But actually the context is that it was NOT 'decided by the Supreme Court that a pardon was an admission of guilt.
The quote that this kind of fake fact is built out of was actually an ober dictum.
newsweek.com/donald-trump-p … lt-1550716
Which means it was not part of the decision, it was the thoughts of one of the judges. I have read a few takes on the issue and at best it is up in the air, as far as I can tell, whether it is an admission of guilt.
But more damning fort the idea that it must mean guilt we have the wider issue of the range of things that PARDONS have meant, which has included obvious examples where pardons were used precisely because the pardoned was thought to be innocent.
That’s from the Washington Post. IOW Presidents have pardoned people they considered innocent. So there’s precedent.
so in facing Heidegger, one struggles with this question of “being”
what is “being” and how does it impact us?
being = I AM…
there are questions about time within the “I AM”…Past and future…
“I WAS” and “I WILL BE”…and questions about space, “I AM HERE”
VS, questions about “I WAS THERE” “I WILL BE THERE”…
but in a very real sense, these are not philosophical questions, but
grammatical questions, language question…“I WAS THERE”…
one could say, “I WAS HERE” and still be correct…
we are exploring our location via grammatical questions, language questions…
The way to explore these questions, philosophical is to add a “WHY”…
“I AM HERE, BUT WHY”… “YOU ARE THERE, BUT WHY?”
What Heidegger did was explore the relationship of being to human
beings… but Kropotkin is interested in something else…
“I AM” but what am I to do? The questions of existence is less interesting
then the questions of what are we suppose to do in this existence…
If you can ask being questions, you exists… but what should you doing while
you are existing?
we have others… out there… who impact our lives, every single day…
“I AM” but we are human beings and we are social creatures… we exists
within the social, collective activity of existence… I can no more be alone,
then I can fly… the “OTHERS”…the modern realization is about “THE OTHERS”
In the past, “THE OTHERS” were a given, you had the church, the state, our social
lives… all impacted by “OTHERS”…and every single one of them, were simply
a given, one was part of society… to separate out oneself and the society,
wasn’t done… if you thought of one, you thought of the “OTHER”…
now one might bitch about the role or place within that society or system,
but one didn’t separate oneself out from that society or system, be it
the state or the church or the social aspect of being human…
one could almost say, Modern history began with Descartes but not
how you might think… Descartes was one of the first to approach or
understand who we are outside of the “OTHERS”…
“I think therefore I am”
this question lies outside of any relationship we have with '“OTHERS”
there is no question of a relationship with the state or the church or
our social engagements…
now think of say, Marx… it is entirely about our relationship with “OTHERS”
what is our relationship with other beings, what is our relationship with
the state, what is our relationship with commodities…
what is our relationship with money?
there was no attempt to separate or disconnect human beings from
another… it was a given that we are in a relationship, the question
was, what kind of relationship did we have with each other? and Marx’s
answer was an “economic” relationship…
then we turn to another who had no questions about our relationship with
others, his questions turn around our relationship with ourselves and god,
Kierkegaard…his questions didn’t involve our connection with each other
or our connection to the state or to the church… it was about our relationship
we have inside of ourselves with ourselves or with god…
In K. there is no others to think about…
Now think of Nietzsche, his questions aren’t questions of others, or our
relationship with the state or with the church…he was trying to find a new
morality given our old morality had turned into dust with the “death of god”…
upon what basis shall we interact with each other, given 2000 years of
our understanding about what it means to be moral was no longer there…
for N. the questions was about Morality, and his focus was on the concept
of morality, not on our connection with each other or with god…
or our relationships we have with the state or the church or in our social
connections we have…but with Morality as an intellectual concept…
Nietzsche didn’t deal with people down in the mud dealing with existential
questions of existence…but it wasn’t tied into our relationship with
the state or with each other or the church… it was about our
own personal relationship with the concept of morality…
the existentialist of the 20th century, Sartre and Camus and
and even Heidegger, they were less concerned about the
the given relationships we have with the state, the church,
and the social relationship we have, family and the like…
existence before the various revolutions was about our relationships,
that we never questioned, with the state, the church, our social
relationships… family and the like…
human existence is about our relationships with the various “others”
but then after the political revolutions of 1776 and1789, we slowly
turned to thinking about ourselves as individuals, not connected to
the “OTHERS”…What does it mean to be human, apart from the
relationship we have with the state, the church, society at large?
we can see how far we have come with the militant anti-government,
anti-human, anti-social crowd that hold that their own individual rights overrule
and supersede, any rights I may have or the government may have…
this type of hyper individualism wasn’t possible before the Modern age…
no one in the Ancient world would have said this and no one in the Medieval
world would have done it, but millions now consider it their right to their
own hyper individualism that exists today… anti-vaxxers for example…
their own rights supersedes society right to protect itself and to protect
society at large…
this is the modern world…hyper individualism without regard to what it
does or might do to us… or the society at large…
we have taken “I AM” to be greater then “WE ARE”…
or “YOU ARE”…In direct opposition to everything human beings
did or believed in since the beginning of human existence…
and so we return to one of my points, what is the relationship
between myself and my society? how do we connect?
what am I to do? is my “do” about myself or my government, state,
church, social relationships? How do we connect to each other
and in what fashion?
what I am calling for is an appraisal of who we are and what is
our connections, relationship is to each other?
and then we ask, why? why this connection or this relationship to
each other and to the society/state as a whole?
with every answer must come a “why”…
Kropotkin
in our existence, we are constrained by the “OTHERS”…
We come into the world, where various aspects of our lives is
dominated, controlled by “OTHERS”… For example, we come
into existence within a family… we are not given free reign in
our individual lives for years if not decades after we are born…
we are told who we are and what we are to do… go to school,
believe in god, hold that America is the greatest country on earth,
we are indoctrinated with the beliefs of the family, state, church,
society… it is not until high school, or for some, ever later,
that we are finally allowed to act as individuals with actions
that we initiate and control…
but even then, we are bound by the rules and sanctions of
the state, society, church, family…
we are expected to be “good citizens” we are expected to be
“patriots”, we are expected to be “workers” and “producers”,
to be “valued” (by whom becomes the question) and in the midst of
all these expectations and limited possibilities, how are we to become
who we are… if we are expected to be what society demands that we
be, then how do we find out who we are? away from, separate from
what the state, society, family, church demands that we do, act…
the society/state demands that we act in a certain way,
for the betterment of the society, then how do we discover what
we are all about individually if, if we are forced to act and comply to
the society/state requirements?
this push/pull drama with society/state comes from the fact that
we haven’t clearly defined the individual and the state, within
the roles they play in each other’s existence…
how do I fit within society/state and how does the state/society fit
into my idea of who I am and what is my purpose?
I seem to have an obligation the the state/society, but
what is the state/society obligation to me, as an individual?
How do I find freedom and individuality as a human being, if I
am constrained by society/state to be, to act, to do as the state/society
demands?
every question we have, is a question that engages us individually
and collectively…how are we to be free, independent individuals
if we are forced to conform to what the state/society demands?
the hyper individualism of today must become engaged with
its relationship with the state/society…
and I hold that relationship changes and flexes with the ever changing
environment that we human beings find ourselves in, both individually
and collectively…
what is right for one individual in one time and place isn’t right for
another individual in another time and place…so, what worked
for someone during the, say the Civil War, won’t work today but we
can return to something similar as to the relationship of individuals
to each other and the state which is similar to the Civil War…
today, we human beings are tied in so many different and diverse ways
to each other that we cannot, cannot act as one might have done during
the 18th century… there is no place we can go to that individual might
have done during the 18th century… in other words, there is no frontier for
people to escape to…if I am dissatisfied with society/state, where would I go to?
there is not other land for me to escape to… I cannot escape to the “wild west” as
people once did… the conditions have changed and so we must change
our reactions and understanding to those changing conditions…
in other words, we are engaging with 21st century problems with
18th and 19th century solutions…
we haven’t caught up in regards to our solutions to our problems…
our solutions, all of them, are out of date… how do we deal with
21st century problems with 21st century solutions?
so the hyper individualism that exists today isn’t a solution to our
21st century problems because it is a 18th/19 century solution…
So how do we become individual people as free and responsible
agents who determine our own actions and accountability given
the 21st century need to determine who we are and what is possible for us?
the existentialist problem given the 21st century domination of
our actions…
perhaps that is why existentialism failed in the 20th century…
it couldn’t find a solution to the problem of the interconnection
of human beings and society within the modern age…
how do I become a free agent accountable to myself if I am forced
to act as society/the state demands me to act?
what does it mean to be a human being in the 21st century?
what is possible for us and what is desirable for us given the conditions
on the ground in the 21st century?
how do I carve space out for myself given the complete
enclosure of the public space into my private space?
I am seen as part of the state/society but how do I get seen as
an individual within the state/society…given the interconnection
we have as individuals within society/state?
what is the relationship between individuals and the state/society?
Kropotkin
so this hyper individualism of today… what is the possible cause?
I suspect it is the same reason that Romanticism came after
the Enlightenment… a reaction to the movement…
so, we have increasing globalism and increased state/society
influence and interference into our private and personal lives
today, so as an reaction, we have gone the opposite way into
hyper individualism… so the question become, how do we
then combine the two into the next union of two distinct and separate
ideas into one… as we take good and evil as two distinct and separate
ideas and combine them into two sides of the same of the same coin into
one idea… as Nietzsche put it…beyond good and evil… beyond
the hyper individualism and the increasing intrusion into our lives…
by the state and society…
just as the 21st century has been an attempt to unite the last two
era’s, the Enlightenment and the Romanticism…
so how are we going to unite, the two distinct and separate
factions of hyper individualism and the increasing globalism
that is here to stay…
that will be the question of the next few years…
Kropotkin
as I have been working out Heidegger and what he means, I have,
I think, figured out what Dasein really means…
I think Dasein is referring to ourselves as a third person…
so, I would say, I am being in the world…
so, instead of saying, I am, one might say, Kropotkin or Dasein,
is in the world…because Dasein can do all the things that human
beings can do… and so if this is true, then why? why refer to oneself
in this particular way?
I would hold that this is the influence of Edmund Husserl and his
focused on Phenomenology… the idea to bracket ideas to
isolate them to allow one to see it for itself… phenomenology
is the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experiences…
to bracket an idea is to isolate that idea and see it for what it is, without
any other influence impacting it… and that is exactly what Heidegger
does with Dasein… he brackets the idea of existence… Dasein and refers to
it in the third person…to isolate it and take it for what it is without
any preconceived notions about what existence might be for us…
Heidegger is simply using the technique of Phenomenology in his own way…
all the qualities of Dasein, are qualities that a human being has… but he doesn’t
say that… he works out Dasein as if human beings don’t exist… so you can think
of Dasein as being a human being, like someone like Heidegger, but in terms
of the talking about himself in the third person…
I went to the kitchen…
Dasein went to the kitchen…
the exact same sentence… where Dasein is used instead of I…
or we or us… simply use Dasein as a noun… a name of something instead
of a name for a specific human being… a general name for human beings…
Dasein… Dasein reached into the future… I reached into the future
or we reached into the future or some specific human being reached into the
future…
the point is to make sentences like this impersonal, neutral, it is easier
to study oneself if you can make yourself impersonal… leave out all the emotions
and idea’s about yourself and just analyze yourself without any preconceived notions.
by doing this one can make Heidegger seems a little less imposing…
almost readable even… almost…
Kropotkin
I am still slogging my way through Heidegger “Being and time”
some days I can only read a subchapter at a time and other days,
I can read an entire chapter…
at this point, Heidegger is talking about Descartes and Kant…
Descartes writing “I think therefore I am” and Kant’s response to that…
the second point is that Heidegger often uses the word, foundation,
as in the foundation of a house…
and I am going to start there… we human beings need to think of ourselves in
terms of a foundation, like a house…and what is the foundation of human existence?
It lies in the “I”… “I” think therefore “I” am…
so the foundation of the human experience lies in that “I”… but what do we know
about this “I”? “I am” What do you know about this “I am”
the problem as I see it, is that people are so involved in the “baubles” of existence,
they forget to work out what is this “I am”… and I have called the “Baubles” of
existence to be the endless pursuit of mindless and pointless goals of money,
fame, titles, power… we try to substitute these mindless pursuits with real
knowledge about who we are… why should I know who I am when I can
engage in a pursuit of wealth or titles or power or fame? I can use those false
engagements to hide my lack of understanding who I am… I don’t need to
engage with the questions of existence if I engage in this pursuit of
the baubles of existence…
“Who am I?” is covered by an engagement with the pursuit of money…
hence the question of “who am I?” is answered by “I am who is engaged
in the pursuit of money”… and I don’t have to pursue the real question
of “Who am I?” because quite frankly, I may not like the answer…
we human beings, have a image of ourselves… I may think of myself
as being a “Christian” (to give an example) but my actions are clearly not
that of a “Christian” I might support the actions of IQ45 and those actions
are clearly not “Christian”… putting children into concentration camps for
example or denying rights to people because they are “different” then myself…
an honest understanding of what a Christian is and who I am, will
allow me to realize I have fallen short, way short, of the Christian values
really are…
this notion between who we think we are and who we really are,
the difference between who we imagine ourselves to be and who
we really are… that is the place where we fall into hypocrisy
and deception and insincerity about who we really are…
because we don’t have an understanding of the “real” me,
the real “I”…we are not only dishonest with ourselves,
but we become alienated from the “real self” that is who we are…
so this question of “Who am I?” is a foundational question…
but many, way too many human beings hide this question behind
the pursuit of the baubles of existence…we don’t engage in
who we are because, frankly, it is hard work to discover the
answer to the question of “who am I?”… and most people are
too lazy to discover the answer to that most important question…
because we avoid the search for discovering who we really are,
we accept the easy answers of the state, the society, the media,
the church… be the person who seeks the lower, easy answers
of wealth, power, fame, titles…
it takes an reevaluation of values, to discover that we are not
who we think we are, who we imagine we are…
and most people, in fact 99% of all people lack the courage to
engage in a reevaluation of values to discover who they really are,
not to take the easy answers offered by society, the state, the media,
the church… and pursue the baubles of existence…
as most people lack this foundational understanding of who they are,
they rely on their own false image of who they are, and by being lead
by a false, unrealistic image of who they are, they are lead astray…
you cannot find the path to real understanding if you hold a false image
of who you are… it isn’t possible…
to take an example, let us say you are trying to travel from say, NY to
Boston… if you are not in the place you think you are, you are going to
get lost… so, if you think you are in the right starting place, say New York,
but you are not, your being in the wrong starting place will make your
journey to Boston, end up in the wrong place…
so, if you are trying to become who you are, and you start in the wrong place,
you will not end up knowing who you are… you are lost… alienated from
the real you because you engaged in the wrong place to begin with…
if life is a journey… and it is, then we must have an accurate map,
we must know where we are and where we are going…
that is the basic knowledge we must have to take a journey,
any journey… taking a journey without knowing where we are
and where we are going, means we cannot ever reach the final
destination, the final goal… which in this case is reaching the goal
of understanding the “I” in “I am” … to reach that goal of understanding
we must begin in the right place and we must have a map of the terrain
we are going to face…and we must have a goal…
and so I hold that the map we currently have of the goal, the pursuit of
baubles is the wrong map and thus we are lead astray… we failed to find
out who we are and what is our point, purpose of existence because
we seek out the wrong destination, the wrong goal…the baubles of
existence is the wrong goal… the wrong destination…
“Who am I?”
the emphasis is on the word “I”…
“I think therefore I am”
now this holds a different meaning…
how do we discover the “I” in this question?
who is this “I” and is the two separate “I”, “I think”
and “I am” … are they the same “I” or are they two
different “I”… “I think”… “I am”
Kropotkin
so let us think about this…
is the foundational aspect of the “I” really found in the
temporary and situational aspect of our lives?
in other words, do we find the “I” in the temporary aspects
of existence? the current political, societal, localized
aspect of our current existence?
IN other words, is today current climate the end all, be all of
finding out who we are?
Not at all…I am old and I have seen much… today current political
and social existence is just that, today’s existence and there is
no relationship with what has happened and what will happen…
I have seen the days of Watergate and they were “current” but they
are no longer current and haven’t been current in 40 years…
and today’s “current” will be just as short lived… in a years time,
what is vital and important today, will no longer be vital or current…
so what is so critically important politically today, won’t mean a dam
thing tomorrow because of the very changing conditions of
existence…our environment is always changing and we must adapt to
the ever changing conditions…
so this means that the vital battle over IQ45 right now, will not have
any value or meaning in 6 months…it will be a moot point and not
worth discussing in 6 months…so what seems to be so important
and vital today, won’t be in a very short time… as events
and conditions change, we too must change… that means we cannot
connect the “I am” with the changing conditions of today’s
political, social, economic issues of the day…
the “I am” must be connected to something more permanent then
the every changing and impermanent existence of today…
thus Ur and Observ reliance on today’s event’s to determine “who they are”
is based upon a false existence…
because in a very short time, we will have all forgotten about IQ45,
as a bad nightmare, and because we don’t hold our “I am” to the current
political and social situation of right now, we are going to be able to
adapt to any changes in our environment…
whereas UR and Observ have their “I am” connected to the current failed
president, they are going to have a rocky existence… my “I am” isn’t connected
to today’s events or today’s political environment, My “I am” isn’t going to
be rocked when IQ45 goes to jail or even if Biden’s passes away, it won’t
rock my world… my own personal identity isn’t connected to the current events of the
day the way it is for UR or observ or any of that ilk… I will go on…
whereas when IQ45 goes to jail, there world will be rocked…
they cannot bend or adapt to any changes in the current world, whereas
my own “I am” will adapt and change…
I am aware of the transitional nature of the universe and within it
the political, social, economic nature of the world…
what is right and real today, won’t be tomorrow…
and why, because my “I am” is based upon a foundational
understanding of existence, not a temporary understanding of the
world…the current political, social, economic situation of today…
the world may change but my own understanding of “who I am”
won’t change given the temporary nature of the world…
my own “I am” is based on something other then the transitional
nature of the universe…
unlike UR or Observe…or any of these kids…
Kropotkin