???what are you two kooks on about???
You are the same person…you have just aged…are you ok in your head or what???
Maybe that is the key to your conundrum - because it seems clear to me that you haven’t (else you wouldn’t be asking the question).
who are you speaking to???he is no longer here…that person is gone.
K: no, in fact, I am not the same person I was 10 or 15 years ago…
you are young and you don’t see what the effect of age has on
one’s viewpoint in life…as we age, our needs, our values, our
very understanding of life changes…what I thought was important
at age 20 or 30 or 40 or even at age 50… isn’t that important now at
age 61/62…
I am different because just about everything about me today is different…
Kropotkin
are you really 62???sorry for insulting you LOL , maybe you are right, I guess we will live and see.
K:I am not the same as I was when I was 5 or 15 or 25 or 45 or even now which
is less than two weeks from being 62… as we age, we change and evolve…
I can tell you I am not the same person I was 10 years ago… at 51/52…
[/quote]
P: You are the same person…you have just aged…are you ok in your head or what???
[/quote]
K: no, in fact, I am not the same person I was 10 or 15 years ago…
you are young and you don’t see what the effect of age has on
one’s viewpoint in life…as we age, our needs, our values, our
very understanding of life changes…what I thought was important
at age 20 or 30 or 40 or even at age 50… isn’t that important now at
age 61/62…
I am different because just about everything about me today is different…
P: are you really 62???sorry for insulting you LOL , maybe you are right, I guess we will live and see.
[/quote]
K: yes, I turn 62 in less then two weeks… and I have lived to see it already… it is in your future
which is my current present… if that makes any sense…
Kropotkin
according to Marx,
“one can look for the origins and explanation of
all intellectual, cultural, and social change in the “material conditions”
of society, in economics rather then philosophy. Ideas alone would not
change the world; they themselves were the product- the rationalization-
of the economic needs and practices of a people”
I am a materialist in that I hold that we do look at the “material world”
and find what we can accept and find what we can change… but and this
is important, human existence is more then our material/economic needs and
practices…it is a part but not the whole… we need to have our psychological
needs met as well as the bodily needs of food, water, shelter, education, health care…
and in that achieving our physical needs we need to engage in the material world,
but that is not the end all, be all… our mental and psychological needs are not met
in the material world, in material goods as Marx simply assumed…
having a house and sufficient food, water, education and health care does not
hold that our psychological or mental needs are being met also…
indeed, one might, (and probably should) make the argument that our
materialistic society hinders or obstruct our attempts to meet our mental and/or
our psychological needs…
an example of this is this search for meaning, what is the purpose of life/existence?
is it really the mindless accumulation of material goods and wealth that does nothing
to help us understand what it means to be human?
we mistake the accumulation of wealth/material goods as a sign that we have
achieved something worth achieving… reaching the Maslow’s pyramid of needs,
both physical and emotional/mental/psychological… that we might think
that the accumulation of materials goods like cars, houses, couches, TV sets,
might help us reach our psychological needs of belonging, safety/security,
of connection, of esteem needs… whereas it becomes clear if you are accepted because
you have material goods in terms of belonging/connection, or esteem or safety/security,
then will you still be esteemed or have a sense of belonging if you no longer have those goods?
in other words, it is the material goods that has given you that acceptance/belonging,
safety/security, esteem, not anything you might bring to the table in regards to
your intangibles, like your kindness or intelligence or love or hope you bring other people…
it is far, far, far easier to achieve material wealth or become wealthy instead of
becoming wise or hold the other values I have talked about like being just or hopeful,
or kind or accountable or be an artist… achieving wealth is far easier then
holding onto positive values… why? because the task of achieving wealth has
nothing to do with the values that make life worth living… gaining wealth has
nothing to do with the value of existence… in fact, being honest or being fair or holding love
is detrimental to the accumulation of wealth…
let us take Bill gates for example… he achieved his wealth by being dishonest to
his customers… not to pick on gates BTW… he is just an example…
pick anyone who is very wealthy and I can show you how they gained their
wealth separate and apart from values we want children to have…
FDR family gained much of its wealth from importing opium from India to China…
this is quite common of the wealthy… they came into their wealth by any means possible,
fair or not…the gaining of wealth was the important thing, not the values that makes
one a “better” person…
one did not “cultivate” the values that creates meaning and purpose in life…
values worth living for and worth dying for, values like
like justice or love or hope or honesty… they are unimportant in the
actual existence of life in which the gaining of wealth is the fundamental
value of existence…
that is the failure of the materialistic view of existence… it puts
the materialistic ahead of values which don’t show up in the box score,
as it were… the valuable traits that make us human, values like
love and hope and honesty… people who hold those values are what
make society and the state actually work…or to put it another way
referenced above, it is the little things that allow a basketball team
to succeed and thrive… you need players who do the dirty work,
rebound and steal the ball and dive to the floor after a loose ball,
things that don’t show up in the box score, but are fundamental
to a team winning a game…the team that plays a fundamental
game will win the game over a team that goes for the glory
and everyone tries to be the hero…
values are like the players that do the little things to win a game…
it much more glamorous to be the player who runs for the touchdown
or scores the points that win the game… it is the player who does the little
things that actually wins the game… and that is holding values that
help keep society up and functional… not the guy who makes billions
from being dishonest… it is the rest of us who play the game right that
allows the society to function…
Kropotkin
- Skepticism: a skeptical attitude: doubt to the truth of something…
2.In Philosophy…
the theory that certain knowledge is impossible…
many around here hold to skeptical belief in regards to other people beliefs,
but not to their own beliefs…that is off-limits to skepticism…
now some hold that skepticism is wrong because it can be taken too far…
and then everything, everything becomes suspect…but I believe that
we should hold some skepticism to people, thoughts, places and events…
we cannot know that the sun will arise tomorrow morning… we are and should
be skeptical of anyone who claims that it is a “certainty” that the sun will rise tomorrow…
we cannot know this…we should be skeptical but we should be skeptical of
anyone who claims to know with “certainty” about anything… unless you have seen it
or witness it yourself… if you have “first hand” knowledge about something,
then we can lessen the skepticism…but notice I didn’t say stop, I said, lessen
the skepticism…
we are, at the exact same time, too skeptical and we don’t have enough
skepticism… partly because we hold onto beliefs, ism’s, ideologies,
biases, superstitions, prejudice, that we should attack and seek the truth
about, but we are too skeptical of other people beliefs… we can meet this
halfway… and research other beliefs as we hear them…not just dismiss them
out of hand… but as one who is old, we old folks know a thing a two about
failed beliefs… the passage of time can be marked by the number of our
own failed beliefs in someone, something, and idea or an ism…
an example for me would be my long time belief in Anarchism…
for almost a decade, I believed… Oh, I believe with the passion of an
disciple of Christ…
and over the years, I was forced to face the obvious fact about anarchism…
that it was centuries ahead of its time…I could have waited for anarchism to
come to fruition, in a couple of centuries or, or I could engage in something
actually productive and useful while waiting out those centuries…
and so I became a liberal democrat… not that I believed in it but
that it had a chance of becoming something in my lifetime, I could work it
to the point of becoming something in my lifetime… and anarchism will not
become something in my lifetime…
as one ages, one comes to understand, see, the various failed beliefs that
one has held over the years… the sheer faith I have had in ism’s, ideologies,
people, events and idea’s… that failed… and had to be abandoned…
one could almost write a biography of oneself going by the failed ism’s and ideologies
and idea’s in ones life…just as an example, Abraham Lincoln at one time,
was a Whig Politician… who later became a Republican…
hold skepticism to an idea, ism or ideology because at some point, you will,
you will lose faith in that idea, ism or ideology… …
and falling out of love with an idea/ism hurts as much as falling out of love with
a person… and for many of the same reasons…
Kropotkin
boys and girls, the word of the day is
transcendental: which means universal, necessary/necessity…
so take a random list of things and tell me, which items on this
list is transcendental and which items are not…
food…
love…
god…
hope…
faith…
wealth…
fame…
knowledge…
ubermensch…
philosophy…
science…
history…
a turkey sandwich…
politics…
evolution…
music…
sports…
play…
thought…
action…
color…
toilet paper…
so which of the above is transcendental and which is not?
Kropokin
did you type that out yourself?
K: yep…
Kropotkin
i think that the fact that our mammalian brains are limited and the world is evidently so inaccessible and impenetrable to us is transcendental as is the feeling that there might be a super-intelligence similar to ours in the universe as the question of the universes origin is by no means a one that is solved as many cretins and arrogant pricks try to imply and it is perfectly reasonable to suspect there might be a super-being operating underneath it all(although, obviously, not a ‘Christian’ one, in a sense of a personal God that cares for us). my ‘religious’ feelings come from reading about space and the universe. all religiosity stems from the awareness of death and passing, mine also, though it is godless and hopeless in this sense.
Aw.
the ginger Jew lunatic from Holland has arrived…we are about to get enlightened in regards to the human condition.
I came across a new word today and I find it an interesting word…
Askesis: the practice of severe self discipline, typically for religious
reasons…self discipline, asceticism…
quite often the conservative charged liberals with being “Hedonist”
being about the search for pleasure instead of some engagement with
“askesis”… which was meant to improve the soul…
but the conservative has lost that belief and now engage with insane
conspiracy theories…and have absolutely no concern with the soul or
its improvement… so let us take to what used to concern the conservative,
the soul and its improvement…
conservative used to hold to a firm belief in god and all its framework of
sin, heaven and hell and angels and the devil…
morals used to be a big concern with those on the right, but we
have lost those concerns… but what does that mean?
what is right and wrong and why? why is walking little old ladies across
the street considered to be good and stealing their purses considered to be wrong?
and how do we justify those beliefs?
if we don’t hold to god and all its framework, then how do we understand
and justify morals? This was the question that Nietzsche was focused on…
how do we justify morals when there is no god to base our beliefs on?
I have made the argument in the past that we can judge moral based on
how much it hurts or helps a person or a society…
but the Nazi’s have put an end to this argument…
because the Holocaust did kill millions of jews and others but and this
is important to understand, that millions of Germans were helped
in a very basic and fundamental way when the Nazi’s deported the Jews
and others, the houses and jobs and wealth of the Jews went to other people
in Germany…they profited from the deportation of the Jews in a substantial
way…their standard of living went up and isn’t that how we judge
a society today? by the standard of living… and not by who we helped or
who was hurt? thus justifying the economic system of capitalism because
it does help millions, but at the cost of hurting millions of others…
isn’t that how we should judge the Holocaust? by the millions it helped
instead of the millions it killed? as we justify capitalism…
go ahead, make that argument…
anyway… what is morally right?.. who knows because no one reflects or
wonders about that today…certainly not the conservative because they
are about the latest conspiracy theory, not about right or wrong, as they once were…
the conservative once cared about doing the “right” thing…
but today, the conservative only cares about what the latest conspiracy
theory is…
so how do we judge “right and wrong”…by the help or damage it does to
an individual or a society… but as Iam will point out, how do we “know” what
is right an wrong given the conflicts that are inherent within a society
as to the “conflicting goods” theory that has what is good for one aspect or
part of society is bad for another part…as the holocaust is a perfect example…
some prosper and some died…from the exact same event…
as usual, the questions of existence leave us more questions then answers…
so what might the answer be to our question of “right and wrong?”
Kropotkin
so, in reading a new book by John Raphael Staude,
“Max Scheler” 1874-1928…
I came across a phrase I find very interesting…
Scheler writes this…
…common intellectual platform"…
and almost instantly we can see the difference between the 19th
century and the 20th century… starting with the various revolutions,
the political… American, French and Russian revolutions, along with
the scientific revolution… from Copernicus to Einstein, we see man/human beings
being driven from being the center of the universe to the far alone and isolated
member of a small, out of the way planet…
and we see the smallness of human being in the grand movements of
the industrial revolution which “made” man/human beings into very, very small
an insignificant, inconsequential and expendable part of the industrial complex…
whereas before this time, say 1850, we see human beings, especially in the west,
we see people having a “common intellectual platform” from belief in the state,
to the political, to the religious, to the question of “what it means to be human”…
before 1850 or even 1800, we see a commonality in beliefs… for example,
say god… and before 1850, there was no dispute about which god one
was speaking about, the Judeo-Christian god, but after 1850 which god was
one referring to, the Jewish god, the hindu god, the buddhist god, no god or
or even the much hated Islamic god…today, there are literally hundreds of
possibilities for us to refer to when we refer to “god”…not so much before 1850…
and we see a commonality in social beliefs, political beliefs, economical
and historical beliefs before 1850… a commonality that we do not see today
and haven’t seen in over a century…
so in essence there is no “common intellectual platform”
in today’s society… and hence we are faced with the divided society
that we see today…because which beliefs underlie today’s
society? what beliefs do we see today that will underscore the
“common intellectual platform” of today? None that I can see…
Kropotkin
from Max Scheler:
“Man is more of a problem to himself at the present time then
ever before in all recorded history”
if there was a motif to the “Modern” world, that would be it…
we are more of a problem to ourselves then ever before…
and why?
because of the various revolutions, scientific, political, philosophical,
and social…a revolution will take out or wipe away the prior problems or
understandings, but it won’t always bring about a new understanding of
what it means to be human…the various revolutions took away but they
didn’t replace what it meant to be human…
communism and capitalism and socialism all claim to have vision of what
it means to be human… and all three are on the rocks or have already failed…
which suggests that their vision of what it means to be human failed or was
very inaccurate/false…
instead of investing time in nonsense like IQ45 still being president or other
crap like that, UR and observe and Zero, should be investigating why, why today,
man is a problem to himself, now more then ever…
our investment should be into what it means to be human and what does it mean
to be an American… not crap like election fraud or other temporary, crap that
no one will remember in a year… who recalls the great events of 1993???
I was 30 something and I have absolutely no idea what the great crisis of 1993 was…
and that is my point… what seems like to be the greatest, most profound crisis
of human history, in a few years is completely and totally forgotten…so what
happened on Sept 15, 2008? it was a defining moment in American history and push
America into he worst economic crisis since the Depression?
you had to look it up, didn’t you… and that is my point
Kropotkin… and no, I am no going to help you figure out what happened that day…
from Max Scheer…
"…This new American elite would combine the arts of control over nature,
(technology) developed in the west, with the arts of self control and meditation perfected
in the east.
what he is calling for here, in 1926 or so, is the union of the technology
that we are so familiar with and the contemplation and meditation of
the east… a union, a synthesis between the methods of the east and
the control of the west…
kropotkin
and on the final page of “Max Scheler”
we find this:
“In a highly intuitive manner, he (Scheler) put his finger on one of the key problems
of our age: the lack of leadership and a sense of community that results from
rapid social change”
earlier I mentioned the lack of a “common discourse platform” I think that what
it was, anyway a common platform of discourse between the distinct groups in
both America and the world…the left and the right disagree with even with
what it means to be an American…we have no point of reference or platform
or a commonality to have a discussion about what it means to be an American…
and we can overcome this lack of commonality with leadership but that too has
fallen quite short in this day and age…we cannot agree on anything including
what the discussion should be about…
the left blames the right and the right blames the left and the middle
simple tries to walk away and ignore the entire discussion…
there is no courage or strength of values left to discuss…
the right says, Its my way or the highway…
the left says, Its our way or the highway…
and the middle says, keep me out of it…
and no one takes accountability or responsibility for their words or their actions…
so, what shall we do?
Kropotkin