A risky life question

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

In thinking about people, just in general,
and it has been noted before, by many, that
for the most part, especially within the middle class,
or working poor, that their goal is no very high…
in other words, they aspire to a very modest life…
shelter, a car that works, a white picket fence,
and a dog name Troubles…

The goal of the vast majority of people is very limited…
and in the suburbs, where I have lived all my life, no one
aspires to greatness or becoming something special,
the middle class aspires to nothing more than holding onto
or slightly increasing one’s wealth…

but the question becomes why, why does the vast majority
of this country only aim to keep what they have or gain a bit,
they seek out nothing more than, at best, average… nothing
higher or nothing lower… and one wonders why?
Why don’t people seek out becoming greatness or even
at least rising above your basic average which is the
normal of the middle class…

I think there are several reasons why the middle and working class
in America especially, are happy with average or even mediocrity.
there is no drive to become something greater, higher, or to take
the ‘‘big risk’’… the vast majority of people are risk adverse…
to dare to dream big, to become greater than just middle class,
takes imagination and with every risk come the possibility of
failure…the greater the risk, the greater possibility of failure…
and if one dares greatness, one is at risk of great failure…
and it is hard to recover from such a failure…the vast majority
of people will only take very modest risks… at best…

the question becomes, is this risk aversion internal, or
is it external? Are we taught to avoid taking chances or
do we internalize being safe?

Personally, I have changed careers twice after the age of
30…but I was left with no choice… it was changing careers
or having nothing… In roughly 6 months, I shall make the
next big change in my life, and I will be retiring…
but that too is a great risk… what if I run out of money…
my mom outlived her money, and she has nothing…
my siblings took over her bills but not everyone is that
lucky… and it is the great fear of the retirement crowd to
run out of money after retirement…I suspect that is why
a lot of people don’t retire once they are able to… fear…
and I suspect that the vast majority of people act within
fear and not a positive emotion… and that is why
people avoid trying for greatness… from a negative,
fear instead of the positive, taking up a challenge…
most people turn to religion and god, not from love
of god or anything positive, no, people usually turn
to god and religion when they are at the end of the
rope… they have nowhere else to turn as they have
hit the bottom… and then, then they turn to religion
and god… but who turns to god and religion
when things are going good? if one is at the height
of their career, do they turn to god or religion? if one
has a loving, stable family life, do they turn to god/religion?
No… this tells us that the vast majority of people act from
negativity, not from a positive viewpoint…
a negative state of mind is one that will allow a turn to
god or a possibly rising above the normal middle class
mediocrity… what else is there to lose when one hits
the bottom? and that is what it takes for people to
try something else…

people tend not to understand what is possible unless they
are pushed into extreme states… when they are fired
or family sickness, or losing their home to a fire… it takes
extremes situations for us to discover what is possible for
us to achieve… What would it take for people to attempt
to achieve something more than middle class safety?

I think it would take the society at large to give
permission to people to attempt to achieve
the impossible or to risk more… and why would that
be important to do? Why should we encourage people to
take a chance or attempt risks they wouldn’t normally try?

Because that is how people grow, the risk we take help us
achieve our possibilities… it is somewhat risky to become
who we are… there is a risk in trying to achieve our
possibilities… but is the risk worth the effort to grow
beyond our middle-class modest aspirations?

and the answer comes from an understanding about
what it means to be human? is being human really just
about living a risk-free suburban life? where nothing is
ventured and nothing is gained…that depends on
how one feel about what is the point or goal of life is…
is life really about living a risk-free existence or is life
about taking chances and attempting to become
something greater than what you are now…

thus is the value of Philosophy… it is a means of
understanding what values are important and what
goals are really the goals worth trying for, worth
risking for…

or said another way: ''What am I/we to do?"
and why that path and not another?
to lead a safe but boring middle class existence,
is that really what life is all about, or do we
aspire to become something greater and in doing so,
risk?

that is the choice, what choice and why that choice do
you choose?

Kropotkin

2

part the middle class risk aversion, comes from its
education…Modern education is designed to train future
employees, not to create independent thinking people…
Education in America is designed to train people to work
at various jobs/careers… Modern education has no other
goal, no other purpose but job training…in which case,
we see ourselves as employees and not as human beings…
the other training we get as we grow up, is the attempt to
turn us into ‘‘good’’ citizens… I occasionally see bumper
stickers which say, "“God, country, Guns”… and this quite
nicely sums up most Americans values…with jobs/careers
being part of the ‘‘country’’ description…

and Kropotkin, what is the point of the ‘‘gun’’ part of the
bumper sticker? a gun’s only value is the threat of violence…
which is to say, that part of the educational process of American’s
is the acceptance of violence… America more than any other
country, glorifies violence and the threat of violence…
We hold that military sacrifice is the highest reward of
an American citizen… in its glorification of violence,
we nullify the real goal of existence… which is the pursuit
of peace… all that violence does is to perpetuate further
violence… it has no other goal or point… an eye for an eye…
that is all violence does, blind us…

As further proof of the love of violence or the threat of
violence that America has, I point out that out of
250 years of American history, we have been at war or
engaged in violence 230 years of that… genocide of the
native Americans for example… and today, there are those
in the White House that are itching to go to war with Iran…
and the black flag operation I noted a bit ago, about a
9/11 style attack on America next year, will bring us into
yet another war… it is far, far easier to work into war
and fighting than it is to seek out peace and friendship…
Peacemakers in America are dismissed and hated…
that comes from the Martial disposition of America…
where violence is cheered and peace is booed…

It is far riskier to try for peace than it is to engage
in war and violence… war and violence only need
an excuse, peace requires an essay… and most
people are too lazy to write an essay about anything,
especially something that is against, separate from
American values…

in our new education, we begin by seeking out peace and
not war/violence… we praise those who are the peacemakers,
not those who practice violence, like the police or the arm forces…
and that is why people today have turned away from the words
of Jesus, in the new Christianity, which is called ‘‘Masculine
Christianity’’ they expressly deny the word of Jesus..
as not being ‘‘Masculine’’ enough…that only within
war and violence, can men be whole again…
those in the ‘‘Masculine Christianity’’ have a special
hatred against women and feminism… but the truth
is that those who argue for ‘‘Masculine Christianity’’
are extremely insecure about their own ‘‘Masculinity’’
they have to overcompensate for their insecurity about
their manhood… those who argue against feminism,
have grave doubts about their own ‘‘Masculinity’’…
they are practically closet homosexuals in their fear
about their own manhood…

and once again, fear is the driver of our actions
and emotions… not from strength do they act,
but from fear and possible loss do they act…

So, what is the possible solution to these problems?
I would say Socrates has already answered this…
one: to know thyself… and two: the unexamined life
isn’t worth living… to know oneself is a private act
in which a person engages in self examination
to understand their own values and beliefs, not
the values and beliefs they were indoctrinated into,
‘‘God, Country, Guns’’ but what their true values are
and two by the ‘‘unexamined’’ life, we can examine
the state/society around us… the unexamined life
is the examination of our world around us including
our collective values, beliefs, institutions, and state…

a true examination of our values will lead us to, one hopes,
to an acceptance of feminism and peace and hope
and ‘‘WOKE’’ as being vital to the continuation of
our species… war and violence is a threat,
an ongoing threat to our existence… the only path
out is by accepting peace and not war/violence…
but that would take a reevaluation of values that
Nietzsche so often wrote about…

What values/beliefs do you really believe in and what
values and beliefs were indoctrinated into you?
that is the goal of being human… and part of
the means of escaping our own middle class
values and beliefs… rejecting the mediocrity of
the middle class/working class… and trying to achieve
something greater than a larger house and a white
picket fence… to dare, to risk which is something that
Americans are loath to do… to become something
that is greater than ourselves… individually and
collectively…

Kropotkin

3

but one might argue that Kropotkin has
created a ‘‘contradiction’’… he has argued for,
many times, argued for equality.. and this search
for equality has created the mediocrity of the middle
class… but this misses the fact that there
are many different forces at work in the world…
In America at least, the drive to create a corporate
world has driven workers into mediocrity…
one of the highest goals of our modern society is
to be a ‘‘good worker’’… one that helps create
profits… and in this search for profits, we have
denied human beings their value… for the corporate
world is a nihilistic world… one where the search for
profits have negated, diminished workers and their value…
therein lie your mediocrity… the devaluation of human
beings for profits… this is the drive for ‘‘equality’’ that
big business strives for… we are all equally devalued
in the pursuit of profits… we can have equality which
doesn’t devalue human beings and their values…

I still stand by democracy and equality, but we are
losing the battle for both by the ever-increasing drive
for profits and wealth… goals that devalue human beings…
we can still rise above and be equal to each other…
for as Nietzsche pointed out, the idea of the ‘‘Übermensch’’
is a personal drive, to overcome one’s animal nature and become
human… it is not about the accumulation of wealth or
material goods that make us above others, as capitalism
claims, no, it is about going from animal to becoming human…
to escape our animal instincts and replace them with
human values and choices… for animal instincts are not
about choices… the more instincts one has, the closer
one is tied to those instincts… to become human is to
learn to make choices… our humanity is tied to our
choices and our ability to make choices about our present
and future…I can be ‘‘equal’’ to others and still become
something greater by my seeking out my own possibilities…
the search for equality and the search for our own
possibilities are not mutually exclusive… we can have one
and still have the other…

One of our failures, one of many, is the idea that we
are equal before the law or politically, but not equal
economically…equality demands that we are equal,
but we can still strive for greatness and be equal to others…
there is no contradiction here… they are two different
and separate things… both equally worth seeking out…

Kropotkin

4

Work is the primary mode of existence in America…
the idea that there might be something outside of work,
is the primary heresy America today…
all that we are, is found within our corporation, our
jobs, our career… and that is all America has to offer…
the true definition of a human being is a worker,
working to make profits for his/hers corporation…
there are no other examples or lesson offered or given to American
workers today… one becomes holy by being a worker…
that is the American attitude today… but the reality is
that workers are diminished and devalued in reality,
but the words, oh, the language promises the world
to its workers… become a lifetime worker
and one is promised heaven on earth…
that is just more modern lies…

which is why they train workers to be risked averse…
to prevent them from attempting to become something
more than workers for the avowed goal of making profits…
which is to devalue workers into mechanical parts like
machines… expendable and not worth much…
and education done right, not as job/career training,
brings about the idea that people have value, above
and beyond just being a worker… education should
be about seeing that people discover what is truly
valuable in the world, that being human is
about being something greater than a worker…
we have value above and beyond our roles within
the state/society…instead we waste education in
teaching people the highest goal is to be wealthy
or to be a worker with a career… no, the highest goal,
the point of existence is to discover what is possible for
us to achieve within our own possibilities…education
is about finding out what is possible for us to achieve
and giving us the tools to achieve those possibilities…

One such educational goal is to teach people that being
‘‘WOKE’’ is not only a possibility but is a primary goal of
existence… to spot the value of people, all people
and then to act on that…instead of just job
training that is modern education…

the goal of education is to train human beings, not
workers… but that itself is something of a risk,
because one doesn’t or cannot know how that will
turn out… hence the hatred of the conservatives
including the MAGA crowd, of education…
because they think so little of people as to believe
that it is only by working can one find enlightenment
and satisfaction for oneself… but that is the big lie…
the goal isn’t to be happy, but to become something
other than just an animal…to become human…
and by working as a primary value, we forsake that…
attempt to become human…to rise above being
a mere animal… just following one’s instincts…
we are greater than that… if we only acted upon
that…

Kropotkin

5

I believe in world-peace as an objective… but…

“the real goal of existence… which is the pursuit of peace” That’s a bit much and an over-simplification?

Anti-gun? Another over-simplification? Should farmers not have guns? And society be overran by thousands of rats? What about the countries that are really serious about guns and ban gun-adjacent things like airsoft?

What about war-adjacent things like milsim, airsoft, videogames, etc.?? You do know that war is because of men, right? Do you want to ban only real wars or also anything that glorifies war?

Peace as the primary goal of existence? Peace is adjacent to the primary goal which is survival. Peace is ennui, boredom, and people seek to replace war with war-adjacent substitutes like videogames and airsoft. War is hell otherwise we’d be too fond of it.

6

Peace and war are not opposite states of living, they serve as alternative ways to cope with boredom. Too long lasting peace creates ennui, a state of taking it for granted described by ‘what else is new, or is that all?

A war changes that state with a blink of an eye, the privileged immediately become more humane, democratic, willing to share, not just assets but smiles, the become more aware of our common need to involve each other, afloat in the same boat,

War is a necessary hell, which serves to remind us that too long a peace can turn life into a literal hell,

7

Human brains too large to fit into nature, humans have expanded beyond reality, causing ennui.

Because the brains are so large, it makes the world feel small. Everything becomes a prison.

For example, if a game ships out with 4 maps, as Valorant did, at first it will feel novel and new. Then as you learn the game, you will increase IQ and knowledge of the game. Then the 4 maps that at first, felt brand new and like freedom, now feel like a prison.

Your first game feels new, your 100th, your 700th? Now you decide to do VR but it feels strange, there is no pain, no feeling of touch, something is missing.

All that is left is disenfranchised, disinvested males, to enlist, to join the front lines, to become cannonfodder, on the battlefield of an indifferent universe.

But the battlefield may be their last, humanities last. A platform for the Ai takeover of the planet.

All from ennui and male’s Leeroy Jenkins desires to charge out on a battlefield for no reason.

Death is not feared, but life. All are certain of death, but none are certain of what comes after. A new life on this planet, is assumed. A revival of indoctrination into Abrahamism and postmodernism, a re-education into social slavery.

Salvation from Sisyphus comes in the form of the Mind-wipe device. All entertainments, made new.