Our current malaise and its causes

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

its late and I am exhausted from work, but I want
to get this idea out before I forget it…

In thinking about the various isms that dominate are world,
oh since 1800 or the beginning of the ''Modern world""
and especially since 1900 and one can connect the various
isms with violence and the creation of problems…
for example, we can see that the ism of nationalism,
has created many more problems than it has solved…
as has capitalism… with the educational system now
being nothing more than a vocational training program…
education from top to bottom, from grad school to grade
school, all emphasize job training over any other aspect
of education… thus nullifying the real task of education…
which has nothing to do with job training and has everything
to do with teaching people what it means to be human…we
are not the sum of our vocational skills, but we are far greater
than that…perhaps the least important part of being
human is our job skills…and what is the most important
part of education? to answer the Kantian questions,
''What am I/we to do?" ''What can I/we know?" ''What
should we believe in?" (which is to say, what values should
we hold) those are the questions of existence… not how
do we make money… for the act of making money is
a temporary one… I have had many different jobs and
3 completely different career changes… and I am not alone…
and if this is the case, then a job has little meaning if it
is so easily replaceable…and ever careers are easily
changed…

and what about the other isms that dominate the world today?
the isms of hate and anger and despair? the right wing conservative
isms? is the world a safer place because of those isms? do you
personally feel safer given the modern isms you have?
think about it… we have multiple wars right now, we are
as human beings, in a deep dark funk or malaise about the
world today… and I believe it is due to the failure of
our current isms that inhabit the world today…the isms
of religions and capitalism and nationalism and anti-human being,
the nihilistic isms of our world that have created deep divisions
within the world today… those worldwide isms have not
made the world safer or have freed us from the malaise of
our days…we are angry and confused and are filled with
hate and fear… and all of it is due to the nihilistic nature
of our isms today…

for we cannot separate out the world and our isms… they go
hand in hand… and we are the victims of our isms just
as surely as the Jews were victims of the Nazi isms…

and so, what is the escape? The first step, as always,
is a recognition of the fact there is a problem…
we can’t fix a problem if we can’t see there is a problem…
and the solution? We must work out new isms and values
that make more sense of our environment today…

isms and values that no longer are dominated by nihilism…
like the major isms of today are nihilistic to the extent of
bringing about the malaise and fear that is so much a
part of our modern world… to escape nihilism requires
us to identify those nihilistic isms, capitalism, communism,
nationalism, Catholicism (which is a stand in for all religions)
political isms of conservatism and even liberalism… any
ism that creates an ‘‘us’’ vs ‘‘them’’ attitude, is an ism that
must be discarded, removed from our lives…

you want to fill whole and together? then you have to hold
beliefs that are engaged in bringing people together,
not separate them, or isolate them as the major isms of
today do…

to work on values and beliefs that bring us together as one,
not separate us into atoms or discrete beings…as all the
major isms and value systems do today… capitalism, nationalism,
Catholicism, communism, conservativism, and even liberalism…
to name a few isms of today that must be junked and discarded
before they bring us to our knees and destroy us…

Isms that bring us together… not separate us…
what values or isms does that?

Kropotkin

2

Still deep into Spinoza… in reading Della Rocca’s book,
‘‘Spinoza’’ he talks about the striving of a human being,
in seeking their ‘‘happiness’’ is striving for more power…
(see della Rocca) striving for more power or trying to prevent
one from having less power is the goal…but I question
both the striving for happiness and the striving for power,
as objectives for human beings… as one of the trinkets of
existence, power, it is, at best, temporary and fleeting…
and as far as happiness goes, few if any actually knows,
understands what makes them happy… enough people
believe that torturing little puppies, is what will make them
happy, that I sometimes fear for the world…
and this belief brings us back to the notion that
in some fashion, private vices will bring us public good…
private vices that bring us happiness are often not vices that
make the world a better place…public good requires,
no demands that our vices, our private vices must be
in some fashion also good… which is to say, a benefit
for our society/state in some fashion…

Human beings are so tied at the hip with the society/state, that
we cannot practice private harm, without doing public harm…
every single aspect of our lives is within the public sphere,
the state/society… we cannot escape that…
the idea that we can achieve private power that doesn’t
collide with the state/society is just not possible…
does this mean we roll over and allow the state/society
to completely dominate us? not at all…

This question of the role of the individual within the state/society
has been around since the day monkey climbed out of the tree’s…
and virtually every single philosopher has grabbled with this
question… especially over the last 200 years in which
the various revolutions, the scientific, religious, political,
social, economic and philosophical revolutions that has
rocked our modern world… our world is vastly different
from the Medieval world because of the changing
nature of the role of the individual within the
state/society… This was one of Luther’s points…
the one, the individual didn’t need the vast hierarchy
of the church to know what was in the bible and what
Jesus preached… the individual could know as well
as the state/society what salvation looked like…

an interesting book could be written about the changing
nature of what salvation looked like in 1500 and what it
looks like today… for today, salvation is not religious,
but economic… one is saved if they are wealthy enough
to have ‘‘fuck you’’ money… the economic change of
salvation is capitalism input into a formally religious
question…

Perhaps here we can tie into this Nietzsche’s “Übermensch’’
and our modern-day idea of salvation… as I mentioned,
salvation today is tied into the economic… but what if,
what if salvation were tied into Nietzsche’s ''Übermensch?”
And what exactly is this ''Übermensch?"
As Nietzsche made clear, it is not the power of one over
others, but the power or control one has over himself…
for Nietzsche, as it should be, the human battle is not
out there, but within us… the search for power is the
search for control, power over ourselves…
let us put some bones on this meat…

Addictions… people are addicted to a great many things,
common ones are booze, drugs, sex, gambling… and what
is an addiction? the entire point of addiction is that the thing
one is addicted to, is in control of the body… being addicted
to drugs means we do everything we can to get more drugs…
the drugs are in control, we are not… the booze is in control,
we are not…one addiction that is not talked about, but
it should be is perhaps, the most destructive addiction of them
all… the addiction to money…to wealth… and we see
this all the time… IQ45 as does Musk are both addicted to
gaining wealth… one might say, money equals power,
but this doesn’t really change the equation… the addiction
to hold power over others by wealth is still an addiction…
to seek out wealth/money at all costs is an addiction…
an addiction that has the society/state blessing…
this is why there is no commentary about wealth addiction…
it is socially beneficial… to those who hold wealth
or value wealth…if you have a lot of money, the best
way to keep that money having some value, is to make
money the most valuable thing around…people will
kill over the smallest amount of money and the those
with wealth cheer it on… it makes their money more
valuable… if the goal of life was to own baseball cards,
then the one’s with the most baseball cards, wants the price of
the cards to be as expensive as possible… just as those
with money, want money to be as valuable as possible…
change the want and you turn all those wealthy people into
poor people because money will have no value… it
becomes useless… and whoever has the new thing,
be it baseball cards or books, they are the new king of the hill…
the entire capitalistic idea of supply and demand nicely
explains this…

and plenty of people think, because of the childhood
indoctrinations, that money, wealth has some inherent
value… it is salvation…it is the cause of happiness…
enough money and one will be happy…
that is the myth, the superstition being sold in
America over the last 150 years…it is
the American salvation myth of the last 150 years…
but money, as does fame or power, or material possessions,
or titles… don’t bring us happiness… happiness is a byproduct
of doing something else… wealth can only bring us more wealth,
as fame can only bring us more fame and material possessions
can only bring us more material possessions…

We can’t use money to bring us the essential psychological
needs of existence… love, esteem, safety/security,
cannot be met by an infusion of cash…money can get
us our bodily needs of food, water, shelter, health care,
education… but not our psychologically needs…
and how are we to be ‘‘happy’’ if our psychological needs
are unmet?

If we were to change the paradigm of being human from
the pursuit of happiness and power, to the Socratic
motto’s of ‘‘know thyself’’ and ‘‘the unexamined life isn’t
worth living’’ I believe it would change the fundamental
nature of what it means to be human… where we
seek out public goods by private goods…
the act of creating a better society/state comes
from our public goods coming from our private good, not
private vices… and seeking out private good, is not,
not necessarily about seeking out our happiness…
which is more likely, not always, but more likely to
involve us in our private vices, not in our private good…

and thus, the role of the individual is to better the state/the society
by our acting, in private, private goods, and not our private vices…
thus, we no longer seek out our happiness, which often involves
private vices… and in benefiting the state/society, we
personally benefit… we do better when the state/society is
doing better…or "“a rising tide raises all boats”…
and that can only happen in our doing private good
for a public good, which improves our state/society…

Kropotkin

3

we often hear, at least in philosophy, the search for
the ‘‘essence’’ of something…seeking out the ‘‘essence’’
of something is philosophy 101… and yet, we have yet,
discovered the ‘‘essence’’ of human beings… what does
it mean to be human? What is the ‘‘essence’’ of being human?"

ESSENCE: The intrinsic nature of or indispensable quality
of something, especially something abstract, that determines its
character…

Essence in philosophy: a property or group of properties
of something without which it would not exist or be what it is…

So, what property or group of properties, defines what
it means to be human?

The essence of a human being is…

and I hold that because we are unable to answer that question,
it is part of our current malaise that we are in…
if we were to answer, every single person has a different
essence, then what connects us as human beings?
There has to be something that connects us, be a common
example of the essence of being human… and what is that?
Perhaps seeking, but seeking what? Knowledge, happiness, glory,
wealth, power, sex, drugs? are we looking to add something
to the human experience or are we subtracting something?
is this human experience of ours, is it complete as is, or
does it need something to make it complete? and what is that
something that we need to complete the human experience?
Love, esteem, safety/security, or do we need to fully
embrace the bodily needs of food, water, shelter, health
care, education in order to become complete?

what is missing or not missing from the human experience?
and how do we know, what is the ‘‘essence’’ of the
human experience?

human questions that demand human answers…
thus, removing such guesses as god, or heaven, or
hell or angels or the devil…

So, what is the ‘‘essence’’ of human beings?

Kropotkin

4

The essence of the human being is consciousness without which there is no knowledge. In fact, without consciousness nothing can be said to exist. This is self evident.

5

.
Which ’school of thought’ did you get that notion from Felix?

6

The school of my own consciousness. Descartes said “I think therefore I am” In other words, his thought appeared in his consciousness. Consciousness is the essence of being. Without it there is no intelligence. Being conscious of being conscious is meta-consciousness. That’s the essence of being human. From that center proceeds the ability to represent cognition symbolically in images. This is the most powerful resource on the planet. Through it came the science of nuclear fission. Now research is focusing on nuclear fusion which can generate power like the sun does. It’s been done four times on a small scale. If they can scale it up, it could solve humanity’s energy problems.

7

He said he is a thinking thing. He also clarified for Hobbes that the thought is not the thinking thing. That is why we can say there is such a thing as an “intrusive“ thought. The character of our thoughts is not the same thing as the one thinking them, but there is a relationship.

8

There are the facts/data (evidence), and then there are the interpretations of those facts/data (evidentiary matter… as opposed to… ground matter).

My previous reply applies even to God. That is why monism doesn’t work. It’s structural.

9

Descartes was aware of himself as a “thinking thing”. Awareness is primary. Descartes conceived of the mind as what Daniel Dennett called the “Cartesian theater” an inner mental stage in which metaphorical objects (ideas) are illumined by an inner light, the “natural light of reason”. I maintain that this is a metaphor for consciousness which goes back at least to the first century of the common era. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, referring to the Logos it says “In him was life and the life was the light of men.” (Verse 3) In verse 9 it says “that was the true light which gives light to every man…”

10

That ordinary waking consciousness ordinarily projects structure, I do not dispute. To apply that way of working to God is a leap too far. In deep sleep the structures disappear. Where do the structures go?

11

They don’t go anywhere. They are a repository where they are pushed down to certain levels which limit access, they turn up when limits are reached , then they reappear as nightmares or illuminations , only a few of them are remembered( the insignificant ones quickly fade

12

…if only humanity could live up to the word ‘humanity’ -fusion or no fusion- that would be great… :+1:t3:

Yes, it takes consciousness to recognise consciousness/its self, so a lemniscatic process… the consciousness, the gift that keeps on giving. Those that meditate know. ; )

1 Like
13

You honestly think the world disappears when you lose consciousness? You honestly think it reconstitutes solely by your regaining of consciousness?

If God could lose consciousness, that would make sense.

Mayhaps you should?? I sense you have misunderstood (not just) me.

14

That’s life in the Kali Yuga. A good time to transform. That’s what we’re here for. “ Lemniscatic”,great word! I had to look it up. The saints keep their minds set on the figure eight mantra.

15

That’s your conception not mine.

Exactly. I agree.If God is omniscient and omnipresent, God cannot lose consciousness. How then can God be omnipotent? The Sanscrit word for the ever conscious one is turiya the brahman conscious even in deep sleep, coma, all states of relative consciousness .

16

The quest is to understand the relationship between
being human and the Kantian questions…
““What am I/we to do?” ''What can I/we know?”
''What should I/we believe in?"

and then we think about our current ism’s… focusing
on capitalism… the goal of being human is, said to be
anyway, being happy… it says so, right in the Declaration
of Independence… and yet, I have often stated that
the pursuit of happiness is vastly overrated…and not
even the point of existence… so, how does this
goal of happiness fit into capitalism?

the search in capitalism is for ‘‘private vices’’… recall
the famous saying, ‘‘Greed is good’’ and yet, how
do we reconcile the motto of capitalism with the
current state of malaise in the modern world?

capitalism feeds one side of the equation… that of body…
to the needs of the body… food, water, shelter, health
care, education…but capitalism fails in the second side
of being human, the psychological…the search for the
second side of being human is not about the bodily
needs but the psychological needs…

The need for love… a crucial need, if not the
primary need of human beings… and in capitalism,
the primary pursuit is of wealth, and if one gains ‘‘love’’
because of being wealthy, then it is the wealth that
attracted the love, not the person… the love was the love
of wealth, not of two people…thus, any love found on
the basis of wealth is not real love but the love of money…

Using the idea of ends and means, one can often
work out what is true… if someone is pursuing wealth,
and seeking out someone with wealth, that isn’t love,
that is the pursuit of money/wealth… the goal and the
means counts for a great deal in our existence…
so, what are you seeking in terms of the ends and the means?

Asking oneself, what am I pursuing/seeking and why that
pursuit? Why not another? And therein lies the problem
with capitalism… the pursuit of ‘‘private vices’’ leads us
to the trinkets of existence… to seeking out fame, wealth,
titles, material possessions and power…all of which is
‘‘ad hoc’’, of the moment… there is nothing permanent
in the trinkets of existence… there of the moment and nothing
more…so to seek out one’s happiness in such temporary,
of the moment values… and that is capitalism in a nutshell,
to seek out values of the moment… wealth, titles, fame,
material possessions and power…Why not seek out
far more permanent values? Even the psychological
needs of love, of a sense of belonging, of having
esteem, of safety/security are, in a sense, also
temporary… in having been married 28 years,
I can see that type of love as being more permanent
than the temporary values of wealth, power, fame,
material possessions or titles…

I believe that because of the nihilism of capitalism,
that capitalism seeks out wealth and fame and titles
instead of more permanent values, to put money
(the pursuit of money ahead of people is nihilism)
as the primary means or goal of happiness is the
path to failure… thus I hold that capitalism and the
pursuit of capitalism is the path to failure…
both individually and collectively…

if we take away capitalism as one of the primary
''What am I/we to do?" means, then what is left?
I hold that those who engage in the pursuit of capitalism
are not happy people… and how can one be happy
given the nihilism of capitalism…
where money has priority over people…
so, what should we be engaged with?

And that is the question…if the ism of capitalism
is a failure, and it is in large part, the reason for the
malaise of America, then what ism should we engage
with and why that ism? we must engage in isms that
put people first, not wealth as capitalism does…
and until we do, the current malaise of America/world
will continue to fester…

Kropotkin

17

That is like saying “God cannot lose power, therefore God is not powerful.”

18

It’s absurd. I know. It is the limits problem of theism. The Advaita Vendantists call it the problem of “name and form.” According Shankara all such are illusory.

19

IF you have correctly represented them, and I have correctly understood you … maybe they’re seeing a problem where there is none? It must be very confusing, not to be able to tell the difference between real power and false power.

20

I started to reply to this previously, but I guess I changed my mind about replying, because there is no reply there.

Let’s start over. Am I wrong in assuming that you think that is my view, because my view is that all being comes from Being, rather than going into (approaching, or being drawn/chosen to/by) Being from outside?