reflection on philosophy and political science...

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

By no means are these to be considered
complete thoughts, these are simply
speculations on philosophy and political theory…

as I am still unable to walk after my surgery, I am
left reading, a lot of books, and my readings have
gradually drifted toward political science/theory…
and as part of my ruminations, I got to thinking
about the connection between philosophy and
political theory/science…

Philosophy, for the most part, is engaged in the one,
a single person reflecting on we are to approach and
react to life…

whereas political theory/science is a reflection on
how we are to approach more than just one person…
a society/state/ group/ culture/civilization…

How does philosophy, which is thinking about my place
in the universe, interact with political philosophy, which
is contemplation about the many or all of our places in the universe…

whereas philosophy will say, I am, political science, will say, we are…
is my understanding of what it means to be human, individually,
match up with what my understanding of what it means to be
human, collectively?

it isn’t enough to wonder about where we fit into society, individually,
we have to understand where we fit into society, collectively…

for human beings are social creatures, we are of the many,
as we cannot survive on our own, in every aspect of our lives requires,
demands that we work, play, govern, together… as I am one,
who needs the other to live…

my own engagement with the Kantian questions, individually
also must be an engagement with the Kantian questions,
collectively…

“What am I to do?” What should I believe in?" “What can I know?”

become collective questions, “What are we to do?”
“What should we believe in?” “What can we know?”

and what about the Socratic questions, “To know thyself?”
and the other Maxim, “The unexamined life isn’t worth living”

so how do we take these individual maxims and turn them
into collective maxims? “To know ourselves” but it doesn’t
seem to change the maxim, “The unexamined life isn’t worth living”…

so we take the second maxim, the Unexamined life, and we work on
that one first…

We rarely if ever, think about who we are in terms of the many, the state,
the society, the culture… I cannot become Kropotkin without the impact
and influence of the many, the state, the society, the culture…

who am I? becomes, who are we? We are the many, the diverse,
the almost infinite possibilities of existence… What I cannot
achieve singularly, I may be able to achieve collectively…
to become the best possible Kropotkin, requires the many,
the society at large…

thus ends this preliminary statement…

Kropotkin

2

YOU - as merely a drone in the collective - achieve nearly nothing.
YOU aren’t even a living being - merely a remote controlled organic drone flying over dissatisfied others.
Someone ELSE achieves - using your mindless impassioned obedience.
Someone ELSE lives a life of choices and decisions - to benefit HIMSELF.

If whoever is running your communist utopia happens to be a truly perfectly loving human (or AI) - THEN - you might be allowed to accomplish something for yourself - for a very short time.

3

it has been said that political science/theory
basically, is the question of who rules and who pays…

but that definition, while it is accurate, misses the point…
it ignores morality/ethical questions… how am I suppose to
treat you morally, ethical… and how do you treat me,
morally and ethically?

UR has argued for “Common sense” as the defining feature of
ethics and morals… the problem with that is it makes
ethics/morals, an ad hoc, situational ethics where the
situation dictates the morals… that there are no “absolute”
rules of ethics/morals… ethics/morals are whatever we make
of them via “Common sense”…but we can, by use of ''Common
sense" allow all sort of actions, murder, theft, child abuse,
slavery, the Holocaust, all become possible under the
guise of “Common sense”…it allows everything and prevents
nothing… I hope that there is something more solid
in terms of ethics and morals in regard to our actions then
just “Common sense” which pretty much allows everything…

If one were to think about philosophy over the last 200 years,
that the one question facing us is ETHICS/MORALS…
from Nietzsche to Sartre, every single philosopher engaged
in the question, what does it mean to be moral/ethical within
the context of our social/political life?

Postmodern philosophy as abandon that question as unanswerable…
but is it unanswerable? or do we do as UR has done,
and proclaim ethics/morals as “Common sense” or situational ethics?

Personally, I have no problem with situational ethics, the situation
dictates the ethics, but is there a possibility that we can
find some functional means of basing our ethics/morals on
some firmer ground than just "Common sense’’ or situational ethics?

Now some around here as suggested we use the command
from Jesus in the bible, the sermon on the mount…

“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye
even so to men”

or said another way, “Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do
to any other person”

and that is a nice sentiment, but the reality is, no one pays
any attention to this in a positive sense…we all have had
people attack us for no reason whatsoever… suggesting that
no one actual pays any attention to this idea of morals/ethics…

I think that the problem with this “do under others” is that
it is isolated from, taken out of context, removed from
our reality…so, let us put some meat on this…

“do under others as you would have them do to you?”

has no context… what is the goal of, the point of our actions?
If I go and hit you, what is the overall context of that action?
None, that I can see… and that is why it fails, not because it
is immoral or unethical, but it makes no sense in context…
If the goal of existence is to become wise, how does hitting you,
make me wise? If the goal of existence is to find love, then hitting
you makes even less sense… so we should take our actions and put
them into context, what is the point of existence? what goal are
we attempting to achieve? What type of society are we trying to
create? Given that context, given those goals, randomly hitting you,
makes no sense… Putting our actions into context, me hitting you,
then it makes no sense… it is a totally random action… and we know
that people do engage in random actions, but putting an action into
context, does me hitting you advance any of my goals to achieve wisdom,
or even the trinkets of existence in wealth or fame or titles?

so let us work this out some more… we know that many people
engage in Identity theft…the stealing of identities to make money,
to make one’s life better… but let us put this into context…
to steal with the intent of making money, that doesn’t advance
the cause of making society better or stronger or wiser,
it is an isolated event meant to improve one life and one life
only, the one who has stolen that identity…
it removes any sense of the society, the state, the culture…
it is an isolated event that has no bearing on the state or the society
except to weaken it… and we know from prior post, that the
major problem of existence is the question of energy, order,
vs the loss of energy, disorder… the entire question of the state,
the society revolves around order and disorder, energy vs losing energy…

and how does stealing solve this problem of order vs disorder?
in fact, stealing creates disorder and chaos… it is leading us
to increased entropy… and that means society is becoming disordered…
and if we go far enough into disorder, we die… individually and
collectively… and why would anyone help bring about our individual
and collective death?

and this will lead us to the next post…

Kropotkin

4

in the pursuit of happiness, we put ourselves first,
last and everything in between… if we are only in
pursuit of our own individual happiness, then
we can justify actions such as me hitting you
or the abuse of a child or stealing from
an orphanage… it is easy to do if, if we
have no other agenda besides seeking our
own happiness… we can justify, well everything,
in terms of our seeking our own happiness…
and this seeking personal happiness is
backed up by our economic and political systems…
capitalism is practically an entire economic system
devoted to one’s pursuit of happiness…
as is the general idea of democracy…
where we can decide for ourselves based on

“Common sense” what is beneficial for ourselves…
but “Common sense” isn’t geared toward the collective,
but toward the individual… MY own ''Common sense"
allows me to steal, or cheat or kill or rape without regard
to the collective or the community… because my own “Common
sense” isn’t connected to anything else besides my own needs
and wants… for it is “Common sense” to put myself first, last
and everything in between… with no regard to anyone else
for any other reason…

for we have to connect our actions to something besides
''Common sense" or extreme individualism…that is the hallmark
of current everyday life… given by capitalism and democracy,
the pursuit of my own happiness… regardless of how that affects
others…

we need to connect our action to the good of society by some
means… and that means is, perhaps, a connection to our overall
agenda, or goal we are trying to achieve…to remove from
life today, the false belief that we act in order to pursue
our own individual agenda, or happiness… to connect
our actions to the greater “good” whatever that may be…

to move our actions from an individual happiness to the collective
good…I act not because it will give me individual happiness,
but it is for the common interest of everyone… to put
the group ahead of the individual… for we are social creatures
and we must, must exist within the collective, for our mutual
benefit… it is within this context that we now put our actions into…
not for our sole benefit, but for the good of the collective…

that is why we reject tribalism and nationalism,
we must continue our current goal of going from
the one to the family to the tribe to the city to
the larger city, then city/state to regional, to
country and now we become attuned to what it means
globally for us to be human…at every single step of human existence,
we have expanded what it means to be human… from the family to
existing globally… and at some point in time, we will have
one world, without any individual nations or tribes, just people,
not today or tomorrow but someday… and I am working toward that
day when we move beyond ourselves and enter from one, the
individual to the collective, to all of us together… I look forward to that
day…

Kropotkin

5

a modern question, and perhaps the only question
facing us in terms of the state and society, is this
question of violence… at every step of the way,
we have been facing violence from the state/society
in terms of us following the rules/laws of the state/society…
break the rules/laws and the state/society reacts with
violence… can we organize the state/society without
this need for violence? for being put in jail is violence…
the answer for all crimes is violence against one’s person…
can we organize society/the state without recourse to this
violence?

In fact, all religions advocate violence against any who
fails to follow the religious agenda… that maybe consider
the commonality of religions…fail to obey us and we will/god will
weld his wrath, be violent with you… for the concept of hell is
a very violent place…

religions/ politics/ organizations, all advocate violence against
people if they fail to obey the rules/laws…
but can we motivate people by positive means, positive methods,
not with violence?

who knows, no one has tried…

the history of groups, states, religions, has been a history of
the violence of the group, state, religion against those who
fail to obey/follow the rules/laws…

now tie this idea into moral/ethics… can we be moral/ethical without
any recourse to violence? we can do so… if we see the benefits of
actions without trying to gain in some fashion individually, or said another
way, can we be moral/ethical given the current state given the only options
we have is capitalism and democracy which is about seeking one’s own
happiness without any thought to anyone else… Is the only possibility
for action lay in seeking our own happiness? Or can we
act in terms of the many or the collective? Become aware of
our actions in terms of what it means to others… to base our
actions on the possible outcome of what it means to other
people? to seek the happiness of others before we seek the
happiness of ourselves? can this become the rule of
ethics/morality? to seek other’s happiness before our own?
To do unto others happiness before our own? can this become
the ethical theory that frees us from the state sanction violence
used to control us?

This would require us to engage in a reevaluation of values…
to put others ahead of ourselves…to remove our current
emphasis on ego, of thinking solely about ourselves,
and consider others… what a radical concept…
to put others first…

Kropotkin

6

to change the operating principle of society/state from
every man for himself to pursue our own individual happiness
to what about you? the us before the I/me…

now people like UR will of course find all kinds of reasons,
to deny this reevaluation of values…and all of them will begin
with the “I”… you are wrong Kropotkin because I believe that
people are essentially… because conservatives hold that,
like Machiavelli, that people are unable to change, to become
something new…but that denies that you yourself has changed,
you are not the same person you were at 5 years old or the same
person you were in high school or in my case, I am not the same
person I was at 23 or 33 or 43 or even 53…as my situation changes,
I have changed… I am only a couple of years from retirement…
and thus I am in a different place in regards to my environment,
then I was 10 years ago…

More in a bit… wife is home…

Kropotkin