If I were to venture a guess, and I am doing
so right now, I would guess that one of, one
of the problems with the world today, is soul sickness…
But what exactly does that mean?
to be sick, physically sick, one is deviating
from the normal parameters of the body…
where the body normally holds to a 98.8 body
temperature, in sickness the body has a higher or
lower temperature… thus, indicating illness from…
well that is the second brick in the wall, any number
of things can cause the body illness… a virus, disease,
bacteria, fungi, protozoa, parasites or even stress…
so, what can cause our ‘‘soul’’ sickness?
We have the commonality of stress in our lives…
the weight of social pressures can cause us to become
‘‘soul sick’’… our jobs, lives, our social structure can cause
us to be ‘‘soul sick’’ the weight of socially conforming to
a society/state…the inability to see hope in our lives,
either present or future hope…and perhaps, the greatest
cause of being ‘‘soul sick’’… I would say in our age, nihilism…
of being devalued, dehumanized by our jobs, the society,
the state, even our education…
To point out education for example, we go to school to become
parts in a moving machine… we train/are educated to be cogs in
the machine… for that is what schooling is today, job training…
There is no attempt to educate people into becoming better
human beings, or to help people understand what it means
to be human… for our schooling is quite clear that we are
meant to be cannon fodder for business to use and abuse
and then tossed out when we can no longer produce profits…
This nihilistic belief that we are living our lives in service
of making profits… and that is our only purpose…
we don’t get any other message from the state/society other
than you exist to create profits for big corporations…
the entire life/work balance revolves around this point…
‘‘What am I/we to do’’ is basically about what it means
to be human… are we meant to spend our lives working,
or are we supposed to engage in the things that matter to us?
and modern day answer to this is, part of the society and
individuals, being ‘‘soul sick’’…
That the state/or society can also be ‘‘soul sick’’ cannot
be doubted… we can see periods of time within a state
or society where the state/society was clearly ‘‘soul sick’’…
for example, John Calvin Protestant ‘‘reformation’’ of
Geneva… is an example of a state/society being ‘‘soul sick’’
The trial of Socrates is another example of the state being
‘‘soul sick’’… and if you think about it, you will see why that
is true…
The rise of Anarchism within Russia around 1870-1890’s
is another example of the ‘‘soul sickness’’ within a state or
society… the society/state is so corrupt and dishonest,
that it becomes clear that the state/society must either
be reformed or removed… hence the rise of Anarchism
within the Tsar’s Russia… for the Tsar’s Russia was
a ‘‘soul sick’’ society/state… the act of holding millions
of people in poverty and destitution, which is soul crushing,
help bring about the various crisis of Russia starting in
1880 and going all the way to the Russian Revolution…
and all of it as a response to the nihilism of the Russian state…
Where the individuals were sacrificed to the greater good
of the state… Which as I have noted, is nihilism…
People want their lives to have meaning, purpose
and in a state like the Tsar’s Russia or the later
communism of Lenin, where once again, the individual
was sacrificed to the greater good… to the state…
(that is why, in part, why early communism failed…
it was focus on the larger picture and not on
people and what they needed)
For that is part of ‘‘soul sickness’’ where people find
their lives and needs are buried under the weight
of the needs of the state/society… Which is an
excellent description of modern day capitalism…
we the people, are sacrificed for/to the corporation
in return for greater and greater profits…
The modern day Nihilisms has directly led us to being
‘‘soul sick’’ lies in its political, social, economic
and legal existence… politically, we have no voice
in America today… that alone makes us ‘‘soul sick’’
for we are voiceless in modern day America…
We have no say in what happens to us politically,
for big corporations and wealthy individuals,
control the narrative of the state/society…
and the speech they use is of the corporation,
for the corporation, by the corporation…
Economically, we have no say in our lives…
big business has no room for the needs or voices
of the individuals within that corporation…
Legally, we see a two-track legal system, one track/tier,
is for the wealthy, and other tier is for the rest of us…
or put it this way, if I was convicted of 34 counts
of felonies, I would be rotting in prison for the rest of
my life… but because of wealth and power, one who
has 34 felony convictions gets elected President…
I wonder how that worked?
America is ‘‘soul sick’’ as its citizens are also ‘‘soul sick’’
and how can it not be, given the nihilism that
has infected America… in all aspects of America,
politically, socially, economically, legally… all
‘‘soul sick’’ …
Ok, Kropotkin, let us for argument’s sake, grant you your
argument… Now what?
It begins where it always begins, by becoming aware of,
of realizing there is a problem and the problem is that
both America and its citizens are ‘‘soul sick’’…
a solution can only come from an awareness
that there is a problem…
Today we cannot solve the ‘‘soul sickness’’
of either individual’s nor the society/state
‘‘soul sickness’’… until we become aware of the
nature of our illness…today, we can’t even
admit there is a problem, to claim their is a
problem within America will get one called
a socialist, a communist, a liberal, a democrat…
we can’t even admit to having a problem without
being demonozied…
So, where does the solution lie?
First in admitting there is a problem, that is always step one…
the second part comes in admitting the problem lies in
the nihilization of our lives…Socially, politically, legally,
economically, we are living nihilistic lives…
living lives that have no value other than creating profits
for big business…
(nihilism: the act of denying or dehumanizing people’s
lives and their needs/values)
The next step in reclaiming our lives from Nihilism
is to find ways to reduce our lives from the modern state/society…
fighting for a much better work/life balance is an excellent
start to this divorce… not to divorce ourselves permanently
from work, but at least to gain our lives back… not to
be engaged in work 24/7/365…or make work our main
goal or purpose in life…
The Kantian question, ''What am I/we to do?" is that answer,
work 24/7? is that going to give our lives meaning or
purpose? and if it/work does give your life meaning/purpose,
you have become entirely ‘‘soul sick’’… and you can’t even
see it…the quest is to become human, not as we are
today, animal-human, or even some are not more than
animal, but to overcome our animal nature and grow
into becoming human…
To spend our lives working, as giving meaning, then we
are spending it as animal, not human… for what do
animals do outside of constantly trying to meet their needs?..
Not much… for there is no outside life for animals other
than meeting their needs… but we are human, at least in
theory, and we must have other interests than just meeting
our basic biological and psychological needs…
otherwise, we are just animals if all we do is
spend our time meeting our biological or psychological
needs…
So, answer the question…''What am I/we to do?"
if our time is not spent on gathering our biological
or psychological needs…to what end do we exists
if we are not focused on meeting our needs?
and working our lives away is only just meeting
our needs, nothing more…Then what should
we be doing? ''What am I/we to do?" if not
meeting our needs?
therein lies the question of our modern day ‘‘soul sickness’’,
in that we are so engaged in working, we forget that we
are also human and we must address that side of being
human…
‘‘What am I/we to do’’ if we are not focused 24/7 on work?
What else is there?
the answer to our ‘‘soul sickness’’ lies in finding an answer to
this question of ''What am I/we to do?" if the answer is not work?
Kropotkin
