Thanking iambiguous for his contributions to ILP

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I am publicly thanking IAM for his tremendous contributions to ILP…

I am grateful for his being so diligent in his work to get us on ILP to
actual think about what we hold to be true…

it is not enough for us to hold certain beliefs, we have to understand
why these beliefs and not other beliefs that becomes so important…

I am a liberal, one who holds that other peoples life matter as much
as my life… but then I have to work out why this belief and not
the other beliefs…I can be a conservative and declare that my life
is the only life that matters, but once again, why this belief and not
other beliefs?

and we work out our beliefs in terms of the indoctrinations that we
were born with, our family, and were indoctrinated with in school, church,
the state, the media, and within society…do we hold onto those indoctrinations
as we grow older or, or do we do challenge those beliefs as in a reevaluation of values,
as Nietzsche put it…the socio-political milieu we all exists within requires that
we hold certain beliefs to be considered “good citizens” or to be “good human beings”
but who has the courage to boldly examine those beliefs to see if they have
any actual value for us? the question becomes, why these beliefs and not other beliefs?

and IAM challenges us to reexamine our beliefs in terms that he has laid out, but
few, and around here, it is very few, perhaps none, actually try to work out what he is saying…
and I am quite glad that he is here to force to examine and reexamine our beliefs
in whatever terms we care to reexamine them in…

people around here shut Iam out but not because of what he says, because
he brings people to the realization that their beliefs really can’t be justified
rationally… hence most people around here use emotions, variations
of Romanticism to justify their beliefs…being conservative is just
another example of the 19 century Romanticism… it is enough to hold beliefs
if we “feel” they are right, not if they have any validity in them… rational thought is
discounted because it reeks of the much hated “Enlightenment”

feelings and emotions are what count to the conservative…

and IAM forces us to wonder by which process do we hold our beliefs…

rationalism or emotionalism?

so, what system do you hold your beliefs?

rationalism or emotionalism?

Kropotkin

2

I commented upon the much hated “Enlightenment” but why is the
“Enlightenment” so hated?

what was the cry of the “Enlightenment”?

“Sapere Aude”

Which is Latin for “dare to know” or loosely translated as
“Dare to know things” or even more loosely translated as,
“Dare to be wise”…

but to “dare to know” requires a level of courage that most people
don’t have… because to “dare to know” means going against the
conventional wisdom of the era…

who here has the courage to go against the conventional wisdom of
our modern age, in which wealth and power and titles and fame are
what the “modern” person pursues… we don’t seek wisdom, we
seek wealth and fame… and who is brave enough to challenge that
conventional wisdom?

to “dare to know” requires courage and few, nay, none here on ILP has
courage enough to challenge the conventional wisdom of this modern age…

what does it mean to be human? who actually asks that question?

does being human require us to have which values?

in other words, being human is a question of which values are deemed
to be important…

and we are in crisis in the modern world because we are in pursuit of the
wrong values… values like wealth and power and fame and titles…
they lead us nowhere and to nothing…

some here, some, often decry the lack of morals and the lack of civility,
but they fail to find it because we are not engaged with the values of morality
or of civility… we are engaged in seeking material goods and wealth… and not
in doing the right thing… that is passe’… it doesn’t help one get to
being a good citizen which is an engagement with seeking wealth or
fame…

society/the state in in deep shit because we are not seeking the things that
make life worth living… an understanding of who we are, “to know thyself”
and we are not engaged in Socrates “the unexamined life is not worth living”…

we seek easy, cheap measures that help us avoid self knowledge or
any type of examination of our values and what is actually important…

let us ask a question, where the Nazi’s right in their values?

who knows because we avoid searching for what our values are and what
they “ought” to be…

we don’t want to do the hard work and possible personal crisis that results
when we actually engage in the hard work of self examination…
and “knowing thyself”

so we avoid it… we simply go with what society/the state requires us to do,
even if, if it is the wrong path… and wrong path being the path that leads us
to accept as normal or right, the placement of children in concentration camps
or the acceptance of poverty and hunger in America/the world as a price to pay
for our own personal comfort and standard of living…

there are those around here/ILP who accept the system of Capitalism even
though it forces millions of people to live in poverty and hunger, but
as long as we are one of the “winners” who live a comfortable life without
any sacrifices, such as in food instability or possible evictions from our home,
then we can safely ignore the plight of others in dire straights because
we are safe and have our needs met…and our political and social
beliefs allow us to escape the demands of seeing others as victims of
our institutions that exists within capitalism…

holding to beliefs such as capitalism allows us escape from our
beliefs being the reason millions are in poverty… we can
breath safely because we aren’t being held accountable
for holding beliefs that sentence millions to poverty and
hunger…it is the system that sentence millions to poverty,
not me… but you can’t escape the responsibility so easily…

try as you might, you are as guilty of all those millions being in
poverty as anyone else is responsible including me…

because you hold to capitalism as “the economic system” of choice…
we are responsible for our choices, even if we make those choices
with millions of other people…

in other words, this is about accountability for our choices…
if we proclaim capitalism as the reason for our “standard of living” then
we must also hold capitalism responsible for the millions in dire straights
who are barely hanging on…

and as believers in such systems as capitalism, we too must be held
accountable… just as we hold the citizens of Nazi Germany
accountable and responsible for the rise of Nazi’s…

if we acquiesce to a system that allows millions to be in poverty,
then we are to be held responsible for that system as well…

you cannot take the credit and refuse the blame for the exact same
system…

taking credit and taking blame must be the same for every person and
every system…

Kropotkin