The enlightenment path

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Having made the Enlightenment as my ‘‘historical’’
period of choice, I endeavor to practice those values
of the Enlightenment…

But what are those values? They are negative values…
to fight ignorance, superstition, intolerance, bigotry…
and to replace those values with positive values…
reason, knowledge (the motto of the Enlightenment
was Sapere aude… Dare to know) understanding,
tolerance, and in their own way, being authentic…

Is holding onto age old superstitions as fact, really
being authentic? Is engaging in ignorance really
being an authentic human being? is holding onto
conspiracy theories, as many around here do, I’m looking
at you Humanize, is that really necessary for the growth
of becoming human? I would argue that holding to superstitions
and ignorance and bigotry, are a sign of immaturity
and makes one less of a human being… that the
path to becoming human, as I have defined it often enough,
is the path of becoming enlightened… to use reason
and knowledge and tolerance as one’s base, not
superstitions like god or nationalism or even conspiracy theories…

Instead of being proud of my superstitions and ignorance,
I would want to banish them, replace them with
understanding and knowledge and tolerance,
enlightened values… think of the ‘‘great’’ men
in history, they didn’t practice ignorance or lacked
knowledge or engaged in superstitions, for they rose above
those things… Goethe, for example, he didn’t practice
or promoted superstitions, like Christanity… Gandhi
didn’t practice or promote ignorance and MLK certainly
didn’t practice or promote intolerance… ‘‘Great men’’
are great because they advance the cause of understanding
and knowledge and tolerance… Napoleon was ‘‘great’’
not because he conquered Europe, but because he took
great pains to bring French enlightenment ideals and
spread them all over Europe… Modern Europe exists,
the welfare states, exists because Napoleon brought those
ideals from France…and after Napoleon was gone, it
took decades for those ideals to be put into practice,
but there is always a gap between the theory and the practice
of values… (there are several theories of science and philosophy
that haven’t been implemented yet, or turned into practical
application, the theory of relativity for example, but they will
be)

the fight to become human, to overcome our past of being
animals, goes through the overcoming of superstitions
and ignorance and intolerance… becoming enlightened
about what it means to be human… to use reason instead
of conspiracy theories, to use knowledge instead of ignorance,
to use tolerance when most practice intolerance…

the goal or destination should be to rise above what you are
today… today, you stand somewhere between being animal
and being human, the goal is to become fully human,
by banishing superstitions and ignorance and intolerance…

to become enlightened… do you practice the enlightenment
motto, ‘‘Sapere aude’’ or do you embrace superstitions
and ignorance?

Kropotkin

2 Likes
2

What an odd batch of people to choose. All but Napoleon clearly had spiritual beliefs and for Ghandi and MLK these were utterly central to how they considered themselves and the context of nearly all the work we know them for.

Goethe mixed Eastern Religions with Pantheism and even took some from Christianity. It doesn’t seem like he promoted his beliefs, but he certainly had non-secular beliefs.

Ghandi was a devout Hindu and definitely religious, with a dash of syncretistic aspects to his beliefs.

MLK was about as Christian as one could possibly be. He was an ordained Baptist minister and was actively a pastor throughout his life. Christianity was integrated in everthing he did.

Napolean did spread Enlightenment values but at the same time he constrained them. He also took away rights and increased autocratic power.

But it has, in for example, gps technology and they aslo use both his relativity theories in relation to satellites.

What, there aren’t any conspiracies?

Humans are animals and to be fully human includes being a social mammal. If anything Enlightenment thinkers in general, though clearly not the sadist Descartes, began to pick away at the differences between humans and animals. Generally Christianity had a much harder line between the animal and the human. Slowly over the centuries this bias has been eaten away at.

3

to hold onto superstitions such as god or conspiracy theories,
they prevent one from moving down the road of
becoming human… those who hold to this path
of ignorance, they cannot become fully human…
for becoming human, fully human requires us to
to hold to human values… values like reason,
understanding, knowledge, tolerance, to name a few
values that promote human values, not values of
superstitions and ignorance which are animal values…

most people fail to see or understand what it
means to be human… we are not fixed entities,
we are not locked into set positions or values…
we change and adapt and move as we age
and/or become enlightened…

think about your childhood… as a small child, one lives
in a magical world thinking… where things just happen
for no reason… an action occurrs, say a dog is able to
get next to a small child without the child noticing…
the child will simply accept this as a magical doing,
one second no dog, the next second dog, and no thought
as to how this happened, or why… for a small child,
there is no such thing as cause and effect…
stuff just happens…magically… but as we grow
up, we begin to make connections between cause
and effect… we can connect the dots between something
happening and possible causes of that happening… that
is what growing up means… learning to make connections
that weren’t apparent when we were small…

For me, holding onto conspiracy theories, is a child’s
connection to the world… for believe in or faith in
conspiracy theories requires magical thinking…
for conspiracy theories don’t require evidence or facts,
just a faith or belief in them… for example, Humanize
is a holocaust denier… for me, that is holding onto
a conspiracy theory or a superstition… one could
for decades, talk to the many survivors of the holocaust,
today, there are only a very small number of holocaust
survivors… who were only small children at the time…
but there is a vast amount of evidence, knowledge about
the Holocaust… it is insane to hold to the belief
of denying the holocaust… or those who hold
to the flat earth belief, or other conspiracy theories…
the ‘‘deep state’’ and ‘‘the stolen election’’ are two
such conspiracy theories that deny the facts, the
evidence… they are the opposite of seeking out
knowledge, to dare to know… to hold to conspiracy
theories is holding to superstitions and other childhood
beliefs… to hold onto magical values and beliefs…

and that is not the path to becoming an adult,
the path to becoming aware of, of making
knowledge and understanding a part of
your being human…magical values and beliefs
are childhood appropriate, but not adult or fully
human appropriate… what values do you hold
and why those values? and are those values
leading you to become human or are those values
holding you to being a child with magical beliefs?

Kropotkin

4

greenfuse:
What an odd batch of people to choose. All but Napoleon clearly had spiritual beliefs and for Ghandi and MLK these were utterly central to how they considered themselves and the context of nearly all the work we know them for.

Peter_Kropotkin:
Goethe, for example, he didn’t practice
or promoted superstitions, like Christianity…

GF: Goethe mixed Eastern Religions with Pantheism and even took some from Christianity. It doesn’t seem like he promoted his beliefs, but he certainly had non-secular beliefs.

Peter_Kropotkin:
Gandhi didn’t practice or promote ignorance

GF: Ghandi was a devout Hindu and definitely religious, with a dash of syncretistic aspects to his beliefs.
MLK was about as Christian as one could possibly be. He was an ordained Baptist minister and was actively a pastor throughout his life. Christianity was integrated in everything he did.
Napolean did spread Enlightenment values but at the same time he constrained them. He also took away rights and increased autocratic power.

Peter_Kropotkin:
there are several theories of science and philosophy
that haven’t been implemented yet, or turned into practical
application, the theory of relativity for example, but they will
be

GF: But it has, in for example, gps technology and they aslo use both his relativity theories in relation to satellites.

Peter Kropotkin:
to use reason instead of conspiracy theories

GF: What, there aren’t any conspiracies?

Peter_Kropotkin:
Today, you stand somewhere between being animal
and being human, the goal is to become fully human,

GF: Humans are animals and to be fully human includes being a social mammal. If anything Enlightenment thinkers in general, though clearly not the sadist Descartes, began to pick away at the differences between humans and animals. Generally Christianity had a much harder line between the animal and the human. Slowly over the centuries this bias has been eaten away at.

K: I find it interesting that you could ‘‘read’’ what I wrote
and still not ‘‘get’’ what I wrote…I wrote:

‘‘Gandhi did not practice or promote ignorance’’

and he didn’t… but that idea of not practicing or promoting
ignorance has nothing, nada, to do with his faith… having read
his autobiography, at no point does he beat you over the head
with his faith… it is clearly a part of who he is, but he doesn’t
preach or demand you must follow him in faith… and practicing
or promoting ignorance or not, has nothing, nothing to do with
his faith… recall that Gandhi was a lawyer, and a rather good one
at that… logic, reasoning, evidence, facts were his guide… for
those are the tools of a lawyer… and he used those tools quite
successfully, both in the courtroom and in public life…

He argued for an independent India based on his lawyer tools,
not on magically grounds…and he didn’t promote ignorance…
which as I said, has nothing to do with his religion…

Goethe, and I am a Goethe fanatic, didn’t practice or promote
superstitions… Goethe was routinely attacked for not being
a Christian… and whether or not he was one, he wasn’t,
it doesn’t change the fact that Goethe didn’t promote or
practice superstitions… his faith, whatever it was, didn’t
change the fact that he didn’t promote or practice superstitions…
Like Christanity…

and of course, MLK, his faith was central to who he was, but
again, at no point in his career, did he demand that everyone
must follow his path or faith… his faith is irrelevant to his
belief that intolerance was unacceptable… again and again
and again, he promoted tolerance as the path… and he
didn’t promote tolerance only because he was a Christian,
he promoted tolerance as being the right choice for human beings…
which is, again, rather irrelevant to his faith…

You can only come to your conclusions by misreading what I
wrote…

and as for Napolean, the French ideals created during
the French Enlightenment, were the basis of the French
revolution and those enlightenment ideals, he exported into Europe…
and codified by law throughout Europe… the so called "Napoleonic Code’’
which became the basis of the development of the Nation states…
virtually every single country in Europe and indeed the world,
was impacted one way or another by the "Napoleonic Code’'…
and the years after Napolean, for a hundred years, were
some sort of reaction, one way or another, to the Napoleonic era…

the point I was making was not specifically about these people
as much as it was to ‘‘great men’’ who were great not
because they conquered land or killed many people…
no, the great human beings are the ones who promoted
ideals that benefit and help people make that journey
from animal to being human…

Kropotkin

5

What superstitions or indoctrinations are we facing today?
Just like the Enlightenment period faced up to their
superstitions and indoctrinations in their day…
(that monarchy was the only form of government acceptable
to everyone… and even here, there was some dissent
from the members of the Enlightenment… but dissent
was limited due to the fact that virtually every single
member of the enlightenment club, had a monarchy)

So, what exactly are the superstitions, prejudices that we
face today? I would suggest that religion is still one,
along with other superstitions being nationalism, faith in
country… USA, USA, USA… our indoctrination in
capitalism being the best form of economics ever,
our indoctrination of the death of communism and socialism,
our left right dualism of today, (that will soon be as dead
as a doornail) our indoctrinations/superstition of
the trinkets of existence… that the pursuit of money,
fame, power, titles and/or material possessions has
any value…

and given the changing conditions of existence, for all
we know, capitalism already has one foot in the grave,
we just don’t know it yet… there are a whole lot of
superstitions, faiths and indoctrinations that will not exist
in a hundred years’ time…

and that is the battle of today… the continuation of the
attack on the superstitions of the day… the continued
enlightenment of human beings to the superstitions of
the day… and we have plenty of superstitions and
indoctrinations that we can examine and discard…
as being indoctrinations and superstitions…

and as we continue to move forward into the becoming human,
we see the path being of overcoming our prejudices
and superstitions…

am I solitary voice in the wilderness crying for justice?
not at all… there are plenty of voices today that understand
the nature of our superstitions and prejudices that haunt
us today…and demand their removal from our belief
systems… both privately and collectively…

the question today is not how much money do I have,
but what superstitions and indoctrinations did I overcome
today? So, what superstitions and indoctrinations did you
overcome today, on your path to becoming human?

Kropotkin

6

So, animals are superstitious? It seems to me humans can be and animals can’t be. Animals might develop poor habits based on experiences, but superstitition is a human production. And ignorance is not an animal value. That’s some odd category error.

Well, the Martin Luther King and Ghandi were not human?

Humans seem to manage some kinds of intolerance that animals do not. Futher our values may be informed by reason and understanding but without our emotions and desires, we cannot choose a value, we would not value something. We need what you seem to view as the animal and thus negative in us to have any values at all.

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin, post:3, topic:80457, username:Peter_Kropotkin”]

Conspiracy theories are human memes, not animal ones.

So, now it’s not being animal that is the problem, but being like a child.

I think your beliefs about what is human and what is animal and your negative judgments of the animal and the child, is magical thinking. It makes no sense. And since you manage to consider, without quite noticing you are doing it, someone like Martin Luther King as less than human, quite pernicious magical thinking. You’ve turned people you disagree with into animals and/or infantalized them. There’s a rich history of doing that, MLK had to fight it for most of his life.

7

You talk, even after that post, about superstition making us like animals. By your standards Ghandi was superstitious.

Again, he was superstitious. You’re acting as if you didn’t equate supersitions as negative in and of themselves. Yes, Ghandi and Goethe tended not to proselytize what you are calling their ignorance.

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin, post:4, topic:80457, username:Peter_Kropotkin”]
and of course, MLK, his faith was central to who he was, but
again, at no point in his career, did he demand that everyone
must follow his path or faith…
[/quote]Obviously not, but I never said he did.
You judge people for their superstitions and you judge them for promoting their superstitions. Here you act like all you judge was whether they promoted their religions.

When we get to MLK, now you move the gateposts. Now, it’s only a problem if they demand that others follow their faith.

Notice how now you respectfully call it faith, whereas in the actual post you refer to these things as supersitions and in the later post refer to them as animal traits.

MLK was a past preaching not only to congregations but to many people in all sorts of ways. He was a clear advocate for Christianity which one can be while respecting people with different faiths and not demanding that they leave their beliefs.

It’s actually you who are now misrepresenting what you wrote, leaving things out, moving the goal posts and oddly you happily go back to your judgments of the kinds of beliefs Ghandi and MLK had in your next post. You specifically judge belief in God.

But suddenly you don’t mention that when pretending that you did not write what wrote.

How does what you just did here fit with Enlightenment values?

You chose at least two examples of great men who entire program was driven by their religious beliefs. Yes, both Ghandi and MLK could be logical. But while you compare religious people to animals and children - and re-read your posts if can’t manage to admit you did this - two of your examples of great men were specifically motivated in nearly everything they did, including their use of law and reason, by religious beliefs. These were two extremely religious men.

Yes, they didn’t force their religions on people - though Ghandi could get a little creey with the women around him - but they were what you call ignorant and supersititious by your standards.

And yet there they are helping mankind despite being animal children.

And when the obvious contraditions between your examples and your assertions are pointed out, instead of acknowledging this, you say that I am misreading what you wrote.

What would Goethe say?

8

The Enlightenment emphasizes the importance of knowledge and advocates for the path to enlightenment, also known as Dnyan Marg. It is widely believed that ignorance is the root cause of all miseries, and the only way to overcome them is through gaining knowledge. Following the path of knowledge ensures leaving behind negative values such as ignorance, superstition, intolerance, and bigotry, and replacing them with positive values. In today’s world, it is essential to clearly define and establish this path. Educational institutions, governments, and family culture undoubtedly have a significant role to play in this regard.

9

Answer for Greenfuse: I shall restate my position to
make it clear for you…

Human beings are on a road… from being animal to becoming human…
now that road goes from animal… now look at animals, we were once
animals in the physical sense… we reacted to experiences as
animals do… we were, for all purposes, animals… no different
than dogs or cats or monkeys or cows… then at some point
in the past, we outgrew some animal traits… not in the physical
sense for we are still animals in that fashion… we eat, we sleep,
we fuck, we still engage in animal actions and behaviors…
but in a mental, psychological fashion, we began a journey
to becoming human… we cannot outgrow the physical
aspects of being animals, we must still engage in animal
actions and behaviors… we have no choice, but we have
choices and options not available to animals…
animals cannot make choices the way human beings do…
for an animal cannot outgrow it instincts, which is basically
programming… animals are programmed by evolution to
be and do whatever as animals… thus dogs cannot outgrow
their programming to be dogs… they think, react, behave,
as their programming tells them to do… they cannot do
otherwise… they are dogs and they have no choice in the
matter…

Now human beings clearly have programming left over
from evolution… we are programmed, which is instincts…
the fight or flight instinct, which is programmed into
all human beings is one such instinct we have from
being animals…the path to overcoming instincts is
the path to becoming human… as human beings,
the overcoming of instincts, programming
is what it means to become human…

for me, the primary task of being human revolves around
choice… if we have no choice, then we are not being human…
for choice negates instincts/programming… if I make a choice
over my instincts, my programming, I am on the path to being
fully human… which is basically overcoming instincts/programming…

my base instincts are also animal instincts, to hate, to anger,
to attack when threatened, and I include into this other instincts,
which is the instinct of humans to tribalize… which is to say,
to behave within tribal behavior is instincts… we have a million
years of tribal behavior behind us… and to overcome that is
what it means, in part, to become human…
the natural instinct of human beings is to engage in tribal
behavior…and part of being human is to make a choice,
to overcome that tribal behavior… we see tribal behavior
all the time, this upcoming election is simply one tribe, liberals
vs another tribe, conservatives… and we can break down tribes
into many varied, diverse collection… we can engage in tribe by
nation, by race, by the color of our skin, by creed, by sexual
orientation, or political considerations… we have all kinds
of tribes in the world today…the religious is just another tribe…
and part of being in a tribe is to hold that tribes values
and beliefs…

Part of what is holding us back as human beings is our engagement
with tribes and holding onto tribal values/beliefs… recall that I make
choice the primary distinction of being human… and we can, against
instinct, reject tribes and those tribal values and behaviors and
beliefs… this is the meaning of autonomy… being autonomous
from tribal values and beliefs… and herein lies part of my point…
that within tribes, to maintain or to hold one place within a tribe,
one must hold to certain values or beliefs to stay within that tribe…

to stay within certain tribes, one must hold to tribal values,
the belief, value of god is just a way to stay within the good
graces of certain tribes…to say, I am an atheist, is to reject
certain tribal values… and the result with be either voluntarily
or to be exiled from that tribe…the point of a tribe is to hold
onto the same values or beliefs as all members of the tribe does…

we often hold on to certain values/beliefs to stay within the tribe,
and those values/beliefs are not valid values/beliefs… for example,
I suggest that people proclaim their belief in god to maintain
good relations with other tribe members… it is the expedient
thing to do… but there is no evidence of any kind, that there
is a god… it is a superstition that we hold onto to hold
our place in the tribe…and I hold to the fact that we often
hold to superstitions that were indoctrinated into us as
children…god, the greatness of nation, the immortal soul,
prejudice, bigotry, hatred… are all indoctrinations
of our childhood…superstitions to be overcome…
if I believe in ‘‘American exceptionalism’’ because
I was indoctrinated into that value, and it has no basis
in fact, that is a superstition, a false value…
something to be overcome… or as Nietzsche put it,

‘‘It is not enough to have the courage of one’s values,
one must have the courage for an attack upon one’s values’’

to overcome one’s indoctrinations is a cardinal value for me…
to overcome one’s superstitions is part of the path to becoming
human… to hold onto superstitions regardless of the truth or
falseness of that superstition, is animal… if one cannot change,
that is animal behavior… the key to becoming human is the
choices that we make…to overcoming our indoctrinations of
childhood…to holding onto values that we ourselves believe in…
that is another way of thinking about autonomy…

so, to say that Goethe for example, is part animal, is to say,
he had his childhood indoctrinations, his beliefs that
were indoctrinated into him… and that he is further along
the road of becoming human by being able to remove, overcome
said childhood indoctrinations… that is what I mean by
becoming human… to becoming autonomous by overcoming
our childhood indoctrinations… and holding onto beliefs/values
that we actually believe in, not the childhood indoctrinations…
that is why I put that list together… to show us human beings
that overcome their childhood indoctrinations by making
different choices… Gandhi did overcome some of his
childhood indoctrinations, but not all of them… thus
he went partly down the path of going from animal, instincts,
to becoming human, making choices… but he didn’t go
all the way down the path of being human, for he still
held onto superstitions like a belief in god…
as did MLK…the path to overcoming is not a straight
line… like some of us have little hearing and some have
great hearing, and some have relatively bad eyesight,
and some have great eyesight… we stand on different
places within our overcoming our instincts…
I suggest that I am further along the path of becoming
human by being an atheist, overcoming that instinct/
indoctrination… overcoming that superstition… but in
other ways, I am not as far along as other people…
by my holding onto certain other superstitions…
I am closer to being animal than human by my holding
onto those superstitions…those indoctrinations…

the path to becoming human is the path to removing,
overcoming our superstitions/indoctrinations…

One example of a superstition being held, is the superstition
that capitalism is the greatest economic system ever…
that is a childhood indoctrination… one that needs to
be overcome…to blindly hold a value because it is
comfortable for us needs to be overcome…
and as long as we hold onto this superstition/indoctrination,
we are stuck on the path to becoming human…
which is the overcoming of our superstitions and
indoctrinations… so the path to becoming human
is about our values and beliefs and the overcoming
of our instincts… the choices we make…

and has anyone actually reached becoming fully human?
no, and as long we hold onto our superstitions and
indoctrinations, we will never reach becoming fully human…

Kropotkin

10

Social mammals care for their young, show empathy (even across species), collaborate (occasionally crossspecies), problem-solve, grieve as some examples that weren’t on your list.

Sure and as far as we know, much religious belief/activities are beyond other animals.

Do you see yourself, here, in your behavior in relation to conservatives as having overcome tribal behavior?

There are certainly many who see their religions in tribal ways. But is this inherent in theism? I don’t think so. And then of course, MLK and Ghandi were very religious people.

There are many animals that are not tribal.

It could be. It depends on how one relates to people from there.

There are a lot more beliefs that we get indoctrinated with. In fact one can be indoctrinated with any belief. It’s a process term not a content term. And, again, two of the people you chose, were very clearly not leaving the religions they were born into.

Really? You see animals as more superstitious than humans? Could you give me some examples?

I do agree that humans are more neuroplastic. But so far that’s about it. It seems like you have a rule: whatever ideas you were indoctrinated with in childhood you should change from. Does that include liberal/Left ideas. Also, indoctrination is possible due to neuroplasticity.

and yet despite this, two out of four people you mentioned were very religious. Of course as one goes back in time, more people are theists, but these were two people who radically considered themselves theists and acted and thought through their religions.

Do you think theism is an instinct or an indoctrination? It’s not clear at all from your text.

Only for those raising with that as an indoctrination. Socialism is certainly indoctrinated in other countries and in certain families. All political positions are foisted on children.

But when you talk about indoctrination, one would get the impression that it is only conservatives and religious people who indoctrinate. Have you been indoctrinated into simple us/them schemas? Will you overcome this?

I think it’d be great if you could acknowledge that while calling religious people animal-like amongst other, pretty strong labels you gave them, you chose two very religious men as your role models/symbols of deep humanity. But it’s as if this didn’t really happen.

If one reads your posts, it is as if being religious is more animalistic than being human. And yet we have no evidence certain animals are theists. You seem not to realize that one can be indoctrinated to believe any political beliefs, not just the ones you do not like. You seem to think all animals are tribal. This isn’t true. You seem not to be aware that calling political opponents or belief-system opponents less human than you are, is a common indoctrinated trait and one that is extremely tribal. You seem not to have noticed that your posts are very tribal. Calling people less human, is approaching the limit of the us/them downside of human tribalism. Certainly conservatives and religious people do this. Of course I think religious beliefs have also led people to go over tribal boundaries, nationalist and class boundaries and claim those people are people, no less human than I am. And of course there are counter examples.

But I’m not quite sure you’re listening to yourself while speaking to us.

11

OK, I shall go over this again…

Human beings are animals… that is the long and short of it…
but what I am talking, and you are not understanding, is
that I am not discussing human beings in terms of
actually being animals if they hold to certain positions…
if you are a conservative, you are not a snake or dog
or a elephant…the point is that your beliefs, your values,
your content, is on some sort of line in terms of
being human… being human is about context, attitude,
beliefs and values…a road traveled… holding to a superstition
without any evidence is animal because it is about context…
not about being an actual animal… and it is not about
any superiority because one may hold to or not hold
to any set position…you have a tendency to be very literal…
and you tend to see beliefs as set in stone and holding them
causing one to be an animal or human… but that is not
how I see it… too be prejudice without any evidence, I call
being an animal… that doesn’t mean I am calling one a dog
or a cow… the path to becoming human is about our values,
our goals, our attitude, our context…it is how we see things
or hold as beliefs or values…

think about it this way… as children, we hold to children beliefs…
and no one would belief or consider childish beliefs as adult
beliefs or values… our values/beliefs change over time, become
different… the values I held as a child are vastly different than
the values I hold today, at 65…the choices children hold
are really beliefs and indoctrinations that their parents have
indoctrinated them into… and we quite clearly call those
values/beliefs of childhood, childish… is that an insult
to children? To your way of thinking, quite possibly…
but not to me… Children don’t have the experience or
knowledge to know anything else… they have no choice
in their beliefs… that to me, is animal… they have no choice…
they cannot do anything else… because of their instinct,
programming… does that mean I am calling children, animals?
well, the fact of the matter is that they are animals, just as we are,
but we, as adults, have a choice in our values and beliefs…
this choice is what makes us human…and children
have no choice but to accept their parents/society/state/
media indoctrination because they have no other choice…
thus, leaving them with no choices, and that lack of choices
is what makes them animals… because of their limited
experience and intellect, they cannot examine their own
values and beliefs to see if they are values/beliefs they
truly hold… they simply hold the values and beliefs
they were indoctrinated with…like animals, holding to
instincts that they were programmed with, with no choice…

the path to becoming human lies in our choices…and an
examination of values…What does Socrates use as his motto?

The unexamined life isn’t worth living…
and ‘‘to know thyself’’

I am closer on the path to becoming human because
I have engaged in an examination of my life and beliefs
for over 40 years… that however doesn’t make me superior,
that just puts me on a certain place on the road to becoming
human… and your choices, values and beliefs, puts you
on someplace else on the road to becoming human…
ahead or behind me is irrelevant…
for there is no such thing as ahead or behind on this
road to becoming human… there is just the road…

you see black and white… I see shades of gray…
and I see gray everywhere…there are no fixed, set
lines to be drawn between human beings… there is simply
traveling down the road to going from animal, fixed set
values/beliefs, to becoming human, to making choices
that are right at the moment… values that fit today,
because as we age and our environment changes,
our values and beliefs change, or they should… making
choices to match the environment that one is existing in right now
is part of being human… to change, to make the choice to
have values and beliefs that fit in today’s situation and
environment is what I mean by being human and not
animal… animal cannot change to adapt to changing
conditions… that is why they go extinct… the inability
to adapt to changing conditions… that is animal…
and something I oppose…

the values and beliefs I hold are changeable and adaptable…
to meet the ever-changing conditions and environment
of being human… to change, to make choices, that is
what I mean by being human… being unable to change
or adapt is being animal… and the road to becoming
human is a changeable, adaptable one… if an asteroid
hits the earth tomorrow… then what is, changes…
all bets are off as to what it means to be human…
and we make choices that allow us to survive…
that is one path to becoming human…

what is your path?

Kropotkin

12

I didn’t say you said that. I didn’t think nor did I write that you thought they literally became wolves or deer.

And I asked you to give some examples of animals superstitions. It seems clear to me that humans, as far as the evidence goes so far, are much more likely to be superstitious.

Well, good to know, but you clearly wrote as if you saw it that way. By the way I don’t think, for example, the Nazis thought that Jews were literally rats, pigs or parasites, however their rhetoric shared some commonalities with your rhetoric. Nor do I think they literally dehumanized the Jews, who continued to be human regardless of how they were described, however the rhetoric was nevertheless dehumanizing.

There’s nothing to indicate I would react that way.

Well, it seems like you answered your own question in the affirmative.

Actually, no, you’re getting this backwards. The fact that they are malleable to indoctrination - and, of course, postive learning also - is because humans are more neuroplastic and running less on instinct. They can be trained more deeply and broadly than other animals, for good and for ill.

Sorry, no.

which, in part, is precisely what I am trying to get you to do…examine some of these beliefs, one of which is what I see as your tribalism, which includes dehumanizing rhetoric.

That’s not justified and further the way you class those you disagree with politically is clearly binary, without shades of gray.

And when you talk about fixed beliefs they are always conservative/religious. But then I mentioned this earlier.

You didn’t respond to much of what I said and you attibuted beliefs to me I do not have. I’m on the skeptical side when it has to do with your criticism of tribalism, your unwillingness to examing your choice of Ghandi and MLK (in a thread where you are arguing their core beliefs make them less human), your dehumanizing, I mean literally dehumanizing rhetoric aimed at people with beliefs different from yours, your conflation of indoctrination and instinct, and that if one looks at your examples, it is only people with views different from yours who have been indoctrinated (again as if indoctrination was about content, when in fact it is about process.)

But then I said this before and it was not responded to. The Enlightenment was also a long time ago, and while I value many portions of it,I understand the Romantic reaction to it. And it’s been quite a while since their reaction. I find it ironic that a trait that seems restricted to the human animal is being called animal, meaning it is not human. What is only human is being called less human. I have beliefs that you would likely class as superstitious and it to many years of change for me to arrive at them. I certainly wasn’t indoctrinated into having them, nor did my parents, when alive share them, though they respected me anyway.

I am critical of toxic rhetoric both inside and outside of myself. I try to eliminate the hold this kind of rhetoric has, even the unconscious versions of this rhetoric, on myself and others. Using the term ‘rhetoric’ in a broad sense to include beliefs, judgments, assumptions but also how these are conveyed and often not even noticed. That can make it seem like a heady process, and certainly the head is involved, but the whole self is necessary and also dynamic interaction with both like minds and not so like minds.

There’s a lot of other processes I engage in that some might call a path or parts of a path, but that one was relevant here.

13

Interjection in the court, by Trumpists actually see things literally, which makes those who do understand them illiterate and not figurative, so Peter is perhaps is trying to impress an inverse paradimn

14

Perhaps, but I really don’t know what you are saying here. Did you mean ‘but’ instead of ‘by’? What does ‘impress an inverse paradigm’ mean? Are you thinking I’m a Trumpist? I’m not. Trying to triangulate meaning and save time. Metaphor/literal…comparing people to animals, especially when aimed at groups, has a pretty horrendous history. Doesn’t fit quite with a speech against tribalism or in favor of Enlightenment values. Attributing superstition to the animal side of us seems confused in the extreme. But hey, try to get a chimpanzee or horse to believe Friday the thirteenth is an unlucky day. I think lessons in neuroscience are in order.

15

I totally agree, here is the thing; Darwin used the politically inverse paradigmn to convince literally oriented people, to believe we all came from animals, that is a straight line drawn from beginning to end, the end being the capacity to agree to the degrees of grey possible , if you happen to believe God is Really dead. (…and it’s hard to prove that other wise). So it may have been a morally unjustifiable position, besides the guy who tried to do that was violated in his lab-researched evidence, so that is what happened to that unfortunate researcher.

No I don’t make any allusions that may infring on any political position, but on basis of what HAS gone down, it’s obvious at least to me, that Trump is a far better actor then Kamala, even Putin attested to it when asked by KBG radio about his preference, he lied and said Kamala, because of her laugh, but then Trump is a far better actor, and what this country needs more then ever is a great sense of humor, and although Kamala seems to laugh a lot, it is merely a process that has been built up over the many years of distinguished service, and not the ad lib funny and absurd stuff Trump comes up with.

The saying should go ‘Give me a good one liner, or give me death.

16

I mentioned the Romantics earlier and their reaction to the Enlightenment philosophies. I’m not a Romantic, though I take some things, or have some things in common with them, and I think their reactions to the Enlightenment were in many ways spot on.
I respect their balancing emphasis on
1 - Emotion and Intuition
2- Nature - the Enlightenment tended to view nature as something to be used, distanced from and controlled.
3- Individualism
4 - critique of industrialization and mechanization
5 - a broader understanding of human experience
6- a focus on the sublime and mysterious

17

Ok I should’ve stopped at 48 views, but who dare call me a conspiratorial misogynist, yes, but yes, but, and this may be a loaded dice when even old Einstein said differently, and presumably I ain’no god, howeve8 was reminded terrifyingly by a great now so gone prophet(though his wife is still around, that voting Democratic this time a round, is like Plato served up in a minimally constituted goulash, meaning the slightest drop will kill you.

And that was coming from a Dr. Charles Fay my philosophy advisor. Hope he is still with in the well of living, and so on blah blah blah.

That is about all The pearl of wisdom I got from him, he thinkin’ farewell thee next ignoramus, guess he prov d me right.

My incredible singular preposession may yet would have amounted to just another mystic mystery spoofed fan, but hay, you gotta follow the less traveled trail fated just for you’

PS: I 2 am fused with green, the piece which can come through the many islands of the stream.

But then I’m doing things reversely, the points of reaction by the romanticists heralding a lasting movement, that strain of being has always tried to do one better then the original Aristotelian foreshadowing )while the opposite was true, Plato foreshadowed Aristotle’s prophetic syllogisms, (probably) so I don’t think Socrates may have missed a beat. At least I feel he had not, and who is better a commentator on that than Sartre? (again a feeling over a hunch)

So the Romantics wee not truly original and what made them so passionate is the failing trace of memory that they could only preview that coming attractions like Niezhe trace back to the ‘Golden Age)

So does industrialization’s deontology vocal mythology spare those who really suffer like the sorrowful Werther? The answer is a resounding yes by virtue of a single exemption may override all the tumults that a cosmic aggregate may compile.

18

It’s from Dylan Thomans
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm

19

No, nor the Enlightenment philosophers. Everyone’s building on what went before.

I didn’t understand much of your post, but if I’d pick a part to hear a different way it would be this last part.

20

Everyone building what went before, but how recently before the before?