One of the main problems we face is our vision or
viewpoint of reality… We view it the wrong way…
take ethics or morality… Our viewpoint is that
the wicked (not very well-defined view of what being
wicked actually means) should be punished…
but why? Why do we accept the ‘‘eye for an eye’’
vision of punishment? As with much in life,
this ‘‘eye for an eye’’ viewpoint is transactional…
It is a static viewpoint that doesn’t change or adapt…
a justice system that engages in an ‘‘eye for an eye’’
all that does is leave everyone blind…and does nothing
to create change… why should people be honest
and fair, if, if there is nothing to be gained by it?
Crime or the act of a crime is also transactional…
You have, I don’t… so, I want what you have…
be it money, land, property, people…
and if life is transactional, as I have suggested,
then engaging in crime makes as much sense
as not engaging… there is no difference between the
act of crime and the act of the innocent…
because there is no reason to prefer one over the other…
recall the Kantian question: ''What am I/we do to?"
and the answer is just in favor of crime as it isn’t…and why
is that Kropotkin? What makes one favorable and the other
isn’t worth doing?
and in terms of punishment/justice, a small crime is equal to
a large crime… just the punishments differ…
so, it is just as easy to commit a small crime as it is a big crime…
and ‘‘eye for an eye’’ still applies…and this is true because
life, as we understand it, is transactional… ''What in it for me?"
is a static, stationary viewpoint of existence… there is no change
or movement toward something… transactional living prevents that…
and what could be done differently? ''What am I/we to do?"
if we reevaluate our values, and we learn from them,
the point/meaning of existence is to change, because
change is the one constant of existence…
As human beings, change is at the heart of our
existence… growth as a human being means growth
from and earlier, static viewpoint of existence…
To put this another way, my entire childhood is a act
of growth… from birth to the teen years is one long
act of growing… physically, mentally, emotionally
and psychologically… the adult, is a far, far more
complex being than a child…and it takes growth
to go from a simple child to a complex adult…
the path of human existence is not stationary or
static, as having transactional lives would seem to
suggests…the goal of existence is growth, from being
young to growing old… the change from being young,
to being old is dramatic, to say the least…I am not
the person I was 20 years ago, little less 60 years ago…
my understanding of my viewpoint is tied into the fact
that I am closer to my death than to my birth…
Statistically, I am 11 years from my death…
and that very knowledge changes my viewpoint of
what it means to be human, at my age being human
changes from what it was 20 or 30 years ago…
That life, existence isn’t transactional, but transformational…
and we can choose to change our viewpoint if, if we
see the nature of existence as being one of change,
and not one of being static, unchanging… transactional…
and we can, we have the freedom to radically remake
our viewpoint if we can see the point of making such
a radical change…
We often wonder why life in this century as gone so wrong?
I would suggest that the problem is we are thinking about
existence, in this ever-changing world, as being static…
in other words, we see existence, our lives as being static,
unmoving, unchangeable… the cries of those who say
‘‘we cannot change’’ or we are ‘’ We are the victims of
those who rule the world’’ the Cabal theory of existence…
that we are dominated by those with great power and control
over us…and we cannot ever, EVER, make any change
to their total control over our own existence… The ‘‘Jews
run the world’’ is a variation of this theme… that some
sort of ‘’‘deep state’’ control everything…
that sort of belief takes away, is transactional, and prevents
us from making changes in our lives… changing
our lives, our viewpoint doesn’t require us to make
external changes… change jobs or become a hippy…
We can still hold our jobs, be a father or a husband,
we can still celebrate birthdays and holidays…
But we now view them as events along the way,
not stationary events, but as movements into
becoming something else… as life itself is
always moving toward something else… being born
to the end, death, is just a movement of being…
from one state to another… not static or immobile,
or unchanging… we are not static being…
we are not transactional beings, we are
transformational beings, we change, every single
day…and our existence, our viewpoint must express
that movement, that transformational part of being,
of existence…
Kropotkin