This is a key moment in Kropotkin's life...

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

(I am asking, don’t respond to this… just read)

This last week at work, has been hell… I have spent the last couple of
days yelling at quite a few people at work… I think I used the word, “bullshit”
about a thousand times at work… and I was dragged into the office and forced
to speak to HR… that didn’t end well… the specific issues aren’t not really relevant,
just bullshit after bullshit after bullshit at work… it has gotten to the point, I would
rather be hit by a bus then go back to work… and because of my/our specific situation,
I really can’t quit… although frankly, starving on the streets appeals to me more then
going to work at this point…given the way social security is set up, just working
three more years will increase my payments by almost a thousand dollars a month…
but, will I snap before that? I just can’t take it anymore… and solutions are slim at this
point… but then I thought about it… given my 40 years interest in philosophy,
why bother to spend decades studying philosophy if I can’t find a solution
to my “bullshit” problem at work within philosophy…

so how do I find a solution to my problems? How do I work out, exactly, how
am I going to find a solution in philosophy to a basic question within philosophy,
“What am I to do?” a Kantian question I have brought up over and over and over again…

how do I sort out what am I to do? Do I take the hit and quit my job? Do I
take that financial hit and retire today, or do I find something else to do, but
that will also take a financial hit… I will never find a job at my age that will
pay anywhere close to my hourly rate and, AND get the benefits I am getting now?

If I was by myself, I would have left my job years ago… but I have a wife,
how do I go about taking care of her if I am not working or if I take a crappy,
job with no benefits and low pay on the “off” chance I might be happier?

it is easy to say, that is an easy answer Kropotkin, just leave your shitty job…
but that creates other issues, like putting food on the table and paying our
HOA’s… not to mention the medical benefits we need… no, the easy glib
answer doesn’t cover all the consequences of leaving my job…
at this of my life, I am kinda fond of food and shelter and medical benefits
I have right now… but is it worth the BULLSHIT at work that is killing me?

and thus, I am trying to weigh out the various possibilities that exists before me…
and frankly, none of them is good in any way, shape or form…

and so I am turning to philosophy to steer me to some sort of answer/
resolution that will enable me to both eat and have medical coverage
without the complete bullshit of work? Outside of winning the lottery, I
don’t see any easy answers… but must I then engage in the practice of
working while indifferent to the bullshit of work… In other words, should
I then engage in the practice of Stoicism or perhaps in hedonism or
seek out some third form of coping with the bullshit of work?

I just can’t go on with work, but I don’t see any easy philosophical answer that
solves this problem…so, how would I go about solving this complex problem,
using philosophy as my guide?

as I have pointed out again and again and again, for a solution to be found,
the problem must be clearly stated and understood…
I can’t stand working anymore… is that the problem or is that the symptom?
I have worked for 45 years… my entire adult life has been spent working,
and what do I have to show for it? realistically, work has done nothing more
then keep me in place… spending my life working just so I can retire,
doesn’t really make an argument for work…if work is a means to a end,
which is retirement… working for 40 years to get maybe 10 years of retirement,
just doesn’t seem to be worth the effort…to have just 10 years of retirement
after working 40 or 45 years? (the average person in America lives until 76 or 77,
and if we retire at the age of retirement, 66 or 67, then we have 10 years of retirement
or you could be like my mother, who is 87 and running out of money because she is outliving
her retirement money) there is an effort to reward ratio in spending 40 years
working and only getting 10 years of retirement… it just doesn’t seem to make sense
that the effort of working 40 years to get 10 years of retirement? the effort to reward
ratio makes no sense to me…

wife is home back later

Kropotkin

2

ok, I have worked 40 years just to survive, put food on the table,
was there anything else to add in the defense of work? did it give me
a goal, purpose, something to wake up for? no, I slaved for 40 years to
get me, just the trinkets of existence, nothing of value…
I have defined the trinkets of existence as being the worthless values
of modern society… wealth, titles, fame, material goods… are these
trinkets worth spending 40 years seeking? I don’t think so…
especially given we can imagine societies and we can think of societies
that didn’t seek the trinkets of existence…

to spend 40 years seeking ever new couches or new TV’s or buying
a new car every few years, seems like a waste of a life…to buy something
that will have no value in a relatively short time… to waste years of my life
working to buy a car that I will resell or give away in a few years… how is that
having a productive life? a life of value? but that leaves us this question of
how do we define this life of value? is life really seeking trinkets we will discard
shortly? No, that doesn’t strike me as being a “life of value”… a life worth
spending 40 years of it seeking something of value, something that makes that
40 years of working, worth it…

I have a book in my bookcase, called, “The Sleepwalkers” by Arthur Koestler…
now the book itself is about the study of cosmology from the beginning
of the study of the stars… but what I am thinking about is the title itself…
we sleepwalk through our lives in our working for 40 years and thinking that
that means something… we don’t ask ourselves, is that 40 years of working,
really the best example/way of spending our lives? or is there another, far more
productive way we can spend our lives instead of working?

is this matter of putting food on our table really worth 40 years of
being slaves? is capitalism really the best possible way we can spend our
life achieving? it is not the body that we must feed, we must also feed
our soul and our heart and our minds… and we have failed in that…
we must find meaning in our lives and them mere pursuit of wealth,
the trinkets of existence can’t offer us meaning… are we just mere animals
that exists only to put food on the table? what a low estimation of what it means
to be human… as is known, I am not a spiritual man, but even the pursuit of
what it means to be holy, the pursuit of what is good in us, is far more productive
of what it means to be human then it does to spend a lifetime of seeking the
trinkets of existence…capitalism can only offer us those trinkets whereas
at least the search for god can offer us meaning and a goal worth pursuing…

but this this search for god, for spirituality is only the first step toward
becoming human… for we are more than just spiritual beings, we are
working our way from animal to animal/human and then finally to becoming
fully human…and seeking god is only just another step toward finding out
what it means to become human…the pursuit of being human means to
take the entire burden of existence and place it on human hands, on human
responsibility, the point and meaning of existence is not to find god, but
to become human… we must rise above the pettiness of animals
and we must rise above the animal pursuit of putting food on the table,
for that is all animal do… existence for animals is nothing more than the seeking
of the basic needs of being alive… seeking food, water, shelter, education…

and because we are human, and we can do something animals cannot do,
we can think of past, present and future and we can think of our impending
death…and we can conceive in both senses of the word, our offspring…
we can both create our offspring, and we can imagine/think about what
children will do to our lives… animals cannot do that…if our lives
have more value than animals, then let us act upon that fact and make
our lives worth something more than just seeking the basics of existence…
our lives is worth more than just spending 40 years putting food on the table…
so let think about ways to make that happen… both individually and collectively…

and one aspect of being human is our ability to organize… we are the creators
of the state/government/society/culture…for we are human… and the ability
to self-organize is part of being human…do animals have such social structures
as human beings do? you might say the Ant and the Bee’s, but they do it out
of instinct… it is born within them… and they cannot, cannot outgrow instinct…

whereas being human means we have already outgrown entire aspects of
instinct… the fight or flight response is inborn in every human being, but
we can and we have shown this ability many times before, we have created
a third response to the fight or flight response we are born with…to be human
means to rise above our inborn instincts… and respond with our hearts, our intelligence,
our own meaning and purpose… besides the ones we were born with…

in our own creation of goals and purposes, we have grown beyond our
instincts and evolution…to be human is to seek that which is beyond instinct
and evolution…my goal/purpose is to become the best philosopher I can become…
that is something outside of, beyond just mere instincts, mere evolution…
that is what it means to be human…

so we must rethink, reevaluate what it means to be human…starting with
the idea that we must spend our lives like animals and have existence
being only a search for our basic needs like food, water, shelter…

and that must lead us to a reevaluation of what is our relationship
with the state/government/society/culture… if the goal is to rise
above being mere animals, then the state becomes a key player
and facilitator in our growth in going from animal to becoming human…

how do we recreate the state/government to become a partner
in our pursuit of becoming human? The state/government has been a key
aspect in the rise of human from animal to animal/human… and the state
can become an even more important aspect of our growth into becoming
human…

so it is not enough to seek out our own enlightenment… we must expand
our understanding of what it means to be human in terms of the state,
government, the culture and society…I am the state and the state
is me…my own rise in becoming human is tied into what the
state is…what it means to be human is part and parcel of what
it means to be human a within state/government…

we cannot sort out one without the other

Kropotkin

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I know you said not to reply, but…

This is you/God preparing yourself to be done with something you would have had difficulty letting go of otherwise.

Don’t sabotage retirement. Let the apocalypse do that :wink:

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That is part of why i want to make a hermitage.
An alternative to money-based existence.
I am sorry you had to waste so much time with work.

5

_
The world… a glorified processing plant, to feed, the world.

6

Take a step back from things that make you call bullshit. Only do the part of your job that lets you do philosophy. Work out the part in quotes first.

Do the best you can with the available options. The one I’ve suggested meets your needs and concerns, methinks.

As for what you can’t control/change (the bullshit)… Plant seeds in the minds (students) who can improve the future.

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I am attempting to seek out, by using myself as an example,
what is the point, meaning of existence…

within capitalism, lies one such example of the point of, the goal of existence…
which is to spend 40 years working, being a worker, consumer, a producer…
and a quick look at our American educational system shows us just that…
what is money spent on in the American educational system?
we have seen the movement over these last 40 years, recall, I have
a child who went through the educational system, and I noticed what programs
they kept and what programs they have gotten rid of and why…

the money goes to sports, but not the non-money making sports…
the money in our educational system goes into football, baseball…
whereas I ran cross-country and track and even back then, the stone age,
they were of little value to school administrators… and thus were, at best,
afterthoughts to the main money-making programs like football and baseball…

but beyond sports, we have massive cuts in the curriculum in quote,
“nonessential” programs like the ARTS, music, drama, but in the “core”
curriculum like math, science, english the budget was increased…
technical programs like computer science, shop… the focus in schools has been into
creating programs that allow children to learn a trade to get a job…
in other words, our educational system is a society wide method of creating
workers… to get a job is the highest mandate of the American student…

but is that the only possibility of an educational system?
the American goal of education is to create workers, producers
and consumers…any other possibility is rejected…
but let look at the ancient Greeks and see what their goal, their
educational focus was on?

I am basing this mostly on Werner Jaeger classic books ‘‘Paideia’’
Today we see Homer and the stories of Homer as in novels,
but to the ancient Greeks, the Iliad and the Odessey were not just stories, they
were educational tracts teaching us to become more then what we currently are…
to the Greeks, the point of education wasn’t to train people to have jobs,
but the point was to obtain “Arête” which means excellence…
what the Greeks sought was not money but excellence in all manner
of actions… the original meaning of excellence, “Arete” was excellence
in fighting, in being a warrior…hence the importance for the Greeks of
Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Patroclus… they were the “teachers” of excellence…
how a warrior acts, in being excellent warriors, seeking excellence in
the art of war… that was the original meaning of excellence, “Arete”

later the Greeks expanding the meaning of “Arete” to include all
aspects of existence, to become the most excellent actor, playwright,
philosopher, historian… if a Greek were to engage in some activity,
they sought to be ‘‘excellent’’ in that activity…
we "moderns’’ have removed that seeking of excellence from
our understanding of what it means to be human…
now we run into Nietzsche problem which is how to find “Meaning” in
the universe given there is no “god”… how do we find meaning in
meaningless universe? and Nietzsche answer was to find it in the Greek
ideal of excellence being only in the Autocracy, the “plebs” were not
capable of achieving excellence, only the “nobles” were able to
achieve excellence… thus we were to seek the nobles idea of
“Arete”, of excellence… Nietzsche was dismissive of the “mass” of
humanity, we were/are nothing more than cannon fodder for Nietzsche…
the only ones of value were the “Uber mensch” the higher ones… the ones
who could achieve excellence…and that excellence was found in the values
of the Nobles…not in the “plebs”…

we “moderns” have forsaken seeking excellence in our everyday pursuit…
we seek money/fame/titles/ material goods which is used to ‘‘show’’
the world our ‘‘value’’’ we are workers, producers and consumers…
and that is the highest values of modern America…

let us look at the educational process of the Renaissance and after…

what was the educational goal of society for the 400 years during and after the
Renaissance? that to create a “Gentlemen”…certainly not to make money…
it was assumed the “Gentleman” already had money… and the “Gentleman”
was thought to need certain skills to be a “Gentleman” and that idea was
that a “Gentleman” was good at all things…a “Universal man”
who was equally at home in the Court or in the country or on the hunt
or in the study…the saying from Leon Battista Alberti says it best,

“a man can do all the things if he will”

and that was the goal of the creation of the Gentleman for 400 years…

and with the Industrial Revolution, came a new idea of what it meant to
be educated… the one who made money… that was the height of
success and what one aimed for…even today, we seek wealth as
a means of success in life… but for thousands of years, that
idea was not sought after… the Greeks and the Romans had no
use for the man who pursued money as their primary goal…
and the entire Middle ages was a attack upon the one who sought
anything other than god…

and we have seen the educational goal of the society during and after
the Rennaissance… the creation of the Gentleman was the goal of
education…and look at how far we have fallen from these goals/
meaning of existence…

we devote our time, money, effort and educational system to the seeking
of trivial trinkets… the state has deem it unnecessary for us to seek
goals outside of the trinkets of existence… thus we deny/ take money
away from such educational programs like Music, the ARTS, non-money
making sports… this choice and it is a choice, has brought about
our current crisis… and my own personal crisis…

if we are not going to follow our current society/state in making
the goal of existence seeking the trivial trinkets of existence, then
what should our goal of existence be?

and I often wonder, how many children we have ground up and destroyed
because they weren’t able to become workers, producers, consumers…
what if they wanted to become ARTIST, musicians, thinkers, writers…
but society has forced them to become workers, producers, consumers…

we have lost not hundreds but possibly thousands of people
to the fixed idea of society that the only people of value
are the ones who work, produce, consume…the ones with wealth,
titles, fame… they are the goal of existence… how many great Artists
have we lost because we forced them into roles of being something
that they are not… if one isn’t making money or consuming,
then what value to they have?

making art or creating beauty has no value unless one can make
money from it…the creation of wealth once again… that has value
but not in the creation of beauty or of thinking about what it means to
be human or to paint a sunset… to invest in people not because they
might increase the GDP but because they are the creators of
beauty and are ARTISTS and thinkers and musicians… that is, in part,
what is missing in our modern age… was I a great thinker? or perhaps,
as I have contended, a great philosopher or a great ARTIST? Who knows
as my only value has been one of being a worker, a cog in the machine
of capitalism… to increase the GDP has been my only goal within a society
bent upon increasing the GDP instead of creating human beings or
ARTISTS or thinkers or even seeking something as old fashion as
seeking “Arete” in everything we do… not in seeking money or titles
or fame, but in seeking excellence in what we do, in everything we do…
regardless of whether it makes any money or creates fame for us…

if you work, you are a cog in the machine, if you consume, you are just
another cog in the machine, if you simply engage in making money, being
a producer, you are just another cog in the machine…

is that all your life really worth? simple being just another cog in the machine?

and thus, we reach the crisis of Kropotkin…

I say, I am more than being a cog in the machine…
and this moment, this decision is one that answers the question,
what is the value of Kropotkin if he isn’t working, consuming, producing?

if I am a thinker, a philosopher, I don’t have any value within society, especially
given I am not engaged in the production of other professional philosophers…

in the face of the message of the entire society, the entire state/government
in that I have no value unless I am working, consuming or producing…
I say, I have value because I am a human being and by virtue of being
human, I have value…

and thus, we come to the understanding of what the Declaration of
Impendence really means…

" that all men are create equal"…

I am equal to the billionaire, I am equal to Bill Gates, I am equal
to IQ45… because by virtue of being human, I am equal…
my value of being human isn’t found in my creation of wealth or in
my titles, or in my fame… (for I have no fame of any kind) but
I am still equal to the high, mighty, wealthy by virtue of being human…

life itself create equality within human beings…

and it doesn’t matter what I am worth money wise, or what I have or
what I create or what I consume… I have equal value to all other human beings
due to the fact we are all human beings and because of that, we are equal…

and now given that I have understood myself as equal to all others,
what is my course of actions to be? it depends upon
what I truly believe to be one of the Kantian questions,

“What am I to do?”…

Kropotkin

8

What do you do in philosophy?

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Quite the test! What does Mrs K have to say on the subject?

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K: thanks for that carton… it made me laugh…
Mrs K is supplying platitudes… I’ll support whatever you do,
it’s your choice, do what makes you happy…I’m behind you 100%…
you know, wife platitudes…which doesn’t tell me a dam thing
about what she really thinks…

Kropotkin

11

Tell her one time that she disagreed with you that was helpful to you, and why. If you reacted poorly in the moment at the time, apologize for it and commit verbally to not reacting that way again if she does it again. Tell her how you will react instead. Follow through. Convince her that you need her thoughts on it.

Unless you don’t.

12

Can’t you send her , or ask her if she would like to lunge into a leap of change and throw all cation to the wind , to fo demeaning you guys always wanted to do but never had the chance and just go for it?

Let me tell a story happened here a few years ago to a Hungarian fellow who started with nothing by working in safety as a butcher, and he plugged along all his life and ended up with a string of butcher chops and other firms in investment amounting to quite a bundle.

Both were elated and set upon discussing the particularities of ports of call in a ship that ended up being a ship of fools because on the appointed day of their sailing away , their excitement grew to a frantic and climactic brain stroke.

His that is but both ended their days in an imaginative trip in a rehabilitative home from which they departed permanently with a non expected finality, as they watched the evaporation of their hard worked fortune.

It strikes me fancy how such things are rarely factored in among the volk who merely Walter mitty like refuse to see that bumps in the road of life can turn out to be menacing boulders.

This story is not fiction, it is one people still remember.

I am with you Peter heart and soul and I know you have similar wanderlust because we were in Europe once around the same time and I expressed my regret we couldn’t meet there.

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Can you explain what you mean :-k It’s a little complicated. :-" :laughing:

14

Derely, yep…

anyway, my life is fairly complicated right now, but that is the point…
within our complications, we are too, rushed, overwhelmed, our focused
is everywhere but on the problem at hand…the Kantian problem of

‘‘What am I to do?’’

I have immediate problems that must be faced and I have other issues
that will extend into the summer… and all the while, I have my
‘‘work’’ issues that are making me miserable, every single day of working…
there is no one solution to these distinct and quite different issues…

well one might say prioritize these issues…first, second, third,
to prioritize these issues, still doesn’t answer the overarching
question of existence that hangs over all of these individual
questions including one life and death issue, not mine, but a
family member end of life issues…and the complications that
is arising from this event… and once again, how do we use philosophy
to allow us to engage with these complicated issues of life and death…

the real issue comes from with everyone involved, we all are in different
places and have far different viewpoints about the issues involved…
whereas I might engage with these general issues with philosophy,
others are engaging from other standpoints including one who is very
religious and is coming from a religious standpoint…I cannot say, my
viewpoint is the only valid viewpoint, because it is certainly one of many,
possible viewpoints…and there isn’t a right or wrong in any of this…

there are times in our lives when we have not one or two, but several
complications going on at the same time… and we cannot just ignore one
or two in hope that they go away…

I could have taken the religious path in which I abandon responsibility
and accountability by this “acceptance” of god/Jesus… letting them take
over as the religious is wont to say… in other words, the religious solution
advocated by many is a denial and refusal to accept accountability/responsibility
for what is and what will be…to say, it is in god’s hand… is to pass/escape
any accountability/responsibility for my own actions, both today and tomorrow…

the child when ask, did you do this? This answer is always to blame
someone, anyone for actions taken… I broke a glass when I was a child
and to escape responsibility/accountability I blamed my siblings,
the dog, the cat, ghosts, aliens… whatever it took to escape
me being responsible for that broken glass…and that is the value
of having a religion or having god… it allows one to avoid taking
responsibility/accountability for actions taken… oh, its ok, because
‘‘god willed it’’…and thus I am no longer responsible or accountable for
anything…

this moment of Kropotkin’s life is Kropotkin’s responsibility… there is no
possibility of escaping accountability by saying, “god willed it”
or “society caused it” capitalism is certainly a contributing factor, but
that is all, a contributing factor…and so we, once again, return
to the fundamental question of existence… what is the point of existence?

why do we exist and what does that mean?

the small questions of existence are just that, the small questions…

and until I am able to answer the primary question of existence,
the small questions will remain small, unanswerable questions…

what is the meaning of existence? what is the point of life?
what is the goal of human existence?

Kropotkin

15

Peter wrote:

“ what is the meaning of existence? what is the point of life?
what is the goal of human existence?”

Peter,

I’ve answered this question hundreds of times on ILP.

The purpose of all life is to get everything we want at the expense of nobody.

To do that you have to reconstruct reality itself.

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Answering that question is the point behind all my threads if you want to check them. Create, yes, but in line with the eternal (you don’t have to). The meaning of life is to love. Joy. In connection with the source of love/joy, then each other, then things. All else is… well. Alienation :wink:

18

without getting into specifics, one family member action’s
is basically a large “fuck you” to the rest of the family…

this is clearly being done on an emotional, irrational level…
regardless of who is hurt because of these actions…
it doesn’t seem to matter, in fact, I would venture a guess that the
"Fuck you’’ is meant to hurt as many family members as possible…

this family member doesn’t seem to give a shit what the consequences are of
this action…and there is nothing I can do to change or alter this course
of action… no matter who it hurts…

the only response I can make is my response…
I can’t even say if this person actions are even ‘‘right or wrong’’
depends on how one feels about it emotionally…

which is kinda my point… how invested emotionally we are, in our own
being, actions, responses to both ourselves and to others…
in other words, there is no possible philosophical response to this entirely
emotional reaction to these events…how does logic, reason, rationality,
respond to an entirely emotional event?

This person actions or to be entirely correct, non actions,
is extremely damaging and the person in question will, one day,
regret their non-actions, in this case…

but that is what happens, we get so fixated on our own emotional
responses, that we forget that there are others involved… family members
who will be hurt by this non action… and the cycle of pain that this will take,
will go on for a long time, indeed perhaps even break up the family… but maybe
that the point, to damage this family to the point of breaking it up… but that decision
is not a logical, intellectual, rational decision…it is not a philosophical decision…
and it cannot be answered philosophically…as much as I would like to answer it
philosophically… with reason, rationality, logic…I cannot…

so my only response is to be emotional, illogical, irrational…

and that isn’t philosophy…

Kropotkin

19

Work family… breaking up the work family… by non-action. You’re asking how do you persuade that person to take action? Have you attempted to appeal to a common ground between your values? I’m assuming everyone involved (who cares) has actually spoken to this person, right?

20

How I would put it:

intellectual (metaphysics), rational (reason) (ethics), intuitive (balanced emotion) (aesthetics)

doing all of ‘em at once is philosophy & they all involve logic (even madness has method… response has stimulus… for example)