to gain one's bearings.

I finished my two-volume biography of Goethe, by Boyle,
this morning, and as I am still incapacitated by my ankle surgery,
I decided to start another book immediately… I decided upon
“The Discoverers” by Daniel Boorstin, and what he writes about first
is gaining one bearing’s, (although he doesn’t actually use the word
bearings) through time and space…to mark out where one is,
is to mark out the land or terrain that one lives in… to use
clocks is to mark out one’s bearing in time… with each new understanding
of one’s bearings, one can mark down where one is at all time…
but this physical understanding of knowing one bearing’s,
also includes knowing one’s bearings not just in time and space, but
in idea’s, formats, ideologies and ism’s…

we can gain our bearings by adapting to an ism or an idea or
an ideology… think about the Catholic Church…we can know
exactly where we stand in relation to god via the teachings
of the Church… and the church can even provide us with
physical bearings… think of the rather elaborate physical
underpinnings of the church… the earth is the center of the
universe… all the universe revolves around the earth…
and the bible is quite clear that Man is the highest pinnacle
of all created beings… thus we can see that even physically,
human beings are at the pinnace of existence, but we stand
below the Angels… thus our place in the universe is clearly and well
marked out…like a modern day GPS device, we can pinpoint to
the foot, exactly where we stand in relations to, well everything…
by using the teachings of the Catholic church… we know exactly
where we stand in the universe…

thus we can, by ism’s and ideologies, pinpoint exactly where
we stand in relations to other things…
by the use of the conservative ideology, I can pinpoint my
exact place in the universe… as is the same for a liberal
ideology… so what does this mean for modern man?

We have lost both our physical bearings and our intellectual
bearings with the “death of god” with the new ism’s
and ideologies, we no longer know exactly where we
stand in relations to other people… thus the modern search
for a morality/ethics that can place us in relations to each other…

the loss of traditional ism’s and ideologies, means we have lost
our bearings in regards to those traditional ism’s… for example,
politically, until the American revolution, democracy wasn’t even
considered to be a possibility… the only political possibility until
1800 was a monarchy and they still exists in the 21st century…

but what is the value of a monarchy in the 21st century?
why it gives one a bearing to us socially, the culture, politically…
we know where we stand if we live in a monarchy…
our precise location is known to us, socially, politically,
culturally in terms of the monarchy…and here we begin to
understand the attraction of the past to the conservative…
by holding onto the past, the conservative can know exactly
where they stand in relations to others, socially, politically,
culturally… the attraction of the fixed knowledge of the past means
a conservative has one’s place fixed, in time, space, and for our modern
age, context…there is the creation of fear in the conservative if they don’t
have their bearings for their time, place and context…

to fix one’s bearings is vital, perhaps the most important
aspect of being conservative… to know exactly where one fits
is the basis of all conservative thinking…and if they don’t know,
their exact place in the universe, the conservative panics and is then
consumed by fear…

so ask yourself, are you consumed about knowing your exact
place in the universe? do you need to have ism’s and ideologies
that tell you exactly where you stand in the scheme of things?
I would submit that would suggest you are tied into the past,
for only in the past are you truly and securely safe from the
uncertainty of the modern world.

Kropotkin

In regard to one’s bearings, the current MAGA crowd has
no sense of history, no sense of the connection between
people, places, things and time… everything is isolated
and separate for them… that is a loss of one’s bearing…

How can you have a sense of your place in the universe if
you reject, as the MAGA crowd does, the social, political,
historical, economic, scientific and philosophical connections that
ties all human beings together…

so what is the ties that binds the MAGA crowd?
it is hate, violence, anger, racism, prejudice, bigotry…
that is the tie that binds the MAGA crowd… it certainly
isn’t history or science or political unity… for the MAGA
crowd rejects science, history, education, and the political…

everything is a threat to them… science, history, economics,
the social contract, politics… think about it…
when has the MAGA crowd around here, UR, observe, the joker, gloom.
even mentioned anything positive or encouraging? Nope, never happened,
it is all doom and gloom and conspiracy theories…

the world is a threat to them, all aspects of the world is
threatening them in all kinds of ways… science, history, the political,
economics, the social contract… everything is to be feared…
and attacked… and threaten their ism’s and ideologies, and
watch attack and attack and attack… never defending
their ism’s, their bearings in the world, but always
attacking and calling names…

I suspect that those MAGA types have lost contact with
the “bearings” that connect them to other human beings…
the MAGA crowd, including UR and Ob, hate and attack
and call names because of their own weakness… they
are untethered from reality because they have lost
their bearings, their connections to other human beings…

because all they have is a hammer, which in their case is hate,
that is all they see… they clearly hate everyone… have
anyone of the MAGA crowd around here ever said
anything positive or constructive? Nope, I can’t think of anything…

that is the value of having one’s bearings… you don’t have to
engage in hate or violence or anger to be connected to the world
or to your fellow human beings…

I am connected to my fellow human beings, not through hate or anger,
but with my connection to them by science, history, politics,
economics, even biology… all of which is or has been rejected
by the MAGA crowd…because the MAGA crowd has no connection
to other human beings, they have no bearings, no sense of
others that the average person has…I am connected to
others, the MAGA crowd cannot connect to others in
that most basic of ways…when I see a human being,
I see a fellow traveler, another human being… the MAGA
crowd see another human being and they see the enemy,
someone who must be either converted to the MAGA way
or be destroyed…there is no middle way in the MAGA world…

and all of this because they have lost their way, lost
their bearings in the modern world…

Kropotkin

we can think about the need for bearings with this,
a mind cannot abide a vacuum, thus if one rejects,
as the MAGA does, science, law, politics, philosophy,
economics, even the media, then that leaves a vacuum
within their minds… and they fill their empty minds,
with MAGA crap… conspiracy theories, prejudice,
bigotry, hated of anyone who doesn’t hold their
own particular, specific beliefs…

the road of the MAGA is the road of least resistance…
for they do not believe in education or study or even hard work…
and the road traveled for the MAGA is the lower road of being uneducated,
of bigotry, of hate, of racism… for to gain an education, to learn
requires hard work, effort, determination … and the MAGA follower
hates, along with everything else, hard work and effort…

Kropotkin

the journey of one’s bearings is also a journey of
one’s mindset…in reading history, one can see that
a possibility like space travel doesn’t begin until
the mind is ready for that possibility…
to take a mental journey like traveling or studying
philosophy requires one to be ready to or already to
accept what may be involved in that traveling or studying…

in other words, the Renaissance didn’t begin until
people’s minds were ready for it… once their minds
were ready for this change, then and only then can
the Renaissance begin… the act of learning can only
begin if one is ready for it, mentally…and everything,
including education, traveling, sports, science requires
us to be mentally ready for it…

and that is why the MAGA crowd cannot adapt to something new,
because they already believe they hold the truth in their mind,
why learn something new if, if I already hold the truth?
that is the MAGA way, the conservative way… there is no
need to become educated because one already holds the truth…
this is a fundamental human fact… one cannot do anything until
one is mentally ready… the mind gets there first and then the
body and soul can make the journey… until we are mentally
ready to overcome, we cannot overcome… it wasn’t the journey
that allowed Columbus to make his historic journey, it was the
fact he mentally was ready to make that journey… his mind
became ready and then the rest of him followed… his journey
and our journey requires us to be mentally ready before we
can be physically, emotionally, psychologically ready to make
that same journey…

and that is why the MAGA crowd cannot grow or change…
they are unable to mentally change and change cannot happen
until we are mentally ready…

Kropotkin