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1

As PN seems to be down, here I am…

Many of the attacks on the left is based on the left’s supposed
focus on race, color, sexual orientation, and religion…
but I take a different view… that we are exactly where we are
supposed to be historically…

The path to becoming human, to becoming blind, truly blind to race,
creed, sex, and color comes from exactly where we are today…
the struggle to become ‘‘blind’’ to race, color, sex, etc, etc…
comes from trying to get past them… and how do we get past
such obvious things?

Let us begin with the Nietzsche human who is in control of himself,
how does one gain control over oneself? To gain mastery of oneself?
We work through it… and what exactly does that mean?

let us give an example, in my twenties and thirties, I spent
a lot of time in bars, drinking… those were my ‘‘party years’’
I was focused on my ‘‘party years’’ because frankly, I didn’t really
have anything else to focus on… with no girlfriend or any other
attachment that could have become a focus, I was focused
on the one thing I did have… then I met my girlfriend, later
to become wife and I began my second stage… in my thirties,
the family life… I still went out to bars, but basically on Friday nights
with an occasional important sports event… I worked through my
‘‘party years’’… and today, I rarely ever go out… I have no need nor
desire to go out to bars… where at one point in my life, it was the
primary thing I did… today, I can go out, have a few beers or not,
I don’t have to… it is a take it or leave it matter today… and that
is exactly where we need to be in regards to matters of race, color,
religion and sexual orientation… we are, right now, in our ‘‘party years’’
where it is our focus… but soon, fairly soon, it will no longer be a
focus… we will become ‘‘blind’’ truly ‘‘blind’’ to race, color, sex, creed,
as being a thing in the past, a take it or leave it matter…

we struggle today to get to the ‘‘blind’’ stage of our evolution…
where we have control and mastery of who we are and what
we see… but much woe comes before us until we can overcome,
grow past our ‘‘party years’’…

Kropotkin

2

the next aspect to be thinking about is this…
that man, human beings are not isolated beings…
we exist within a state, a civilization, a society…
that the Frankfort school had the right idea in that it
tried to place man within the larger picture…
Just as Marx tried to place human beings within a economic
society, that, for Marx, economics activity was the substructure
of human existence… it was the base upon which all human
activity was based on… all that is human, comes from our
economic activity… of course, Marx was only partly right,
economics do play an important role in the life of human beings,
but not the most important role…

that most important role comes from our being within a state, a society,
a civilization… to properly see what human beings are and were
and could be, one must endeavor to see human beings as being
within the state/society…

Who we are today, comes from the million plus years of human beings
being in small tribes and having the family being our most important
aspect of our lives… we are social beings… we have and must have
a state, a society upon which we become who we are, which is being
human… or as Nietzsche pointed out, we are traveling from animal to
becoming human… today, right now, we are somewhere in the middle
of the road/path of becoming fully human…we are no longer
animal, but we are not fully human… and the path to becoming
revolves around us and our place within a state/society…
if truth be known, we cannot ever, become fully human without
knowing our place within the state/society…

for the question of being human is not a solitary one, an isolated one,
but a question of who we are collectively… we can only become human
within a collective, within a state or a society… and the Ancient Athenians
knew this, stated this… In Pericles’s Funeral oration, he specifically spells this
out… Pericles praises the way of life in Athens as being the reason for
the greatness of the Athenian people… if Athens were poor and miserly,
then the people would be too… we become human because of the
society, state we live in… and we see this today…

Americans are a failure because America is no longer ‘‘the city on the hill’’,
that belief that drove America for over 300 years… that we were morally
better/superior than others because our society, our state was morally superior
to other societies, other states… not individually, but collectively…

and what has driven this failure of morals? I have argued that it has
come from our drive to seek out the trinkets of existence…
of seeking out wealth, power, fame, titles and material possessions…
the pursuit of wealth has overcome the ideal of morality, of ethics…
what is more important, to be moral or to be rich? and within
within that answer, lies the ruin of the American ‘‘city on the hill’’…

we must seek out own deliverance, our own salvation within
the many, the state/society… for that is who we are, social
creatures that can only exists and thrive within the state/civilization/
the society… the Greeks knew this, why haven’t we figured it out yet?

Kropotkin

3

the right often bemoans the lack of ‘‘morals’’ in America today,
and try, by idiotic methods, putting the ten commandments in
schools, to ‘‘improve’’ morals in the society today…
but the path to ‘‘improved’’ morals lies in understanding
what is ethics, what is moral?

the right often puts individual first, the society/collective
second, and that is the wrong order of things…
for we are beings that can only discover who we
are, within a collective, social orgainizations…

there is a reason why we teach children in a collective
schoolroom… it is the path to learning the way to becoming…
where schools have failed is in forgetting that the point of education
is not in job training or learning skills to get a career, but in teaching
what it means to be human… we don’t have to have religious
training in schools if, if we discover what it means to be human
is to part of a state, a society… does this make us seek out
the ‘‘organized’’ man… whereas in communism, everything is done
to reach the ‘‘worker state’’ and the individual can be sacrificed to
reach this ideal/utopia… I don’t mean this place where the one
is and can be sacrificed for the ‘‘betterment’’ of others…
Capitalism is also built on this belief… the sacrifice of one to
improve the profits of the group, the business, is also remarkable
ignorant…

every single person who practices decency and ‘‘good will’’ toward
others is improving the state, the society… you want to improve
the society, make it more moral? Practice ethical actions…
and turn away from the idea of profits before people…
to begin the slow climb to returning to the ‘‘city on the hill’’
begins with each of us engaging in moral, ethical behavior
ourselves…the idea of ‘‘me first’’ denies and demeans other
people… to put oneself before others is to deny their validity,
to deny their worth… why do you have validity before others?
why do you have more worth than others?
Because if I don’t put myself first, who will?

and that is exactly the same attitude and idea that drives
capitalism and the ‘‘me first’’ attitude that has driven the world
into the current mess we live in…

What exactly is our goal and why that goal?

Kropotkin

4

if we accept this understanding of people that can only become
human via a state/society, then what does that mean, practically
mean for us?

that the left idea of multiculturalism is the correct viewpoint…
that the right faith, belief in ‘‘Meritocracy’’ is wrong…

Let us begin with the left point first: if the value of a person can be
found within the state/or society, then we have to treat all people
equally… for all people exists equally within the state/society…
for how would we be able to differentiate between people?
What standard would we use to create differences between people,
as the right attempts to do when they label others…

to negate or dehumanize people, as the right does and as capitalism does,
is to negate or dehumanize the very society, state we live in…the one
is the other…for we as human beings cannot, in any circumstances,
exists apart from the state/or society… we simply cannot exist without
the state… evolution/nature has determined that already…
we are social being/creatures… which means we are beings/creatures
that must exist within a state or society…

and to attempt to exclude others based on, as the right does, based
on race, creed, sexual orientation, color is simple an attempt to
devalue or dehumanize them… and because there is no daylight
between us individually and us collectively, we are defined more so in
collective terms, not in terms of accidental traits
like race, color and sexual orientation…

Now to the second point of the pretend belief of the right in
a meritocracy, the value of having a state or society govern
by a meritocracy, the question becomes which values or
standard does on use to define merit or ability?
How do we know one has ability or the skill to belong to
this subset of ability? by what standard are we using?
the right seems to believe it is on the accumulation of
wealth that is the standard or value we seek to know
the ones with merit or ability… but they are wrong…

so, what standard we are using to know if one has merit
or ability? what ability or skill defines one as being worthy
of inclusion into a meritocracy?

Kropotkin

5

Just for the record…

Me [in an e-mail to Rick]: Will the forum be back?

Rick: “We don’t know yet. Bot activity on the forum was bringing the entire Philosophy Now website to a halt. Bora has taken the forum offline as an experiment and the main website is working again. We’ll have to decide what to do. I don’t yet know if we’ll find a way to restore the forum, but we will if we possibly can.”

Best wishes

Rick

1 Like
6

thought as much… hope it makes its way back…

7

Back at the ranch… one of the key questions of Critical theory,
has been the question of power… to say that we are enslaved
by capitalism is to say one has power over the other…
A great deal of Foucault was about power… inside of
institutions like prisons and mental institutions for example…
and the question of the power to put one into an institution,
and why those certain actions or behavior rate being put into an institution
and other actions or behaviors do not rate being put ''away"…

the power to decide who is ‘‘normal’’ and who is ‘‘dangerous’’
and to take action against those who are not ‘‘normal’’ or
who are ‘‘dangerous’’… again, who judges and what
standards are being used to make those judgements…
it has been said that one who is a danger to themselves,
and a danger to others, is on who has action taken against them…
and yet, how are we to define this? I would argue that skateboarders
are a danger to themselves and to others… why do they get a pass?
because it’s a sport… so, I can call shooting other people, a sport
and it’s all good? and one might respond, obviously Kropotkin,
why you can’t do one but can do the other… But give it some
thought, and it isn’t as obvious as you might think…
it is as much an indoctrination for us to accept one as a sport
and another as, not…

In a very real sense, morals and ethics are really just indoctrinations,
traditions from the past that linger into today…
Like Jews eating Kosher food… it has nothing but tradition standing
for it, and certainly not science or reason…
but again, back at the ranch, how is morals and ethics, a function
of power? who welds the power to create morals and ethics?
or said another way, I hold that our modern day ethics and morals
are really just another example of people natural inertia or failure
to work out a solution to ethical problems because of laziness,
inertia…why has the ideas like modernism fail? basically because
of inertia… the 20/ 80 idea dominates human beings…
the 20/80 idea is that basically 20% of the population drives what
the 80% believe or act upon… and that in a large measure
allows power to remain power… inertia in the mass of people…

so, who actually holds the power?

inquiring minds want to know?

Kropotkin

8

Holds? True power sets free.

9

Horkheimer once said in regard to critical theory,
that a theory is critical as it ‘‘seeks to liberate human beings
from the circumstances that enslave them’’

Which suspiciously sounds like a continuation to the Enlightenment…
and the Frankfort School was very well versed in philosophy of Kant,
the last of the Enlightenment philosophers…

and one of the factors of being human is the impact of the state/society
on our lives, both positively and negatively…‘‘to liberate human beings
from the circumstances that enslave them’’ which is to say, much of the
state and the society does just that, enslave us human beings…
and the question of becoming free requires us to understand how
we are enslaved, what is enslaving us… as Voltaire pointed out,
it was the Church in his times, not the church today as much
as it is religion, theology itself that has enslaved us today…
and if god were to exists, then the idea of power, who has it,
lies with god, and not with us… I hold that the very idea of religion
enslaves us to a certain viewpoint that is damaging to the human soul…
that what power within the universe, doesn’t lie with us, but outside of us…
and that belief allows us to remain apart from, not invest in our own existence…
the ago old belief that we can do nothing to change our universe,
has given us permission to avoid any investment in our world, our
own existence… why engage in our own existence if we can’t change
anything in it? the idea of power is the idea that we have the power
to change… no power, no change… this is why this question of who
has the power is far more important than it looks…if we have no power
to impact a state or society, why invest in it? If we cannot change something,
why bother engaging with it?

so, this question of what role we play within a state or society, is also
a question of what power do we have within a state or society?
what impact can I personally make within my own state or society?
and if I can’t make an impact or change anything, why bother engaging
in it… in this attitude, we can see the widespread apathy of America
at work…Americans in large numbers have disengaged from the state
and the society because they can’t see how they can personally
impact or change our current society/state… the fact of the matter
is that 66% of eligible voters voted in 2020… which is the highest
rate for any national election since 1900… and for most elections,
the voting rate is much closer to 50%…and even that 66% means
that millions of people didn’t vote… didn’t feel invested enough
to make the effort to vote…

We are as enslave by our circumstance, by the various forces
of the state and the society… we are enslaved by capitalism,
which is an economic system, and that is important to note…
that enslavement doesn’t have to be political or religious,
but it can be economic… or even social…

but our first step is to discover the forces of enslavement
and then we can make changes… that is the first step…
to understand the who, what, when, where, how and why
of the forces of enslavement… and thus, we have philosophers
like Foucault …and Marcuse…

Kropotkin

10

and as there are many variations of critical theory, including Feminist,
sexual, legal, immigration, management, international relations… to name
a few of the critical theory variations… but each one is interested in
this question of power in terms of the subject at hand… in Feminism,
the question of power is front and center… and in Critical Race theory,
it too is based on the existence of power, but not in terms, as feminism
is, in terms of men or women, but in terms of black and white,
and in sexual critical theory, in terms of being straight vs being
LGBQIA… where does the power lie in terms of sexual identity?

I for one, am not sure that the right question is about power, but
hay, that’s me…and here we see the impact of Nietzsche… who
was all about this question of power… does Critical theory even
exists without Nietzsche? One can’t be sure…

the Kantian questions of ''what am I to do?" does that question
center around this question of power? the pursuit of power reminds
me of the seeking of the trinkets of existence… of seeking wealth,
fame, titles, material possessions… what does one get when one
has power? the only possibility is really just more power or less power,
exactly like money, which can only lead us to more money or less money…
or fame, in which we can have more fame or less fame… there is no final
goal in the pursuit of wealth or fame or titles or power… just more of the same…
which is why I have deemed these trinkets as having no value…
because there is no final goal to be reached…
as is in capitalism… as least in communism, the final goal is
the creation of the worker state… a misguided goal, but at least
it’s a goal… which is more than I can say for democracy or capitalism
or fame… or even power…

the right often accuses the left of the pursuit of a utopia,
but at least seeking a utopia is a goal, which is more than I can
say for what the right wants… which is more of the same…

Kropotkin

11

in regard to this question of the individual and the state/society,
the point still remains, what is the goal? What is the goal of the
individual and what is the goal of the state/society?
What are we trying to achieve, individually and, AND collectively?

The Declaration of Independence, states, right at the beginning,

"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
union,‘’’

WE the people, we collectively… in order to form a more perfect union…
moving ever closer, but still moving, to form a more perfect union…
a collective union…and in this statement, where does the power lie?
clearly with ‘‘we the people’’… and with every single right wing attempt
to limit this idea of ‘‘we the people’’ we prevent those we limit, from
having any type of investment in the country… if you want a buy in from
people in the United States of America, you have to include them in
both a voice in America and a say in the future of America…
deny them either and you limit their investment in America…

Which leads us back to the original question, What is the goal,
the actual point of America? “to form a more perfect union”
and that requires us to acknowledge that America is about
our collective being and not our individual being…

but does that understanding allow us to deny us individually?
not at all… it requires us to think about the power structure
of America… How do we establish equal power between
the one, the individual and the collective, the state?
that is the essential question we are attempting to answer…
how do we establish equal power sharing between the individual
and the state? and with what goal? in order ‘‘to form a more perfect
union’’…

One possibility of equal power lies within the act of voting…
we can reacquire power with the act of voting… if, if we
remove, as is the case today, that the entire structure of
democracy has been bought and sold by private enterprise…
Exxon-Mobil has the entire congress listed as a subdivision of
Exxon-Mobil… Exxon-Mobil has bought congress…
and how do we remove this pernicious attack on our democracy?
that is the question, isn’t it?

Kropotkin

12

As long as we have the freedom to say what we really think, and they have the audacity to ask us, we should speak. But there comes a time when you’ve said your peace/piece so many times and they’re still not hearing it. If you’ve said anything worth saying, their position will not be sustainable, and you will not be at fault when it boomerangs.

Notice how I said that the first time? Now I’m gonna say it like you do.

As long as we have the freedom
to say what we really think,
and they have the audacity to
ask us, we should
speak. But there comes a time
when you’ve said

your peace/piece so many times
and they’re

still not hearing it. If you’ve
said anything
worth saying, their position will not be sustainable,
and you will not be at fault when it boomerangs.

Why you do dis???‽!!!

13

your unhappiness is not my problem… I write what I write
how I write it… deal with it or don’t… I really don’t care, either way…

Kropotkin

14

k byeeeee

15

For me anyway, I see the two historical periods/actions as
being two sides of the same coin… The historical age we
call the ""Enlightenment’’ and the second action which is the
‘‘Frankfurt school’’ and its agenda… the basic Enlightenment
thought can be reduced, however badly, to one saying of Rousseau,

"Man is born free and yet, everywhere he is in chains’’

the Enlightenment project can be said to be an answer to this
saying… by working out the many ways we are in chains…
for many like Voltaire, the ‘‘chains’’ were forged and kept on
by religion… He is not wrong… the goal of human beings was
to become free, autonomous people…part of the path to being
autonomous was by becoming tolerant of others…

Let us take a second to flesh this one out… intolerance,
handy, dandy dictionary says this about intolerance:

Intolerance: the unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or
behavior that differs from one’s own…
and of course, the opposite of this is tolerance, the willingness to
accept views, beliefs, or behaviors that differs from own’s own…
and how does this viewpoint allow us to reach being autonomous?

Just as I want to be autonomous, others want to be autonomous…
and this toleration allows us the chance to seek out and find what
values, however different from others, values that are our own…
to seek out and act upon values and beliefs that are different from others,
individually and collectively… for that is the meaning of being autonomous,
to have one’s own values to hold and, AND to act upon…

If the state/society/church is telling us what values and beliefs, we are
to hold and act upon, then we are not being autonomous…
if the state/society/church has the power to tell us what to think, what
to believe in, what beliefs we can act upon, then is it possible for us
to overcome that power to force beliefs on us… that is the second part
of the Enlightenment/Frankfurt school agenda… where does the power
come from that forces us to hold to beliefs and values, that are not
ours… and the Frankfurt school examines that power, by its investigations
of the power structure within a state or society… of the examination of
the institutions that hold power within our state or society… prisons,
mental institutions, the police, the judicial system… an examination
of any or all institutions that hold power over us… forcing us into holding
certain values and beliefs that are not ours…one could, successfully,
argue that schools, indeed the entire educational system is one such
format for forcing us into set beliefs and indoctrinations that we then
use to form our understanding of the universe/world… if the indoctrinations
are wrong, then their use to create an understanding of the world is wrong…
the beliefs of indoctrinations, that there is a god, if that very belief is wrong,
and we base our lives upon that belief, then our understanding of the
world is wrong because we begin in the wrong place or indoctrination…
we think, there is a god in the world and thus, X, Y, and Z are true…
that what I am to do is to follow the religious path and seek out
going to heaven… but if there is no god, if that indoctrination is wrong,
then the very premise of the Kantian goal, ''What am I to do?" is wrong…
I don’t and shouldn’t seek out a religious answer to that question…

basically, if our initial premise is wrong, then all actions thereafter will
be wrong… because they are based on the initial premise… there is a god,
and all actions thereafter are based on that wrong indoctrination…
we are lead astray from the very first moment of following a wrong
indoctrination… The autonomous human being has their own
values and beliefs, that they then follow… So, in the question,
''What and I to do?" they are following their own premises to
their own actions…

We can look at this another way… the question of identity…
the entire question of identity can be said to revolve around
this question of the being autonomous…

If I were to self-identify as being gay, (and I personally do not)
but if I were, that is being autonomous… If I listen to a state/society
that devalues or refuses to accept that personal self-identification,
where does this leave us? I have my own personal self-identification,
and the state/society refuses to allow that based on its own
values or beliefs, we are left with an indoctrination… that being
gay is bad/evil, that is the initial indoctrination… and we must obey,
at least according to conservatives, we must obey ‘‘gods’ directive’’
and follow ‘‘gods law/directive’’… the question of ''What am I to do?"
becomes stark… do I follow the prevailing indoctrinations,
and reject my own self-identity, to become who the state/society
wants me to become, or do I engage in my own self-autonomy
and reject the original premise, that for whatever reason,
being gay is wrong… and here comes the idea that the
institutions of the state/society that attempt to force us into
set identities and values, that we must only love the opposite sex
marry the opposite sex and sleep with the opposite sex, but only in
marriage… but why must we engage in these actions/behaviors
if they are forced upon us by the society/state indoctrinations?
and can the state/society use its power, to force us into actions
and beliefs that are contrary to our own values and beliefs?
Hence the investigations of the Frankfurt school… who has power
and how is that power being used?
is the power being used, is that power being used to increase
our own values or increase the state/society indoctrinations?
Is power being used to help us increase our own autonomy,
or to decrease our autonomy? to allow us to decide upon what
identity we are to use, or to allow the state/society to tell us what
self-identity is allowed or forbidden?

the Kantian question of ''What am I to do?" is dependent on
whether we are autonomous beings or indoctrinated beings?

and you? are you autonomous or are you indoctrinated?
and most of us will allow our ego to say, autonomous,
but if you are against others deciding on their own values
and beliefs, then you are indoctrinated…

Kropotkin

16

What?