some thoughts about Ethics and morality....

As it seems to be clear that we are unable to create a “universal” ethical
and moral theory that will cover all our actions…
and we are left with the problem of, if this is true and we cannot
create a universal ethical/moral theory, that would suggest that
what we have and what all other societies have done is create
an “Ad hoc” theory of ethics and morality…rules/laws are created
and removed based on what the situation calls for…an “Ad hoc” theory
of ethics and morality is nothing more then Situational ethics…
the situation dictates what the rules are, not the other way, which
is we are driven by the rules and we base our behavior and actions based
upon the rules/laws…and if all ethics/morality is situational ethics,
then there is no possibility for a “universal” ethics/morality…

the interesting thing is that we create more loopholes and exceptions
the more serious the actions… hence we have more exceptions with
the act of murder then we do with stealing or the taking of property…

and that is because we value property more then human life…
the nihilism of our modern age is written directly into our legal system…

the nihilism that makes money and property more valuable then life…

our very values are inverted… property over lives…

this inversion prevents us from being able to even think about a “Universal”
ethical/moral system… if we rethink our values to be, life before property,
then perhaps we might, might be able to create a more complete system,
rather then the “Ad hoc” system we have today…

the problem with a “universal” ethical system is the number of exceptions
we are forced to create that will allow us to adapt to every situation…

I murder you… and I have several defenses I can use to avoid punishment…
I can claim to have acted in self defense, I can claim the Fl. law of “stand your ground”
I can claim to be temporarily insane, I can claim to have acted justly, I can try to
claim it wasn’t really murder, I can say someone else did it, if I were a policeman I
would more then likely to get off just because I was a policeman,
and I am sure if I had money I was far more likely to get off because I had money,
the poor are far more likely to get prison for the exact same crime a wealthy person did
in other words, I can get off for being wealthy… and I am far more likely to get off
by being white then by being a person of color…there are quite a few ways to
get off in committing a murder… shall shall not kill… unless…

how does one create a “universal” ethical/moral system given the amount of
exceptions one is given like in the case of murder?

IQ45 quite clearly committed treason in office, but he will escape his crimes
because of his title, President of the United States… so depending on the person
and the title, one can get away with treason…

our legal system is riddled with exceptions for acts committed… can we possible
even think about creating a “universal” ethical/moral system?

as I have noted earlier, that there is a disconnect between what is legal and
what is moral/ethical… as noted, slavery was legal, women being the property
of men was legal, Jim Crow laws were legal, the Holocaust was legal…

but do we consider any of these things to be moral/ethical? nope…

and therein lies the second part of our problem, this divide between
what is legally acceptable and what is morally acceptable… the legal
and the moral/ethical seems to exists in vastly different places…

What Antigone did was was morally right but was legally wrong…
and quite often we are faced with that problem of being morally right
and legally wrong…to shoot someone was was serial rapist and who
raped my mother is legally wrong, but many might consider it to be morally right…

justice is served… but that leads us to this point… to say justice is served
would suggest that justice is about equality, and justice by definition is
about equality… to be just is to be equal… but the question also suggests
that we are unclear about several concepts here… justice, morality/ethics,
legal… is justice the same as the legal? is the legal the same as being moral/ethical?
is morality/ethical the same as justice?

we often use them interchangeable, justice, moral, legal… but are they the
same thing?

Legal: of based on, concerned with the law… permitted by law…

Justice: noun… the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness,
or moral rightness: to uphold he justice of a cause. Rightfulness or lawfulness,
as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice.
the moral principle determining just conduct…

Moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the
goodness or badness of human character: concerned with or derived from
the code of interpersonal behavior that is considered right or acceptable in a
particular society…examining he nature of ethics and the foundations
of good and bad character and conduct…

so the three things we tend to tie together, are really three distinct
and separate concepts…

so is it possible that we change our understanding of the ethical/moral
depending on what particular word we are thinking about, be it moral/ethical,
be it legal, or be it justice…we run into trouble because we are so
cavalier about what we are talking about… are we talking about justice
or are we talking about the legal or are we talking about morality/ethics?

if we are talking about, for example, Justice, then we can state that
justice is about the equal treatment of people regardless of their money,
race, titles, fame… so that would mean we treat everyone in the Judicial
system with justice or equality…or does that mean we no longer make
exceptions for actions done? everyone is treated the same regardless of
their place within society… that would be considered justice… but is
that the moral/ethical thing to do? because should we treat a man who steals
to feed his family and another man who steals for the fun/thrill of it, should
we treat them equally? Justice would demand that we treat them
equally but morally/ethical I don’t see how we can treat them the
same…one man is acting from necessity, from need and the other man
is acting to gain a thrill… how is that equal?

and Judges are constrained by the law to give both men equal “treatment”
and yet we know, know that depending on either man’s wealth or the color
of his skin or his title, one man will escape punishment and the other
sent to jail for years and we can guess which one will be punished
and which one will be set free or given a slap on the wrist…

so is that moral/ethical? and quite often depending on the exact crime committed,
a man who steals will get greater time in jail then a man who kills because
of their wealth, color, status, titles… and once again, is that moral/ethical
or even just? Justice requires equality of punishment or equal treatment
under the law…

I don’t see any way to work out our problem until we have clearly
worked out what is justice, worked out what is moral/ethical
and worked out what is legal?

the three seem to conflict with each other in a very basic way…
and we cannot make any headway into what is moral/ethical
and what is legal and what is justice until we examine all three…

Kropotkin

this question of is there an overall theme to ethics/morality or to
Justice, or to the legal… requires some thought…or, or is
all three simple working off of “ad hoc” beliefs and actions?

if we make shit up as we go along, then there doesn’t seem to
be a plan or goal or a starting point…so what can be
a possible starting point for ethics/morality? what can be
a starting point for justice? what can be a starting point for
the legal? and is there some means and ways of connecting the three?

how do I create a “universal” ethics/moral or a “universal” justice or
a “universal” legal without a connective device or organizing principle?

we don’t see to able to start from the “universal” and work our way down
to a single person action being “Universal”… what that means is
how do I turn one action into a “universal” law or rule or theory?

like Newton and his Apple… how do I go from the one to the all?
the only possibility seems to be imagination… I use imagination to
fill in the blanks in going from the one to the all…

is an act of say, adultery legally or morally or just, in some
form or another? and how do we get to a “universal” legal, moral
or just system from one act of adultery?

I imagine that adultery is going to damage the family unit,
is going to damage the social structure, is going to damage society
in economic, social, political ways… so, we ban adultery…
and so what, people will still engage in adultery even given some sort
of harsh punishments, legally, socially or economically…

and why? because people are invested into achieving their goal
of meeting their needs…and in their minds, their needs outweigh
the social, economic and political costs associated with
adultery…

so this brings up another point, why do we engage in such damaging
behavior to ourselves, our family, the society? Just to meet a need?
so we must also then face the question of the ethical/moral, the justice
and the legal in terms of needs…how can I achieve my needs given society
“need” to contain such behavior because of the damage the pursuit of those
needs create… Let us say, I need to meet my need of sexually assaulting children…
and this conflicts with the society need to protect the children… my personal
needs are in conflict with the social, legal, moral and justice needs of the society…

the problem lies within this need I have… but at no point can I ever really be able
to justify my need for assaulting children… there is no moral, legal or just reason
to assault children… that can be considered to be a “universal” standard… if I am
unable to create any sort of justification for the meeting of my needs…
but I may be able to justify it in my mind with “my needs outweigh” the needs
of the children or the society… the one, me, has needs that must be met…
but I can’t using any standard I know of to justify it to another individual or group
or society at large…

we can make it a law that allows me to sexually assault children but that doesn’t make
it moral/ethical or just… the legal standard can be created but it doesn’t allow
a moral or just standard…

let us try this, what if we create laws that allow just, legal and moral actions only…

we can act only if the legal, moral and justice is met…

so what is legal, moral and just, all at the same time?

Kropotkin

as noted earlier, we are driven by our attempts to met our needs…
now those needs are, apparently unconscious needs, born in the dark days of
childhood and infancy…for we seem to have our needs “set”
by the time we reach young adults years…

so what is a human being? I now think that a human being is one who
engages in their search for fulfilling their needs… we have human beings
who are engaged in a search for the lower needs of bodily needs and
psychological needs of food, water, education, love, esteem, safety/security needs…
and these are transcendental needs, universal and necessary… but many? most?
often get lost in their pursuit of their biological needs… and where does the
baubles occur? I hold that the search for baubles is part of the psychological needs,
we want esteem and love and acceptance and the way we are told/trained is to
gain those needs via the baubles… money, fame, power, titles… the useless baubles
that do nothing for us… they are unneeded and both a threat to our humanity
and our psychological needs…we don’t need those baubles to complete us…
as society trains us, teaches us, implores us…

you want to know what a human being is? we are a collection of needs,
psychological and physical needs…and we spend our lives attempting to
fulfill those unmet needs… but are they necessary?

yes, but we can overcome our bodily and psychological needs to reach the
next level, which is where the higher examples of human beings lie…
the self actualization needs… where we set our own accomplishments
without reference to the physical or psychological needs because those
have been met or are currently successfully engaged… our needs are
being met and so we rise to the next level which is to become the setters
of our goals and accomplishments… we drive the needs and goal to be reached,
not the instinctual needs of the biological and psychological needs of the lower levels
of our needs, food, water, shelter, love, belonging, esteem, safety/security needs…

when we can soar above our biological and psychological needs, we become free
in a way that was never possible before… because we are not driven any longer
to reach those basic drives… these needs, once they are met, no longer
drive us into actions that are often counterproductive…

if we no longer need to reach our basic biological and psychological needs,
we have time to become who we are, we can finally engage in the task of
knowing ourselves and understanding that the “unexamined life isn’t worth living”
and so we now have time to engage in that examination… instead of spending our
days and nights seeking those basic biological and psychological needs…that we
spend 99% of our lives today seeking…let us rise to become creatures that
spend its time examining ourselves and learning to know who we are, outside of
our biological and physical needs that drive our life today…

in other words, what do you spend your energy on? it is examining your life
and making it better or did you spend your days just trying to live, getting
the basic needs we must have just to survive?

ask yourself, what are you spending your energy on? is it trying to gain
and fulfill your needs, both biological and psychological?

or did you spend your day becoming a better person?

and we both know the answer already! you wasted today seeking out
your basic and fundamental needs, both biological and psychological…

when you could have spent it on becoming who you are and improving yourself
by knowing who you are…

a day without an self examination of who you are, is a wasted day…

did you waste today?

Kropotkin

let us shift gears a touch…

let us, as a thought experiment, think about those who are “normal”
and those who are “abnormal” in regards to the field of psychology…

we note that we can often, often tell the difference between one
who is “Normal” and one who is not… and what is that difference?

it is stated within the word “fetish” and what does that word mean?

Fetishizes: have an excessive and irrational commitment to or
an obsession with something

to make something, in this regards to sexual needs, an excessive
and irrational obsession…but and this is important to note, it is
not just sexual… to have an obsession with anything to the point of
it being the one thing that a person focuses on…

a person who is considered to be abnormal is one who makes one or possible
two things as a obsession… that they focus on constantly no matter what else
is going on in their world… they are obsessed on that one thing…

we see this here at ILP with UR and his total obsession with IQ45 and the election…

he rarely ever writes about anything else… that is an obsession, an unhealthy
obsession I might add…

a more balanced person doesn’t make one or two things the center of their lives…

their interest is balanced out among several things… One may like baseball, reading,
music and watching old movies and if they hold on to this balance, of having several
different interest, that is what we would call normal… and it it is normal…

but this leads us to an interesting point… what about those who hold that
the only goal of the human being to be achieving the baubles of existence…
isn’t that an obsession? for example, those who only seem interested in making money,
that is their obsession, their fetish as it were… or those who are interested in
getting fame or those who only think about power… that is an fetish…
an abnormal interest in one thing and one thing only, their lives revolve
around that fetish, be it money or fame or in ILP case conspiracy theories…
if that is all they can write about, it is a fetish… an excessive concentration
on one aspect of life…

now if a person is concentrated on one aspect of life, that is an fetish…
but what if a person is concentrated on one of the needs of existence?

for example, we see people become concentrated on food, or on booze
or on sex or on finding love? that is an fetish… or what we might call
an addiction…an addiction is just another form of a fetish…
whereas the addiction is slightly more of a physical nature,
we are physically addicted whereas a fetish is more of an emotional
addiction to something…it can meet a psychological need of someone…

there are some out there who are making the mistake thinking that
the pursuit of the flesh, a sex addiction is the same as seeking love…
which is a psychological need…

so how does one change a fetish/addiction?

we must, as always, first understand, to know theyself,
understand that we are in the grips of the addiction/fetish…
becoming aware is the first step… if I seek sex before other needs,
then I too, am in the grip of a fetish, but by becoming aware, we
can then begin the quest of breaking free of that addiction/fetish…

so one step is to have a balance approach to existence…
enjoy many diverse and different things… going out to a different
place for dinner, or learning to cook or travel or get a new hobby…
having several different interest is one way we can tell if one is “Normal”
or not…

I thought I should bring this up…

Kropotkin

now to tie up some loose ends…

if you were to state the one unifying theme of the last 200 years, it might be this…

“The universe as being fundamentally without purpose and
without any rational organization save what man puts into it”

so we have isms that have been used to create some rational
organization into the universe… religion for example, this
ism is one such means as to create purpose into the universe…
but we know, from Nietzsche that “god is dead and we have killed him”

and so other attempts have been made to create purpose and organization in
the human being… science is another attempt to create purpose and organization
in our lives…but science failed because it can’t answer the important question of
“Why”… science can answer the how, the what, the when, where and who, but
not the “Why”…why is there human beings? why is there being instead of not being?
science cannot answer that…

and we have various isms such as capitalism and communism and Catholicism
and Buddhism, that also try to answer the why… they are attempts at
creating the purpose of existence and the organization of that existence…

and so what is ethics/morality? just another attempt to create the
organization of existence…and perhaps the why too?

ethics/morality can be thought of as creating an organizing principle
in our lives…the problem with ethics/morality is there can be no
facts or evidence that supports any type of ethical/moral theory that
we might come up with…

we can create a mystical theory of ethics/morality like in religions
like Catholicism that are basically belief systems held together by
belief and hope… nothing factual or in the way of any evidence…

we have had most of the major philosophers in the 19th, 20th century like Kierkegaard
Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Wittgenstein being ethical writers… the attempt
of the 20th century has been to create an ethical system that is at least rational,
if not logical…and provides us with some basis for believing in a purpose of existence…

the events of the 20th century shows us that we do not have an ethical/morality theory
that has prevented the major tragedies of the 20th century… the two world wars,
the Holocaust, the IQ45 concentration camps for children…the belief of many that
IQ45 is the savior despite being completely devoid of any ethics/moral is troubling
to say the least… He said that he could shoot someone on 5th Ave and not lose
a single follower means his followers are completely devoid of any “Moral” compass…
they too lack the ability to understand what is moral/ethical and what isn’t…
we have no ethical theory in America today… we just have the mindless pursuit
of wealth and fame and power and titles… the baubles of existence that lead
nowhere…

the fact that Democrats are more then willing to dump Gov. Cuomo over the accusations
of sexual harassment then republicans willing to dump IQ45 over shooting someone
on 5the Ave, tell us that at least liberals/Demo’s still have some sort of ethical/moral
standards in place…

and that is the point… where we act from ethical/moral perspectives like
the willingness to follow ethical/moral standards that provide us with
some sort of operating principles of living…

we can use moral/ethical principles to organize our lives and create some
sort of meaning/purpose within that life…and I suspect that one of, one of
the reasons we are so lost in this modern age is that we don’t have any sort
of solid moral/ethical principles in which to follow… we don’t have a
ethical/moral theory in which we can turn to find meaning/purpose in…

and how does this tie into my prior post about fetishes and addictions like
the pursuit of money, fame, power, titles? In our pursuit of such wealth,
in order to meet our needs of fame, wealth, power, we are willing to
go to any, ANY length to meet our needs… to become wealthy, a fetish,
many if not most people are willing to kill or steal or swindle others out
of their wealth… morality/ethics go to the wayside in our pursuit of that
particular fetish, be it wealth or fame or titles…

morality/ethics in fact stand in the way of our reaching or meeting our
needs of both the physical and the psychological… we will do anything,
anything to met our biological and psychological needs and that includes
murder and mayhem and stealing and cheating…so on and so forth…

ethics/morality stands in the way of our meeting our needs and so we
have to dump, discard ethics/morality to achieve our goal of meeting our needs…

what is more important? meeting our needs or becoming ethical/moral?

and modern America has already answered that question with their denial
of ethics/morality by millions idolizing IQ45 who has no ethics/morals of
any kind… shooting someone on 5th ave and not losing any supporters
is a statement about the complete lack of ethics/morals of both IQ45 and
his supporters… and speaks to the fact there is no moral/ethical theory in
America…

so how do we solve this problem?

as always, by recognizing we have a problem to not having a moral/ethical theory
in America today… that has been the problem that philosophy has been working
out for 200 years… and we have yet to find an answer… and we must soon find
a answer before we find ourselves in real trouble…

Kropotkin

Say one kind word about the people in the other tribe… say one kind word about Trump.

It’s not that hard to remain critical of ideas, without demonising people.
But if you won’t, at least have some perspective…
Morality is founded in solidarity… and you’re not championing solidarity, merely claiming superiority.

Say one kind word… then another…
Might remind you that you’re dealing with fellow human beings, neighbors even… might remind “them” too.

a couple of things, one, I note that you did not say anything to UR or Observe
about their dehumanization of the left with their language such as “communist shill”
or “traitors” or other dehumanizing language…

it is typical to demand, yes, demand that the left be kind and loving
and not be “mean” to the right whereas the right is allowed to belittle
and demean and dehumanize the left… this is typical of the double standard
that the right uses…we can can slander and lie and dehumanize but
you can’t because it might “hurt” my feelings…
the sheer hypocrisy of this is apparently lost on you…ok snowflake

secondly, IQ45 is the lowest form of life that exists and isn’t deserving of
anything but derision and hated… the world would have been far better off
if he hadn’t been born and I can only say this about a very few people…

don’t talk to me about reforming my house when your house is a shit show
of failure, dehumanization and hatred… I have no intention of backing down
because I am a liberal… I am your worst nightmare because I am a liberal who
hits back and I hit back harder then you have ever been hit…
I don’t take prisoners and I don’t apologize for it…
I have no guilt and I don’t take shit from anybody…

Kropotkin

What I’m about to say shouldn’t matter… but clearly does…

I’m not part of your tribal war.
I live in denmark and I vote left of OUR center, which is itself far left of yours… I’m not your enemy and my house is in very good order.
I’m doing what I advised YOU to do… I speak to “them” with whom I disagree as though we were on the same team… even when they do not return the favor.
And while we might disagree on some things, we might yet find agreement on others when speaking as friends…

If you’re not the one to extend the olive branch, who will?
If the people who traditionally champion solidarity have stopped… where might it come from?

If not through diplomacy… what then?
What’s the plan here?
Rounds up “the others” and put them somewhere where they can’t spread their evil corruption, so you and yours can fix the country “they” ruined?
We still remember on my side of the pond what that looks like…

Look at what happened in this conversation. You assumed the malicious intent and read my words through that lense…
Was I an american, was I a republican… I might have said the same and I might have had the same intention… but you would have never heard me, you still might not.

What good does this do you?
No one punched you… they said dehumanizing shit… you don’t have to “defend yourself” by succumbing to the same madness.
Maybe try making “them” look worse, by being better… maybe lead by example rather than follow “their” lead…

Just some thoughts…

so the question facing us is the creation of a universal ethical/moral theory…

if you believe in exceptions for actions, then you are believe situational ethics/morals…

and I suspect that almost everyone will hold to exceptions to actions taken and thus
virtually everyone holds to situational ethics as a moral theory… which is fine, but
that certainly isn’t a universal ethical/moral theory…actions must have the possibility
of exceptions… if that is true, then a universal ethically/ moral theory isn’t possible…

how are we to understand this?

perhaps one possible recourse is to add to the Kantian questions…

“What am I to do?” What am ought I hope for?" “what can I know?” are
the original Kantian questions to which I have added, “what should my energy
be spent on?” “What values should I hold?” and now this,
“how should I act toward my fellow human beings?” and as always, every single
questions can be converted into a collective question, “What values should we hold?”
or “What are we to do?”

so, how should we act toward our fellow human being? what can be a possible
universal ethical/moral theory?

if as we recall that Nietzsche declared that “god is dead and we have killed him”…

so we cannot hold to any sort of religious answer to a universal ethical/moral theory…

much thought is needed…

Kropotkin

upon further reflection, while eating my dinner of buffalo wings,
I think we can work this down a bit…

what we call “modern” and “postmodern”
is really something else… the real action in the modern world is this,
that we have no more universal values or beliefs that hold us together…

the modern world is a world without the possibility of any type of universal
ideals…I pointed out one aspect, the loss of any universal ethics/morality…

but we have other losses of universal values such as in the fracturing of
philosophy into smaller schools of thought… whereas for over 200 years
philosophy was engaged in one particular aspect of philosophy, epistemology…
the search for knowledge, what it is, the scope of it, the limits of it…
and we cannot decide upon even the basics… what political system should
we have or what economic system should we have… ask 10 people and you might
get 10 different answers…the modern age is defined by the fracturing of
universal idea’s that at one time was considered the basis of society…

the Enlightenment motto was “Sapere aude” or dare to know or even more
loosely “dare to be wise”… it was a call to find one’s own truths or values…
not just to accept the current superstitions that pass for political and economic
understanding…

we have legal “superstitions” that pass for the current truth that the justice system
abides by (when it is convenient) and we have ethical/moral (whatever that means)
and we have justice… which is another word for equality…

we have what seems to be be, three distinct aspect of this, the legal, the moral,
and justice…justice seems to have something to do with motive or perhaps that
is legal?

if there is no universal ethics/morality, then we have, right now anyway, situational ethics…
the situation dictates the ethics…there is no moral/ universal rule we can follow in
any given situation… our entire ethical understanding, as of right now, is situational
ethics… in other words, our ethical understanding is “ad hoc” made up to fit
the situation…

but that is also true of our political, economic and social situations in
this modern world… what universal rule can we, do we, follow in
political, economic and social situations?

there doesn’t seem to be any type of universal ethical, political, social
and economic rules that seem to be applicable to everyone… our entire world
is done “ad hoc” moment to moment, situation to situation, as the need arises…

can we put the genie back into the bottle and create some sort of
universal ethical, political, economic, and social rules/laws that is
applicable to everyone? Frankly, at this point, I would say no…

if the path into the future is situational ethics along with situational politics,
and with situational economics and situational social, then we must adapt
to this new state of affairs with all our heart… you cannot be half ass with
situational ethics… the situation dictates the ethics, the situation dictates
the politics, the situation dictates the social and the situation dictates the
economic… situational behavior is the path into the future…until it isn’t…

but there are other possibilities here… instead of going from the situation to
the actions, situational ethics as it were, perhaps another route can be found…

we find our universal in values… hence we find our course of action by the
use of and understanding of values… like love, hope, peace, justice…

so we have an action, and how do we face this action?
so let us get specific, I have a situation… instead of situational ethics,
I face this situation with values as my guide to action or inaction as the case may be…

is this an universal ethics that held mankind enthralled for several millennium?
no, but as we cannot find or create a universal ethics/morals, holding on
to values may be the path into the future…

so in the future, we might have the love party, in which the people in that party
hold to the value of love and that is their guide for actions… and another party
may hold to justice as their guide for actions, and another party might hold to
peace as their guide into the future…the TFH party already does this
by holding onto anger, hate and fear, but why not use these values in
a positive sense, not a negative sense as the TFH party does…

that is one possibility…and that there are many other possibilities available to us…
as possibilities to us in terms of values which we can hold onto as guides for us into
the future…

if what I hold to be true, then the current ethical, political, economic
and social actions are just “ad hoc”, temporary, of the moment…
and soon we shall have another set of “ad hoc” idea’s of the political,
social, economic and ethical ideals which people follow… and soon after
that another set and then another set and then another set of “ad hoc” of the
moment understanding of the law, the political, the social and the
economic…

for in a “ad hoc” world, the situation dictates the ethics, the moral, the
social and the political… and as the environment changes, so does the
situation and with every changing situation, comes the different “ad hoc” laws/rules
in ethics, morality, political and the social of our existence…

Kropotkin

I was going to write that we face “life long”
seeking the mysteries that are “what is evil”
but in reality, these questions are “species long” for we
have faced these questions every day of our species existence,
“what is evil?” “what is the right thing to do?” What does it mean to be moral?"
“what is the difference between good and evil?” “what is my relationship with
my fellow human being?”

and we seek answers in our political structure, tribes to cities to nations
and we seek answers in our religious structures like Catholicism to Buddhism
to Jainism and we seek answers in our economic structures like capitalism
and communism and monarchies…

if only we can find the right political structure or the right religious
structure or the right economic structure, we can find, well in fact we
don’t even know what we are looking for… is it peace or is it harmony
or is it happiness, not individually, but collectively… what are we looking for?

and that seems to be different then what I am looking for… our individual needs
are different then our social/political/religious/ economic overall, collective needs…

Sartre once wrote that “hell is other people” perhaps but the fact is I cannot survive
on my own… I need other people just to survive, just to have my needs met…
for I cannot meet my needs by myself, none of us can…either my physical
needs or my psychological needs cannot be met by myself and you cannot reach
your physical or psychological needs by yourself…we must be loved by others,
we must be esteemed by others, we must have our safety/security needs met
by others, and we must have our physical needs of food, water, shelter, education,
health care are also met by others…

so how do we solve this problem or really this series of problems?

“what is good, and what is evil?” and after thousands of years, we still cannot answer this
fundamental question?

Kropotkin

indeed, we might ask, “what is the truth?”
and that answer has eluded us since the beginning of time…

“What is good?” “what is evil?” “what is the truth?”…
I have no idea and neither do you and that should bother you,
it bothers me, but no, we are engaged in tribal battles over
political matters that won’t matter in 6 months…

it no longer matters to me that the corporate tax rate is
20%… who gives a fuck? I want to know what the principle
behind the tax rate is, not how much it is…

for me, the question is not how, but why…

the why of life… why should we be good instead of being bad/evil
and what does that even mean? these eternal questions of existence
have bother humans since the beginning, as they should…

but few, if any seem to care around here about these eternal questions,
that we should be focused on, not stupid ass videos about IQ45…
he may as well be U.S. Grant in term of relevance to us…

Kropotkin

it has been said that “science is an attempt to explain our experiences”

we see a tree and science try’s to explain what that experience means…
we can trace the connection that the tree has to the earth, the air, the animals
and the other tree’s… that is science… seeing the relationships that the tree has
to its environment…and to us… science is an attempt to understand experience…

philosophy is an attempt to give the meaning behind that experience…

hence we might think about morals/ethics as experience explained philosophically…
what does it mean ethically/morally for me to act immoral/unethically?

what if I stole your life savings? is that good? evil? just plain bad?
it might diminish your life, but it will do wonders for my life…
stealing your life saving is an experience, but what does it mean?
can science give us an answer?.. no, that much is clear… there is
no why in science… it may be said that our reliance on science may be
an attempt to escape any responsibility for our actions… because there
is no why in science, we can escape meaning in our dependence on science…

is that morally right or wrong doesn’t play a role in science, only explaining
the experience counts in science…now one might argue that science has
become aware of the moral/ethics of its actions, and we can debate that…
but was morality/ethics a debate during the construction of the Atomic bomb?
I doubt it… the goal was to end the war, not discuss the relative merit’s of
the ethical or moral value of the bomb…but the question is, should science
place a far greater emphasis on the role of ethics and morality within it
framework?

and the answer is, we all should place a far greater emphasis on ethics and morality
in our actions and in our politics and in our words… the question of this
modern age is simple, what does it mean to be ethical/moral?
the goal of the modern age should be the creation of a universal moral/ethical
theory…and what does it mean if we cannot do that?

Kropotkin

and how should we then approach Ethics/morality?

perhaps a clue might be in the question of ART…
what is ART? Is ART an attempt to recreate nature?
or an attempt to see “reality” for what it is? Is ART really
a creative act or is ART just a report what the ARTISTS see’s?

As we have noted earlier, it is tough to go from a singular event to
an comprehensive understanding… again, try to go from Newton’s falling
apple to the creation of the entire system of Gravity and the ensuing laws
of motion, the three laws of Thermodynamics…

can you create an entire universal ethical and moral theory from one action,
say, murder? I don’t think so…we can however create a universal ethical/moral
theory and then apply it to one single action, again, murder…
but once again, we have the problem of having no basis for a universal ethical/moral
theory… there are no fact or evidence that will lead us to a specific universal
ethical or moral theory…

so, what is left? we can use imagination, as Newton use imagination to go from
the single event of an apple falling to the creation of modern physics, Gravity
and the laws of thermodynamics…

the book “Les Miserables” points out in very graphic terms the failure of
putting the law ahead of ethics/morality…
we can see point blank what the failure of ethics/morality can mean to just
one person, Jean Valjean… pursuit of the law as a theory of ethics and morality
fails because we can quite often see the failure of the law… recall that slavery was
legal, that the Holocaust was legal, that making human beings, slaves, count as
3/5 of a human being was legal, that making women property of men, first their
fathers, then their brothers and then their husbands… and that was legal…
but does being legal mean it is ethical or moral? we see the problem now…

the creativity of ART can point out the failure of the law, the failure of
the legal system…what is moral when we can lock up starving people for
stealing a loaf of bread? I would say that starving people is a moral and ethical
problem for a society which is far greater then a person stealing a loaf of bread to
feed his family…but starving people have no legal basis to overcome their
basic human right to the necessities of existence, food, water, shelter,
education, health care… legally they can starve and the problem becomes
how is that ethical or moral for a society to allow such starvation? is it just to
allow people to starve to death? I don’t see justice being served when people are
starving to death… we can see the failure of the judicial system when it allows
members of its own society to starve to death because it is legal, but no one
cares about it being moral or ethical…

so I see Aesthetics as being one possible solution for us to see what is
ethical/moral… not necessarily legal, but isn’t the ethical/moral of
a higher ground then the legal? If not, then we can allow people to starve
to death with no hesitation or unease because it is an LEGAL act, not a moral/
ethical act we are dealing with… and because we have decided that the legal
has been wrong, seriously wrong in the past, it can be wrong now when we can
legally allow people to starve to death…

ART or Aesthetics can point out what is truly moral or ethical far more then
what the law or justice might be able to point out…I hold that the act of creation
can be more meaningful as to what is ethical/moral far more then the legal might be
able to…so in deciding what might be ethical or moral, we can be justified in
using ART or the Aesthetics values in determining what is the right course of action,
either the legal or the moral/ethical… what is the right thing to do? we might
be better served by ART or the Aesthetical then what is legal…

Kropotkin

what is the English root word of virtue?

go back far enough and we reach the word “Arete”
which is the Greek word for excellence…and if you think about it,
isn’t virtue really about achieving excellence?

who among you strive to be virtuous or excellent?

that is not what drives the Modern world today… the baubles
of existence drives the world… the world teaches the false
idols of money, fame, power, titles… who cares about that which
you can carry to one’s grave?.. and that is virtue or excellence…

you can lose your money, and you can lose your job/title and you can lose
fame and you can lose power… but you can never lose virtue or excellence…
you can even lose your faith in god and no longer believe… but excellence/virtue
are there for life…to strive for virtue/excellence can easily be the goal of one’s
lifetime…

I try to achieve virtue/excellence in the small acts of existence…
when someone hands me too much money, I give the extra back,
I aim for honesty… I take blame when blame is mine… Kropotkin,
you were wrong about this… and I take immediate responsibility for
being wrong…it isn’t in the big acts of virtue, but in the everyday,
when no one is looking acts of virtue/excellence I try to achieve…
to do the “right” thing even if no one is looking… that is how I
try to achieve virtue/excellence every single day…do I always succeed?
no, but the work comes in trying every single day to achieve excellence/virtue…

my goal isn’t to become wealthy or famous or have a title or weald power,
my goal is to achieve virtue/excellence… the hardest goal of all…

and we might consider that it is in the small acts of virtue/excellence that we might
find out what is ethics/morality…isn’t ethics/morality simply the act of excellence
in action? To attempt to become better then we were yesterday… not as accidental
actions but as a conscious decision to achieve excellence/virtue…to achieve
what is possible for me in my relationship with others… to lift up instead of
bringing down others…to help them achieve what is possible for them, the higher
possibilities, not the lower ones…ethics/moral isn’t just about a abstract theory,
but about our day to day dealings with each other and, and with ourselves…
for we can engage in dishonest dealings with ourselves… I can lie to myself
about what I am really about… perhaps I steal from people but I convince myself
that I am an honest person… but I find some justification to steal from people,
oh, they deserved it or they got what is coming to them or they started it…
justifications that allow me to be dishonest with myself… when I am dishonest with
myself, as the existentialists held, then I am not being “authentic” with myself…
I am playacting that I am a good person, I am pretending that I am trying to achieve
excellence/virtue… when I am just feeding some lower need that I have to steal or lie
or cheat…

to achieve virtue/excellence means to do the right thing even if no one is watching…
the goal and that is the point, it is a goal, is to become a better version of who we are…

excellence/virtue is to reach to become something better then we are today…
and I can achieve that in the small acts of existence… by helping the old lady
cross the street, by helping the mom who has 5 kids bring her groceries to her car…

it is in the little acts of existence that define who we are…

Kropotkin

so this question of morality and ethics, has been one of the primary concerns
of modern philosophy since Kant…but one of the interesting things is that
it has been a quiet concern… no one has really shouted out loud how morality/ethics
has been a primary concern outside of Nietzsche… and yet, every major 20th century
philosopher has tried to work out an ethical/moral universal theory of ethics/morals…

from Kant to Hegel, to Schopenhauer to N. and every major 20th philosopher including
Lacan to Heidegger to Sartre to Wittgenstein… the philosophers who haven’t tried as hard
to work out an ethical, universal theory of ethics/morality have been the analytical
side of philosophy… and even they made a passing attempt to create a ethical/moral
universal theory of ethics/morality…
the structuralist, the deconstructionist, the language game theorist…
the one’s who aren’t as concerned with they why of philosophy but the how of
philosophy…

so what is the “right” thing to do in regards to our relationship with other
people? What is the “moral” thing to do? as we are parts of the whole,
we must work out our role as a “part” of society and we must fit that
into a whole theory of ethics/morality…

and what standards are we to use in this attempt to be a “moral’”
individual? what is best for the individual? or what is best for the whole,
the society/state/ culture? do we accept the communist/capitalist/ catholic
theory that we are just cogs in the machine and thus expendable in terms
of our role in the society? or do we put the individual ahead of the whole,
the state/society? As Kierkegaard and modern conservatives hold to be true?

and this might be the defining understanding between a liberal and a
conservative… what is our role within a society? a liberal takes
the understanding that we are part of the whole and act as a member
of a society/state, whereas the conservative takes the understanding
that the individual is higher then a society/state and the state must
adapt to the individual, whereas liberal believe that the individual must
adapt to the state…

so in order to work out an universal/ethical theory, we must begin somewhere
and for us, perhaps, is the exact role of the individual and the exact role
of the state…and of course, being an ever changing dynamic environment,
this role changes and is modified every single day…how can there be a “set”
“fixed” theory of our role and place within society/state when the individual
is always changing and the state/society is changing?

how do you catch an ever moving machine? because once you
have caught it and analysis something, like a butterfly, the
butterfly has change again… you can’t ever catch a society or
the state at rest, long enough to study it or analysis it…

any description of the state/society/individual is always
an description of that state/society/individual in the past, never
in the present or the future…and as Hume was kind enough to point out,
that any description of present or future, is done from bias, prejudice, habit,
superstition… it is not an accurate description of the present or the future
because the present or future is always moving, changing…
and we cannot keep up with that motion/movement…

I might come up with a description of the present, today, right now,
and that description is already moot by the time I write it down…
perhaps in the next minute, Biden might die or there is a shooting
that kills hundreds or a bomb goes off and then everything I wrote
is irrelevant… it makes as much sense as a newspaper from the 1950’s might…

ours theories just cannot keep up with the ever changing reality
of existence…and this makes a universal theory of ethics/morals,
always in the past…it cannot keep up with what is or what might be,
it can only deal with what was…

Kropotkin

Without a single absolute purpose,
we are left with free space for many smaller relative purposes.

K: that is certainly on way to think about it…

Kropotkin

If you understand this then you are well-off.
Small things matter, sometimes a lot.
Skunks matter, for example.
Your mom matters, for example.
We should be freely willing to have confidence in our assessments.
Assessments need to be re-organized sometimes,
but there is lots of free room with that too.

Ethics, when it really comes down to it (in the ultimate sense), is that nobody wants their consent violated.

That requires a completely new plan for existence.

Even though it’s somewhat relative in the current plan; it’s not all relative. The current plan is made to punish cognitive dissonance / hypocrisy / contradiction.

You’ll see.