One of the values of philosophy is to frankly, “rock the boat”… to
bring out or attack the paradigms of society… to dig up the assumptions
that are the base of every society/state/ civilization/ culture…
we in America has quite a few assumptions that we simply take for granted…
that capitalism is the “best” economic system… that we have a working
democracy, that for the right, the best government is the least government,
and for the left, government is always benign and safe… (I don’t hold this, but I
also hold that corporations/big business are far greater dangers to us as a
society/state then the government is right now… if government seems evil right now,
that is because it is being driven evil by big business)
and in thinking about this, I was, naturally, drawn to my own thought…
I hold certain beliefs… but what anchors those beliefs?
for millions of people, religion and religious beliefs anchors their
beliefs… they see the state/society/civilization/the culture based
on, anchored upon, religious beliefs…
but I don’t hold to religious beliefs… so what anchors my beliefs?
and that becomes the question…on what principles do I anchor my
social/political/philosophical/and economic beliefs?
clearly much of my viewpoints are liberal in nature…but is my overall
beliefs anchored in my liberal views? is the anchor for my beliefs lie in my
political beliefs? do I see everything through the lens of liberalism?
I don’t belief so, but I cannot, cannot assume anything…I must explore if
my political beliefs drive and anchor all my other beliefs?
I do hold that people are generally, generally, good and want to do the right thing,
but I also work retail and if one works retail for more then 5 minutes, you learn,
quickly to hate people… so my beliefs in people are challenged by my conflicting
beliefs in the goodness of people and the nasty tone people have as customers in retail…
I am in conflict and how do I resolve this conflict? I have seen enough in people over
the last 60 years to hold that people generally want to do the right thing, but are quite
often confused, quite confused as to what the right thing is…
for reasons, I don’t understand, quite often people will attempt to “convert”
me to “loving jesus”… yah, what fun…depending on the person, I may be
nice or I may be a dick about it… depending…
and those people see the universe through the lens of religion…
their beliefs are grounded by their religious beliefs…
but once again, what grounds my beliefs? what grounds the society beliefs or
the states beliefs or the culture beliefs?
under what flag should I plant my beliefs under?
that is the question…
Kropotkin