what does it take to become an.....

Autonomous human being?

and what does that even mean?

I would suggest that the biggest question we face as human beings, is how
do we achieve being an “Autonomous” person?

Autonomous: 1. (of a country or region) having the freedom to govern itself
or control its own affairs.

  1. (in Kantian moral philosophy) acting in accordance with one’s moral duty
    rather then one’s desires…

another example of being autonomous: autonomy is about a person’s ability
to act on his or hers own values and interest… in order to do these things,
the Autonomous person must have a sense of self-worth and self-respect…

having the right or power of self government… the ability to self govern
oneself…

so let us think about this in practical terms… we are born into a set, fixed society,
one that has its own values, beliefs, indoctrinations, biases, superstitions and habits…
we cannot be considered to be “autonomous” if we hold to our birth indoctrinations…
if we are born into a “democrat” family and we hold to this, without any reflection as to
what this means, then we are not being “autonomous” in following values, ism’s, ideologies,
beliefs that are indoctrinated into us, that isn’t being “Autonomous”…

so if society as deemed, murder to be wrong, and we simply accept that value,
then we are not being “autonomous”… we must follow our own values and beliefs,
to be considered, “Autonomous”…

if UR or Observe hold that anyone who doesn’t hold their specific beliefs, to be
communist, and they learned this during their childhood indoctrinations, then
they aren’t being “Autonomous”…they are just repeating what they learned as
children and that isn’t being “Autonomous”

they cannot answer the question, how are your values, superior, to my values?
what gives you the right to believe your "truths’’ are more ‘‘true’’
then my ‘‘truths?’’ it is simple enough to say, what I hold is the one and only “truth”
but then how do you know that knowledge is correct and true?

Epistemology: the theory of knowledge, especially with regards to its methods,
validity, and scope… Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes
justified belief from opinion…

if you hold beliefs that you have never investigated as to their method, validity,
or scope, then you are not being “Autonomous”… you are simply following someone’s
else rules and values, not your own…

the modern question is simple, how do we become “Autonomous” human beings?

and what does that even mean?

Kropotkin

here comes the next aspect of becoming Autonomous…

Autonomous from what or for what? we are we being free from
or free for? let us work out one possibility, nature…
Philosophers often write of “Nature” as if it is out there, not connected to
human affairs…that we human beings are apart from, separated from nature…

this misses the fact that we are nature, nature exists within us in our bodies
and in our “needs”… Darwin brings in this point nicely… we human beings have
instincts, no different then the instincts that animals, our dog or cat might have…
we cannot escape our needs, our biological needs of food, water, shelter, health care,
education… and then we cannot escape our higher psychological needs of belonging,
love, safety/security… those needs are also ingrained within us… indeed, to
say that human beings are a “blank slate” is to miss out on our instincts and
our biological needs that we have within us, born within us…

now these needs, both psychological and biological, are needs inputted into
us by nature…we “inherited” these needs and the very word “inherited”
tells us that these needs are born of nature…

Nature isn’t out there, it is within us, existing as needs and wants and desires,
and as instincts that our close relations have, such as monkeys and dogs and cats…

so what does the concept of being “Autonomous” mean in light of our inherited
nature, our needs and our instincts?

we cannot escape our biological or psychological needs…we must have those in
order to survive… but what about our instincts? hate, anger, lust, greed,
are all instincts that we have…how do we escape these instincts?
how do we become Autonomous in regards to our instincts?

we can overcome our instincts of hate and violence… if we make it a priority…
as we must, in order to survive…our need, our instinct for violence…
we must overcome that if we are to survive…for that instinct, while
very useful when we were in the jungle or walking about the savanna,
it no longer offers us any type of benefit…this is quite often the way of things,
at one time, a thing, perhaps an instinct like violence did pay a role in
allowing human beings a chance to survive, but today, right now, violence
hurts or damages our chances of survival…
the instinct of cooperation is far more vital for the survival of the human race
then violence is…and why? because we must change and adapt to our changing
environment, and given where we are at, cooperation is a better way into
the future of survival then is the instinct of violence…

so the question of being an Autonomous human being, is where we can be
involved in this point of self rule, of self-government… and part of that self-rule,
falls into our overcoming our need, our instinct for violence…

being able to control our instincts… that is part of becoming “Autonomous”
beings…

for in the grip of our instincts, we lose control over ourselves… and this loss of
control, this being overtaken by our instincts, means we are no longer being “Autonomous”…

so for many, being dogmatic, being in a cult as an ism… Trumpism is not being
in control anymore…it is not engaged in being Autonomous…
being dogmatic means the ism, the beliefs must exists even in the face of
opposing evidence…that dogmatism, holding a believe in the face of
overwhelming evidence against it, isn’t being Autonomous… thus
those who hold to the cult of Trumpism, they are not engaged in the attempt
to be Autonomous…holding to a fact no matter what the evidence is, is dogmatism,
and any sort of dogmatism, is no longer being Autonomous…

the enlightenment was an attempt to overcome dogmatism, of all kinds,
be it religious, political, social and philosophical… the Romantic era is
an attempt to overthrow the enlightenment ideals… thus the modern day
Romantics, conservatives, are oppose to the enlightenment ideal of
becoming Autonomous… free from the control of others, be that control
religious, political, social and philosophical…to be free to make ones own
choices based upon one’s own idea and values, that is being Autonomous…

the modern day conservative, no longer holds to becoming Autonomous…
that enlightenment ideal…the modern day conservative holds to a
purity test… and if you don’t pass these purity test, you are cancelled,
toss out of the GOP…as Liz Chaney was cancelled…

to be able to make one’s own choices is no longer the ideal of the GOP…
ask a republican what they believe in, and all one gets is conspiracy theories
about the last election… and that isn’t an attempt to become Autonomous…

so what in your mind, would being Autonomous look like?

Kropotkin…

in thinking about the human relationship with being “Autonomous”…
a few thoughts came to mind…

one might rethink the entire modern era, as a search for being “Autonomous”

for example in the Renaissance, we see the problem of being “Autonomous”
began to stir…and we see the notion of being “Autonomous” practiced as
ART, and in the lives of the “Artist”…think about the Middle Ages…think
about the people and Artist of the Middle ages… there was no thought to
being “Autonomous” to the church…either you were in or you were out
and if you were out, you were disqualified from any engagement with both
the religious and the political forms of the age… there was no option to
be Autonomous in the Medieval period…

and then, as I mentioned, we have the Renaissance, where people began to
move away from the dogmatic nature of existence… where you were expected
to engage with both the religious and the political functions of the existence as
they told you how to engage with them… no one was Autonomous in the middle ages…
you did as you were told…

the key to understanding the entire modern age need for being Autonomous lie in
the entire Reformation…in the Reformation comes our modern understanding of
the nature of and the being Autonomous…

the Enlightenment was simple an attempt to systemize the Reformation
understanding of being Autonomous…

think about someone like Descartes… his “method”…what was left after
he removed everything… that was a search for being Autonomous…
now he may not have thought of it that way, but that certainly was the
result of his search for “certainty”…the “I think therefore I am”
is an engagement with being Autonomous…

as mentioned, the Enlightenment was an entire intellectual
understanding of what it meant to be Autonomous…

and note that Kant and Hegel, were being Autonomous is, perhaps,
the central concept of both philosophers… how is one supposed to
be Autonomous and how exactly has the search for being Autonomous
has been central to both history and philosophy…(Hegel)

for Kant, for one to be Autonomous, meant that they followed the
the “duty” that one created for oneself…

Recall this saying by Kant:

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and
awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens
above me and the moral law within me”

that Moral law, for Kant, was the key to being Autonomous…to fulfill
one’s duty to one’s own moral law, which Kant thought was
built into us, a priori knowledge is “knowledge that is absolutely independent
of all experience” was the point of being Autonomous…

but really, is being Autonomous really about acting upon the “moral” laws
built within us? laws built into us by god… although Kant never mentioned
this, this is what he meant… the moral laws that god built into us…
the “duties” that we have to obey god’s laws… Duties that were in us,
“a priori” that is being Autonomous according to Kant…

as all of modern philosophy is a rift off of Kant, that means the entire
history of modern philosophy is a rift off of being Autonomous…

and let us think about philosophers after Kant, like Hegel and Kierkegaard…
for example…Hegel wrote all about the “spirit of the age” what if we
think about “spirit” as just another way of saying Autonomous?
now notice, I am not stating facts, I am simple asking a question…
what if Hegel was simply showing us the history of being Autonomous when
he refers to the history of spirit…

let us engage with Kierkegaard, think about his message… he clearly
had a message about being Autonomous… think about his hatred of
being a “modern” man… which he clearly doesn’t believe to be
Autonomous…“the crowd is untruth” or something like that
K. wrote…and this…

“truth always rests with the minority… because the minority is generally
formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a
majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion”

K. message was about being Autonomous in a modern society…

as was Nietzsche… he was, perhaps, the philosopher who
was most engaged with Autonomy…

and once again think about the historical situation of the 18th and
19th century…man’s belief in god was diminished during those
200 years… in part because of the various revolutions, science,
the industrial, the political, the social and the philosophical
revolutions of the modern age…

so if god is no longer the standard for modern man to work out
his autonomy, then what was the standard? upon what do we
hold to in regards to being Autonomous?

and here we are today… where being Autonomous is no longer the
ideal that it once was… since the time of Luther, say 1500 to 2000 AD…

but I hold that the questions perhaps the only question of the 21st century,
is this, how do we become Autonomous since we have lost our faith in the ism’s
and ideologies that supported human beings for 1500 years?

is the ism of capitalism really bring out being Autonomous? no, I hold
that one of failures, one of many, of capitalism is that it doesn’t bring
about an increase in being autonomous… in fact, I would suggest that ism’s like
capitalism, communism, religions like Buddhism and Catholicism
and even democracy, bring about less Autonomy to modern man then
before…

think about the man who opposes capitalism… he is declared to be
an heretic, a anarchist, an socialist, unamerican, atheists…

there is to be no, NO opposition to the ism of capitalism…one
must have and hold that capitalism to be the one and only form of
economic system worthy of the human being… that belief, capitalism isn’t
about being Autonomous, is it?

the modern day question of how does one become Autonomous, is really
a question about how do we fit into our modern world, as we are seen
as and defined by being numbers, my social security number, my work number,
my driver license, my passport number…I am not a human being within society,
I am a number and how does my being seen only as a number in our modern day society,
being Autonomous? How does one gain Autonomy by only being a number in a world wide system?

this question of Autonomy is a far greater question then it ever was for
Kant or Hegel or Kierkegaard or Nietzsche? they didn’t face a world that
has no need for or doesn’t even engage in any type of questions about
being Autonomous or what it means to be autonomous…

so how do we readmit the question of being an Autonomous person into
modern society?

what needs to happen that will make being an Autonomous person,
something important again?

Kropotkin

Autonomy revolves around a very important question…

Are we free to be or are we “trapped” into ism’s and ideologies
that don’t allow us any freedom?

so, for example, we have religion… that insist that there is a god
and we must conform to what is referred to as “God’s laws”…

if there is such as thing as “God”, then we have no freedom and speaking
about Autonomy is a waste of time…

and we can be tied down to a wide variety of historical, political,
social, philosophical idea’s, events, ism’s that prevents us from having freedom which
which then prevents us from being Autonomous…

so what am I to be Autonomous about? How can I act autonomously
if I am held down by say, a political ism like a dictatorship?
or how am I to be an Autonomous individual given what we know
about capitalism… can I be an truly Autonomous individual
within a capitalist society? how do I engage with my own
Autonomy given the prior experience we have with communism dictatorships?

to discover our own individual Autonomous being, we must first discover
what is our current situation… are we in fact free? and I hold given
what our current political, economic, social situation… capitalism,
democracy (our pretend one) our social environment which doesn’t
allow dissent, prevents us from having freedom and thus we cannot
engage in being Autonomous… we must have freedom to engage in
our own Autonomy… no freedom, no Autonomy… that is the basic formula…
you need freedom to engage in Autonomy…

now let us look at the second child of being Autonomous…
that of existentialism… and the pursuit of a Authentic human being…

it is quite clear given our addiction to capitalism and money, that we
cannot engage with ourselves in an Authentic manner…I may be
bright or smart or have personality or be warm or filled with love or
hope or happiness… but corporations don’t give a shit about human values…
they don’t produce profits… and if it doesn’t produce profits, corporations
are not interested… so values like love, peace, hope, generosity, honesty,
are not value or even wanted by big corporations… it interferes with the
mission of big business, which is profits… seeking profits is the only goal
of corporations/capitalism…

now given this overriding aspect of capitalism which dominates and destroys
human values, this is the origin of Nietzsche Nihilism…

Nihilism: anything that destroys human values…

so given our nihilistic world, is being Autonomous, a value that is prized
by big business/the corporate world? please, the last thing, perhaps the
very last thing the capitalist world wants is for people to be Autonomous…

for the capitalistic world to work, we must be completely and totally dominated
by the values, ideologies, morals, character, ideals of America (the world if possible)
these are the values of capitalism… hate, greed, lust, envy, competition, numbers,
or said another way, values which dehumanizes and devalues human beings…
for that is another way of saying, nihilism…

that is what business and capitalism wants, to devalue you to become
a number, a faceless consumer and a faceless producer… with the only
value you have is to buy things and/or to create profits for corporate
America… and how do we find being Autonomous or being Authentic,
in our capitalistic world?

indeed, a tough question… how are we to be free given the capitalistic
hatred of human beings and their values?

I don’t know either…

Kropotkin

th cso let us explore in practical matters, what it takes to be an
Autonomous/Authentic human being?

for example, we might list certain people as being Autonomous/Authentic…

I might name Goethe, Lincoln, Einstein, Newton, Gandhi and Socrates…
as human beings who were Autonomous and Authentic…

let us look at Goethe for example… he tried and was successful at
many different aspects of human existence… he was a playwright,
an author, a scientist, a public servant, a poet… the women he loved
were required studies in German schools for a century…Nietzsche
knew of the women that Goethe loved because it was part of the
‘‘currency’’ of being German in the 19 century…

we also could have put into our class of Autonomous/Authentic people,
people like Freud, Nietzsche, Kafka and Kierkegaard…

two things pop out at the reader, in my list, my completely
subjective list, I only list one American and I don’t list any women…

why? one could, and be justified in doing so, blame my biases and superstitions
for this failure to “see” what is obvious to other people…

Americans who could have been seen as Autonomous/ Authentic might
be Whiteman, Emmerson, Franklin, and Washington…

and for women to be considered to be Autonomous/Authentic…
they might be Keller, Wolfe, Austin, Bronte and Eleanor Roosevelt…
finding Autonomous/Authentic Women isn’t really that hard, but
one has to know some literature for it to make sense…

staying true to one’s values and principles, that is what makes a human being
Autonomous and Authentic…

so who else do we know historically, that is Autonomous and Authentic?

one must include the religious types, Tolstoy, Jesus, Mohammed, Pascal,
Martin Luther King…
for being religious can be a path to being Autonomous/Authentic…

I for one don’t think so, but it does seem to be possible…

so what values would you hold unto death? and beyond?

and if you do, is that enough to consider one to be Autonomous/Authentic?

Kropotkin

in my "what is CRT? the entire first post is an explanation
of CRT…not by me, but by an “objective” website…
don’t actually recall which website…
I went on a whole lot of them to find an impartial and fair
description of CRT…

anyway, the first rightwing response was Observ… no real surprise there…

and instead of responding to the thread very first post, he went straight into
his conspiracy theory’s about CRT…he didn’t even try to understand
what CRT is according to this website… he didn’t react to that…
he reacted to his already held prior belief in CRT…
which is a mishmash of conspiracy theories…

if you respond as Observe did to an post/thread, then you are not
engaging in any type of Autonomy or being Authentic…you are simple
being a robot… reacting to a post with a set, prerecorded belief… already
set in stone… there is no attempt to react to the theory of CRT with
understanding or engagement with it, be it right or wrong… Observe
has simple abandoned any attempt to react to the post/thread with
anything resembling a attempt at Autonomy or being Authentic…
he literally reacted with a pre-recorded message about CRT…

now note, I did not respond to the thread/post about CRT, either
positively or negatively… I just posted it to make sure we are discussing
what CRT is according to a set description of it… now one may disagree with
that set description of CRT, but you have better work out what you think
CRT is according to your knowledge about it… which is something Observe
didn’t do…he made a blanket statement based on a biased, preconceived notion
of what CRT is… a pre-recorded message as it were…if they say, CRT,
you then say…what Observe is doing is following a script, without any
attempt to understand or engage with it, but make a scripted
attack on CRT… with nothing more then conspiracy theories…

how is making a scripted attack on CRT, being Autonomous or Authentic?

which is my next part… if we respond to something with a scripted response,
then we are not reacting to something, Autonomously or Authentically…

we are simply following a script… perhaps written by us, but perhaps not…
in either case, we are not reacting to the premise with any sort of
attempt to be Autonomous or Authentic…

if one responds to a comment, statement, question, demand, observation, or quote,
with a set script, then we are not responding by either being Autonomous
or Authentic…and that means if we respond to a something with
an response that is Christian, American, white, black, Jewish, gay…
if we respond to a point with an already set answer, regardless of
the ism’s, ideology, prejudice, superstition offered, then we are not
being Autonomous or Authentic…

so what this means is this, if I respond to a point, with an answer from
an ism, ideology, prejudice, superstition… I am not reacting from
being Autonomous, or being Authentic… I am reacting from the set script
set up by the ism, ideology, prejudice, superstition…which is not
being Autonomous or Authentic…

so someone says, the world will not end with a bang, but with a whisper…

and you respond, no, god will determine the ending, with the rapture…

ok, so you are not being Autonomous or Authentic… your answer was
from the religious script… or you might say, those dam Russians will
end the world with their attempt for power… that answer is a set, given answer
based on a prior engagement with an ism, ideology, habit, prejudice or
superstition…it is not a attempt to be Autonomous or Authentic…

if you offer up an pre-recorded, set answer to something,
you are not being Autonomous or Authentic…

Kropotkin