after 7 straight days of work, finally a day off…
in reading ILP, one can easily see the failure of philosophy,
both here and elsewhere…
let us take Nietzsche for example…most people here have read
at least parts of Nietzsche, if not all of it… and in a discussion
about N. one might be able to say, Yes, Nietzsche believed in the
“Ubermensch”…so far, so good…but far fewer will be able to
truly understand what this concept of the “Ubermensch” actually
means…recall that Nietzsche was incredibly well read in the Greeks…
and to the Greeks, who does the "Ubermensch refer to?
Would the Greeks have called, Alexander the Great, the “Ubermensh?”
NO, a clear no…the reference of the “Ubermensch” would have
been reserved for those who conquered their passions, their emotions…
a “Ubermensch” was someone who was in control of themselves…Not a
Alexander but a Socrates was the “Ubermensch”…we might think of it like
this, in our “Modern” age, it wasn’t Hitler that was the “Ubermensch”
but it would have been Goethe…and the only thing Goethe
conquered was himself…and how many here would then take
the next step and have an personal engagement with becoming
a “Ubermensch?”
to think of it another way, Philosophy is an intellectual engagement,
not a call to become something different…it is an intellectual
discourse upon intellectual matters but has nothing to do with who
we are or what it means to become human… we study philosophy
but we don’t try to use philosophy as a way of life…and therein lies
the failure of modern philosophy… why study philosophy if it is only
meant to be an intellectual discourse on intellectual matters…
in reading Nietzsche, we see N. as an engagement with his intellectual
questions, instead of using N. as he should be used, as a starting point
for us to engage with philosophy as a way of life… instead of taking his
eternal reoccurrence, as an intellectual matter, what if we were to live
as if the eternal reoccurrence was an actual event… live it, not just study
it…
let us take another example, when UR whines about the “deep state” he never
offers us anything about it but as an intellectual exercise… what he should do
is ask, " if the ‘‘deep state’’ were to actually exist, how should we live our lives"
if, IF the “deep state” was actually a real thing, how should we live our lives?
and that is an example of people around here using ideas and thoughts,
as an intellectual exercise instead of using ideas and thoughts as the basis
for how we should live our lives…
for us today, Philosophy is all very theoretical instead of being practical…
how can we use this aspect of philosophy to live our lives?
the engagement with philosophy isn’t about its theoretical part, but
with it practical, useful, day to day side… how do we live our lives
according to philosophy?
so for me personally, I don’t believe in violence… so, I practice my life
without any engagement with violence… I don’t practice violence…
my theoretical understanding of what it means to be human,
leads me to engage with philosophy as a practice without
any recourse to violence…violence doesn’t solve a dam thing…
and it only creates more violence… so my engagement with
non-violence isn’t just a theoretical one, but is a practical engagement…
I act within that idea of non-violence… have I practice violence? yes,
but that is what it means to be human… we fail and the best we can do
is renew our own personal engagement with the values that we have
chosen… as a value, I have chosen non-violence…it isn’t just
a theoretical value but a day-to-day engagement with who I am…
I live my life with the value of non-violence…
so for philosophy to have any value of any kind, it must not become
just an intellectual exercise, of value only because I can make an
intellectual argument for it, no, for values to have worth, they
must be lived as well as studied… philosophy as a way of life is
the only path into the future for philosophy…and not just
as an intellectual exercise as we use philosophy today…
something to study but not to live our lives by…
for philosophy to regain its proper place as the “queen of the sciences”
it must return to its rightful place as a way of life, not just something
we study in the classroom and promptly forget once we reenter the world,
we must carry philosophy outside of the doors of the classroom and into
real life practice or it has no value…
Kropotkin