the "I" vs the "we"...

I have noticed that the conservative/Trumpists, don’t talk
about the “we”, society at hand… It is always, Me, or I, but
not We…

I have engaged with the “I” quite often, but we have to engage
with the “I” in term of society, the “we”… notice that whenever
one engages in “we” problems… it is discussed by the conservative/Trumpists,
as “fake news” the Covid pandemic, “fake news” global warming, “fake news”
the 2020 election with Biden winning, “fake news”… the Russian cyber attacks on
our government and companies…“fake news”…in fact, every time one suggests
an “we” issue, it is considered to be “fake news” by the conservative/Trumpists…

this radical individualism is a danger to us all…because it does exclude the “us”
“we” that is so important in our lives… there isn’t even a sense of society within
the conservative/Trumpists, viewpoint… it is all about “me” and anything that isn’t
about “me” is “fake news”…

but the fact is, we cannot survive alone, we must have various groups around
us to survive… the family for example… it is as vital a factor for survival
as air or water is to us…love… we cannot survive as human beings without love…
but does a conservative/Trumpists, ever mention or acknowledge love?
no, because the conservative/Trumpist is about hate and anger…

and we must have a society around us to survive… and that part of society can
be small, friends, and large, business and government for examples…

we cannot educate ourselves and we cannot feed ourselves and we
cannot protect ourselves without some aspects of society, the “us”, the “we”…

it may be thought of that the modern question of the political might be
how does the one, the “I” fit into society, the “we” the ''us" and conversely
how is society suppose to engage us as individuals, the “one”…

what is my engagement with society and what is society engagement with me?

and at various times in history, a balance was found between the individual, the “I”
and the society, ''we"… the middle ages for example had balance between the two,
but it was a remarkably flawed balance that favored the society, the “we” over the “one”
the individual…

the question becomes, how do we balance the needs of the individual, “one”
against the needs of the society, “we”?

we can see this need for balance in our judicial system, our educational system,
our health system, our political system, and in our history, economics,
philosophical studies… we must find a balance between “me”
and “us”… one that accepts and holds equal, both the individual needs
and societal needs…

the only way I can see this happening is by a clear and defined understanding of
what is the individual needs and what is the societal needs…
a bill of rights or a constitution as it were, sorting out and defining
what it means to be an individual and what it means to be
a part of a society…and the role and obligations of both the individual
and of the society toward each other…

existence is not just about “me” but is about “us”…
so what role does the individual play in existence
and what role does the society play in existence?
and how do they relate to each other?

Kropotkin

in fact, if you were to ask such important questions as, “who am I”
or “what does it mean to be human” or “what does it mean to be an American”
you cannot answer such questions by the “I” or the “me”…
you have to answer those questions in terms of the “we” or the “Us”…

I am human because I hold certain things in common with “other human beings”…
I am a “creature in time” with other human beings…
I am an American because I hold certain values with “Other human beings”…

to identify ourselves, we must identify ourselves in terms of other human beings…
I am Kropotkin…that statement means nothing unless we give it some context…
I am Kropotkin, I am male, I am white, I am an American, now we have given
Kropotkin some context and we can understand the statement, I am Kropotkin…
it now makes sense… because we have given the statement, I am Kropotkin, some
context…

UR and Observe always make statements like, “you are wrong” but
they don’t give that statement any context… You are wrong because …
because why? what am I wrong about? give us some context as to what is right,
so we can see why I am wrong…

the “I” and the "we’’ demand some context so we can make sense of them…

and the “I” given without any context to the “we” cannot give us any context
and thus gives us no answers…

we must connect the “I” and the “we” into forms of context that can explain
what it means to be “I” and what it means to be part of “we”…

Kropotkin

I think they mean: “WE, who fetishize rugged individualism and self-reliance, WE who play blood sport so that we can whip competition to a frenzy such that it yields the best technologies and innovations possible, regardless of how many casualties it costs. WE the brave, Darwin’s children, who have the GUTS to play HIGH STAKES and force people to grind or die so that we are ALL lifted up like Spartans. WE, the Americans.”

That kind of thing.

So there is some unity in extreme individualism. I don’t think they lack a We.

What they lack is a fucking healthy brain, perhaps?

the question of “Me” vs “I” is a question involving a story…

we all tell stories… in fact, it is the prime way we human being communicate
with each other… we tell stories… when my wife comes home later today, I shall
tell her my day and she will tell me of her day primarily as stories…

and the way we think of the world, is as a story… history is a story as
is economics as is philosophy as is politics… each of them is a story about
who we are and how we got here… even stories that are essential wrong,
such as Freudianism, is still a story about the unconscious… Freud while
wrong about details still holds value because it brought the idea of the
unconscious to our attention…just as Husserl brought the idea of the
conscious to our attention…they are simply stories about who we are…

science is just another story of existence… biological or evolution
or physics are just specific stories about reality or what we think might
be reality…

so the point is to connect the various stories into further reaching stories…
for example, we can connect the story of evolution into a story which
connects evolution and politics or evolution and philosophy…

the theory of everything is simply a theory of connecting diverse stories
into one complete story… and we don’t have that yet… the problem is
being able to connect two diverse stories into one connecting story…

so we must ask, what is the connection between the two stories that allow
them to connect on some level? to become one story, needs the two diverse
stories to have a connection point…and what are the factors that allow two
diverse stories to connect as one story?

I would hold that the way two diverse stories connect as one story comes from
imagination…how did Newton connect the failing apple to the story of
gravity? or how did Einstein connect the various stories floating about physics into
one story of the theory of relativity?

by imagination…

the connection of two diverse stories come about from imagination…
what connects existence with alienation? or what connects evolution to
the political? if you guess imagination, you are right…

and the twentieth century attempt to connect two diverse stories as
Marxism and Freudism failed, not because of imagination, but because those
two stories are based on a false narrative, story, of what it means to be human…
you cannot combine two false stories to get one correct story…

the value of Freudism is to acknowledge or understand the unconscious mind
the value of Marxism is to acknowledge or understand the role that history
plays in our individual and collective lives…the problem is both stories are based on
wrong, false details…and Freudism is based upon the ‘‘I’’ and Marxism is based on
the ‘‘we’’…which returns us to the question of finding a connection between the two
stories of ‘‘I’’ and ‘‘we’’…

Kropotkin

yeah well like you said we don’t have a correct story of I or we, and I’m not sure there even is one correct story.
an “I” can be a person, or a Hobbesian I, like a person who is part of a continuum of himself and his property or realms of influence.
Existence precedes essence – I don’t believe in a unified theory of I.

Assuming you can get a “correct” story about I and we, why would you want to reconcile them?
It’s not just a “how” but also a “why.” So many problems with this.

I’m more worried that people have enough to eat and a blanket if they are cold.
Not as concerned about what the fuck an “I” is, but that’s just me.

There are some pretty bad ideas coming out of free market fundamentalism these days.
I guess if I had to reconcile the individual with society I’d say we may need homogeneity
at the neurological level. I know that sounds horrible.