a new understanding of today, time and space.

This question of the human existence,
the human condition is puzzling…

In reading the ancients, the ancient schools of philosophy,
The Platonist, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean and Skeptic…
one see’s that they each agree in that we are too attached
to things, either physical or emotional… we are too attached/addicted
to things like TV’s, Cars, the so called “finer things in life” and we are
too attached/addicted to such ephemeral things like fame, money, titles…
things that are short lived, transient… things that come and go like a fart in
the wind…

Read the Buddha and his message was exactly the same…
and by being attached to such transient things, we set ourselves
up for the suffering we see in the world…

Read Jesus and he says the same thing… He suggests (as does the Buddha)
that we must reject the material world in favor of something more substantial,
something that is of value not just today, but for all the days to come…

The two differ on the question of what is the thing of value, the Buddha
suggest that we focus on the present, right now and Jesus suggests
that we focus on the coming of the lord which will take us to heaven
if, if we believe in him… this belief that the answer lies in the future for
Jesus and the answer for the Buddha is today, right now… and that is the main
difference between them…

But both believe that the answer lies in improving ourselves…
one for the trip to heaven and one to improve man’s soul…
The answer for Jesus is a personal, individual matter…
and that is the failure of Christianity… its focus on the
one, the individual instead of the focus on what the one
can do to improve society which is by becoming a better person…

Jesus doesn’t say anything about how to improve society, the whole,
whereas the Buddha does and that makes the Buddha’s message far
greater and more important……….it is not enough to ensure our
own passage to heaven, we must be engage in all mankind, in fact,
all life…We engage in Jesus message of improving ourselves to go to heaven,
but the reality is we must engage in improving ourselves to aid society, to
improve society… to make the world a better place to live…
that is the reason for our engagement with improving ourselves…
not to selfishly go to heaven, but to help others… personally, I would refuse
to go to heaven if others can not go to heaven, it must be an all
or nothing for me… if all cannot get to heaven, I won’t go…although to be
honest, given my track record, my chances for heaven is a bit on the slim side…
but you get the point……… it is not enough to ensure ourselves personally, of
salvation, we must engage with others so they reach salvation…it is more
important that they reach salvation then if I reach salvation………

and one possible way of achieving salvation is by refusing to engage
in the modern fixation of materialism…our attachment to things, material
and immaterial…we already know the answer to how to improve ourselves,
we have heard this message all our lives… we have been indoctrinated with
the words of Jesus our whole live and yet, yet we continue to ignore that
fundamental message that not only Jesus gave us but the schools of
ancient philosophy and the Buddha gave us……….that we must free
ourselves of attachment to values that have no real meaning……
materialism as a value is worthless, addiction to such transitory things
as fame, money, goods, respect are values not worth having because
they don’t answer the fundamental needs of the human being……
they answer the empty needs of a hungry man who would eat anything
in some attempt to fill his empty stomach… the hungry man would eat
anything if hungry enough and we are like that hungry man…
we are starved and we will eat any values that seems to appease
that hunger…… but the values offered by modern society are empty
calories… may has well be eating the cardboard those values came in,
which is just as filling as the modern values we are given……

In rejecting those empty calories, we call modern values,
we then are faced with the choice of what values are not
empty calories…… cardboard values……….

among those empty values, the empty calories is any possibility
of future salvation and any possibility of replenishing our souls
with the empty calories of fame, money, materialism, respect,
the modern nihilism of the pursuit of profits,
those are empty values, empty calories……

it is the values we engage with, that make life worth living…
the positive values of love, peace, charity, hope, honesty,
it is these values given in the present that offer us any hope
of filling our souls, of enriching our souls with values that
feed our soul…….

we can no longer believe that the empty promise of
modern values, nihilistic values can feed our souls……… only
positive values can offer us any hope of not starving to death in
this nihilistic world………

we must escape the transient world of modern values
and begin to reach for the more lasting and edible values of
the positive values that we need…love, peace, charity…….

Kropotkin

The dichotomy of our lives is easily understood…
good vs evil, mind vs body, real vs imaginary, male vs female…
that list can be extended……………….

We have another dichotomy that has been plaguing human beings
since time began…… that of the individual vs the collective………

the one, the individual and the many, the collective…….

Depending on the civilization, the emphasis has been either the
one or the many…Greece fell in part because of its emphasis
on the one, the individual…and Greece fell to Rome who emphasized
the many, the group……

We have had many champions of the one over the many…
The Greek play “Antigone” is one such play…
Of course in modern times we have Kierkegaard and Ibsen
and Nietzsche……….

and the list of those who have championed the many over the one is
a long and lengthy list…from the declaration of independence
to Marx to the French revolution……

Religious founders tend to favor individuals, Jesus and Mohammed and the Buddha
speak to the needs of the individual, not the collective…

But Confucius speaks to the many, the collective…

It has been an ongoing question of the one vs the many…
It even has been referenced in movies like the Star Trek movies…….

“the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one”

America has been the home of the individual, the philosophy
of the “rugged individualism” has been present in all of American
history… and even today, conservatives has advocated the one
over the many… the individual over the collective…

whereas liberals argue for the many over the one…….
the group over the individual…….

and who is right?

Well that depends upon when we are talking about?

For example, when the America was young and there was
a lot of land to be colonized, it was the movement of
the single person, the one that moved west and colonized the west…

But today, this philosophy of the “individual” no longer can
work…… We no longer have the time or space to allow individual
actions that were the norm a century ago………The larger and more
complex a system is, the less able it is to enable a single individual action,
as we grow larger and more complex, we cannot have random, single individual
actions within that system…… everyone has to move in the same direction
in a large complex system or the system gets bogged down……

Think of the solar system, it works as long as all the moving parts
are moving the same way in a circle, if Mars were to escape its orbit
and wander freely across the solar system, massive chaos would
occur in our solar system… large and complex systems must have
all the parts going in the right direction or the system risks failure,
risk coming apart……

and that is true of our very complex, moving system we call the modern world……
everyone has to be moving the right direction or the system risks failure…

there is certainly a time and place for individualism and a time and place
for collectivism and today, in the here and now, the system requires,
demands that we engage in the system as a collective because of
our large and complex system that we have in place………random actions
of the individual threatens the complexity of our modern system which
demands that we all play our role in the specific way we are supposed to…

but that conflicts with the goal and aspirations of the individual…
me included… for I too chafe under the modern world need for collective
action…for I stand with the individual, but I also recognize the need for
collective action… how do I successfully integrate the individual needs with
the society, collective needs?

and that becomes the question of the day…….we must allow the individual
the scope and freedom to become who they are and yet we must protect
the integrity of the group, the collective, society……

This clash between the individual and the group has been the basis
of much of human history, see the clash between Socrates and Athens,
where the individual lost and that individual had to commit suicide,
Socrates drank the hemlock and society was saved or was it?

We have Jesus’s clash with the state and we have
Spinoza clash with the Jews…

History is replete with examples of the ongoing clash
between the individual and the state/collective……….

My natural instinct is with the individual, recall I was an anarchist
for many years… and yet, yet I can see the need for collective
actions and responsibility…hence the communist part of me…

Within my soul lies the battle, the ago old battle between the needs
of the individual and the needs of the collective/state…

and we can see this ago old battle being fought out today between our society
and the individuals within that society…

I wish I had some answers, but I don’t… I do not see any answers between
the needs of the one and the needs of the society/collective…

Kropotkin

I have inside of my mind, many idea’s and thoughts and images
and I am trying to make sense of all of it… trying to put together
the puzzle as it were… without any sense of what the overall image
should look like or what it might look like…….

I was born into the world… just as you were………
we are born naked and dependent…
the “world” that is made up of family, friends, media,
church, state… the “world” spends the next 20 years indoctrinating us with
the myths, biases, prejudices, habits, ism’s, superstitions of that “world”…

But what exactly are those indoctrinations? one way to think of those
indoctrinations is that they are the prism, the values through which we view
the “world”… In other words, the indoctrinations are the perceptions through
which we view the “world”. We are taught, indoctrinated with the viewpoint
that all men are evil, conservative viewpoint, and then we perceive the world
through that lens of all men are evil. The indoctrinations are a method of
perceiving, seeing, the world……. we use those indoctrinations as a means
of seeing… the Greeks viewed wisdom as a means of seeing… wisdom was
connected with sight, the act of seeing……. so we can think about
those indoctrinations as a means of how we see the “world”.

When we begin the process of knowing thyself, it comes about because
we begin to see ourselves differently then we earlier saw ourselves…
in other words, the image we have of ourselves that is dominated by
the indoctrinations of our childhood, change because of life’s experiences…
as we grow older and “wiser” we see ourselves in different terms then
the indoctrinations of our childhood…
again focus on this act of sight, seeing, vision, perception……

we experience… and in that experience we see things differently…
for example, the first time we fall in love… that experience
changes how we see the word love… for we have heard of love all our lives
but once we fall in love, we see what love really is and that changes
our perception of the world…this new found understanding comes from
a new perception of “reality”, a new vision of experiences, we experience
love for the first time and it changes us, for many of us, it radically changes us…
and that change is the act of changing perceptions…

so it is important to think about change as changing perceptions,
we view things differently and in that difference we become something
else………

In high school or shortly thereafter, I tried reading “Zen and the art of
motorcycle maintenance” The book had just been published and I was
curious… I didn’t get through the book because my perceptions wasn’t
ready, I wasn’t ready to read the book… it was gobblygook for me…

at some point in the 1980’s, I tried again, I got through it this time
and it seem to me to be profound and deep and I didn’t understand
its greatness…my perception had change about the book,
the book itself hadn’t change, I had change since the last time
I read it…

at some point in the 1990’s, I read it again…and I was disappointed
because it seem shallow and incomplete, unnecessary……
the book still hadn’t change, but I had dramatically changed
with each passing decade… by the 90’s, I had read a lot
of philosophy and I have had a lot of life experiences…
the book hadn’t change but I had change…

now if I were to read it again, my understanding
of the book would once again be dramatically different.
my perception, my seeing the book would be very different.
In the 40 years since I have first read the book, I have become, I am
a completely different person…… I am now old… where I am
in my place in life changes how I read and/or understand idea’s,
books, movies, people……. I see things differently because I
am different…….

it all becomes a question of our perception of events, experiences,
people……… it actually has nothing to do with the actual event,
experience or the person in question, it has everything to do with
how we see, how we perceive these things……

I see IQ45 as a village idiot and another person might see Jesus
walking on water and we might see the exact same event or
experience… and yet we perceive events and experiences far
differently…

the question of life is not in the event or experiences we have
but in how we see them or how we perceive them…
it is in our perceptions of things that matter, not in the things
themselves.

In this regard, Kant was right… it is in our perceptions that
make all the difference in the world, not in the experiences
themselves………

So how do you perceive the world?

and that answers everything about who you are and
what it means to be human to you………

Kropotkin

In light of my previous post, what is philosophy?

It is a vision, a way of viewing the world, it provides
us with a lens in which we can perceive the world.

So what does this mean for us?

It means we must think about what indoctrinations we
enforce upon our children………… if we force
negative indoctrinations upon our children, they
will view the world negatively, through the negative
instincts of lust, hate, anger, greed…….

if we indoctrinate our children with positive values,
the values to see the world through the positive
values of love, charity, hope, justice, peace………

and so we now attempt to connect the “modern” world with
seeing, with vision………

If you compare art through the ages, especially Art before 1880,
we see art as fairly straight forward. Art was pictures of
scenery and of people and was the building were built
along classical Greek or Roman styles and statues were
also based along classical Greek or Roman style…….

You can easily follow Art as it progressed from the Middle
ages to 1880 as it evolved but it didn’t radically change…
why? Because the way people viewed the world didn’t radically
change… yes, you had science and the new philosophy which was
different, but it didn’t change the basic values of people from the
Middle ages to 1880…… You still had people believing in god and
tradition and the right of kings… the basic vision of
who we were really didn’t change much from the middle ages to 1880…

Then the industrial revolution occurred and that changed our vision of who we were…
we saw ourselves differently after the industrial revolution…….
for the first time in history, we had concepts like alienation and that
alienation came from what the industrial revolution did to our vision,
to our seeing the world differently……

Art changed starting in 1880 as a response to the changing
vision, the changing “seeing” that we had of people and
institutions and experiences…

The radical changes in art reflect the way we changed
in seeing ourselves… the paintings of Monet for example
reflect the way we change in our seeing who we are and
what is possible…….

Look at impressionist paintings… see the new style was
the atomization of art which reflects the atomization of man…

we were no longer connected to the system, we were disconnected,
alienated from society and our fellow man by the industrial revolution…
and this seeing, this vision is reflected in our art…art can be considered
to be a vision, a way of seeing ourselves and that vision changed because
we saw ourselves differently and this is also reflected in other aspects of art…
Literature and sculpture and painting and architecture all changed because we
now see ourselves differently… and our ideologies, our ism’s changed
because we see ourselves differently… our indoctrinations changed because
we see ourselves differently… it is about our perceptions, our vision of ourselves
that matters………

change our perceptions and change the world for the world…for the world is
a reflection of our perceptions, not our perceptions is a reflection of
the world…….

how we see the world changes the world………

change your perceptions and you change the world…
the world may be exactly the same but if you change
how you view the world… the world changes…

see the world differently and the world becomes different…

Kropotkin

so when a person, a human being says the world is this and this
and this… what that person is really saying is, my seeing, my vision causes
me to see the world as this and this and this…

we see the world as a prism/lens of our ideologies and ism’s and indoctrinations…
the world is the exactly the same for everyone, but our seeing, our
indoctrinations, our vision of the world is different and so the world
looks different, but it really isn’t different… a tree is still just a tree
and the sky is blue and the earth is still round, but our vision, our seeing
the tree or the sky or the earth changes how we see the tree, the sky
or the earth… change your ism, change your ideology and the world
will change too……. want a happier, healthier, more understanding
world… just change your ism, your ideologies, your vision of
the world and the world will become happier, healthier, a
more understanding world… all it takes is to change our
perception of the world… and the world changes

Kropotkin

Agreed , but to what extent does our perceptions of the world pre-set, wherein opportuning only limited change?

Since presetting reality subtracts from autonomy and adds to determinancy into any capacity to change? That’s the crux of it, otherwise any real change may fail.

I can get fed up with life and like in the film ‘mosquito coast’ end up in even more unfavorable circumstances then the one escaped from, for individual change is only culpable as getting away from unfavorable ones.

I can go out into the street carrying banners but in most cases it would make little difference.

I think that this idea of why bother to act because it
will not “change” anything is really irrelevant…
It doesn’t matter if carrying banners on the street changes anything or not…
the point is to carry the banners regardless if anyone notices or not…

The point is to become aware and that is the real value of carrying the
banner in the streets. By carrying the banner, you create awareness
in people and the change if any, occurs there… in the changing
of our perceptions…the value of the banner in the street is not
to convince people, but to create awareness, to create an perception…

The change we create is not a physical one, but a mental one…
we become aware of injustice as a mental act, not a physical one…
It is in the changing of the perceptions that create change, not
necessarily in the carrying around the banner…

Does this mean that the world is a mental world?
an “idealist world”?

Not at all, physical matter exists, tree’s, stoves,
cars, plants, dogs and stars all exists…

but what the “meaning” of each of these is the question…
You can view, perceive a dog as an animal or a pet or food
or a working animal or………You can create your own meaning
as to what a dog means…… Most people view dogs as animals,
but that doesn’t mean dogs must be view, seen as animals…
we can view a dog in a wide variety of ways and all of them will be right.

How do you view human beings? Are they evil or good or food or
thought or possibilities or sons or daughters or victims or
godlike? does it matter? You tell me…….

I see human beings as beings that have possibilities…
I see the past, present and future in every human being……

Now you may see human beings differently and that is fine…
does that mean human beings don’t exists because we see them
differently? no, not at all…we perceive human beings differently
due to our childhood indoctrinations and then we view them
differently after we our overcome of those childhood indoctrinations
and we overcome and become who we are…….

think of Dickens “Christmas Carol” Scrooge changed
because his perceptions of the world change, the world
itself didn’t change in any way, shape or form……
How he viewed the world changed and it made all the difference
in the world…… So please feel free to carry those banners
on the street because all you are doing is getting people to
become aware, aware of what injustice is or what hate is or
what is the nature of god is…………

The point is not to change the world but to make it aware…
change will come after awareness happens…

Kropotkin

Again right on, except it has do begin with self awareness then extend to public awareness and the public is very if not impossibly resistant , if it were not the case, we wouldn’t be in the situation that we are in.

if we think of human beings as a means to a goal, such
as human beings only value is to create wealth, human beings
are the means to achieve wealth, then we have devalued human beings
to just being a means to an end, an unhealthy and dangerous way of
thinking about human beings……

the rise of capitalism and the rise of the industrial revolution
came about at the same time, you can make arguments that
one caused the other, but the point is that both capitalism
and the industrial revolution atomized man……. in other words,
human beings were alienated, disconnected from the past thinking
about human beings… human beings on some level were connected to
each other, either by religion or history or associations or economic
means and that connection allowed human beings to be connected
to each other…the rise of capitalism, the industrial revolution
disconnected people from each other, atomizing people into
single atoms floating through the universe with no connection to
each other or to any ism, ideology, bias, superstitions………

in our atomization, we became alienated from ourselves, other
human beings, history, other systems………….

the point now is to reunite ourselves in some way that
connects us or no longer alienate ourselves from each
other or to any ism or ideology or history………

History for example, no longer unites people into a “common cause”
because history has no bearing in a world that is focus on
using people to create profit/money…… how does knowing history
help create profit for a corporation? It doesn’t and so it isn’t valued
anymore and thus we become alienated from history, we are no longer
connected to history, to our past……. and that is where we are now…
alienated and disconnected from history and each other and social structures
like government and other systems because to connect us to any of these
social systems is to reduce or eliminate profit/money and we certainly can’t
have that, can we?

Until we remove the pursuit of profits/money as our primary
function of human beings, we shall continue to be alienated
or disconnected from society, each other, even disconnected/alienated
from ourselves…not until we begin to have a new vision, a new way
of seeing human beings can we reconnect to who we are or no longer be alienated
from each other or society or from ourselves………

How we view ourselves and each other is simply another function of
our childhood indoctrinations… we must overcome and become
who we are which means we will no longer be disconnected
from each other or from ourselves…… we must overcome and
no longer be alienated from each other or our system or our lives……

Kropotkin

Ok Peter.

Lets say such is within the realm of possibility given today’s short comings.

How would anyone attempt to achieve such a goal, in short of a revolution to overthrow Capitalism and institute another from of governance. Communism? (Which has been a trampled upon consequence of socialism, with more than enough certainty that in this respect IT Will Happen Again-because no one understands or, remembers history, and thereby are condemned - to repeat it)

And I wonder why everyone can be so short sighted?

That leaves only one conduit- National Socialism , and that too has been tried.

Can anyone think of anotherr way out except cyber-political necessity? Is this maybe what really is happening right here right now?

Ok Peter.

Lets say such is within the realm of possibility given today’s short comings.

How would anyone attempt to achieve such a goal, in short of a revolution to overthrow Capitalism and institute another from of governance. -Communism? (Which has been a trampled upon consequence of socialism, with more than enough certainty that in this respect IT Will Happen Again-because no one understands or, remembers history, and thereby are condemned - to repeat it)

And I wonder why everyone can be so short sighted?

That leaves only one conduit- National Socialism , and that too has been tried.

Can anyone think of another way out except cyber-political necessity? Is this maybe what really is happening right here right now?

after several ugly days at work, I can finally post…

I am not ignoring you Meno… But I am going in a slightly
different way today…

our word today boys and girls is…

Teleology

is a reason or explanation for something in function of its end,
goal or purpose… It is derived from two greek words,
telos (end, goal, purpose) and logos (reason, explanation)

We humans understand things better when we can create a
story or a narrative about things…so we create stories
about how humans have their goal or purpose in reaching heaven
or avoid hell… that becomes the reason for or the explanation
of why we human exists…….god created us to serve him
and if we fail to obey, we go to hell… that an teleology
explanation for why humans exists, the final goal or purpose
of human beings is how we are to reach heaven or to avoid hell…….

everything is explained in terms of its final goal or purpose…

Before Darwin who published his “On the Origins of Species” in 1859,
it was easy to create a story, a narrative about humans goal or purpose…
and that goal, purpose was the creation story of the bible or the
Buddhist narrative or the Hindu narrative or the Muslim narrative about
the beginning or what was the goal or purpose of human beings…
that was the value of religion… it created an easy to understand
story or narrative about human purpose and human’s goals and purpose…

But then Darwin came along and we are unable to create a story,
a narrative about the goals and purpose of human beings because
Darwin’s evolution, his story or narrative doesn’t allow one to easily create a
a story about the goal or purpose of human beings……

In the last 160 years since Darwin’s book came out, what historically
has happened? You have the full bloom of the industrial revolution
and the events of the 20th century, the two world wars and the Holocaust
and the dropping of nuclear bombs and the Great Depression……

Now can you make a direct connection between the “One the origin
of Species” in 1859 and what has happened since then? Perhaps, but
more as bricks in the wall type of thing…… in other words, as
part of our overall action and understanding of the world and human beings…

This understanding of goal and purpose helps create a better story or
narrative about ourselves and what is our “meaning of life”.

Now Marx in his writings help create a goal or purpose in life
with his theory that the substructure of human beings was
economic in nature and that we are economic creatures…
and his theories was that as we pass through the various
economic phases, we shall reach the end phase which was
the worker paradise, the end of the class structure where
everyone was equal socially because everyone was equal
economically… remember, for Marx everything was
seen through the lens of economics and class structure…
so Marx, in his own way, created a goal, purpose for human beings……
It was Marx that brought about the term, “the end of history”…
that has been the topic of conversation over the last century
and half………

Now compare Marx’s vision with capitalism vision……. There is no
final goal or purpose in capitalism… you just keep buying stuff forever…
Capitalism is an economic theory, just like Marx, but without a goal
or purpose…….Capitalism is the understanding of human beings
through an economic lens… we are seen as economic beings,
just as Marx saw people…the only difference between communism
and capitalism is communism has a goal, a purpose which isn’t in
capitalism………

Let us put this into different context, what kind of story or
narrative would you need to describe capitalism?
No matter what story or narrative you use, at no point would
you be able to come up with a goal or purpose that worked………

Human beings want a story, a narrative about, well everything…
we work best when we have a story or narrative that we can
use to justify our actions or our beliefs…….

so what story or narrative about today, right now, that
you can use to create a goal or a purpose for human beings?

Today, right now, we don’t have a story or a narrative to tell…
we just have policy differences, build the wall vs don’t build the wall…
but those policies difference doesn’t lead us to any understanding
about what is our goal or our purpose as individuals, a people,
a culture, a society or as a nation………

so what story or narrative can we tell that will give
us some sense of not only who we are but what is our
goal, purpose?

It is not enough to say, we must increase our GDP by 10% every year,
we must say why, why do we need to do such a thing. If we were to
understand things in their why, we might be better able to
understand our goal, our purpose……………

Kropotkin

To continue this idea about a story or narrative,
when the Buddha says that life is suffering and the point
is to end the suffering, that is a story, a narrative……
and when it is said that the point of human existence is to
pursuit happiness or to search for certainty or to seek wisdom,
that is a story, a narrative we use to help us understand
who we are and what is possible and what is the goal, purpose
of life…………

Now one of my things is that the search for wisdom begins, not
as the Greeks claim by wonder, but by doubt. I believe the beginning
of wisdom is doubt………… The reason I have a hard time “selling”
this idea of doubt being a major driver of human existence is that
there is not a very good story or narrative about doubt. If I had a story or
narrative about doubt, I could use that to better “sell” this idea of
doubt being a prime reason for our search for knowledge and understanding…

Sometimes the problem lies not in the idea but in the creation of a story
or a narrative about the use of the idea that will allow people to better understand
that idea…sometimes the need for a story or narrative outweighs the
value of the idea even if it is a great idea… without a valid or decent
story the idea becomes far less important…

so sometimes we hold unto stories or narratives even though the idea
behind the story/narrative is not a very good idea…… the narrative/story
is what keeping the idea in play……….not the idea itself………

This is true about capitalism with its fiction about the “rugged individual”
and the Horatio Alger stories that still live on in America…… the stories,
the narratives help keep alive a bad idea…………

Because of its nature, the stories/narrative about capitalism is better
then the stories/narrative about communism…the narrative/story about
political systems is also better with democracy then it is with socialism……

equality/socialism/communism as a story/narrative is less interesting then a story/narrative
about individuals striving for something as with democracy or capitalism……

but does that make the idea of socialism/communism to be of less value because
it doesn’t tell a good story?

We have to become aware of the stories/narratives in our lives because sometimes
we become so enamored with the story, we forget to see the value of the point
or reason of the story…just because capitalism can tell a better story doesn’t
mean capitalism is a better system then communism…….it just means capitalism
has better stories/better narrative… nothing more………

Kropotkin

Human beings react from emotions far more then
they react from logic or reason…….

We relate and connect with other human beings, indeed all life,
on a emotional level…

When I am checking and an idiot is in front of me,
I can just look at the person in back and without any words,
we can, on a emotional level, communicate… I might have never
seen that person before and yet we can have non-verbal
communication by just our body language or facial expressions……

we relate to each other on a feeling/emotional level…
not on a rational level and this is important to understand about
people……… oftentimes the words we use are far less precise and less
accurate then our emotional/feeling we use to relate to each other……

words are more an rational response, we use words rationally
whereas our body language is emotional and oftentimes, very,
very precise……

as we relate to people on an emotional level, this is why stories
and narratives work better for us in the way we understand and
relate to the world…… stories create an emotional understanding
for us that an intellectual/rational explanation won’t create for us…

Why this is true is really irrelevant… it just is……
and we must understand the world in the fashion that
we, by evolution, have come to relate to or understand the world…

look at animals, say when two dogs meet or when to cats meet…
look at the physical language that the two of them react to…
we are heirs to that physical language that animals use to communicate with
each other………… we have learn how to relate to each other and how we
communicate to each other emotionally, with millions of years of
evolution behind us……. it is inherited in us and thus part of our genetic
background, part of our DNA and there is nothing we can to do to change this…

it is by our physical language that we relate and connect to each other…………

someone who can’t read body language is at a distinct disadvantage to someone
who can read body language……

and someone who relates to stories and narratives has an advantage over someone
who cannot relate to stories or narratives………

this emotionalism that connects and allows us to relate to each other is
an very important factor in our relationship to each other… and is quite
often missed by philosophers in their failed pursuit to understand people…

Kropotkin

It is this intimacy of our physical language that allows us
to engage in this communication… again, physical language is our
body language, our facial expressions that I am talking about…

we connect with each other on an intimate level, by either seeing each
other or by being able to relate to each other in some fashion……

Yesterday, a co-worker had an heart attack at work, I was told this last
night when I picked up my paycheck and schedule, my reaction was
different then if I had witness this event in person…we connect on
a physical level, we react with more force if we can see the other person…
it is our physical contact with each other that allows us to relate and
communicate with each other…I would have felt much more strongly
about her heart attack had I seen it and not just hear about it………
I still don’t know if she is ok, but my reaction is because I didn’t “witness”
the heart attack………… our level of relationship is really at the level
of if we can see it… if it is physically present, we have a much stronger
reaction to something instead of just hearing about it………

It is from this physical interaction that we “get” what
ideas really mean… we can have an mental idea of injustice,
but if we witness injustice, we have a much better idea of what
injustice is…… the Greeks were right in thinking that understanding,
wisdom is visual…and that is the problem with America today…
we hear of injustice but we don’t see or witness injustice in person…
and thus we downplay injustice because when it is a mental vision,
instead of a emotional visual reaction to injustice… If I see injustice,
I get mad and upset whereas if I read about it, I don’t get upset or at least
as upset about it…this intimacy of seeing is far more important
then just hearing about things………

This is why when we see plays in person, we react different then
if we just read the play……… Hamlet becomes, has a different feel
to it when seen as opposed to just reading about it…
we relate to it better, we understand it better if we see it, then
if we read it or hear about it………

This is an important factor in our understanding of human beings
and what are their potential, their possibilities…….

Kropotkin

Ok, now its possible to answer Meno….He asks:

M: Ok Peter.

Lets say such is within the realm of possibility given today’s short comings.

How would anyone attempt to achieve such a goal, in short of a revolution to overthrow Capitalism and institute another from of governance. -Communism? (Which has been a trampled upon consequence of socialism, with more than enough certainty that in this respect IT Will Happen Again-because no one understands or, remembers history, and thereby are condemned - to repeat it)

And I wonder why everyone can be so short sighted?

That leaves only one conduit- National Socialism , and that too has been tried.

Can anyone think of another way out except cyber-political necessity? Is this maybe what really is happening right here right now?
[/quote]
K: here is the question of the story/narrative plays into it…
The narrative is that commununism failed and yet, the fact is
that Soviet Communism lasted only slightly less then Athenian
democracy. The narrative however is that Athenian democracy
was successful and the Soviet Communism wasn’t succeful…
but upon what grounds are you going to make that argument?

daughter and wife call my name, back later…

Kropotkin

K: here is the question of the story/narrative plays into it…
The narrative is that commununism failed and yet, the fact is
that Soviet Communism lasted only slightly less then Athenian
democracy. The narrative however is that Athenian democracy
was successful and the Soviet Communism wasn’t succeful…
but upon what grounds are you going to make that argument?

daughter and wife call my name, back later…

Kropotkin
[/quote]
That’s a tough one .
But, here is a go at it:

Athenian democracy was in tune with Plato’s republic, before the sophists grabbed the spotlight.

The foundations did not enter the realm of doubt as we moderns had to learn the hard way with Descartes.
Their doubt was not really posed in the either/or method, they could listen to both , conflict less, their logic did not yet cause civil disobedience and the such, because they still believed in the good of having wisdom.

Then the lights went out and then the darkness of the middle ages were scripted by monks who revised the concept of guilt into their alchemycal formulations .

The doubt became a conflation between the ideal and the real situation, forming a.conundrum, geared for gathering the flock of believers.

The late middle ages and the startup of enlightenment created a huge conflict, socially, starting with the Reformation and the American/French revolutions, and the pover of the new fkind masses had to be eventually controlled.

The either/or problem resurfaced with a.vengeance, and Hegel tried to infuse it with a presumed absolute idealism, while Kant tried to solve the puzzle, finally Marx merely changed the same alchemical formula by renaming spirit by magical conversion into spiritual materialism, which worked for a while, until people began to compare that with other ideologies which promised AND delivered more subter fuses and ‘freedoms’.

Both failing, (falling) the spiritual idea behind the magic of free enterprise, based on the wisdom guiding the efforts of the ‘founding fathers’ makes more sense.then the idea of social raising and responsibility taken by The State. ( The low wages in the Soviet Union made the Father State a pitiable comparative model to Uncle Sam, who was wise and generous beyond comprehension.

A poor free man within a wealthy society is better off then a controlled man , especially where, the societal dictator cam never find the graft, and they again compared it with the wise and compassionate Uncle Sam.

The same Uncle Sam who is complicit in The Revolution, with the Geek Wisdom implicit and the spotless moral compass represented in The Statue of Liberty.

The great doubt of then Great Divide, has not yet, ideologically touched our pristine shores yet, with most of is living in the promise of.Levittown.

K: here is the question of the story/narrative plays into it…
The narrative is that commununism failed and yet, the fact is
that Soviet Communism lasted only slightly less then Athenian
democracy. The narrative however is that Athenian democracy
was successful and the Soviet Communism wasn’t succeful…
but upon what grounds are you going to make that argument?

daughter and wife call my name, back later…

Apparently, my wife’s car was broken into and the window was broken…
We had to deal with that…and now I am back…

When last seen, I was comparing Athens to the Soviet Union…
the length of time for the two is similar, roughly 80 years…
or basically for Athens, the length of Socrates lifetime…

and yet, Athens is considered one of the great success stories
and the Soviet Union which existed roughly the same time length
is not… but why? I have suggested that the reason is the
story or narrative for each one is different…

Like Athens, the Soviet Union had a great empire…
and the ideology of both dominated the known world…

If we consider power as the connection between Athens
and the Soviet Union, then both had a great deal of
power, both internally and externally……

The vision created by both excited the world and many people
came from around the world to be a part of both their vision……

So what is the difference? The narrative of both is different……

For example, one of the great insults of modern America is calling
someone a “communist” and yet, people can’t correctly identify
what a “communist” actually is… they don’t know and they are simply
repeating the childish insults they have heard……

so what we must be aware of is, that the narrative we repeat is often
just a replay of other stories or narratives we have heard…
It may not be the truth because stories/narratives are always
about the truth. The stories we hear are often meant to be
directive narratives, a directive narrative is a story/narrative which
is meant to direct the listener to adapt or accept a certain point
of view…that is the point of the insult “communist”… it is meant
to direct the listener to adapt a certain point of view which is
negative against the person being accused of being a “communist”…

It is all about the perception that is being created… not the reality,
but the perception, the viewpoint that is being created by such
negative language as Hippy, communist, socialist, undemocratic,
against people……

If you listen to someone being called a “Communist” and you
have a negative connotation toward that person, then
you have been brain washed… you have allowed the
narrative or story to influence your perception of someone…
a narrative or story that is meant to influence your perception
negatively about someone. That is the point of the negative
narrative or story about the Soviet Union… it is meant to
influence you into a negative perception of communism…

but what is the truth? you have to research and understand what has
happened. As I have noted before, the Soviet Union was not
a communist society… it was a dictatorship posing as a
economic system……… for communism is an economic system,
not a political system and that is where the failure occurred……
they stretch the economic into a political and it failed for that reason…

Marxism as understood by Marx has never been tried… the Soviet Union
and China and all the other “communist” society, were actually
dictatorship posing as an economic system………

But that is not the story or narrative we hear today…
and that false story or narrative is driven by those
who benefit from the false story or narrative and
and that is the 1% of American society……

it is in their best interest to negate any other economic system
or political system because the 1% dominate our current system
and for them, they want complete control and one way to do
that is to create a narrative or story that negates other possibilities
so that we have only one choice and that choice is capitalism/democracy…

but the problem with that is the entire selling point of capitalism/democracy
is that we have choices but our choices is limited to the cars we buy
or the cereal we purchase, but we have no choice in our systems,
either economically or politically… and thus the system of choice has
no choice when it is about the overall system…………

you have to pay attention to the story or the narrative that is offered,
because quite often the story or narrative is meant to influence you into
a negative belief about something or someone……
the stories or the narrative is quite often is propaganda and that
is what we see today, the narrative of the Soviet Union is
nothing more then Propaganda meant to influence you…….
it was not an economic system but a political system and a
dictatorship at that, but the Soviet Union had nothing to do with
Marx’s vision of how we should exist and how we should spend our time…

Kropotkin

“and yet, Athens is considered one of the great success stories
and the Soviet Union which existed roughly the same time length”

Yes, Athens exists merely 50 times as long as the USSR did.

K: it wouldn’t hurt you to learn a little history…….The Athens that was
the Athens of fame, lasted from roughly 480 BC to 404 BC…The Athens
afterward until the Romans conquered it, was a non factor in
philosophical, social, military history… Hellenism which was
the ism that Alexander the Great carried all over the world, that
was based in both Greece and the Mediterranean world, not just Athens…

Great philosophical schools were established in several cities
around the mediterrianean and Alexanderia was the great
city of knowledge during Hellenism…but Athens was just
another city living off its previous fame, but it had nothing
to offer unlike the time period I am speaking of…

Kropotkin