a new understanding of today, time and space.

in our understanding of philosophy, then the question
arises…… is our questioning of certain parts of philosophy
psychological driven? in other words, is the part of
philosophy that is engaged in metaphysics, which is of course
one of the main drivers of philosophy, is the search into
metaphysics really just a psychological drive? Is metaphysics
nothing more then psychology driving us to an answer about
the beginning of or the nature of reality………

Why need to know what is reality or what is at the heart of
reality, is it god? and this need to know what is at the heart
of reality itself, really just a psychological need?

My answer seems to be clear, but what is your answer?

the need for certainty, be it certainty about the nature of reality or
the existence of god or the certainty of religion……

this drive for certainty is a psychological need…
and the basis of religious thought…

Kropotkin

we see ourselves as human beings, in terms of god or of the state
or of ism’s or ideologies or in terms of those pesky childhood indoctrinations,
but do we see ourselves in terms of us? In other words, do I see myself,
Peter Kropotkin, as I am… not in light of any sort of ism or ideology or
childhood indoctrination? but as I am? I am kind and smart
and gaining in wisdom, not so much in knowledge, and I am very funny…
now the question arises, once I have understood myself as I am, as I
truly am, now what? Recall I wrote a bit ago about how we must
understand things in terms of relationships… how do I, Kropotkin,
stand in relationship to the state, for example? Or how do I stand
in relationship with god or with philosophy or with knowledge?
or of the any 5 million ways I can stand in relationship to something…

I must understand myself both as an individual and, AND in relationship
to something…

and have noted, much of philosophy is psychological driven, so
how do I understand myself psychologically? as I don’t need
certainty as other people do, what does this say about me?

I am quite happy with myself… I don’t require friends nor do I need god
nor do I need certainty… I am self reliant in regards to outside
needs and psychological needs… I am not very social, I don’t need
the certainty that many other people need……

I do need the physical needs that all living beings need, food, water,
clothing, shelter, love… even someone as self reliant as myself, needs
love and I get love from my family……….

is my quest for wisdom which comes from the doubt I feel, is
that a psychological need I have? perhaps, is doubt itself
a psychological need? probably…I don’t subscribe to the Greeks
understanding of philosophy as being from wonder and I don’t see
the desire for knowledge to of much value and I certainly don’t need
to loved by god… but as know, if we become aware of our psychological
needs, as to our need to be certain or the need for our understanding
the basis of reality which is metaphysics, we can overcome our
psychological needs if, if we can become aware of them…
for example, we can overcome any addictions we have if we become
aware of our addictions… it might be hard, but we can do it…

the same can be said for our philosophical/psychological needs…
by awareness, we can overcome… and thus we arrive at what
the Buddha said about desires, if we become aware of our desires,
we can overcome them and become the Buddha and thus no longer
be reincarnated…or if we can overcome our desires as the Stoics
said…all roads lead to the same place…….

so what road are you on? What philosophical/psychological need must
you fulfill? what desires/needs do you need to have, that must be answered?

wonder/desire/doubt/escaping suffering/to become obedient/
or some other psychological need/needs, do you have that leads you to philosophy?

Kropotkin

how much of our behavior or actions, the result of
deprivations of our needs? in other words, if we didn’t get enough
love, for example, then how much of our behavior and actions are
a result of us not getting enough love as children?

I suspect that much of our behavior and actions are driven
by deprivations in our childhood of certain needs and wants
that we had……………

and is our “philosophy” an attempt to meet those unfulfilled
needs and wants as children?

Kropotkin

and what of the critic who says, Kropotkin,
your “way” of turning everything into psychology means
that we have nothing solid to base our theories upon because
everything is psychologized including political theory,
history, economics and of course, philosophy…

We have no such thing as disciplines because
we have turned all disciplines into psychology…
and that is true to a certain extent anyway…
but and this is important to understand,
whereas everything is turned into psychology in
the beginning, it doesn’t end up as psychology…

let us understand the point of psychology…
we are trying to understand ourselves in terms
of actions and behavior with an understanding
of the psychologically drives and deprivations that
drive so much of our behavior…

In other words, if we cure ourselves of our psychological issues,
if we understand the forces and drives that lead to our actions
and behavior, then we have overcome, moved past those forces
and drives that dictate how we act and behave…

If I understand why I act the way I do or why I am driven to
do something, then I have overcome it, I have conquered it…
it no longer haunts me as some silent motivation that I don’t
know about or understand………I understand what that motivation
is and can overcome it by conscious decisions and actions…

let us say, for example, (this didn’t happen but is simply an
example of what would happen if this happened) for example,
I was molested as child… but I “forgot” or I drove it out of my mind
as too painful to bear as an adult, I have this tremendous weight on
my subconscious mind… it subconsciously drives all my actions even
though I am not consciously aware of it…If I become aware of it,
I can begin to do the work to overcome it…the key is to become aware
of the issue… a psychology issue that has plagued me and my actions
and behavior for a long time is resolved… I am free now…… I have cured
myself…as I am no longer bounded by this issue of the molestation,
I no longer am driven by unseen and unnoticed subconscious issues…
as I am no longer driven by this event, I have become aware of and
now in control of who I am and what are my possibilities…

the molestation has prevented me fully becoming aware
of who I was… I was a child molested and because I was not
aware of it, it had control over my actions… but because I am
now aware of it, now I am in control of my thoughts and my actions
and my behavior…

the question becomes what is next? and that is where because
we have cured ourselves we can begin the positive understanding
of who we are… we are no longer in the grips of the psychological
issues that plagued us and we can come to grips with the real philosophy
that we must engage with to become fully human…

that is not to say that being molested is the only psychological issue
that we are faced with, but the most obvious… we can have many
difficult and troubling issues psychological issues that we must face
and overcome to become ready to begin the process of real philosophical
progress……….to overcome our psychological issues is just the first step
toward being able to become who we are… the first step to being able
to understand life in a real philosophical way…………it begins with
the psychological but once we overcome that we can begin to
understand and overcome other issues like who are we and what
are our possibilities…….

the psychological is part of us, of that we cannot deny, but as we come
to an awareness and understanding it becomes a smaller and smaller
part of who we are… and it will never go away, but it can be processed
to become something we can manage or control…….and it as always, begins
with becoming aware… that is the start of everything… become aware…

everything is a process and that process never ends but it can be used to
allow progress in other area’s… we are simply a work in progress and the
progress/process goes on until the day we die…

Kropotkin

after several days of work ugliness, I’m baaaaaaack

The other day, the wife and I went to a museum on the Stanford campus called
the “Cantor Arts center” there was a temporary exhibit about the photo’s of
Andy Warhol… and, and in this museum there are several permanent
exhibits like Early European art Egyptian and Greek art and there was the
Rodin sculptures like “The Thinker” and indigenous American Art along with
African, Oceanic and Asian Art… so when you walked from room to room,
you often traveled thousands of miles and thousands of years…….

The first room we went into was the Warhol exhibit… photos taken
from roughly 1976 to his death in 1987… there were nudes, male and female,
and his famous Campbell soup photo’s along with shots of famous people…

then with a 10 second walk you were in a room with African Art, then
Oceanic Art in the next room… think of each type of art… and compare
that art with say, Egyptian Art or Greek Art which is quite well known…

so, what art or what time period would you think as “Art”?
and then compare that time period or Art, with say, mid 19 century
Art with its paintings of people standing in formal poses in their fine clothes…

Now think of the Mona Lisa… that is perhaps the most famous painting
in the world… but for most of human history, the Mona Lisa wouldn’t
have been considered Art, it was psychological too different from
the local art being created to be considered “ART”

Would, say African Artist of the mid 18 century be able to create the Mona Lisa?
No, but why? because the mindset of the African Artist is different then the mindset
of the artist of the early 1600’s when the Mona Lisa was painted…

We can compare and contrast the art of Africa and the art of the Renaissance
and we can see the completely and different mindset of the two places and
era’s…………

Art is not only the reflection of the Artist but an reflection of the time period
when the art was being created… Art gives us a sense of what matters enough
to be recorded by Artist…for we only record what matters to us……

If we look at Medieval art, we can see a sameness about that art, we can see
the same forces drove the artist in London as it did in Paris and as it did in Florence…
we see very similar art in all three cities with similar idea’s……… the mind set in all
three cities was roughly the same and this is reflected in the art produced in the middle ages…

A few years ago, the wife and I went to Europe and we went to all the museums,
and we saw a gazillion Madonna with child and they all look very similar, but
then art begin to change with the new thoughts, a new understanding of the universe
and art began to reflect those new thoughts and understanding…Art changed……
the Art produced reflects ever changing thoughts and understanding of the world
by the artist…think about the Art and think about how the nude picture was
at times acceptable and at other times, the nude wasn’t acceptable…….
the changing of morals lead to changes in art… recall the idea that the art
reflects what the artist or society believes to be important… you don’t paint
unimportant or useless things, but, but that is exactly what happened…
Artist began to paint everyday life of the “common” man…
we no longer see only the king or nobles being painted, we see
the average person on the street being painted… and this change is
a change in the thinking of the artist… where we see the “common” person
rise in importance, become more valuable in thought…we see the rise of
democracy in the arts first, then came the rise of the common man as reflected in
the economic or social or the political… the artist leads the way in seeing
the common man as becoming important…

Art has always reflected the understanding that the important
people of the world was to be reflected in the art…
in other words, think about the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey”…
the two books were about important nobles or kings, the two books
weren’t about the common man as the common man was unimportant…
Art for thousands of years wasn’t about the common man, Art was about
the king or nobles or the gods… Art didn’t reflect any knowledge of
or understanding of the common man because the common human being
wasn’t valuable or worth understanding… only the great person was worth
art… and this state of affairs lasted for thousands of years……. the changes
in the political and social aspects of our lives changed the nature of art…
we now see the common people being represented in Art starting
after 1500 AD…… ….and this new representation in art is because of the massive
social and economic and political changes that start to sweep Europe

art reflects the social and political and economic thinking going on in the world…
we see this in the rise of the new art form, the Novel, in which we see that the
common man becomes the “star” of this new art form… the common man like
Tom Jones and Don Quixote become the new stars of this new vision of society…
Art reflects the changes in society… so what do we see when we begin to see
the new art of the 20th century, which actually began in the 1860’s… with
impressionism and leading us to the many new styles of the 20th century…
Post-impressionism, realism, Cubism, Surrealism, abstract, pop art, fauvism…
to list a few of the new art movements of the last 140 years……

think of the art and artist of the 20th century… Picasso, Warhol, Kahlo,
Matisse, Braque… think about the art they created…compare and contrast
the new art with the “Old” art after the Renaissance till 1860… the new movement
reflects the changes and how we understand human beings… we see human beings
being reflected in art as being abstract or without form… for example, look
at Duchamp, “Nude descending a staircase” done in 1912… this is how artist
see human beings now… we have become individual atoms, we have been
reduced and separated from each other into individual atoms with no connection
to society or each other… and that is reflected by the art that is being created……

from the poems to novels to paintings to sculpture, we have been atomized,
separated, alienated from each other… we no longer have a connection to
each other and that is reflected in our art… as we also are no longer connected
to our society or our government……and the art that is being created reflects
this change in how we are perceived and how we perceived others……….

art reflects the modern culture/society/economic and political
status which is the negation of modern man… art reflects the
modern nihilism which negates human beings…just as art shows
us the negation of human beings by showing us as in the “Nude descending the
staircase” that we have been negated socially and artistically……. art reflects this
negation of human beings through the way human beings are being artistically
shown…………in paintings, sculptures, novels, architecture and in music…

the ongoing negation of humans is reflected in today’s art…….

Kropotkin

we have a couple of different ways to understand things…

one: we can go from the universal to the individual…
we have forces such as gravity and evolution, the “clockwork” mechanisms
of nature and from those we deduce our individual status…

two: we can go from the individual to the universal…
I am Kropotkin and I am this, this, and this, and what that means is,
I am a human being with human needs and wants and desires…
because I am this way, it leads us to understand the universe this way…

the question has often been asked, how are we to understand such concepts
as freedom with so much of who we are is based upon universal forces such
as evolution and gravity and electromagnetism, the forces upon which
our universe is built upon… how are we to understand freedom given
we are bound by these forces that created the universe? how are we to be
free in a clockwork universe?

the other side of the equation is, how are we to find a home in a universe without
a solid base of operations? In other words, we are homeless right now given
our understanding of the universe where we are not the center of the universe,
where we are minor, at best, players in this immense universe where our actions
do not change or affect the universal forces that have created and still dominate
the way the universe functions………

we are bit players in our own lives… given the forces that are described by
Newton, Einstein, Marx, Smith, Freud… forces that are beyond our abilities
to affect or change… natural forces of gravity/evolution and social forces such
as capitalism and Marxism………forces that are also beyond our ability to change
is religious… we cannot understand or change the religious as described by
Jesus or Mohammed or the Buddha……

We live in a universe that is beyond our capabilities
to understand, little less to change or affect………

and that universe is a universe where we are homeless because we cannot, cannot
understand or change this universe… if you cannot understand or change something, you
are not at home with it… you can’t be…….

so those vast exclusive theories of Einstein or Marx or Jesus, also make us
homeless in those theories for we cannot exists in theories we cannot change or
understand… a theory of man as a greedy, selfish being is a theory we can be
at home with because we understand what it means to be greedy or selfish…

How are we to be free in a universe where we have no place in it?
How does man be free in a theory of forces that are beyond man’s ability
to either understand it and/or change it?

To say man, human beings exists in a universe where there is a god as defined
by the bible is to say, man has no home because he cannot understand god’s plan
for human beings and, and he cannot affect those plans……

the grand theories of human beings are also theories that deny, prevent
human beings from freedom and from being at home…….

think of modern science explanation of the beginning of the universe,
the big bang theory and think of how over time, the earth was created
and over billions of years, life was created and billions of years after life
was created, came man, human beings and we began as apes and after million
of years, we became human beings and we went from animal to human beings…

where in all of that, do you see freedom? where in all of that do you see choices
and possibilities of what we could be?

I was born into a society, the American society that had its dogma’s and
ideologies and I was indoctrinated into those dogma’s and ism’s and habits
and prejudices and superstitions…….where is my freedom given how I was
born into this dogmatic society that had certain beliefs that are given as
“certain” and “absolute”? How do we become who we are when we
are given dogma’s that are so indoctrinated into people, that to
even raise doubt about those dogma’s is to invite punishment…
if I doubt that America is the greatest country on earth, I am inviting
punishment, both from individuals and societal…

in other words forces like gravity are supposed to be like
the ideologies of America… infallible and certain and disagreement with
those ideologies leave one without a “home” and without any recourse to
freedom…of freedom of action…and, and freedom of thought…

how do I find freedom given the ism’s and ideologies of America
are no different then the forces of gravity and evolution… and to
find freedom in such ism’s and ideologies means to deny such ism’s
and ideologies… but why must I have to deny ism’s and ideologies
to be free? why can’t I be free and accept such ideologies and ism’s?

because the two, freedom on one hand and ism’s, ideologies, dogma’s
on the other hand, are incompatible because they demand different things…
freedom is the freedom of action and speech and ism’s and ideologies demand,
demand complete and absolute obedience to them…………

so do we engage in freedom or do we engage in obedience?
do we work toward freedom or do we engage in obedience to
our ism’ and ideologies/dogma’s?

that is the question…

Kropotkin

so given the above post, what is art?

Art is an attempt to escape the two dogma’s…
the necessity of such forces as gravity and evolution…
and the equally unfree forces of such ism’s and ideologies
of capitalism and Marxism and monarchy…

we have little or no room to be free given such boundries
as the forces of nature/gravity or evolution and we have little or no
room for freedom given the boundries of capitalism or Marxism…

Art is that in between the dogma’s of the natural/gravity/evolution and
the dogma’s of the social ism’s that dominate our society…

Kropotkin

or perhaps said another way, Newtonian laws of nature are
mechanical theories of nature, the clockwork theory of nature…
and the forces theory of Marxism is also a mechanical theory because
it doesn’t allow freedom of action… so how do we humans achieve
freedom in a mechanical understanding of the universe?

Kropotkin

we are not only caught by the forces of nature, gravity/evolution/electromagnetism…
and social forces such as Marxism and capitalism but we are caught by the forces
of human nature… greed, lust, love, hate, anger, despair…

so we have physical forces, mechanical forces and we have psychological
forces as in desires, wants… the forces that the Buddha and the Stoics
want us to overcome… recall that the Buddha want us to overcome
suffering which is caused by desires… we remove desires and we overcome
suffering which allows us to achieve salvation, becoming Buddha…

the nature of overcoming our desires, wants, is central to religions…
think of the christian religion…think of the 10 commandments…
thou shall not…

we human beings have a lot going on… we have many diverse
and different forces affecting who we are and our nature, past
present and future…and some of those forces are/exist in
past ism’s and ideologies, present ism’s and habits and future
expectations of ism’s and superstitions…

how are we to be “free” given all the various and diverse
forces affecting us?

how are we to find out who we are and what are our possibilities
given the many and diverse forces, mechanism’s working on us…

usually, we pick one or two forces, be it social or physical or psychological
and we try to overcome those small and isolated forces… when in fact,
we have several different and diverse forces working on us, all the time,
in time and space……… how do we choose what battles we are going to fight?

Kropotkin

in our thinking, we have certain things we want…
thus we can say and expect that if we search for
or expect certain things, we are “progressing”
so for example, the declaration of independence,

“we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness”

it has also been suggested that we seek certain things beyond
“the pursuit of happiness”… that we seek “god, freedom and immortality”
and that we seek understanding and that we seek wisdom or we seek
knowledge… and we can mix and match these pursuits. We can seek
some combination of happiness and wisdom or seek wisdom and knowledge
or we can seek beauty and truth… there are quite a few combinations of things
that has been suggested of things that we seek…

and the place to begin to understand is the place for example, philosophy
begins, which according to whom you read can be wonder as the Greeks list
it or in doubt as I and Socrates list it or in the pursuit of wisdom… which “value”
do we use to begin our pursuit of philosophy? wisdom, doubt, happiness,
certainty or some other value which is used to engage in our pursuit of…

but the problem is, as I see it, is the psychology issue… and what that means
is this… by virtue of the values/ism’s/ideologies, superstitions, habits, prejudice
we are raised with, we can have psychological issues…for example,
we know that in pursuing the ism of capitalism, the pursuit of profits/money
over human beings and their values, in people we cause such psychological issue
as alienation, discontentment, despair, anger and the negation of human beings
and their values… all of which causes psychological issues in human beings…
we must “cure” ourselves of our psychological issues before, before we can
engage in our pursuit of happiness or wisdom or certainty… in other words, we
cannot become happy or wise or certain until we cure ourselves of our
psychological issues…

there are many different reasons why, why we have psychological issues,
among my psychological issues are caused not only by the indoctrinations of
my childhood but by the handicap of my hearing loss… it has taken me years
to overcome the psychological issues of my hearing loss…I cannot become wise
until I have learn to overcome the physical loss of my hearing and this is an example of
the psychological issues that we human beings must learn to overcome before we
can pursue happiness or wisdom or knowledge or certainty…

we must “cure” ourselves before we can engage in our pursuit of anything…
this is why I say that we must deal with our psychological issues before we
can engage with the question of what values are we going to engage with, or
pursue………

that is why the psychological is so important…we cannot become wise
or happy or content or certain until we “heal” ourselves…….once
the psychological is dealt with, then and only then can we begin the process
of the pursuit of…… whatever……

Kropotkin

Sapere Aude: “dare to know”
is also loosely translated as “dare to be wise”
or perhaps even more loosely, “dare to think for yourself”

Now Kant used this as his motto… what he meant was that a person
was to think for themselves and not allow, as previous generations did,
to allow others to think for you… for example, authorities like Plato, the church,
documents like the bible……. Kant wanted a person to think for themselves
and become self directed… this self directed is very important to Kant…
we are supposed to be self directed which for Kant meant to obey one’s
personal duties… for Kant, above all other aspects, he believed in
following one’s own personal duties…for example, when he said this…

“Two things awe me most, the starry sky above
and the moral law within me”

that was about one taking ownership of their own personal duties…
and the Kantian idea of

“living your life as thou your every act were
to become a universal law”…

this too is about the duties that Kant felt were a part of every human’s life…

but this self direction… what direction was it to take?

for example, we are instructed to self direct ourselves toward
some goal, to be happy or to find wisdom or to gain knowledge
to be rich… to discover some self directed goal which is not
based on what authorities like Aristotle or the church or the bible,
meant for you to base as personal goals…we are to discover our
own personal directions or goals, to be self directed…

it is in this self direction that was the basis for what Kant wrote…

are you self directed or do you base your goals upon authorities
or upon the church or upon text like the bible?

now if you think about life in general, most of life is driven by
desires, wants, needs… as animals, we have drives, such as food, water, shelter, to procreate,
clothes and as human beings, we want to be social, we want love and to love,
we want freedom and some want security…… these needs are the higher needs
of being human… these drives are drives based on specific human needs
and not about the animal drives that all life has…

the forces of evolution has “created” in us, certain drives which allowed
the human species to grow and thrive…we are driven by evolution as human
beings to have certain inalienable drives…now some may differ as to what
those inalienable drives are… be it love or be it the search for god or be it
security or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness………
we can call these drives, self directed drives… but I am not sure they
are self directed as much as evolutionary drives which are by their very
nature, uncontrollable… for example, the drive to procreate is a strong
and powerful human drive that drives much of human behavior and goals
and energy…… much of what we do is based on this evolutionary drive we
have little or no control over…………we cannot count this as being self directed…

so what Kant is saying is that the search for freedom is one such self directed
goal which can be the basis of our actions and behaviors and energy…

we can have other drivers of behaviors and actions and we have mentioned
some of them, security and love and being social are all possible drives we
humans have…

personally, I have a drive for understanding and wisdom… my drive used
to be for knowledge but I learned that knowledge is not necessarily
the basis for wisdom… we can know things, have knowledge and still not
be wise… we can have understanding which is different then knowledge…….
and I want to understand and have wisdom…

at my age when most people are just sitting around and watching tv, I am
spending my days reading and studying philosophy in hopes of some day,
perhaps, maybe I might become just a little bit wiser and have some more
understanding… I am self directed… to achieve a goal which most people
attempt, if at all, when they are much, much younger……. old people like me
are suppose to be past such nonsense like philosophy… but here I am…
and here I shall remain…… for I am driven to pursue wisdom and understanding…

so when asked, what are you driven to do?

when challenged to “Sapere Aude”… dare to know…

what do you dare to know?

do you dare to be wise?

do you dare to think for yourself?

what have you self directed yourself to do?

Kropotkin

several questions are going about my head……

if modernism, modernity is the problem, then what is the solution?

in regards to the enlightenment ideal of freeing people from
the tyranny of authorities, of the tyranny of aristotle and the
tyranny of the church… what if, what if we have simple
replaced the old tyrannies with the new, we have the “new”
tyranny of the state, the new tyranny of the ism’s/ideologies
of capitalism… of marxism, of the “modern”
upon which we sacrifice the modern man… just as the old
tyrannies were quite happy to sacrifice Bruno and socrates
upon the old ideals…

what is the question upon we must face that answers the problem
of modernity?

Kropotkin

after 8 straight days of work, I finally have a day off…

I have often wondered what this is all about? you, me, everything…

and then I think about human beings… we see ourselves in this game,
this thing we call life and what is it all about?

This morning, while doing laundry, I was thinking about baseball…
my favorite game… How the baseball greats were great only defined
by baseball… for example, a truly great hitter, still only has a 320. batter
average…320, think about this, that mean a hitter only hits the ball, gets on base,
a little bit more then 3 times for every ten at bats…so for every 1000 at bats,
a truly great hitter will hit the ball 320 times…think about it… a hitter
is a succesful hitter by hitting the ball only about a third of the time…
can you think of any other profession where one might be considered to be
a success with a 33% success rate? think about a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist
who only succeeded 33% of the time? that would be a really crappy doctor or lawyer
or dentist…or a politician being successful 33% of the time…

the goal of baseball is to become a better baseball player… either by becoming
a better hitter and has we have pointed out a truly successful player only
succeeds 33% of the time but the baseball player gets better fielding the ball,
and running the bases and getting walks and all the little things a player
can do to improve his game… to become better……

that is the goal of baseball, to become better and in becoming better,
you help the team become better… but first comes the part where
you must improve yourself…you must have some value to the team…
either you are a good hitter or a good pitcher or a good fielder or a good
base stealer… there are aspects of team play that needs individual
talents in order for the team to succeed… if you are talented in some
area, you can help the team to succeed…

now let us take this baseball analogy to life… I have a certain skill set,
I can make connections very quickly between two very different area’s…
I freely admit I cannot do math to save my life and my English skills are
ESL at best… so if I want to become more valuable, I need to improve my
individual skills and what does that do? it helps the team to win…
and what does winning look like in our current context?

as in any team, we must have goals to achieve… we must work at
our goals… and as with any goals, they must be clearly stated
and understood to be in the best interest of everyone playing the game…

and so, I point out that goals and objectives of liberals make
much more sense with our current understanding of what is means to be human
then the goals and objectives of conservatives…

it is not in the interest of the individual player to pad his stats
to improve his signing bonus to the detriment of the team…
we are the solo players who must understand that we are also
part of a team… and if we want to succeed, the team must succeed…
it is as simple as that… if the team fails, we fail and if we fail, the team fails……

conservatives don’t care about the team and if the team fails, as long
as the individual player can paid his stats and get paid more… that is the goal…
for the conservative only cares about getting paid more, not if the team
succeeds…………

but how big of a team do we actually have?

we have families and tribes and city/states and nations
and countries and races, be it white or black and religions,
be it Christian or Muslim or Hindu, we can divide human beings
into thousands of different classes depending on how you divide
human beings…… but I say, it doesn’t matter how you divide the human
race, it isn’t enough… for we also belong to a bigger team than just
the human race…we belong to the team of life… and we must work
to promote and protect life, be it snakes or tree’s or bee’s or even the earth
itself… and we must be prepared to make sacrifices to protect
the greatest team of all, that of life on planet earth… for we may
be the only life in the universe…and we have a duty and obligation
to protect that life even if it means we must sacrifice ourselves
to protect life… just as a teammate might sacrifice himself to
help a teammate or to help the team, we must become good teammates
to all life on planet earth… for that is what teammates do and it doesn’t
matter if the other teammates on earth know or understand what we do…
because we know…and that is all that matters, if we know what it takes
to be a good teammate to our fellow human beings and to life……

on a personal level, I must try to become a better human being which
in turns makes the human race a better race… it is our individual improvements
as human beings that allows our fellow teammates, our fellow human beings,
to belong to a better team… if we improve ourselves, we improve our team…
and that is the mission of being human…… we improve ourselves to improve
the team and that team includes life, all life on planet earth……

Kropotkin

Sittlichkeit: the ethical life as defined by Hegel……

what is the “ethical life”? does a man who steal a loaf of bread
to feed his family being ethical? For isn’t feeding one’s family
belong to the famous “inalienable rights” of “life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness” of the declaration of independence…
or does an economic system which prevents a man from feeding
his family an “unethical” system? How does a person exists in an “ethical”
life when certain basic “inalienable” rights are denied to them?

Which is more “ethical” a man who steals a loaf of bread to feed his family or, or
an economic system that prevents that man from feeding his family?

How does Sittlichkeit work in regards to the pursuit of capitalism or
communism? Individually or collectively? Now one of the key points of
Kant was that human beings were to be “self directed”… not driven by
the power and reach of authority like god, the bible, Aristotle, the church,
the state………and so what does it mean to have sittlichkeit in terms of
being self directed as Kant wanted? For hundreds of years, Sittlichkeit
was connected to the concept of Art… the ethical life was directly
connected to Art… you cannot have an ethical life without Art…Kant
makes this point as does Hegel…

so how does being self determined as defined by Kant mean in terms
of our “modern” fixation, “modern” addiction of the pursuit of profit/money?
So what does it mean to be human in light of the fact that we/society places
the pursuit of money as the “highest” ideal? Is the only value of being human,
the modern ideal of consumer/producer? and what does this idea of self determination
tell us about religion? what does Sittlichkeit have to do with religion?

“Salto Mortale” which is Jacobs leap of faith and later turns up with Kierkegaard leap of faith,
what does this have to do with Sittlichkeit? the ethical life? This “Salto Mortale” doesn’t just
exists within a religious context, it is also present in how we view the ism’s and ideologies
such as capitalism and communism…….for both capitalism and, AND communism at
their heart, takes a leap of faith into the impersonal forces of the invisible hand
of god/market forces in capitalism and the invisible forces of the laws of materialism which drive
communism……. we seek refuge in these “Salto Mortale” of capitalism and communism…

we don’t see self determination in either capitalism or communism because both are
driven by unseen and beyond human understanding and ability to direct…

both capitalism and communism is to be rejected because they both, capitalism
and communism carry the modern despair and alienation and discontentment
of modern life… because they both hold has their basic principles, impersonal forces
that exist outside of and beyond human determination……

So what is nihilism? the holding of beliefs that forces one to have as a basic premise
“Salto Mortale” as does both capitalism and communism…
we hold to other such impersonal forces theory beyond capitalism and communism,
such as Buddhism, Christianity or any ideological that preaches about any forces
beyond our control.

Until we regain our ability to self determination, we shall continually fall
victim to such impersonal forces that we must hold by “Salto Mortale”…

and what does this mean for science and the naturalism of Newton or Einstein?

do we have self determination within science or naturalism? or must we
engage in “Salto Mortale” with science and or naturalism?

more later…

Kropotkin

and continued:

This leap of faith, “Salto Mortale”… doesn’t just exist in the impersonal
forces of capitalism or communism, no, as noted it exists in
any religion such as Buddhism or Christianity…at the very start of
the religious process… for example, Buddhism requires an immediate
leap of faith right from the start that we are reincarnated and Christianity
requires a leap of faith that there is a god… right from the get go, both
religions require a leap of faith…….

the next step is this question of science, naturalism, of evolution,
of gravity, of the natural forces that has created the universe…
how do we have self determination in light of those natural forces that have
created and dominate our natural universe? How do we understand Sittlichkeit
in light of those natural forces? How are we to have self determination
and an ethical life when we are fixed and determined by evolution
and gravity and other such forces? Can we have an ethical life given
we are created by such fixed forces as gravity and evolution?

must we make a “Salto Mortale” in the face of such forces as gravity/evolution?

we are forced to exist in a certain way because of gravity and evolution,
we must breath and eat and drink water and procreate as we are the results
of billions of years of evolution and we must obey the laws of gravity or
face rather severe consequences…our self determination is limited
in that sense… our physical limitations are set by those forces of gravity
and evolution… but we are not bound to those forces…we can act in a
self determined fashion regardless of those physical forces that have created
and dominate us…we have choice… we can lead an ethical life because
we are not limited in that way by evolution… we can exist in Sittlichkeit
because gravity and evolution affect us on one way, it doesn’t determine
our ethical choices… gravity or evolution doesn’t say or do anything to limit
our ethical choices, our ethical lives…we can act individually and/or collectively
in terms of our ethical choices…we are not limited by gravity or evolution in this
manner…we can have ethical lives because our ethical choices is not limited
by or determined by those forces of science……

but what about those ism’s and ideologies that require us to
to make a leap of faith, ism like capitalism or communism or
Buddhism or Christainity….if we make a leap of faith, are we really
leading ourselves to ethical choices? can we make ethical choices if
we have to “Salto Mortale” to make that choice? does a leap of faith allow
one to have an ethical choice? for to have an choice requires we don’t
need to act in some prior manner like making a leap of faith to make
our ethical choices work…Kierkegaard is wrong… we don’t need to
make a leap of faith to have ethical choices… we just need to
choose and then act upon that choice… I can have an ethical life
if I simply self determine that I exist within a certain framework, a
framework of forces like gravity and evolution that limits
my choices, but they don’t determine those choices… I do…

Today I choose to be ethical… I will help that old women cross the street
and that is all it takes… to act to benefit others instead of myself…
but that choice Kropotkin, doesn’t that choice require a leap of faith
that helping others is the ethical choice…you tell me…

Kropotkin

I have thinking about “ART” a lot lately
and what is the connection between “ART” and our lives…

What is the value or point of “ART” in our lives?
and I was thinking about novels like those written by
Jane Austin or Tolstoy… They are novels by virtue of having
a plot or a narrative, a story is told, a story with a beginning, middle
and end… Now that story can be told in hundreds of different ways…
we can tell hundreds of different stories with the exact same
people and/or events……… for example, the movie “clueless” is a
1996? movie that is an adaptation of a Jane Austin novel… we have
a novel that has been changed but the basic features are still there if
you know the source material…In music, I have heard many different
versions of songs like “my funny valentine” and the Beatles song, “yesterday”

we can adapt and change every single story and plot to include or become
something else…

so we have “plot” a story which every “ART” has, even painting…
has a plot as we also have plays, music, movies, all of which has a “plot”
a story to tell…

so to return to a point raised earlier, I have noted how human beings
have become alienated, disconnected, atomized, from society and from
each other and in many cases, we have become alienated and disconnected
from ourselves…

what if, what if we are alienated and disconnected and atomized because
we don’t have a plot to follow. we don’t see our lives as having a plot,
a storyline in which we can follow and be part of…….

we see this also in the massive alienation and disconnect that is within
society in individuals because of those powerful forces that are not
within our control such as exhibited by capitalism which is driven by
the “invisible hand of god” and communism which is driven by the
forces of class relations and social conflict driven by a materialistic
interpretation of historical development… this historical development is
outside of and beyond the control of individual people, just as capitalism
is driven by the invisible hand of the “market place” which is also outside
of the control of individual people… and we have religions which are
based on the outside forces of god and within Buddhism which is the uncontrolled
forces of reincarnation which is outside the forces of individuals…

much of human ism’s and ideologies are based on forces that are beyond
and outside of the control of human beings……

when we have a “plot” we can compare and contrast our lives with the “plot”
and the storyline and we can see or compare where we are and what is our choices
in life……

we can even have a “plot” in such modernist painting as Duchamp “Nude descending a
staircase” for which we can create an entire story around a nude descending a staircase,
a beginning or an ending or even the denouement of a story…a plot exists within
a modern painting like “nude descending a staircase” if we are willing to create one…

and what would the plot or story of your life look like?

we have become isolated, alienated, disconnected from our lives because
we no longer have a clear and precise story or plot we can tell about ourselves…
to ourselves and to others. think of the cave man, think of the story they
told about themselves in which they were trying to survive against incredible
odds against all sorts of adversities…

or think of the medieval human being who had a story to tell about their
place in life and where they fit into society……

but modern man, what is our story? what is our “plot”?
we need a story to compare and contrast where we are
and what human beings are and what is our possibilities………

write your own story, write you own plot… and what does it say about
you???

we have become disconnected from the myths and superstitions that
were the stories of society and life since the beginning…
one such story is how we are “meant” to search for god
and another story is how instead of god, we found doubt
and within that doubt, we found wisdom… not knowledge,
but wisdom… for it is only from doubt can we begin the
story, our story of our search for wisdom……….

so what story, what plot are you going to tell us about your life?
what story is your story about your past, present and future?

what is the plot of your life?

and that is “ART”…and if done correctly that story is also philosophy
and history and economics and biology and physics and or in fact,
any study we engage in……. that is our story… the study we engage with
becomes our plot, our story…I study who we are and who I am in terms
of philosophy and history but you can engage in a study of your story, your
plot by any means you wish… even “ART” can be your path to study
your story, your plot………so tell me?

what is your plot?

Kropotkin

now one of the reasons we are so atomized and alienated
is because the stories, plot we tell about ourselves is
disconnected from society… we are social creatures,
and our stories, plot must, must reflect that social nature
of the human creature… we must acknowledge and operate within
the paramaters of social discourse of being human, being social,
we exists in the context of our social, collective being…
we cannot, cannot do anything else… we are social and collective
beings and our stories, our plots must reflect that social and collective
nature… otherwise we become alienated, disconnected, atomized,
from ourselves and our society…we must have a story that connects
us to a larger context that includes other human beings, other life…

perhaps the problem with modern life is we aren’t connecting our stories
into an overall, social context… we have isolated our stories too much
and our plot, our story isn’t wide enough or social enough to meet our needs…

we are social, collective beings and our stories, plots must reflect that…

Kropotkin

now part of our story, our plot is our identity…
I was homeless for a bit and that is part of my story,
part of my plot, but it isn’t part of my identity…I was
born with a hearing loss, that is part of my identity,
identity must be something that is “permanent”
I am white, that is part of my identity, part of my plot…
and it is permanent… being white tells a story… do I have or suffer
from “white privilege”? that is part of the story, whither it is true,
is another story or plot…we each of us, have a story, a plot and some
of that story is permanent which is then identity… but I have heard of
people say that “have an identity crisis”. Well if identity comes from our story
or our plot, then to have an identity crisis would imply that I have
become alienated from or disconnected from my story, my plot…

we do have forces like capitalism and communism which are forces that
are outside of or beyond our ability to control… is not part of our story, our plot
is to engage with the social forces around us… for we are social creatures and any
story we have must involve other people… we must engage with, be social with
other human beings and if we are alienated from or disconnected from people
due to the forces beyond our control…then we can feel alienated, disconnected
from people due to the forces beyond our control…alienation stems from
our disconnection to the story we have or the plot we have as human beings…

if my life is “controlled” by forces outside of my control such as in
capitalism or communism, then we are not connected to or we are disconnected
from people… if my life is determined by the “invisible hand of god” or the market,
then I am not connected to people… we are atomized by those invisible forces of
capitalism or communism or Buddhism or religion…I cannot tell a story or have a plot
about invisible forces like capitalism which the invisible forces of the marketplace
have made me poor or have destroyed my life… what is that story?
How do I turn invisible market forces into a story, a plot in which
I can maintain my identity? for identity is a permanent aspect of the story
we tell about ourselves… and those invisible forces of ism’s and ideologies,
how can I tell that story? I am not only disconnected from my fellow human
beings due to the invisible forces that dominate our lives, but I can’t even tell
a story about it which doubly disconnected me or alienates me from both my self
and my fellow human beings……

How can I tie up my story, my plot with invisible forces I can’t even see
or touch? I cannot, cannot connect my story which is what we human beings do
to help us connect us to others, remember we are social beings and we must
as an condition of being human, must connect ourselves with other human beings…

the so called identity crisis of the modern age comes from our blindly following
those invisible forces which we cannot see or touch or change and those
invisible forces are inherent in all ism’s and ideologies…for the basic
starting point of ism’s and ideologies is within invisible forces which we cannot
touch or see or connect to… socialism, communism, capitalism, Catholicism,
Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism… all exist within the starting point of invisible
forces… and science? yes, science holds us to invisible starting points like
gravity and evolution and biology… all of which have invisible forces
dominating them…how do we really solve this identity crisis?

we become connected to, part of those forces which we can see
and touch and control……….

what is the story of human beings? our social nature and we can touch
and see and feel that social nature, every single day…and that is our
starting point of our story, our plot, our connection due
to the fact that we are social creatures and we must, must in order to survive
and prosper, connect to and become part of other human beings, both
as individuals and collectively…

Kropotkin

finally a day off…

I have a multitude of thoughts running through my head and I’m trying to
make sense of them in relation to our “Modern” times…

We have the enlightenment with its emphasis on the “rational”
and the attempt to “free” man from all authority be it the bible,
or god or the Pope or Aristotle……

and we have the next generation of belief which is the Romantic
century which is the 19 century… from the French revolution to
the First world war……

and we have other stray thoughts which I am trying to understand
which is the relationship of the two, enlightenment and Romanticism
with sittlichkeit: the ethical life and Art and what it means to
be “modern”?

All these random and stray thoughts and yet, and yet I cannot but
help feel that there is some strong connection between them……
How can I connect the dots between them?

The self determination of Kant with the inner subjectivity of the Romantics
along with our public and private roles… as citizens and producers and consumers
but we are more then that… even if our current political and economic theories
doesn’t allow us to be any more then that……

I run through my mind the history of western civilization since
roughly 1700 to the First World War and I try to compare the
intellectual history during that time to make some connections…
the goal is not some intellectual history of the west since
1700 but to say, here we are, now what? what is next?

It is never enough to just understand the past, we must use that understanding
to engage in some awareness of what is next…

past and present must combine in some fashion to create the future…

for that is the equation… past + present = future…

if we marry the “rationalism” of the enlightenment with the
“solipsism” of the Romantic era, we have some version
of what it means to be human today…

but that is not enough…it is not enough…….

the quest for understanding crashes on the shores of what it means to be
human today, right now…

more thought is needed…

Kropotkin

It is this in my opinion how come after the great hurrah of Allied victory and the defeat of Axis powers and the demise of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin wall, we are again hawkish like hell plus on top of that suffering social alienation and any?

Is there any hope for a common sense or is Angst keeps driving us crazier until a lunatic terrorist state will finally profit on the trillion dollars nuke industry that’s due for a profit taking?

And the problem with this is, that it’s really happening!

To give You an example: the German foreign minister seriously advised threateningly the Russians about the development of hypersonic weapons that it can lead to a new age revival of cold war.type weapon development again going out of control, with most of GNP going to the military.

Who ever would have thought that new reasons will be thought of.to feed the hunger of.the military industrial complex, that the late IKE warned is about c. 1957?
A declared German State warning a bearish behemoth, acting like a Ribbentrop to sign a peace treaty ?
At a time , when previously German workers were getting paid with millions of Reich marks barely fitting into a suitcase on payday?

It seems like modern man is truly living up to the warning, : those who can not learn the lessons of history…