when thinking about it, metaphysics makes sense when
one is in immediate contact with living off the land…
you hunt, you fish, you grow stuff on land… that is immediate, direct
contact with how human beings have lived for 15,000 generations…
you are in touch with all those ancestors who lived before you because
you are living your life in the exact same way they did… tradition
is strong because tradition is a way of life…
we moderns have no contact with our traditions, because we
don’t live our life as the prior generations did… we have become
apart, separate, alienated from that way of life that existed for a million years
and a billion years before that…
and having a god or a religion makes sense in the midst of a history that
has existed for several hundred of thousands of years………
but as we don’t have immediate contact with or better said, we have layers
of science and machines and technology between us and the basics of life,
we don’t have the same connection to the past that had existed for
15,000 generations of human existence…
even in the urban environment of existence, it really didn’t change much
from Egypt to Greece to Rome through the Middle ages through the rise of
the modern city, Paris, Rome, London… … until the French Revolution,
living in the city was pretty much the same everywhere because the city
life itself didn’t really change from Greece to 1789… the rise of science
and machines and technology, that changed city life to what the modern
city is today…the connection that existed in the city that was there
since the ancient times, change because of the rise of science, technology
and machines………the very act of living is different today because of the
science and technology and machines that exists and we haven’t come to
grips with what that means yet………before the French revolution,
life in the city was pretty much the same outside of local differences,
but now life has changed and, and this is the confusing part,
travel from one city to the next, and there is a certain sameness,
a certain local feel, but each city is tied and connected to each other
by science and technology and machines that makes every city seem to
be no different, again outside of local differences…… so, San Francisco
is different then Chicago, having lived in both, but they are connected
by the science, technology and machines that exists within both and tie both
together…….if someone dropped you off in an American city and didn’t tell
you what city, without asking someone, how long would it take for you to know
what city you were in? As every city has cars and public transportation
and streets and tall buildings and everywhere exists the same stores,
7/11 and Walgreens and rite-aid and Burger King and MacDonald’s and Wendy
and Macy and Sears (before they fell) the Gap and Nordstrom’s…
the sameness of our American cities is scary… and something of a connection
that human beings need…
this sameness that is American cities also existed in various cities in Europe
not because of the fact that cities didn’t really change for the average person…
Paris of 1500 and Paris of 1600 and Paris of 1700 was remarkable the same city……
And London didn’t change that much over the 300 years and during the Middle ages,
the cities didn’t change that much, from 600 AD to 1500 AD, Paris wasn’t that different.
a citizen of 800 Paris could have easily gotten around during the 1500’s, the only difference
was the city of Paris was much larger, but the life within the city was still the same with
people leading similar lives, doing the same jobs, getting around the same way, it wasn’t
that different from 800 Paris to 1700 Paris…their lives were the same, they lived the
same, the taxes was the same, the churches were the same, the food was the same…
life was no different in 800 as it was in 1700… but life was completely different in
Paris by 1900… and science and technology and machines changed Paris enough to
make it unrecognizable to someone from 800 or even 1700…….
we must understand this change before we can understand what it means
to be “moderns”… Modernity cannot make sense until we understand
what it meant to live in the past…….
Kropotkin