it is 2019 and we have millions if not billions of people
who are alienated and disconnected and isolated from not only
their peers, their countries, the current ism’s and ideologies…and yes,
even alienated from themselves…….
let us look at one aspect of this…
think of the theories that have been use over the last 500 years…
social, political, scientific, economic, biological…
an example of this is Copernicus “Heliocentric theory” where he
“moved” the sun to the center of the solar system and the earth revolved
around the sun…think of this theory…it is entirely removed from
any consideration of human beings… the sun and the earth do their thing
and it has nothing whatsover to do with humans…
now think of other scientific theories… think of Newton and gravity…
his theory of gravity has nothing to do with human beings… it is a theory
of objects that aren’t human beings…
think of evolution… it has nothing to do with human beings except to explain
how human beings are part of evolution and a dam small part I might add…
natural selection and random mutations are an interesting theory but they
don’t address human beings as much as they address life itself…
Now think of Einstein and the theory of relativity… once again, humans
beings are missing from the theory… we exist only to give examples of
how relativity works, not as part of the theory…
let us examine other theories, Freud for example…he talks about
the subconscious and unconscious mind… things that we are not aware of…
things we have no control over and yet, still dominate out lives…
we are driven by impulses and emotions, instincts that we cannot control…
and the entire point of freudian psychology was to uncover, unmask these
impulses and by doing so, we learn to understand and yes, perhaps even control…
but note that we are not in control of the subconscious or unconscious mind…
let us think about other theories… I have touched upon Marx’s theories
where economics is the substructure of human existence but not microeconomics,
no, Marx deals with the big picture, we individual human beings are small drops
of water in a vast ocean of history as it completes its drive to bring about a
“workers paradise”… note the term worker’s paradise, it is an overall, look
at who we are, but it doesn’t mean that the individiual worker will survive…
for in Marx’s vision of the future, individual workers are simply the tools through
which the inevitable march of history creates its worker or classless state…
and it is not only possible but inevitable that many workers along the way will
be sacrificed to the alter of historical inevitable… and thus if you get crushed
by history, hay, it had to happen and be glad you could play your role in
the bringing about of historical inevitability… but once again, you have no
control over, no say over your role in this mass historical theory that has no room
for individuals…
and I have quite often touched upon capitalism and how its “hand of god”
is quite willing to destroy individual human beings in the name of
progress… “progress” we have no say over and no control over…
by these theories, you get the theme which is we have many theories
of existence and they all seem to work in leave individual’s with
no say over and no control over their lives, their own existence…
and thus I would say if you have dozen’s of theories that are scientific,
economic, social and political that leave individuals without any say in
their lives or no control over their lives, then you can see why we have millions
of people who have become alienated, disconnected, isolated from society
or from each other or even alienated from themselves…… our theories
of human existence aren’t theories of our individual self, but theories of
all of us and leave us without any recourse or possibility to have any say over
or have any control over……. our vast theories exclude us individually…
and make us part of a mass movement or even without any hope to influence
the theories of us… economically, politically, socially, scientifically…
how can I engage with theories of who I am and what am I to be when
all those theories exclude me from having a part in those theories…
Kropotkin