The question we philosophers and scientist and thinkers face are
rational questions… but how do we, the rational thinkers face the
quite human problem of irrationalism?
politically, the left accuses the right of irrationalism and the right accuses
the left of extreme rationalism,
this is an example of this question of rationalism vs irrationalism…
it has been called on occasion, the Athens vs Jerusalem problem…
to simplify the debate, it goes like this…
the citizens of Athens begin with the Socratic notion of true knowledge begins
when we admit we know nothing…
while the citizens of Jerusalem believe in the humble obedience to the
revelation and the word of god…
faith vs science…….
this is the shorthand of this debate… faith vs science…
the left is about the evidence and the right is about the faith…
but this debate runs deeper then just simple politics…
the Kantian/Kropotkin questions offer us another example of this…
“What can I know?” vs “what should I believe in?”
we on the left see the danger behind extreme faith, the fear
and hate and anger… the lower notions of our instincts
the right see’s the danger of extreme intellect…the coldness
and heartless actions that come from only operating from the intellect…
the right accuses the left of acting without a soul and the left accuses
the right of acting without intellect……
and yet given the current reality, who is behind the concentration camps
of children and the demonization of immigrants and the demonization of
any who hold different ism’s or ideologies or look different or love different?
the right has forsaken their compassion and love for fear and hate…
so the right has forsaken not only intellect, but has forsaken
the ideals of Jerusalem… following the laws of god……
for Jesus was quite clear about the ideals in which mankind must
follow to follow in his footsteps…
in his parables, the parable of the good Samaritan tells of a man
beaten and robbed, left half dead by the side of the road…
first a priest and then a Levite come by, but both avoid the man,
finally a Samaritan happens by the traveler, well the Jews and
the Samaritans despise each other but the Samaritan helps the
beaten traveler…and the question is asked, “Who is my neighbour?”
the religious question… who should I love? the right has forsaken this
parable in favor of hate and fear and anger… values which are specifically
rejected by Jesus…and who has risen to accept the challenge of
the good Samaritan? certainly not the right, but the left…………
and does the left act from belief in Jerusalem?
No, we hold no such belief……. and yet, we are acting,
may I say it, irrationally… we hold this belief to be
self evident, “that all men are created equal”
and we then connect the ethical behavior of human beings
with the political beliefs…… justice requires that we
treat everyone equally… another ethical belief become
political……
the right holds to the laws… we must obey the laws,
recall the right used to hold to the value of the “law and order”
party… that was how Nixon got elected… by proclaiming the
GOP was the “law and order” party…the right would advocate
that one was required to obey the laws, be it the laws of man
or be it the laws of god… and yet, we have a gutless coward
president who proclaims himself above the law and he is supported
by the right in his lawless reign as president…
if the right has forsaken its values… the belief in obedience to the law
be it to man or be it to god and if the right has forsaken Jerusalem,
and has forsaken Athens, then what exactly does the right hold as truth?
for today, we are faced with the crisis of irrationalism…
when the right has adapted the cause of irrationalism
but not the values of Jerusalem… for those values are
obedience to the law and the right has forsaken those values…
so we have two distinct and separate values at work here…
the values of Athens, rationalism and the values of Jerusalem,
the cause of obedience to the laws of god… the left is of Athens…
and because of the failure of the right to commit to the laws
of Jerusalem, the left has taken over the value of compassion
and love but without, without any obedience to god and his laws…
we have accepted the value that “all men are created equal” without
recourse to religious ideals and this is the path into the future…
we can hold to the parable of the “good Samaritan” without recourse
to holding any belief in god…holding religious values without
any religion…… a secular value system in which the dignity of man
is value because he is a living, breathing member of life…
and that is the value to which we must aspire…
not engaging in the highest belief in human beings as members
of a tribe or a city or the color of their skin or any arbitrary
values system……… in other words, you are part of the club
by simply being alive…by being alive, you are valued…
regardless of how different you look or who you love or
how many legs you have… Life is sacred regardless of what that
life looks like……. and we understand sacred, not in terms
of any given god or religion but we understand sacred
as in being life…
one might proclaim the left of hypocrisy because of the abortion issue
but the left is far more consistent then the right on this issue…
one of the primary issues facing us and the one that is neglected by
the right is the issue of the quality of life… I don’t hold to eternal life
because I don’t think that by extending one’s life you gain any quality of life…
and for me, it isn’t the length of life that counts, but the quality of life…
it isn’t about numbers, how many people there are or how long they live,
it is about people’s quality of life…if we run short of resources, then
our quality of life becomes impacted and for me, that is far more important
then how many people live to be a 100 or how many millions of people live
to be a 100…
I am not interested in how many people find god or how many people
discover religion, but in people’s quality of life…
if we shift our values to include the quality of life, much of what we do
seems to be wrong……….and quality of life issues are not just Athens or
Jerusalem issues, but both of their issues…
we can count quality of life issues to both Athens and Jerusalem…
this is in part, why I think the retirement age should be much younger then
65… I am old and I am discovering that because of my physical infirmities,
I am already limited in what is physically possible for me… to wait several more
years to retire means, I will be unable to engage physically in the activities
that I would want to engage with when I retire……… even now, travel is
getting harder to do as I age………
my quality of life has decreased because of my physical issues and will
continue to decrease as I grow older………that is the sad truth of
growing old… one’s quality of life decreases every year due to
physical and mental issues………
if we were to judge life based on the quality of life, then
billions of people have a terrible quality of life…
for we have massive poverty and poverty impacts their quality of life…
we can no longer judge human existence based on the high quality of life
that some or a few have… we must judge human existence based on
the quality of life that the majority have… and I believe that
the majority of people have a limited quality of life because of such
ism’s and ideologies as communism or capitalism or Buddhism
or Catholicism…… I belief that we should judge the quality of
people life based on the quality of life… the idea of Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs is an excellent place to start…where we
judge the quality of life based on meeting certain human needs…
such as the bottom need which are the physiological needs,
food, water, warmth, rest… and the next step of the needs
is the safety needs, security, safety…
then the next step is belonging and love needs, relationships with
family and friends…
then the next need is the esteem needs, prestige and feeling of
accomplishment and the final stage of human needs is the
self actualization needs achieving one’s full potential including
creative activities………
today, we are failing in even being able to have people reach the
first stage of their needs which is the physiological needs of
food, water, warmth and rest and education…we are failing in
those basic necessities, little less reaching any other stage
of human needs………
and what of the quality of life needs which I have stressed?
I believe that to reach one’s quality of life, we must actively
engage in the idea of income inequality… we must reduce
income inequality to reach our overall goal of increasing the
quality of life for everyone… that is in part, why we must
understand what goal we want to reach… because the goal
dictates the means of how we reach our goal…
and to improve our quality of life, for everyone, means
we must think about how we can increase everyone
quality of life…and the reduction in the income inequality is
one such path to a better quality of life for everyone…
the goal dictates the path taken…
what goal to you want dictates the path you take
and what goal do you want?
Kropotkin