K: I know this passes for deep philosophical investigation for you, one word, “Lies”, but
perhaps offer us something more then just “Lies”… perhaps an analysis of
how you see things or perhaps an analysis of why I am wrong…
Kropotkin
a question: Does ART give us the “TRUTH”… Does ART tell us something about
the nature of human beings?
Does ART tell us the truth about human beings that science and philosophy
and history and economics tell us? Is ART just another picture of human beings
that is part of the story of history and philosophy and science tell us?
the Ancient Greeks thought that the “good” and “truth” and “beauty” were
all the same thing… for them, there is no difference between the “good”
and “beauty” or between the “truth” and “beauty” or between the “good”
and “beauty”…
that we “Moderns” have forsaken such things as Aesthetics and beauty
really tells us something not so good about who we are…
can we/you say that being beautiful is the same thing as being “true” or
being “good”?
for us “Moderns” we can see that the “truth” can lie in something ugly or
not attractive… the “truth” of something is irrelevant to its physical
appearance, be it beautiful or ugly…
the concept of “good” is not connected to its appearance…
good can be something ugly or good can be something beautiful…
so tell me, what is your theory on ART? or what is your connection
to the Aesthetics of the world? do you have any thoughts at all about
what is beauty? or what is the connection between what is beauty and
what is “true” or “good”?
no, of course not… that would mean you have given Aesthetics more
then 2 seconds of thought… and I know no one here has given Aesthetics
more then a 2 second glance…
so, ask yourself, what is the connection between Aesthetics and
what you believe to be true? What is Aesthetics? what is the “beautiful?”
Kropotkin
here is one possibility…
we see facts… umm, Napoleon crowned himself King on December 2, 1804…
that is a fact… but to make something of that fact, we have to interpret
that fact… the interpretation of those facts is done Aesthetically… in other
words, it takes ART to make an interpretation of facts… we use the
creative aspect of us to make sense of facts…
to decide which interpretation is the correct one isn’t just about picking
out the relevant facts, the interpretation is done creatively and that is ART…
ART decides upon a vision of human beings to which it then puts down on some medium…
that vision, is an interpretation of who we are… if the ARTIST believes
in the goodness of human beings, that will be reflective in the ART created…
Even such works as history books and philosophy books still require
a vision or understanding of human beings and in that vision or understanding,
we can see the creative aspect of the historian or philosopher at work…
if you make Napoleon the hero in a history book, or make him the villain of
the piece, in either case, that is an interpretation and that interpretation is
a creative one…you pick and choose which facts you want to bring out to
support your thesis statement that Napoleon is a good or a bad guy…
the very act of picking out which facts to use is a creative one…
it is an aesthetic act to choose which facts you will use in a biography
or history book about Napoleon…
Kropotkin
Nietzsche when he wrote, From the “Gay Science”
“Amore fati: Let that be my love henceforth! I do not wish to wage war
against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not want to accuse those
who accuse. Looking away shall be my negation. And all and all and on the whole:
Some day I wish only to be a Yes-sayer”
Nietzsche wishes to affirm life at all cost…
but I say otherwise… that there are times when I must deny life…
the times may call for one to deny the “Yes-sayer”… don’t just say yes to life
because your spirit calls for it… sometimes the right answer is the answer, no…
I say no to life… it depends upon the situation, as I said…I will not be boxed in
by some false declaration of “yes-saying” when the times call for a loud no…
to give an example, we are suppose to say yes to life under all circumstances,
but if I am unable to move, disabled by being paralyzed, I would no longer engage
in the yes, but I would engage in the no… I would end things and I would be satisfied
by my answer… life is not worth living under all circumstances…
it is not enough to say yes, at times, at times, we must be able to say no…
hence I must disagree with Nietzsche… sometimes it is not enough to say yes…
we must have the courage to also say no…
Kropotkin
WE are beings… and we strive to become more, to go from animal to
animal/human to finally to become human… most people lie on some
range between being just animal to the very few who have overcome
to become fully human… in other words, we see people who, in seeking
to fulfill their possibilities, become human…
Goethe for example is fully human because he is not engaged in
the lower level of existence… he can meet the lowest level of
existence and not worry about feeding himself or having access
to water or an education or health care or having shelter… that
lowest level stuff is easily reached by Goethe… and the slightly
higher level of love/belonging and getting esteem and safety/security…
he has an abundance of these levels… a lot of people can spend
a lifetime just trying to reach the lowest level, of procuring
the basics of existence… but to Goethe, he reached the highest level,
of fulfilling his possibilities… of meeting his self-fulfillment needs…
and how many people do you know actually reached the highest possibility of
human existence, of meeting their self-fulfillment level?
so, we have what we call experiences… every action is some sort
of experience… walking toward the bedroom is an experience… but one
that is done so often, that we don’t even pay any attention to it anymore…
and some experiences are so unique that we remember them all our lives…
the day I got married… I will always remember that day… as I should…
but the average work day, after 13 years working at the supermarket,
I can’t tell you about my work day, three days ago… it has all blended in…
have I learned stuff after working there 13 years?
yep… and those experiences have helped me since…
we need to engage with our experiences to help us see who we are
and what we need to overcome to become who we are…
experiences are learning lessons… every single experience is
another way to learn about ourselves and our world…
it is kinda a dance… experience moves us and we react to experience
which changes our reaction to experiences… an ever changing
dance in which sometime the experience is the lead dancer
and sometimes we are the lead dancer to experience…
as I age, I have seen more experiences and thus I am more able
to understand what is going on before others who are younger…
it has nothing to do with wisdom, it is simply the fact I have
seen more and have greater experiences then a younger person…
the path to becoming fully human lies within the understanding of
experiences…as I engage with and better understand experiences,
I grow ever closer, to becoming closer to being human being and not
just an animal or an animal/human… experiences are one path
of understanding that can lead us to overcoming our path…
Kropotkin
I believe i may have attained something like that.
Semi immune to suffering, no hate or aversion, love for all beings and even love for inanimate objects.
My crap still partially exists.
I hope it fades with time.
K: I am pleased you are attempting the difficult task of overcoming,
of dropping all the nonsense and becoming who you are
carry on…
Kropotkin
Nietzsche wrote, in the “Birth of Tragedy”…
that ART is “to be the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity
of this life”…
We can use ART to transcend our individual and collective lives…
let us see exactly how we can use ART to transcend our lives…
we have Artist long dead that we still engage with…
The “Mona Lisa” for example… When we went to Europe a few years ago,
on the very first day after we arrived, we went to the Louvre Museum and
saw the “Mona Lisa”…along with a whole, a whole lot of ART… the Louvre is
one huge museum…you could spend days wondering around it and find new
stuff every single day…
Anyway, we see ART like the “Mona Lisa” which has become the poster child
for ART itself… You think of ART and you think of the “Mona Lisa”…
This ART has transcended itself… It is more then just a painting…
the surprise one has when seeing the “Mona Lisa” in real life is just
how small the painting actually is…
The Artist himself, Da Vanci, died in 1519, slightly over 500 years ago…
This ART which is made of wood, canvas, oil, is more then just the product
of being a painting…It stands for something, it means something more
then just being paint on a canvas… and that meaning beyond or outside
of just being a painting is the transcending nature of the “Mona Lisa” but
of ART itself…
we can transcend ourselves by being something more then just flesh and blood…
for example, George Washington transcends just being a human being by
the example we have of his life…Washington has become something more
then just his bones…his life give us an example by which we can aspire to…
Gandhi for example is also another dead person…he died in 1948, 11 years before
I was born…think about what we call him… “Mahatma”… and what does
“Mahatma” actually stand for? It is Sanskrit : great souled, venerable…
“great souled”… that certainly sounds like someone who transcended what
it means to be human…I would be pleased as punch if someone called me,
“Mahatma”… a great soul person… a venerable person…
the fact is, I haven’t risen above being a sack of bones, flesh, blood,
water… I have done nothing to merit such a moniker…I haven’t transcended
being a animal or animal/human or even to rise above such matters and become
fully human… little else being called “Mahatma”…“great soul”…
I am just a human being… I haven’t even cleared the barrier of rising from
animal/ human to becoming fully human…
but the beauty of ART is that by the act of creation, for that is what we are talking
about, the act of creation helps us transcend who we are …
Lincoln transcended by president by being a great president…
and how did he do that? by being a great person…the path to being
transcendent is by overcoming our instincts, our animal nature and
rising, yes, rising to become a great person… the task of achieving
greatness lies not in achieving great task, but in becoming a great person…
and then the task we choose for ourselves becomes great…
if I want to become a great writer, I must first become a great person…
and greatness rises from not taking the easy road, finding the easiest road
to travel by, but by taking the hard, difficult road of becoming human…
the path to achieving who we are, by overcoming, is by rising to
achieve transcendence… becoming more then just a flesh and blood
human being…
he is an Artist… that is something special because that person has
risen to become something more the just a human being… he has transcended
to become an Artist…think about our roles/functions of being human…
of being a producer… I work as a checker in a grocery store… I cannot rise
or I become transcended because I am limited and checked by my role as
a worker… I can only become a slightly better worker, but that is as far
as my possibilities come to… I can never achieve becoming a great worker
or transcend the work… it is all I can become… just a worker… nothing more…
or another role is consumer, I can consume and I am expected to consume,
to be a good American, I must buy goods like Cars, TV sets, couches, exercise
bikes… the only aspect of becoming a “good” American is to simple be able to
buy more crap…there is no transcendence there, in buying crap for the betterment
of big business… I do not rise to become something else in either
consumerism or in being a producer of goods…
Socrates was a man, just like I am currently a Man… and yet,
he transcended being just a man by his questions… what if Socrates had
just played his role of being a husband, or a stone mason and being a consumer
of goods… would we have considered Socrates the greatest philosopher of all
time? No, by just being what was expected of him, he would have been a good
Athenian but he wouldn’t have risen to be a great philosopher or a great human being…
his greatness lies in his pursuit of the truth… not in his production or consumer of
goods…the things that we honor most about Americans, isn’t what will create
the greatness of soul that we so honor… for example, nether Lincoln or
Washington are known to be producers or consumers of goods…they didn’t transcend
because of their role as being a consumer or a producer… they transcended because
of something entirely different then what we would consider being “good Americans”
the greatness of “Da Vinci” of “Gandhi” of a George Washington or Abe Lincoln…
doesn’t come from any aspect of making money or the production of goods that
can be sold…
Do we call Gandhi, “Mahatma” because of his money traits?
is he “Great soul” because of the vast wealth he accumulated over
the years? no, not at all…the accumulation of goods and wealth
had no influence over him at all… “Mahatma” great soul, has nothing
to do with money or wealth or fame or titles… the very things we
in America chase and pursue…and who among us can be considered to
be called “Mahatma”?
but in the pursuit of Art and it implications, we can begin to
talk about what it takes to become “great soul” … because in ART,
we can transcend who we are and what we might become…
why was Gandhi a “great soul” person?
because he pursued ART… now think of that sports fans…
Kropotkin
How does a Gandhi become a “Gandhi”… “Mahatma” by science,
or by instinct or by ART or by the culture or within the framework of
modern America, consumerism and production of goods?
Think about his life and you tell me…
What is the path of one to reach being “great soul?”…
How would you achieve being “Great soul?”
and I would tell you, the path to be a “Mahatma” is through ART…
Kropotkin
Let us return to an old topic… “bad faith”…
does one who acts in “bad faith”, is one who is called a “Mahatma”?
Does Gandhi act in “Bad faith?”… I don’t see how… he is driven by a moral code,
which he called, “Satyagraha”…
it was this understanding of the truth that drove Gandhi… he lived by
and existed within “Satyagraha”…not by money or material goods, or fame
or titles, but by a moral code…
he transcended being human by his engagement with “Satyagraha”…
and how did Washington transcend his human self?
by his engagement with an idea… of his engagement with
America becoming a new nation… that was Washington path to
becoming transcendent…
and what was Lincoln path, or his way of becoming transcendent?
his path was his engagement with keeping America together in a great
civil war…that his how he became transcendent… his path to greatness…
and how does “Da Vinci” become transcendent?
by his engagement with ART… his creating…
that there are many different paths to overcoming, becoming
transcendent, should be clear to everyone by now…
what is your path to transcendence?
what are you overcoming?
Kropotkin
ok, we have what I have pointed quite often, a society focused upon
its nihilism…it devotion to the worthless values of money, fame, power,
titles… this focus on these baubles, trinkets of money and fame and power
and titles… means we aren’t focused on what we need to be focused on…
when we focus upon the baubles of existence, we aren’t engaged
in what we need to be engaged with…
for example, a few questions of existence…
how are we to be saved?
what are we to do?
what should we hope for?
what is the meaning, point of existence?
how do we seek transcendence?
the pursuit of baubles prevent us from an engagement with
these very important questions of existence…
and what is one possible cure for these bauble questions of
existence?
why ART… is one possible answer to the questions of existence that
cannot be answered by our modern consumerism or means of production…
the act of creation helps us to find the answers to the questions of
existence…
what is the point of existence? Goethe for example, explored this in
his “Faust”… he asked and answer the questions that the questions of
existence force us to consider…
what am I to do?
what should I hope for?
what is the point of existence?
what values should I hold?
these questions cannot be answered right now because we are
engaged with and focuses upon the false and dangerous answers
of capitalism and nationalism and any type of ism…
but if we focus upon the act of creation and seek transcendence found
in becoming who we are, we can in fact, find an answer to the profound
questions of existences…what am I to do? for example…
can be answered in the act of creation and in the act of
seeking transcendental behavior or actions like a Gandhi or a George
Washington or a Da Vinci…
so the question is asked, what should I do to be great?
be like Gandhi…or be like MLK or be like Washington or
be like a Da Vinci…
to seek greatness is just another path to the questions of existence
what am I to do?
what should I believe?
what should I hope for?
what does it mean to be human?
to become transcendent… and become something more the just a sack of
bones, blood, muscles, water… to become something greater… to rise to
the heights of being a human version of the “Mona Lisa”… to become something
more then just a painting… to transcend being human…to seek meaning in
the act of creation…
seeking meaning? seek in the act of creation and transcending…
Kropotkin
we face this question of interpretation all the time
and ART is interpretation…
we take a fact like, “The earth is 93 million miles from the sun”,
as a fact, but what interpretation does with that fact, makes it ART…
we interpret things all the time… we use a variety of means of
achieving that interpretation… we can use experience, science,
instinct, facts, knowledge, wisdom as means of making interpretations…
the tools we use to make interpretations are the tools listed above,
experience, science, instinct, facts, knowledge, wisdom and other tools…
we can also interpret in terms of ism’s and ideologies… for example,
for decades, people would use Marxism as a tool of interpretation…
as others now use capitalism and democracy as a tool of interpretation…
a man is homeless… that is a fact, and we can interpret that fact in
a wide variety of ways, via capitalism, he didn’t work hard enough,
in terms of Marxism, the capital system failed that man,
a christian interpretation, he deserved his homelessness because
he didn’t believe in god, we can interpret any fact as we see fit…
and the choice of interpretation is ART…we can dress it up, dress it down,
make it romantic or make it scientific… couch in it in terms of ism’s and
ideologies…we have a wide variety of choices in making interpretations…
we have choices, and in those choices, we act creatively and that creativity is ART…
but because of ever changing enviroments, we are somewhat limited in our choices…
for example, as no one practice Egyptian religious rites, so we cannot choose to
see a man homelessness in terms of Egyptian religious rites… or in terms of
the Vikings god, Thor… it doesn’t make sense to choose an ancient religious
rite or god to interpret facts… so we are somewhat limited by
current practices as to how we interpret facts…
as Marxism is “dead” few if any people interpret facts in light of Marxist thought…
that man is homeless because Marx said he would be homeless in a capitalistic
society…
so, we must incorporate modern practices to interpret certain matters…
so, pick your fact to interpret and then you have been creative and that is ART…
Kropotkin
what is the “TRUTH?”…
the “TRUTH” is found within the various interpretations of life we have…
and those interpretations are (found) (created) in our current
situations… which is to say, we interpret based upon our socio-economic position,
our childhood biases and indoctrinations, our “mental contraptions”
which what beliefs I hold…
so, I try to find the “TRUTH” of what it means to be an American…
as I am a white male who is 61 born in Minneapolis of an upper class family,
the circumstances of my birth, the who, what, when, where, how and why,
helps me to determine or helps me interpret what is the “TRUTH”…
As I am middle class and living a very comfortable life with no issues
that plague my fellow American’s, I have a set of values and within those
values lie my interpretation of what it means to be an American
the circumstances of my current and past existence are part of my “Mental
contraption” that helps me to make judgements or interprets the information
I have about life and what it means to be an American…
the “TRUTH” is simply my interpretation of “facts” through the lens of
the circumstances of my past and current existence…if I am of a philosophical
bent, I will interpret the 'TRUTH" though what I have interpreted as being
“Philosophical” and I will interpret the “TRUTH” though the lens of
being white, middle age, middle class, or being married or having been
born in the particular circumstances I was born in…and I then interpret
the “TRUTH” via those particular circumstances, those accidental circumstances
of my birth…the childhood indoctrinations of my childhood…
so, that was long way of saying, the 'TRUTH" is found in my interpretation
of facts and that those interpretations are created by the circumstances,
the accidental circumstance of the who, what, when, where, why and how
of my birth and childhood and also in my current socio-economic
situation I find myself in these days…
my past and present combine to create within me “mental contraptions”
that I then use to interpret the “TRUTH”…
The circumstances of my existence, my age, my health, my lifestyle,
my job, my being married or not, help me to take “facts” and I
find the “TRUTH” within the circumstances of my existence…
I cannot find the “TRUTH” outside of my particular circumstances,
because the 'TRUTH" is found in my interpretation of my
particular circumstances…
there is no such thing as an “Objective” or “Standard”… "TRUTH…
there are just interpretations of the 'TRUTH" that are driven by
my particular existence of current and past accidental
circumstances…
now we can, as I have earlier suggested, take those interpretations
and turn them into ART…for that is really what ART is, just
an interpretation of existence…
just as I have created an interpretation of existence based upon
my own particular circumstances of birth and current situation…
in my interpretation of existence, I have created ART…
ART is interpretation of existence…
Kropotkin
“to choose among a multitudes of possibilities choices” is an ARTISTIC choice…
and that is how can see ourselves as being ARTISTIC… by the choices
we make…
Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin: “to choose among a multitudes of possibilities choices” is an ARTISTIC choice…
and that is how can see ourselves as being ARTISTIC… by the choices
we make…
K: and our choices arise from the “cultural/individual contraptions” that
make up our life… and does this mean we make a choose passively
or do we actively make our choices?
or example, the study of ART is said to be a passive study… we sit there and
contemplate passively the ART in question? or do we actively engage with
ART or with our own understanding of the universe based upon our own
mental makeup that is the combination of our past indoctrinations
and our current situation in life… I believe we engage with life
actively, not passively and with the mental contraptions of both past
and present that exists within our mind/body/soul…
I see an work of ART… say a picture… I can’t see the backstory of
the work in question… so I fill in the blanks with my own interpretation
of the picture in question with ingredients from my own past and present…
given to me by my own mental contraption or understanding of the world…
I can make a picture seem happy or sad or angry or pleasant regardless of
what the ARTIST intends because of my own personal history and my understanding
of that history…
my reaction to my own personal history changes my own reaction
to the events, people, places and theories of every day…
I see the world being a dark place and my own reaction to that, changes
the way I see and interact and interpret the world… regardless of real
picture that exists, I react with my own reaction to what I perceive
as being the world, not as the world is… I react to my own mental
contraption of the world and not to the world itself…
if I see the world as a dark place, then I react to the world as if it
is a dark place, not as it may or may not be…my own mental
contraptions changes how I view the world…this interpretation
of the world is how we react to the world… this is the ARTISTIC
practice of interpretation…we react to our own vision of the world,
not as the world is and that reaction is ARTISTIC…
we don’t react to the world, we react to our vision of the world…
which is ARTISTIC…
Kropotkin
so I see an angry world, that comes from my own internal contraption
or understanding of the world, if I see an happy world, that comes from
my own internal contraption or understanding of the world, if
I see an emotional world, that comes from my own mental contraption
of the world and If I see an intellectual world… you know…
so, if you are unhappy with the world, perhaps you are unhappy
because your internal contraption or understanding of the world
is skewed or based on a wrong understanding of the world…
if you want a happy world, then see the world as happy…
pretty much as simple as that…
our view of the world decides our understanding of the world…
change your understanding/view of the world and how you see
the world changes…
Kropotkin
so if we accept the above as an understanding of the world,
then we now see how our interpretations of world, our understanding
of the world is not impartial or objective, but our understanding of
the world is Aesthetic… we make Artistic choices based upon
our viewpoint or understanding of the world…this ARTISTIC choice
is simply our interpretation of the world… to make choices, is to
create ART…
Kropotkin
but Kropotkin, you could be wrong?
yep, and that is why the world is subjective and not objective…
Kropotkin
so what is “GOD”???
God is an interpretation of the world manifested by our internal contraptions
that determine how we view the world… if we, internally, don’t see the need
for “GOD” then we don’t have need or use for a “GOD”… Our mental contraptions
based upon our experiences, viewpoints, indoctrinations, current standing
and placement in the world, decide if we hold to the “ISM” of “GOD”…
Our own viewpoint or understanding of the world determine if we
“believe” in “GOD” and not if “GOD” truly exists… but our own
interpretation decides if we believe or hold to a “GOD”… not the facts
or lack of facts decide if we believe or hold to a “GOD”…
Or said another way, our interpretation of the world helps us understand
if there is a “GOD”…so, “GOD” isn’t a fact or guarantee… “GOD” is simply
an interpretation of the world we hold to…nothing more…
Kropotkin
so, what is history, economics, science, biology, social sciences?
they are really myths we, in common, agree to…
history is a myth that we collectively hold to be true based upon
our own personal understanding of our internal mental contraptions or
understanding of the world…what we see as “facts” is simply our own
internal mental contraption/understanding of the world…
Kropotkin