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3081

How is the “US” engaged when as we discuss our return
from this Pandemic, where workers have no say, no voice
when and if we return to work… we are told, by the business,
the bosses and the government when and how we can return to
work, but we ourselves have no say in the matter… a matter of
great concern to both us and our families…

how does this engagement with us happen when, for
example, the women worker in Ohio who make almost
triple what she made while working, in unemployment…
that is patently unfair…why should a worker, working make
less while working then under unemployment?

the conservatives make that an argument to force workers to
go back to work… but the real argument lies with the fact
that we so underpay people, that they make more money on
unemployment……and meanwhile management makes 100 times
the amount an average worker makes…

How does income inequality make us better as individuals or
as a people/culture/state?

working because you won’t have food or have health insurance is
tyranny of the worst kind……

why? because being moral requires we allow people to meet their
basic needs of food, water, shelter, health care, education…

and our current capitalistic system negates people in
terms of what they need both physically and emotionally……

we cannot, under our current capitalistic system meet either our
physical and emotional needs… we cannot find love or peace or
happiness or safety/security or belonging if we are always worried
about our job security…or if, as know to be true, that love
or safety/security or belonging or self esteem is negated under
capitalism…….capitalism denies both our physical and our emotional
needs… that is why I call capitalism, nihilistic…

because we have no say, no voice in our economic being,
we are negated, denied who we are and denied our
possibilities… if we have no voice, no say in what
our political or our economic system, we are, to coin a term,
nihilised….

to put the point bluntly, if we have no say in our situation,
our economic and our political system, then we are nothing more
then slaves…

that is what slavery is… the denial of freedom, a choice in
who you are and what you can do…by having no voice in
our political system and having no voice in our economic system,
we are denied our being… we are slaves…

now one might make the argument that by voting, we have choice,
but that is clearly untrue… this last 4 years has proven that
government is acting under other voices, not ours…

now one may say, IQ45 was properly elected… but the argument can
be and should be made that the Electoral College, denies our basic
freedom of choice by not allowing the person with the most votes to
become president…… we are a democracy… and the person with the most
votes should become president… and that is subverted by the
Electoral College… which denies the right of the person with
the most votes to win… it is anti-democratic…

and IQ45 has clearly denied the voice of the majority of people living
in the US…….

if we have no say in what matters most to our lives, then we
are slaves…

thus to be clear, we in America have not enjoyed real democracy…

we are some mixed system which denies our right to make our
voice heard…

either we go all in on democracy or we end this…
there is no choice… we cannot go on pretending to have
a voice in our political affairs when we do not
and we can’t even pretend to have a voice in our
economic affairs……

to be able to choose what kind of toothpaste I can buy isn’t
economic freedom… it isn’t having a choice, a voice in our affairs…

it is still slavery… but with toothpaste…

having a say in our workplace… having a say when and how we return
to our jobs… that is the type of economic freedom I am talking about…

having a voice in how we do our jobs and what our economic status is…
that is true freedom and truly what it means to be empowered as human beings…

one of the conditions of being human, fully human demands that we have
a voice, a say in both our political and economic life…if we do not,
then we are slaves… politically and economically……

if we are not free to act upon our personal and collective needs,
then we are not being treated morally…morality demands that
we are able to fulfill our needs, both physical and emotionally…

our political and economic system isn’t moral…
that is the bottom line…….

and part of being human, fully human is to go beyond our
basic physical and emotional needs… to reach the point of
our being able to self actualize… to reach our full potential…
to discover our possibilities…

and we cannot, cannot get to reaching our full potential if
we can’t even reach our basic physical and emotional needs
because of our political and economic system…….

every question is question about who we are, what we can achieve,
what we can do……

either we include everyone or we continue to be slaves…

our own individual pursuit is contingent upon our collective
pursuit… we can only reach our individual goal if we help
everyone reach their individual goal……

my being able to reach my needs and desires and wants is
dependent upon you reaching your needs and desires and wants…

so what is required?

we must reevaluate our own personal needs and desires and wants…
instead of me, I must ask, how do we achieve our needs, desires and wants?

and what are those personal needs, desires and wants?

do we really want or are we indoctrinated into thinking that is
our needs, desires and wants?

the voice inside my head telling me what I need, what I want,
what I desire… is that really my voice or is that the indoctrination
I received as a child?

Kropotkin

3082

complexity… humans have grown in complexity…
we are no longer animals which are limited by their very
nature to be simple, not complex…

a dog or a cat is less complex then a human being…

our modern world is far more complex then the world
of the cave man under the hunter-gather society…

and our modern world is far more complex then the ancient
Greek or Roman society…

and at every increase in complexity, we need to involved more
and more people…complexity requires more moving parts…
that is the nature of complexity…

our animal brethren… their needs are simple… meeting their physical
requirements is enough for them…

but we humans… we cannot be satisfied with just meeting our physical needs…

we also required our emotional and psychological needs to be met…
without meeting our emotional and psychological needs,
we are maladjusted and stunted… not fully human…

we are complex animals and the more complex we become,
the more we must have our needs and desires and wants to be met…

our political and economic systems must also need to meet our
complex needs… that requires a complex political and economic
system……

for example, if we are unable to have a voice in the matters like
if and when we return to work, then we are, as noted before, slaves…
and our emotional and psychological needs like belonging is unmet…
how can we say we belong to an economic system or a political system
that has no interest in our voice…the new political and economic
system of the future, must include our voices in the who, what, when,
where, how and why of our jobs, our companies, our entire economic
system…

the existential questions of, what am I to do, is directly tied up
in this question of, do I have a voice in that which matters to me most?

am I a slave or am I a human being?

to have a voice, to have a say in what matters to me most,
is being a human being… not to have a voice or a say in
matters like the political or economic system is to be an
animal……

what makes me a human being is choices…

animals can choose very little, but I can choose to
become what I am, I can choose to be human… and
have a say in what matters most to me…….

if I have no choice, I am not free, I am not a human being…
I am a slave…an animal…

so what is your choice? and that choice defines you as
being human……not slave or not animal…

Kropotkin

3083

increase complexity requires increased comprehension and
increased adaptability…

in other words… I am born… I have very limited exposure
and understanding of the world I was born into…

and by age 3, I have an increased understanding of the world into
which I was born…because of the process that is part of being
human, I have changed physically, mentally, emotionally and
psychologically from birth to age 3 and I will continue to change
as I grow older… at age 10, I am a completely different person
from age 3… and we must continue to engage in this process
of changing and adapting to the environment…

I cannot function as a 20 year old with a 10 year old understanding
of the universe…my mental and emotional and psychological
nature must change and adapt as I grow older… I see the
world differently at 40 then I did at 20 or at age 10…

and as a senior citizen, I see the world completely different then
I did as a 40 year old or as a 20 year… I must change to adapt
to the ever changing conditions I find myself in…

my mindset today is completely different now that I am 61…
I am seriously trying to figure out a way to retire and still
be able to meet my basic needs of food, water, shelter,
health care and education… I just don’t have the money
to retire…

whereas when I was 40, I was still engage in the process of
thinking about a job or promotions or how much I was making…

today, I just don’t give a shit about my job, any promotions
or how much I am making outside of, does this amount
help me retire?

my life was engaging in increased complexity… from grade school to
high school to work was an increasing level of complexity…
today, I am at the point, where I want less, far less complexity in
my life…

I have matured enough to see most of my life was engaged in pursuing
crap…needless and unnecessary crap that didn’t improve my life
one iota…

this is far different then where I was at age 20 or 30 or even 40…

my journey or path to old age has taught me lessons I never
even imagined when I was younger…

and this is how it is supposed to work…

we grow and change and become something new
every single day……

and within that change, comes lessons in entropy
and process and becoming……

I finally, truly understand what entropy means to a human being
because I am a victim of entropy where I am losing more energy
then I can put in…it isn’t real noticeable but it is there……
and I suspect as I grow older, I will more and more notice
the impact that entropy will have on my life…

and enough entropy in my life means I will die… simple as that…
no matter what I do, entropy will end my life at some point in time…

so we must learn to see our lives in the context of energy
and entropy and change and process and time and complexity
and needs and desires and wants…….

that is the lesson I learned too late…

these lessons are not the lessons we got in grade school or high
school or in college……

we were taught the wrong lessons in school…

instead of learning a skill to have a job, we should
have been taught to become human and what does it
mean to be human…

and to be human means we are subject to increased complexity
and changes in our life up until the day we die and in fact, death
is the last, final change we go through in life…

adaption and complexity and process and change… these are the
real skills we should be educated in…

not in math or in history or social studies… but how to deal with
complexity and change and processes in life……

“what does it mean to grow old” should be a required course in school instead
of economics or social science…

the how in life is far less important then the why……

what lessons have you learned in life?

and did school teach you those lessons or did you
learn the important lessons while engage in life?

that is why I believe that education before 1900 was far more
useful then education today… because the lesson in school was
to train men into being gentlemen… men learned the important
skills of being a gentleman which was the entire point of education
in schools…not in being trained in a skill to earn a living, but
how to live life…… that what is missing in education today…
we learn unimportant stuff like math skills or what date was
the declaration of independence was signed…

what we need school for is, how do we engage with life,
with its complexity and change and the process of growing older…

those are the lessons we should be learning, not that the earth is 93
million miles from the sun… that information teaches us nothing
about what it means to be human…or how to deal with change in
our life……or how to deal with increasing complexity in our lives…

our educational system is a failure because it doesn’t teach us
how to be human… it simply teaches us facts or skills for a job…
and that tells us nothing about how to be human…

I can tell you all kinds of facts and information but can I tell
you how to engage in your life with its increasing complexity?

I doubt it……

so what does it mean to be human? what does it mean to engage in
the complexity of our daily life? How are we going to learn how to
change and adapt to the every changing complexity, processes and
viewpoint that is life itself?

how do I go from “I” to “us”? these are the lessons we must learn…
not how to add 15 + 15 = 30… what does math mean to me as a human being,
that is the question, not what does math mean by itself…

Kropotkin

3084

So, one might argue that Kropotkin wants everyone to
march in communistic bootsteps… we dress the same
and live the same and eat the same and work the same…

Hardly… we can be individuals within a family as in a small
group and in a work environment and within the society/state/culture…

I don’t believe marching in the same fascist boot steps will solve
anything… we don’t have to believe in the same facts or in the same
god or in the same ism and ideology…

that is not the goal… the goal is to fight entropy by increasing
the amount of energy going into any system…

and that can be achieved in any number of ways…….

we have to become aware of our systems as they engage…
if we are aware of how our so called democracy works today,
we can see we do not have any democracy in America today…

but to achieve true democracy, we don’t have to march in step with
each other… we simply have to engage as is possible for us…

I am old… I can’t physically engage like I was once able to …
so my means of engagement will be different then a young, physically
able lad can…I can’t fight or brawl like I once could have… I must find
a different, suitable means of engagement with society and the state…

I believe each of us can contribute in different ways to the cause of
choices and freedom and change…

we have many different and diverse roads or paths to the same goal…

will I be manning the barricades? I doubt it… but I will be offering what
is appropriate to my age and current abilities…

the spirit is willing but the body, not so much……

I must engage as I can……

as you must engage as you must……

but that doesn’t require us to be dressed the same or speaking the same language
or both being white or male or loving the same gender…

we can march to the same goal and still be quite different people…

it is our differences that makes us strong, not our sameness…….

so join me in marching, be it in pants or dress or naked, I really don’t care
who you are or what is your color or gender or sexual orientation or nationality…

I only ask for tolerance and inclusion and acceptance…

be who you are and march with me toward a future where
we can be ourselves and still allow the equation of existence to
be maintained and the entropy be held equal in all our systems…….

Kropotkin

3085

I have begun my rereading of Nietzsche…

I am rather annoyed that I can’t find my copy of “untimely mediations”

I do have 5000 books so finding one book is often quite hard…

so, started with “The Birth of Tragedy”… and am almost done…
quite an easy read…especially because I have read this before…

Kropotkin

3086

in reading “the Birth of Tragedy” I am struck by
some thoughts…

Nietzsche said, to quote Section 14…

“Perhaps Art is even a necessary correlative of,
and supplement for science?”

let us think about this… science is a reliance upon reason, rationality
thought… but as the equation says, we must have equal and opposite
reaction… so the opposite to science, which is reason, mind… the opposite
is feeling, emotions… and we have seen this song before…

so the equation might look like this:

science/reason = emotions/feelings…

the two must be equal……

hence we might have an explanation for our modern era…

the science/ reason part of the equation became too much on the one
side and to equalized, balance it, the emotions/feeling side grew large…
to compensate for the excessive science/reason…

one way to think of emotions/feelings is in art…
we use art as an equalizer to science/reason…
but this modern age no longer takes art seriously or
worth pursuing… thus we must take our emotions/feelings
out in ways outside of art…

to keep the equation balanced, we have science/rationality/reason
on one side and on the other side, we have emotions/feelings/instinct…

and because we don’t have ART to turn to, we turn to other emotional
responses… we expend energy on such emotional responses like
devotion to sports and the need to slavishly watch the going on
of movie stars and musicians and fashion gurus and TV stars
with no discernible skills or talents but are household names…

we have transferred our emotional responses to unnecessary, unimportant
and negligible events…

and these unimportant emotional responses strike us as hollow
and empty…but what other choice do we have to engage
in our emotional side outside of these unnecessary and negligible events?

Art has been the traditional home of emotional responses to the world…

but ART is dead… it has the same emotional impact to us “moderns” in the same way
we respond to a detergent commercial…ART has no impact upon our lives…

but one might say, we respond to music and movies with an emotional response…

do we?

the impact of anything is reduced every single time we see it or hear it
or feelin it… music is the same way… the impact of a song is reduced
every single time I hear it on the radio…repetition reduces the impact of
anything we experience…….Eric Clapton wrote an emotional song for
the death of his son… and he played it in concert for a long time…
a while back he said he would no longer play that song in concert because
the song no longer had any impact upon him… it has lost its emotional
impact for him… that is the curse of repetition… and we hear songs
on the radio and play them all the time… they lose their emotional
impact every single time we play that favorite song…

and our modern age is nothing but a course in repetition
about every thing we hold dear…

but to hold the balance between science/reason and emotions/feelings,
we must continually renew our emotions/feelings to maintain that balance…

if repetition destroys our emotional context to things like music or
art, then we need to renew our emotions/feelings on something…

but this modern age is apathetic and indifferent to things that should rile
our body and soul… hence the indifferent response to IQ45 attempt
to turn America into a dictatorship…

America marches in response to the death of George Floyd and is
passive to the coming dictatorship…

the equation must still stand……

we cannot hold to a dictatorship because it destroys
the equation that is the modern state…

power cannot be in the hands of any single party or person…

the equation is destroyed in that case…

the equation between science/reason and emotions/feelings
is destroyed by the excessive emotions/feelings
engender by a dictatorship…

I remind the reader that Hitler was an painter and tried to
enter several art academies…….history was forever changed
by this failure… art would have been Hitler’s escape into
his emotionalism and feelings… instead those feeling/emotions
were channeled into hating and anger against the “others”, Jews for
example…

the desires we feel, it is emotions/feelings
and we channel those emotions/feelings into
such things as lust, fear, anger, hate, greed…
serving Mammon is an emotional response…

our “modern” problem is we don’t have an outlet for our
emotional/feelings because we have removed ART as that
channel…….

so where now lies our immense emotional/feelings?

in seeking money and love and engaging in our instincts
of hate and lust and greed…

the equation is lost in “Modern” America……

Kropotkin

3087

when seen from the future, our age will be lacking…

this age is sterile and devoid of any value……

it is nihilistic and that means empty of value

One might demand, Kropotkin, Kropotkin,
proof, I want proof of your outrageous claims…

name a great artist working today?

name a great philosopher working today?

one might name Zizek?

I would argue that we are living on a very level plain
and anything that rises upon that plain looks huge…

and Zizek is a tree on that level plain…

but compare that tree to the mountains that is
Kant or Hegel or even Nietzsche… doesn’t make that
tree seem to be very high…

the truth is this “modern age” lacks any type of greatness…
in anybody at all…

part of this age failure comes from our accepting the nihilism
that lies within our age ism’s and ideologies………

low laying fruit indeed…

we seek out money and fame and titles and material goods……

this search for this nihilism has meant that we fail to engage in
what it means to be human…we don’t treat philosophy or even
life as a calling, a way of life……

for example, early Christians felt that, to be Christian was a way of life…
it didn’t just mean to pray once a week in church, but to live the life,
24/7/365…… to be Christian meant to live and breath and die as a Christian…
anything less was anemic and half hearted…

and our age? Some of the best description of it could be weak, anemic, half hearted,
sterile… for we don’t live life as a way of life…best described by a play
many years ago where the master said:

“as for living, our servants can do that for us”

and others have called it: “sleepwalking through life”

Our best Philosophers and our best Artists, weak, anemic, sterile, half hearted…

to match the world they live in…Artist can only create what they see
and feel and touch… and today, we are sterile and anemic and half hearted…
and that is what artist see and feel and touch……

we don’t live our lives anymore, we simply post it on face book or Instagram…

as if you can discover what life is through the lens of your cell phone…

the engagement of most, most existentialist was to “being authentic”
and what or who is truly “Authentic” today?

the call to be “Authentic” can only happen in this modern age, in
the pursuit of false ism’s and ideologies that make money and titles
and fame being the thing we pursue and engage with…

more low laying fruit… money and fame and titles…….

our age is sterile because the things we pursue are sterile……
money, fame, titles, power have no value or is not worth the energy we put into it……

it only makes sense to seek things that have a payoff in the end and
very little that we “moderns” do, have a sufficient payoff.

who lives a value as a way of life? few, very, very few……

who engages in love or peace or hope or charity as a way of life?

we engage in the lower level, instinctual things as a way of life
and thus we have emptiness and sterility as the only signs of life…

to engage in hate or anger or lust or greed as a way of life is to
hold to animal values as values worth living with… I am human…

I hold human values, not animal values so I don’t need to engage
in animal values of hate or greed or lust or anger among the many
animal values we “Modern’s” hold dear…

I am seeking values in which I can engage with, as a way of life…

what are you seeking?

Kropotkin

3088

we “moderns” are so engaged with the false values
of money, fame, titles, power, that we forget the most
important question, why?

why do you engage in wealth or power or fame or power?

who is asking themselves the important questions?

why do we exists? what are we to do? what can we know?
what values should we hold? what are we to hope for?

it is not enough to seek the empty and sterile values
of the modern world, but we have to ask, why seek them?
why those values and not other values?

and I suspect we seek those negative, instinctual values
of power and money and fame and titles because they
were indoctrinated into us as children…

I call them negative, instinctual values because they don’t
build us up, they don’t create, they don’t add energy into
a system, they have no positive value to us…

values like love and peace and hope and charity build us
up, they create, they add energy into a system,
they have positive value to us…

but human understanding comes down to one question, why?

the questions of who, what, when, where and how, those questions
set up the scene, the why question asks about the nature of the scene…
why does that scene matter to us……

our age is sterile because it doesn’t ask why, it ask, who, what, when, where
and how, but not about why?

the question of religion in our modern age isn’t about why…
the conclusions are already mixed into the question of religion…

god created the heaven and the earth…

there is no question there…… just who, what, when, where and how…
but nothing suggesting a question…….

a honest heart felt question such as, why am I here?

What is the meaning of life?

the answer is already given in the statement of, “god is……”

there is no wonder or mystery in the answer given by religion…

for ask any question and the answer is god…
not many questions there…

science tells us the rational/reason explanation of existence…
religion tells us the irrational/emotional/ feelings explanation of existence…

and philosophy can tell us both sides, the rational/reasoned side of existence
and philosophy can tell us the irrational/emotional/feeling side of existence…….

philosophy can straddle both sides of rational vs emotional sides of existence…

we just have to open our eyes to the possibilities/the potential of what
philosophy can do………

is money/wealth/power/titles/fame really important?

no, and then answer becomes philosophy and then ism’s and ideologies…

Kropotkin

3089

perhaps, perhaps, one of the reasons we are
so alienated and disconnected from ourselves,
from others and from the state, civilization, culture
we exist, in is, because of the nature of
our daily lives……

my life, for example, I call my life,

“the repetition of existence”

I wake up… I get ready for work…
at work, I am a checker in a supermarket…
where I spend my days, scanning in products
and typing in codes for produce…
my store, as all major supermarkets do, keeps track
of how long I spend on each transaction, they keep track
of my till and if it is short or over, they track how many customers
I go through every single day…

I average, during an 8 hour shift, dealing with between
200 and 300 customers a day… since the pandemic started,
it has been a little less…….

my day is one long repetition… I ask every single customer
“did they find everything?” I conclude with “have a nice day”
roughly 200 times a day…

I stand on my feet all day long…try that for 8 hours a day,
4 days a week…because of my back, I can only work 32 hours a week…
and I walk around 5000 steps a day doing my job…

when I go home, all I can do is sit on my couch and watch TV…
I’m too tired to do anything else after work…
then by 8:00 at night, I go to bed

those are my days…my life is on eternal replay…

my off days are spent resting and recovering from my
extremely hard job…

then to mix it up, for example, tomorrow night,
I work from 12:00 to 9:00 PM… then on the next day,
Tuesday, I work at 7:45 in the morning to 11:45 AM…
So I get 10 hours between the night shift and the next day shift…

this is quite common in the supermarket business…
quick turnaround between the night shift and the morning shift…

having done it so often, I know I will be unfunctional on Tuesday,
after my morning shift because of the quick turnaround…

so that is just another day wasted for me…

instead of doing something worth doing, I am simply recovering from
probably 5 or 6 hours sleep on Monday night…

how can I ground my life given I rarely ever have 2 days off in a row?

I mostly have split off days… this week, my off days are Sunday/today
and Thursday…

we humans, we function better when we have continuity and regularity
in our lives…how do I get any type of continuity when my working hours
can happen anytime between 6:00 AM and Midnight… my working hours and my
days off can happen anytime during the week…

my viewpoint of the world is impacted by my environment…
my working and the repetition of my life has impacted
how I view my life…my environment, in a large degree,
impacts how I view myself and my society and my culture…

the fundamental fact of human existence is that we are social
creatures…….and I feel disconnected from others socially because
of the discontinuity of my life…

At this point, I only exists for working my crazy hours…
my down time is spent recovering from those hours…

and how do I reconnect with who I am, when I don’t have
any time to spend in an engagement with who I am…

one of the things that keep us human beings sane and functional,
is our private time… the time we spend engaging our souls in
conversation…

and the only time that can happen if we aren’t kept so busy doing
all the other crap we humans are forced to do…

to discover who I am take private time… leisure time that isn’t pressured
or spent recovering from such wasted activities like work…

the human questions of existence require, demand that we
are prepared to spend time to think about these important questions…

What are we to do?

how can I contemplate the meaning of existence if I am to tired
to think? or If I am spending time recovering from work?

my working directly impacts my ability to engage in contemplation about
who we are and what is the answer to the question, “What are we to do?”

the repetition of my existence takes time away from me to spend on
the important questions of existence…

so, how does your environment help or hinder your search for
your questions of existence?

Kropotkin

3090

I am in the midst of Nietzsche’s “Untimely Meditations”
book three, “Schopenhauer as Educator”…

as I read, several questions arise in my mind…

Who is our educators? Why are we so shallow?
Why are there no real Philosophers right now?

let us begin with the question, what are we so shallow?

most people in the modern age are shallow, having the depth
of a piece of paper…what you see is exactly what you get…

but why is the modern age so full of shallow, empty, hollow people?

it is, in part, because of the ism’s and ideologies that we hold dear……

to steal a line from Modonna, we are material people living in a
material world…

our recognition of other human beings rarely ever go beyond
the material… what kind of car do they drive? what neighborhood
do they live in? how chic is their clothes? is there hair cuts up to date?

rare if ever, do we ask, are they honest people? do they live “morally?”
are they becoming? going from animal to animal/human to finally,
human?

we don’t ask these questions because it would be “impolite”……
it would be crass to ask someone, are you something more then
just materialistic? is there any depth to you at all?
or is it all just show and tell?

maintaining appearances is really just another way of saying,
I am a modern person… interested in only maintaining
appearances…to be human means to own a fancy car,
living in a “nice” neighborhood, taking long vacations to Europe…

and maintaining appearances really avoids the questions of
existence… who am I? What am I to do? what values should I hold?

in a world of appearances, these questions don’t matter…
it isn’t about the values one holds or doesn’t hold…
it is about looking good on facebook… looking chic
and tanned……

we hold to materialism… which means what?

what does materialism really mean?

it means we hold onto material goods and we all know that
material goods are meant to be replaced quickly and often…

to have a car over 5 years old isn’t chic and it isn’t maintaining
appearances… if I haven’t remodeled my kitchen recently,
I am clearly out of date………

but these shallow and superficial signs of being modern,
being materialistic, doesn’t reach the heart of what it means
to be human……

this modern shallow materialism is a game we play…
and it isn’t meant to account for much…

but what would it mean to actually be interesting in
becoming human?

it means existence is no longer about playing a game,
the materialistic game, no, the real path of
becoming human is far more then a game…

it becomes a way of life…….

it is the most serious question we ask?

how do I become?

and that question has nothing to do with being chic or
what car I drive or what neighborhood I live in……

the question of existence is about what values I hold
and how those values impact my actions……

are my values the higher values of love, peace, charity,
hope, justice, equality……

or are my values the lower values of hate, anger, lust, greed,
vanity………

do I have any values at all?

or am I just a materialist person living in a materialistic world?

so, the next question is, who is our educators?

are we educated by shallow, vain, materialistic people?

turn on the TV, to any channel, and see our educators…
talk show hosts and the talking heads of fox news or CNN or MSNBC…

people who can only answer a question in two minutes or less…
giving materialistic answers to materialistic questions…
full of sound and fury…….

perhaps, perhaps we should ask ourselves, who should our educators be?

to whom should we pay more then lip service to?

we can use, as educators, we can use philosophers……

not by the answers they gave, by the questions they asked……

what does it mean to be human? what am I to do? what are we do to?
what should WE believe in? how do we, as individuals, relate to
the collective? the we……

what is the proper relationship between individuals, the “I”
and the collective, “WE”?

the current answer, the chic answer, is as producers
and consumers…….as buyers of goods that keep
the material world going…….

stop buying goods and the current material world collapses …….

stop creating profits and the current material world collapses…

and this is the argument of both anarchist and communist……

end the material world… but communists are all about
the material world… every decision is made with the material
world in mind………Marx himself declares that communism is a
material philosophy…fit for a material world…

there is no spirit in a strict communist world…

it is all about classes and wealth and how the state will
“wither” away…

but nothing, nothing about who we are and what it is
we are becoming……what are we to do?

to live forever in a stateless society?
nonsense… if evolution teaches us anything, is that
we must adapt and react to our environment, every single day…

the stateless society isn’t about the goal of becoming human,
of the path, the journey of going from animal to animal/human
to becoming, finally, human, all to human…

the stateless society is simply another step, another path to something
else… for we are always going somewhere, to stand still, to become
static, to forever hold still, that is the path of the death of stagnation…
we can no more choose to stand still then we can choose to fly without
wings…….

entropy tells us that we are always going in one direction or another,
either we are going toward energy or we are going to a state of entropy
which is the loss of energy…there is no such state as being static…
it violates the principle of entropy…

so who should our educators be?

to those who values are positive…

to jesus, to Gandhi, to MLK, to any who proclaims the
road into the future is a peaceful road… the path into
the future, to becoming human is the path of love
and hope and peace and charity and equality and justice…

our educators are those who practice, not preach, but practice
love and hope and charity and equality and justice and peace……

blessed are the peacemakers…

for they advocate the path of increasing energy into our system…
entropy demands that we either increase energy into our system
or we decrease the energy into the system… and to decrease means
we are one step closer to the loss of energy, the death of having no
energy……… so think of your educator as being someone who
increases energy into our systems, the positive ones…

so, who are your educators?

Kropotkin

3091

My 3 best teachers are

Jesus
Nietzche
Khrishnamurti

But Jesus is dangerous because He demands we carry a cross and love the little children. That is reductive because our loving children means we have to think like they do, playing the games that we know change rules drastically when they are grown, and if we play their game too long, then we will believe them.

If we believe and play the games of children too long and loose sight of the real games people play, we have to be crucified, and leave the children parentless.

Khrishnamurti own as cogniscent and educational as Buddha pointing to the sad futility of Buddha’s idea of near infinite rebirth until enlightenment, conflicting with Jesus promise of getting to paradise as soon as we are crucified, but lacks Jesus’regressed love of naive realism, and trust in the father.

Nietzche reaffirms what Buddha cast out through Khrishnamurti, that reincarnation is merely a metaphor, and he rejects the ideology of pure formal dialectical purity of wisdom in favor of material manifestations of the deepest of depth psychology, where the will can overcome the veil of illusion below the level of faith, and helps to conclude that reincarnation is really the primal foundation of human reality, without which we could not deconstruct our self , simultaneously, while constricting alternate possibilities , where our children can escape from the confusion between various games we play.

3092

thank you Meno for sharing……

there are no right or wrong answers here…

just answers…

but that leads me to the next point……

to discourage thought and thinking… we accuse those who
think and engage in thinking about the existential questions of being
which are the known questions we have faced here…

Who am I? what am I/we to do? what are I/we to hope for?
what values should I/we hold?

so, to discourage those who engage in existential questions,
we accuse them of being liberal or democratic or perhaps
anarchist or communist or even as those who engage in
sexual conduct toward goats or sheep…

we throw these labels around in hopes of silencing those
who question the established order… but that is the point,
it isn’t about the alleged answers of being liberal or being
conservative or being an anarchist… those answers are meant
to silence the questions which disturb the establishment…
and that suggest that the questions, not the answers are
important…

we often talk of objective and subjective…

so, what is objective? so, what is subjective?

I would suggest that the question that disturb society, the establishment,
civilization, questions such as, what am I/we to do? those are the
real “objective” questions… not subjective, but objective…

it doesn’t matter if the person who is being labeled is really
an anarchist or a liberal or a democrat or who “loves” goats…
that is subjective if they are or are not…

the real importance isn’t the answers, but the questions of
existence…which are objective… who am I? that is
an objective question, not a subjective question…

the person who answers an objective question with
an answer is being subjective……

we see objective and subjective as being engaged
with questions and answers, not in any other form…

questions are objective…
answers are subjective…

so accusing a person of being a “liberal” is irrelevant…
what does matter is the question that person ask…
for that question is what is objective…
because it cannot be changed or is an accidental question…

answers are subjective because they are engaged with what
can change or what is accidental… my religion is catholic…
that is an accidental answer…

questions are objective because they cannot be changed or
are engage with what is accidental…

who am I? what am I/we to do?

those are fundamental questions about existence
and thus are objective…

who is going to win the world series this year?

that answer is subjective because the answer is
changeable and accidental… it could be the Cubs or
the Giants or the Braves or the Yankee’s… those answers
are subjective, changeable, accidental…

so to accuse someone of being a anarchist to silence them
from answers important/objective questions is unnecessary…

because the answers are subjective…

but the questions of existence, they are objective…

what values should I/we hold?

the question… objective…
the answer… subjective…

Kropotkin

3093

as I am far too tired to write a full on post,
I shall leave you with this thought…

Schopenhauer as educator…

what was Schopenhauer educating Nietzsche on?

what is the role of an educator?

so, beyond who is your educator, what did they educate you on?

what is the value/point of education? and given the state of affairs
in modern America, what is the point, value of education today?

Kropotkin

3094

so in Nietzsche “Untimely Meditations”…

“Schopenhauer as Educator”
what was the role of Schopenhauer in Nietzsche’s education?

was Schopenhauer, a teacher as Nietzsche claimed or did Nietzsche
simply began with Schopenhauer thoughts and built his own philosophy
upon what Schopenhauer wrote?

This question of education is a fundamental one in every society…

The Greeks were obsessed by it…much of Plato
and Socrates thought was dedicated toward education…

as shown by Werner Jaeger in his groundbreaking work,

“Paideia” The ideals of Greek Culture

How does the process of education work?

how do we transmit information from one generation to another?

as I have noted before, when we are born, we are instantly placed into
a situation where we are educated. I have called this “indoctrinations”
we are indoctrinated with the values, beliefs, hopes and dreams of
our parents and our society/state and culture…
we are taught their biases, their prejudices, their habits, their
superstitions, their ism’s and ideologies……

this is education…

so I ask, is Christianity, an education?

is Buddhism an education?

if we teach our children these ism’s as the basis for how to live life,
then yes, we are using Christianity as the basis of an education…
and yes, then we are using Buddhism as the basis of an education…

what is the value of an education? we use education as a means
to be an example… education is an example…

If I walk down the street and see a person lying on the ground
after being beaten, should I intervene? The parable of the good
Samaritan tells us that we should intervene and help that person…

education is meant to tell us what to do in any given situation…
as an example…

so is democracy, an education?

is democracy, an example?

we have historical examples of thinkers using education as
an example, Kant, Spinoza, Hume for example…
take Kant for example, his Categorical imperative,

“act only according to that maxim, whereby you can,
at the same time, will it should become a universal law”

that is an example, which is education…

but who was the philosophical educator, par excellence?

why Socrates, of course…

think of what Socrates brought to the table?

and no, I am not going to help you figure that out…

now, is a scientist, an educator?

can we use a scientist, such as Newton, as an educator?

Now as a hearing impaired person, I am very aware of communication…
the steps of what happens in communication…
and the steps of education follows the exact same path as communication…

in communication, we have three steps, we have the person who communicates,
we have the message and we have the receiver of the message…

a failure at any of these three parts will prevent communication from
being successful…

and in education, we have the exact same three parts, we have
the educator, we have the message and we have the student…
and failure in education can come at any of the three parts…

so, for example, we have Jesus, he is the educator… and his message
is of love and we have the final aspect, which is the receiver,
the person who receives the message…

the failure of this communication can come at any one of the three points…
the sender, the message, the receiver…….

Now both Iambiguous and myself have both publicly stated that one of our
formative books we have read, is William Barrett, “Irrational Man”…
I list that book as one of the 5 most formative books I have ever read…

and so we have our three aspects of communication…
we have the sender, William Barrett, we have the message, the book,
and we have the receiver, the reader of said book…

what is the education we received from that book?

but I must say, I had some friends read this exact same book
and they said, so, what, the book meant nothing to them…
it was nothing more then a dry boring read to them…

and yet it changed my entire intellectual life…

how does a book that has dramatically changed both iam
and myself, not change other readers?

the role of education can only come within a certain context
within the reader, the person who reads the book…

I was ready to hear the message of Barrett, my prior education
and life, was in preparation to hear Barrett’s message…

the communication of the book, “Irrational Man” had a willing
receiver in me… I was ready to hear that message…
but we are not always ready to hear a message given,
we are not always ready to be educated……

which leads us to another point, those who think they have all the
answers given by an ism or an ideology… in other words, those
who believe that the bible is the one and only answer to every question,
will not be ready to hear the message of Barrett’s because they believe
that they already have the answer…… at no point have I felt I had the
one and only answer to the questions of life… this uncertainty that
I didn’t already have the answers worked for me because that made
me ready to hear the message of the “Irrational Man”

if I already thought I had the answers to the questions, the book
wouldn’t have meant a thing to me… communication requires
the willingness to admit that we don’t have the answers already…

Barrett’s books isn’t about answers, it is about the possibilities…
it is possible that we don’t have the answers already…
and Barrett’s book addresses those possibilities…
not the answers, the possibilities ………

to continue on…

in a society rife with alienation and discontentment, what education
or examples should we reach for?

given our alienation and discontentment, should we use Darwin or Freud
or perhaps Shakespeare as educators?

can anyone really speak about the question “to be or not to be” with the
same commitment that Hamlet spoke of?

is Hamlet an example or an educator?

this is the function of Art… to be an example or to be used
as an educator………we can see from Hamlet the question of
continued existence, as an example for us to emulate…

Art gives us possibilities, gives us examples and can be used
as education……….

so we have other ism’s and ideologies that can be used
as examples, education……

for example, is capitalism education?

let us understand the message of capitalism…

capitalism promotes as part of its message,
greed, lust, selfishness, self-indulgence,
self-centeredness………

is that really the education we want to deliver to
our children or grand-children?

is that our example of human existence that we want to
continue as our legacy?

We engage in education today and what do we learn in trying to understand
education today?

we seek to make people little and small……. for example
we don’t teach grand and big examples, like history or literature anymore…

why not?

look at the point of education today… it isn’t to build up better people
or to make us cultured human beings… the point of, the example of
education is to create workers and producers and “good citizens”…
and we don’t need the examples of great human beings in becoming
workers and producers and “good citizens”… the state goal in education
is to create better workers, not better human beings… and that goal makes
all the difference in the world…

in my job in a factory lite existence, what values do I need?

is knowing history or literature or the potential greatness in
human beings, going to make me a better worker?

nope… and that is the point of education today…

not to create human beings engaged in values and rising to become
human beings…

no, the society wants and engages in education of making people
drones and better workers and “good citizens”… society doesn’t want nor
is engaged in improving the soul of its members…it wants workers
and those high minded ideals interferes with the stated goal of
our American society to create profits/money……

thus we constantly promote specific American idea’s like
the soldier as educator… and what does a soldier do?

they follow orders and they are willing to sacrifice their lives
for society… this martial example gives us what America
wants from its education of its citizens…to be a good worker
who is willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the society,
the state…….

and if I am not willing to follow these example, then I
am declared to be a traitor, Un-American, a bad citizen,
an anarchist, a liberal…

I reject such educators as examples such as soldiers
and “good citizens” who only exists to be
workers and producers and “good citizens”…
within society, within a state…

I don’t believe such examples, such education helps the society
nor does it help the state nor does it help the individual finding
his/her place within society…….

the only people such examples/such education helps are those
who own the means of production… the 1% that own America…

for everyone else, such education fails to bring about what is
most important which is the journey to become human…
not just animal/human, but to become fully human…

we praise as the highest example of education business leaders
and soldiers and “good citizens”

we should no longer praise such examples…we should in fact,
despise and ridicule such examples of educators…

for they don’t help us in our journey to become who we are…

for those educators as examples don’t aid us in finding out our
true possibilities… what is truly possible for us…

if we are only acceptable to society as workers and producers,
then there is no need for education to be about literature
or science or even philosophy because those skills don’t make
us better workers or better producers or better “citizens” willing
to sacrifice ourselves in the name of capitalism…

all that is required is job skills and that is exactly what
education is about today… getting job skills to be able to
make a living… which doesn’t promote us as human beings
or as beings with possibilities…

the point of education today is to make us good workers,
good producers and “good citizens”… and that education
has failed us and our society……

we can tell this by the amount of alienation and discontentment
we see in our society/state today…

our education/our education doesn’t fill our soul…

we are simply trained to be workers
and not to be human beings…

so, what is your need for an education?

what are you becoming, a good worker or a good human being?

Kropotkin

3095

one of Nietzsche “questions” or “problems” is
one of the “free spirit”…he refers to it quite often…
but a “free spirit” is a question of, free from something
or free to do something… free for or free from…

this question quite often haunts people who proclaim
America as the “land of the free”…

are we free from something or are we free to do something…

we have this quotation from Nietzsche

“… True man, those who are no longer animals, the philosopher,
Artist and Saint”

from Schopenhauer as educator…

is this a free spirit from something or freedom to something?

another quote, also from Schopenhauer as educator…

“It is the fundamental idea of culture, insofar as it sets for each of us,
but one task, to promote the production of the philosopher, the Artist
and the saint within us, and without us and thereby to work at the perfection
of nature”

another quote

“Mankind must work continually at the production of individuals, great men,
that and nothing else is its task”

so for Nietzsche, the path of going from animal to animal/human to
human, all too human lies with people trying to become either
the philosopher or the Artist or the saint…

is that freedom for or the freedom from?

Nietzsche thought that Human beings at large were unable to
go from animal to the highest goal, which is the philosopher,
the Artist, or the saint… we are unable to grow from always
engaging in the pursuit of the physical needs, our lifetime search for
the basic bodily needs of food, water, shelter, education and health care…
and if we should accomplish meeting these basic physical needs, we are
unable to reach or meet out emotional/psychological needs…

the Greeks were wrong about one thing, it isn’t the fact that man/human beings
are rational beings that separate us from being animals, it is the emotional/
psychological needs that separate us from being animals…

we are deeper in emotional/psychological needs then animals, that is
what separate us from animals… and if we don’t meet our psychological
needs, we are stunted and thwarted as human beings…

so perhaps, perhaps the need to become a “free spirit” comes from
our meeting our psychological needs more then meeting our physical needs…

“free spirits” comes from being free from… as oppose to being free for…

and education comes from us being free from not only physical needs but
also psychological needs……. we are psychological free from what ails us
as human beings…

education teaches us what it means to be human and that education frees
us from being tied down physical and, and emotionally/psychologically…

the education I refer to is the education/indoctrination of our youth,
where we are taught/trained to believe the myths and biases and
prejudices and superstitions of a society which are encompassed by
its ism’s and ideologies…

to become free, I must overcome my childhood indoctrinations that
teach me such pernicious beliefs as nationalism and patriotism
and allegiance to such ideas as god and the American drive to
martial beliefs…

to become human, all too human, I must rid myself of
such idea’s as my highest nature is to be a good worker,
to be a good producer and to be a “good citizen”…

I must free myself of such damaging beliefs because I can only become
human by escaping the old and outdated myths, prejudices, superstitions,
bigotry, biases, preconceptions that make up our modern world…

to be a free spirit… to escape the indoctrinations that litter our
childhood…

so education, true education is not to be educated into such
prejudices and biases and preconceptions of being a worker,
or being a “good citizen” or being a good producer…….

the true value of education is where I journey to something beyond
this basic understanding of what it means to be animal…
not human, for to be human means to rise above such
values as being a good worker or being a good producer or
being a “good citizen”… where the ultimate crime is not,
as it is today in modern society, insubordination, but the crime
of the journey to become human will be one who is unable to
escape the bottom rung of human existence which is the search for
basic necessities, food, water, shelter, education, health care…
no, the next level shall be the rise to becoming self actualized…

meeting both our physical needs and meeting our emotional/psychological
needs… which is a much tougher task……

so, what does being a free spirit mean to you?

Kropotkin

3096

I am back…one might wonder where I’ve been or…not…

work as usual is the culprit…and my second reason, I have
been spend spending every hour outside of work reading…
I have reached the Nietzsche portion of my study of philosophy…

so, I began at the beginning…“The Birth of Tragedy” and I am
now at “Daybreak”… the fourth book that Nietzsche wrote…
(some minor pieces here and there in between)……

the two pieces I have liked the most were,
“Schopenhauer as Educator” and the “wanderer and his shadow”
sections in “human, all too human”…

I am not making any judgements… although I did read these
books 30 or 40 years ago…

the thing I got from these books so far is that they are
weaker then his other writings because he hasn’t fixed
a point about his writings… his aphorisms are well done,
but don’t really have a point or a target…they just hang
there with no point to them…

it isn’t until later that with his coming up with a theme,
that his aphorisms gain strength and brilliance… the theme
ties the aphorisms together into a unity of writing…

this he begins with the book I just started, “Daybreak”
or otherwise known as “Dawn”… he finally comes
into his theme which makes his aphorisms come to life
and gain power…

I, finally have a week vacation and I’m basically spending it reading
Nietzsche… I hope to get into “Zarathustra” in a few days…hopefully
before my week is up…

if you want to find me… I will be…

“six thousand feet above man and time”

Kropotkin

3097

(with apologies to Mr. Nietzsche)

I have been watching TV and watching the many protest
against police brutality.

but let us, as a thought experiment, try this…

what exactly are we protesting? the police…
and why? because they cause a man to suffer…
suffer and then die…

it is felt that this attack upon Mr. Floyd caused him to needlessly
suffer and that it caused his death…his death, his suffering…
that is why protesters are daily walking the streets…

so far, so good…

we see his death as suffering… he suffered…

another way to put it is, that his suffering did not match his crime……

he may or may not have passed a counterfeit $20 bill, but is that
“crime” worth him suffering unto death?

we are attempting to find “justice” for Mr. Floyd…

I have stated, more then once, that justice is equality…
that to have justice, we must treat everyone equally,
and clearly in this case, we didn’t treat Mr. Floyd equally…
for he suffer unto death…and a white person would not have
been treated this way… this not speculation but fact…
that there is clear and systemic racism in America is not
in dispute… were white men put into slavery before the civil war?
or were white made to suffer under the Jim Crow laws of the south?
Was it white people who suffer educational before Brown vs Board of
education?

the very history of modern America is a large sign of this
systemic racism in America…….

the causing of suffering to a people because of the color of
their skin……

the point was to make them suffer because they were black…
not us…

the common theme here is suffering…

Jesus was made to suffer on the cross…

when someone commits a crime, they are made to suffer
in some fashion…

an eye for an eye is the judicial system in America……
unless of course you are wealthy or powerful or have a title,
then justice is clearly not equal… a policeman with his title,
can commit crimes for which he isn’t made to suffer…
he claims it to be self defense or somehow protecting the
community…his badge protects him from suffering from crimes
that you or I would go to jail for…

so we still have injustice in America… that is to say, people
aren’t being treated equally for equal crimes… different
forms of punishment/suffering for the same crime…

and that is the point of the idea of justice in America,
to make one suffer for their crimes… an eye for an eye…

but let us be bold and daring and ask an obvious question…

has all this suffering, and we know our jails and prisons are full
to the brim, to make people suffer from their “crime” against society…

do we have less crime in America despite this attempt to make
people suffer because of their “crimes”?

the real question to ask is this, is all this suffering actually
doing anything? is it accomplishing anything?
do you feel safer when others are made to suffer?

one might argue that those who suffer from actions
taken, such as jail or prison, they “deserve” their punishments,
their suffering…….

if the point of justice is to make people to suffer, then
lets do suffering right… let us make them suffer by
torture or cutting off their limbs, as they did in the old days,
when a state really knew how to make people suffer for their crimes…

the Buddha thought all of existence was about suffering…
the point of our existence was to escape suffering…
so we train and work to escape suffering…
which to the Buddha meant being reborn…
to avoid the suffering of old age, disease, and finally death…
so the point of existence as to no longer be reborn into this
existence… to become one with the all and escape being
reborn…to be reborn, that was suffering to the Buddha…

to Jesus, to avoid suffering meant to “accept the savior”
and be reborn… not quite what the Buddha had in mind?

and once again the key word is suffering…

to many philosophers, the key to wisdom was through
suffering…the ancient Greeks, the cynics for example,
thought suffering was alleviated by achieving mental
clarity or lucidity… in other words, freedom from
false beliefs or mindlessness or folly or conceit which
are the real cause of suffering…

Epicurus advocated we avoid suffering which is done
by not pursing vain, worthless pleasure…
such as seeking pointless pleasure like excessive sex or food
or wine which would bring temporary pleasure but later
would bring on suffering…a hangover for example…

In modern philosophy, Nietzsche for example thought that
suffering in life is productive… to say yes to our greatest pain
and suffering…

our society, in various ways and means, condones and even
practices suffering as a societal method to contain crime…

is the act of causing people to suffer from crimes, really the
best use of our time, money, effort and energy?

is an eye for an eye really the model we should use
for our justice system?

if one causes suffering, should we in turn cause them to suffer?

sounds pretty barbaric to me……

we are, as I have stated on many occasions, going from
animal to animal/human on our way to becoming human…
so how does causing people to suffer lead us to becoming
human?

do animals cause other animals to suffer when a crime is
committed?

no, because animals don’t have any idea about the concepts of
crime, justice, suffering……. try telling your dog about an
eye for an eye as a judicial system?

and all that dog is thinking of is, when the hell is dinner?

so, is our being elevated above animals really meant to
be causing our fellow human beings suffering?

even animals don’t use that concept… so why should we?

how do we reach becoming human if we still apply such
barbaric standards to our judicial system as “an eye for an eye”?

so, what is justice? what is equality? so what is the point
of suffering? do you suffer and does it do you any good?

if suffering has any value, what is that value? what is the point of
suffering?

does suffering do you or the society/culture any good?

what is suffering?

Kropotkin

3098

the thread of “Robert Kennedy Jr” has some
interesting points within it……

points not seen by those who hold “faith”
in the “evil” presented by vaccines……

the basis point is that there is no proof that
vaccines cause autism… that vaccines are in fact,
an extremely important part of eliminating
such deadly diseases as measles and polio
and the plague and chickenpox…
that there is no evidence that vaccines cause
autism is unimportant because what is important
is the “faith” one has in the “ill-effects” of vaccines…

it is the “faith” that one holds that matter most, not
the facts in question…

that vaccines are seen as a danger, a “Nazi plot”
to enslave American’s is reason enough to challenge your faith…

you have your “faith” whereas I have unchallenged facts to
the elimination of dangerous and destructive viruses which have
killed and disabled millions… by the means of… vaccines…

the “tree” you pray upon, the danger of vaccines, is a faith
I cannot hold to because I know history… whereas all you have
is some “faith” that vaccines are somehow an “evil” or
a “Nazi plot”.

is your “faith” greater then the facts?

why bother holding to Socrates greatest saying which is,

“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

is your “unexamined” life not worth living?

examine your “faith” in the danger of vaccines…

does your “faith” or “your tree” greater then the facts
or greater then the “forest” that surrounds your “faith”?

why do you hold unto “faith” over facts?

why this belief in a single tree over the forest?

examine your life and answer this question…

most won’t because to examine, truly examine your life requires
something more then just faith, it requires honesty
and, and courage… both values are little seen in this modern age…

Kropotkin

3099

one man says to another: behold vaccines are evil
because they cause autism…

and the other man says, please prove it…

but the unsaid question lies with the question of
how do we connect this individual value, vaccines being evil,
within a community??

we can hold individual values such as honesty, hope,
love, peace, but how do we connect such values with
existing within society, the community?

one man believes that vaccines are evil
and another doesn’t… how do we unite these two
individual values?

one man, the man against vaccines can provide facts,
evidence that vaccines aren’t a danger, in fact, have proven
to be quite a powerful method of eliminating or reducing such
illnesses or diseases like polio and smallpox…

the man in favor of the ism that vaccines are dangerous, only
has the strength of his convictions to stand as evidence…

but we human beings are biased to believe in the man who holds
to his emotions the “loudest”…

to human beings, quite often the emotional content is far
more important then the logical or rational content…

we hold to the emotionalism of faith over the quiet
of rationalism…

why?

because we are, first of all, emotional/feeling creatures,
before we are rational/logical creatures…

and at times, this emotionalism is exactly what is needed…

having play sports all my life, I can tell you that sometimes
it isn’t the rational/logical belief that carries the day…
sometime, pure emotionalism of the moment can carry
one over the hump or the hurdle of beating another team…

I recall once upon a time, in a galaxy a long time ago,
I was engaged in a mile relay, I was the final runner of 4,
into the last lap, my team was behind by a few feet, so I
got the baton a few steps behind the other runner…
it wasn’t the fact he was a better runner then me that allowed
me to catch and defeat him… his best time was a solid couple
of seconds ahead of mine in the 440, no, I caught him because
of the emotional aspect of the race… my entire team was cheering
me on and his team wasn’t cheering him on…

the emotional aspect of the moment allowed me to catch him

my heart, my emotions were greater then his emotions…
I wanted it more then he did and that made all the difference in
the world…

and occasionally emotional aspects serve us better then rational/logical
aspects serve us…love is one such area… and the hope of a better future
is another such aspect…

so how do we know when it is time to become “emotional”
and when is it time to be rational/logical?

depends on the situation, the circumstances…

so in this situation, this circumstance, holding to
an emotional response to whither one should have
a vaccination, should be a rational/logical response
because facts can be found to justify a rational/logical
response…

and we reach the situational ethics of our story…

life isn’t about a straight forward choice made between
two logical/rational aspects… life is really making a choice
between the logical/rational side of things and a choice
of emotional/feeling side of things…

the event creating the choice is almost irrelevant…
almost……

are we going to respond rationally/logically or are
we going to respond emotionally/feelings?

Kropotkin

3100

part of why we humans never really figured out
what is the point, function, meaning of life is
because we have several driving/motivations in life…

and different people are at different tracks or motivations
in life……

at certain age’s or at certain times in one’s life,
we are driving by one thing or another, and at different
times, the different motivations/drivers create different
agendas for us.

for example, the driver or motivations for millions of people
is their drive for money or titles or a higher paying job……

work drives millions of people and all that work entails…

whereas I am old, I only work because I must… I simply don’t have
enough money to retire… that is my motivation… I don’t care about
moving up in the company and I don’t care about titles or I couldn’t care
less about sucking up to the managers to get something…

I just want out of there and into retirement… that is my entire agenda
and goal in regards to work… now for many, that is not there goal or
agenda…the difference in our ages, me at 61 and others, at much younger,
will quite often set up the agenda or goal we are trying to reach…

my objectives, goals, agenda, purpose, motivation
is entirely consistent with someone who is 61……

my physical needs are met… I don’t have any problems with
meeting the criteria of Maslow’s pyramid… I can easily meet
the basic physical needs of food, water, shelter, health care and
and education…

my other needs of love and safety/belonging and esteem are easily met…

I am quite content and happy in regards to my physical needs
being met…

but others, at different ages and situations, do not have their physical
needs met…they are lacking in food or water or shelter or health care
or education…part of their needs, desires, drives, motivations, agenda’s
are attempts to meet these basic needs and desires…

and because we have different needs being met, we have different
needs, drives, desires, motivations, agenda’s……

or perhaps, one is missing out on the other needs, safety/security or
esteem or perhaps love/belonging…… so their drives, agenda’s desires
motivations are driven by those people lack of love/belonging or
esteem or safety/security?

so those people are going to seek or act upon those unmet needs…
their actions and motivations and agenda’s and drives are different
then my actions, motivations, agenda’s because we are seeking different
things in regards to our needs, both physical and emotional…

at different stages of our life, we have different drives, different
motivations, different agenda’s, different needs and desires…

then we also have different ism’s and ideologies that we were
raised under… I was born in 1959 and the ism’s and ideologies
of that era are different from the ism’s and ideologies of today…

now depending upon whither I engaged in a reevaluation of values,
seeking out which values are really my value and which values
were indoctrinated into me, I might also hold different values…
which is just another brick in the wall…

so if we have different things driving us, having different
agenda’s, different motivations, then we are not going to
have a unified approach to what is important…

with my different agenda, different motivations, then you,
we are going to be seeking different things due to our
vastly different needs and desire being met or as the case may be,
not being met…

I have seen some be deprived of love as children, who then
spend their entire adult life, seeking that deprivation of their
childhood…

some were deprived of safety/security and so that is what
they seek as adults… their childhood deprivation leads
people to seek out and fulfill those childhood deprivations…

our different drivers, motivations, needs, agenda’s will lead
us into conflict with others who may either seek the exact same
thing or they might be denying us our needs, desires, drivers……

we come into conflict with people over our needs and desires
and motivations and their needs and desires and motivations…

if I am looking for love and they are not, we may come into
conflict over that need of mine needing to be met and their
refusing to or their inability to meet my needs/desires…

think back to the million years or so of humans going from
animal to animal/human…we would have different
needs and desires and motivations, you and I, and how would
those needs and desires and motivations get met in those
small family or small grouping of families that made up
the history of human beings for over a million years…

rules were created over time to help limit or stop the
conflict and needs and desires of people or a group of people
from destroying the tribe…

those shall not covet the neighbor’s wife…
that conflict could destroy a small village or
a small number of families needing to exists together to
survive…

thou shall not steal… those commandments would make
complete and perfect sense given that a conflict over
these needs, desires, drivers and motivations between two
separate people could destroy a small tribal situation…

thou shall not kill… this makes perfect sense given any sort of
small family or group of families trying to survive together…

thou shall not commit adultery… makes perfect sense in a small
group of people, perhaps no more then 40 or 50 people living in
the close quarters of tribal life…

but what about the commandments of that speak of god,

thou shall not have no other gods before me…

once again, remember the small group of people trying to
exist within a much more powerful world…

perhaps that commandment was really about the leader of the tribe…
to survive, the tribe must have complete and total faith in their
tribal leaders, and this commandment is one way tribal leaders
tried to gain and hold power…

thou shall no other leader before you, but me……
to go from tribal leader to god isn’t that big of a step to make…

so given this new information, we can revisit the idea of
morality and ethics……

morality/ethics is an attempt by early man to create conditions
that allowed the community to survive… if you have enough rules
in place, perhaps you might be able to avoid unnecessary and needless
conflict between members of a small tribe…

we, each of us, is driven, motivated by our different needs
and desires, and to avoid conflict when we seek our different
needs and desires, we have rules and commandments set out
which help us keep order within our family, village, our tribe…

it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to see how our different
desires and needs can create conflict within a tribe or a small group
of families…

the creation of the state/society/culture can be imagined
given the growth of the number of people within the society/state/culture……

if the population grows, so does the apparatus needed to maintain
the possibility of conflict…the society, state, culture increases
as the population grows… the greater number of people creates
a greater number of possible conflicts between people…

and thus the need for the state to take over morality or ethics…

what is legal is moral… a great many people hold to this…
while it isn’t true, one can see how it might be conceived…

we must begin to think of people and their relationship
to the state/society/culture in terms of our needs, desires,
drivers, motivations that drive our life…what I seek may
be different then what you seek, but we still might come into
conflict over my needs/desires and your needs/desires…

this conflict has a personal, individual aspect but it also
has a communal, community aspect to it…….

this is why morality/ethics isn’t just a personal need,
but it is a communal/community/ collective demand to it…

one of the questions of existence is, how do we resolve our
conflicts over our needs, desires, motivations, drivers that
clash with other people needs, desires, motivations, drivers?

how do we resolve conflicts?

for example, let us say I have a need, a desire to beat people up…

but we cannot under any circumstances allow people to just beat up
other people… a society/state simply cannot be stable and secure under
those circumstances…

the state/society must control the needs, desires, motivations,
agenda’s of those who needs, desires, motivations, agenda’s
and drivers of behavior will lead to conflict and threaten the
well being of the state/society…

how do we engage in this?

we have entire theories of politics and society and religions,
that address these problems…….

the right holding on to the Machiavelli theory that man is what
they are born as… if we are born evil, we are evil throughout
our entire life… if we are born good, we are good throughout our
entire life…

and liberals who believe in the idea that change is possible within
people…

these are some of the theories that allow society/state to resolve
conflicts between two people with conflicting needs, desire, motivations,
agenda’s…but it isn’t just about two people having conflicts, no, our
society/state is far more complicated then that…

we could have entire states like California and Nevada come
into conflict because of conflicting needs, desires, agenda’s
motivations of the two states and likewise we could have
conflict between two counties between their two different
needs and desires and motivations… see the wars between
France and Germany for example……

the needs and desires between people, groups, states and cultures,
creating conflicts are one of the key understanding of human existence…
and how to control and solve such conflicts remain one
of the key aspects of religion, politics and philosophy…

as it is true individually, is true collectively…

what we face individually is what we face collectively……

so, how do your needs and desires conflict between you and other
individual human beings and how does it conflict with the state/
society you live in?

every aspect of human existence is both individual and
collective… if we think about something individually, it
is true collectively…….

Kropotkin