I think Lenin (and more recently Zizek citing Lenin) said something about how it’s difficult to relate to human thinking from an earlier epoch.
After several more days of ugly work, I return.
I am grappling with Aristotle right now and as I was thinking about his “stuff” I began to wonder
about ideologies. Now ideologies are ISM’s, Communism, Catholicism, Capitalism, for example.
When do we need ideologies? by that I mean, a man alone, living in the woods has no need of
ideologies. Mind experiment, when do you think in early human history did ideologies become
known or created? Does a family living on the African savanna two million years ago really need
any type of ideology? I don’t think so. When the name of the game is survival, do you really need
ideology? Simple existence doesn’t require any type of ideology. So when does simple existence
shows us the need for complicated and necessary ideology? At one person, or two people, a family?
A group of peoples? a Tribe? An ideology can be simply a means of rules for social interaction.
think of all the different types of ideologies that humans have had since the beginning. Humans literally
have had hundreds of ideologies since the beginning of human history. Which one of those hundreds
is the correct one? Which ISM is the correct ISM? When someone says capitalism is the right ISM or
ideology, they really mean at this time and this place because ideologies change and adapt all the time.
The Catholicism of today is far different than the Catholicism of a 1000 years ago and that Catholicism
is different than the Catholicism of 500 years ago. Which Catholicism was the correct one? this change
and adaptation of ISM’s means that the democracy of the Pericles Athens is different than the democracy
of today and yet they still carry the same name, democracy. Two ISM’s of the same name which are
quite different. If ISM’s can change and become different even while being called the same name,
what is its value? Why hold certain values if they become obsolete as they must. Review your ideologies
and see your place in the universe and do your ideologies coincide with your place in the universe?
If your place and your ideologies are different, you are part of modern society in which the separation
of ideologies and what is happening in the ground means that ideologies no longer represent us and our
current lives, have become separated from who we are and this is the modern dilemma. We have become
separated from our ideologies and thus we are lost. If ideologies form the framework of our lives, then
we have become separated from that framework. This calls into question the whole point and meaning
of ideologies because this separation creates difficulties in our lives. So removing ideologies might
remove this loss that comes from the separation of ideology and where we are in life.
Think of when the separation of ideology and where we were in life when people
like Galileo and Kepler and Copernicus changed the universe to where the earth revolves around
the sun and began the long slow slide to us becoming a minor and isolated part of the universe and
not the center of the universe that existed before. There are some who still have not recovered from this
change and still hold ideology that is contrary to the reality of the universe. They have
separated reality and ideology and are suffering from this. This is the modern state. We have
separated reality and ideology and thus have become lost. We are acting as if ideology
is the correct version of reality whereas on the ground, the ideology has fatality separated
from reality. do you adapt to the reality or do you adapt to the ideology? Modern conservatives
have fled reality and believe that the ideology represents reality whereas the ideology they
believe in is about as useful for reality as the ideology that the center of the universe is the earth is
useful. they hold ideologies that no longer represent reality and this is the danger of ideologies because
at some point in time, ALL ideologies separate until they no longer represent reality. this is the modern
dilemma. We have people who believe in ideologies that no longer represent reality and act as if
those separated ideologies still have some basis in reality. Believing that god exists is one such example
and then forcing people to live based on the fact that god exists when god doesn’t exist. That is another
example of an ideology that is not based on a reality and it harms people. It damages people and their lives.
this is how this separation of ideology and reality is dangerous and must be challenged.
Kropotkin
I think that went way over Peter’s line of expertise. You see Peter is one of those internet trolls who ad homs and insults the person behind any idea that threatens his “sciences” while offering no scientific explanation as to why he is right. A mere child.
—^^^
As I have been studying Aristotle, I have also been reading history books about that time period.
I am trying to connect the time period with all its political, social, economic activities with
the philosophy that Aristotle (and Plato and Socrates) were doing. by that I mean, if you read Aristotle
and read about his say, logic idea’s and compare them to the socio-economic activity of the day, you
wouldn’t even know that during Aristotle lifetime was war after war and economic rise and fall of whole
communities. Yet, Aristotle was writing about logic and the physiology of plants and animals all the while
wars going on all around him. You don’t any sense of the current activities outside of random comments
made while writing certain books. Then you look at other philosophers, much later in time.
Hegel wrote during the long wars between France and Europe from 1798 to 1815. Nietzsche served
during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and Wittgenstein served in World war one as a common soldier,
but you don’t get a sense of any of that reading those philosophers. They were writing as if those events
didn’t seem to matter or even happened. These philosophers were writing as if above and beyond those
human events but those human events are who we are (in part) and any explanation of reality must somehow
include those events. As everyone knows, humans have two sides (well to be precise we have many sides as
stated by Goethe when he said, “alas, I have two souls in my breast” which I believe to be an understatement)
Outside of Nietzsche, who else has even approached trying to understand and explain those two sides,
the rational and the emotional which of course N. called the Apollonian and Dionysian. The rational side
was the Apollonian side and the emotional side was the Dionysian. this division clearly is shown in
our modern age with conservatives attempting to destroy everything gained in the enlightenment and
on toward our age. the Holocaust was simply the first shot fired in a long and prolong war against
the enlightenment which continues today. The failure of philosophy that I first notice is in part because
of this war, renamed the culture wars in America that has lasted since 1980. Philosophy has failed to take
into account this division between the rational and the irrational. We must address this in the philosophy of
the future.
Kropotkin
The conspicuous problem is that while you are doing that, you are filtering and assigning good and bad based upon childhood biases prejudices.
Education merely makes a hateful person more specific.
Peter Kropotkin: As I have been studying Aristotle, I have also been reading history books about that time period.
J: The conspicuous problem is that while you are doing that, you are filtering and assigning good and bad based upon childhood biases prejudices.
K: ummm, that is what we do, we filter and assigned based on biases and prejudices. that is the human condition.
to say you do anything else is to simply lie. The best we can hope for is to balance our biases with
other biases. The world is viewed by relative standards created by biases and prejudices.
In other words, all points of view have the same validity unless it can be shown to be wrong thus one
who claims the moon is made of cheese is easily disproved and thus does not have the same validity
as one who states the moon is made of rocks and has the same properties as the earth and then one
who states that this is true except that the moon doesn’t have air/oxygen and with each example we
get closer to what the moon really is despite our biases and prejudices.
J: Education merely makes a hateful person more specific.
K: education is merely an attempt to limit our biases and prejudices, not eliminate biases and prejudices
because that is impossible.
Kropotkin
If you’re looking to pre-moderns, I think the Neoplatonists had a vision closer to the truth about time and space than Aristotle did.
Now we exist in a time when science and metaphysics have again merged, with ideas like quantum consciousness and holography.
K: perhaps the Neoplatonists do have a vision closer to the truth, but as I am still engaged in Aristotle,
I shall reserve my judgements about them to a later date.
And I believe you are correct as to science and metaphysics merging but the question becomes,
what does this mean? For us, for science, for the future?
Kropotkin
Really, you cant claim to understand history. What someone wrote or didnt write, what is truth and what is lie, what people wished to be true and what was. If aristotle wrote of the war, what would he have written? Was he involved or removed? What walk of life did his writings stem from compared to others? A lot of variables. Its much easier to witness life around us and see how those philosophies may have came from similar origins. Place your rough knowledge of history onto todays problems and see if you can find a pattern. That would give you more of a look into those minds than a direct approach. Try to experience life as they did.
To call me a liar makes you the liar.
Many people have awoken to the prospect that certain things they always believed to be true, never really were and that at times, the good guys really were the bad guys. I was raised thinking that Science was far more genuine than it turned out to be. I never questioned whether the Judists or Christians were good guys. And now I have to very highly question reported “history”, especially since even Science can’t stay honest or accurate.
Discovering truth in history requires a high degree of analysis, far beyond superficial reading (much like scriptures). Some people learn to question properly, most do not.
K: very carefully reread what you wrote. “certain things they always believed to be true, never really were”
That is a long version story of a bias, prejudice. Each of us, all human beings, are raised with certain biases,
prejudices, we get these from family, school, church, society at large. I was raised in an upper class, liberal,
family that had political connections. My own personal journey has been philosophical in nature which meant
I went through a very long period of questioning my own biases, prejudices (I was influenced by Nietzsche in this)
I countered my biases by reading many, many other bias accounts of history, philosophy, economics, political theory, theological. For that is all we have biased accounts written by biased people. Is science bias, prejudiced?
Of course it is! But the way science questions it own bias is simple, it uses the scientific method to limit,
LIMIT, one’s bias. If you can use science to predict future events, you have a means of limiting bias.
If newton’s method was used for hundreds of years to predict event (and very successfully I might add)
then you have an bias to Newton’s method. Along came Einstein who created? devised? found? a method
which was more accurate means of predicting future event. The orbit of Mercury was the actual reason
for Einstein to revise Newton, because Newton method just didn’t get the prediction quite right, whereas
Einstein method did. This shift of bias is closer to the reality of the situation, (we have a better gauge of the
orbit of Mercury) This shift helps limit bias.
Your very statements are biased, prejudice as are mine. We seek to limit the bias in our thinking because
we are philosophers (this is in fact a philosophy site) We are never clear of the childhood clutter that
is the biases and prejudices that we were taught, but we can limit them.
Kropotkin
Which guarantees that you have absolutely no hope of ever seeing clearly. And also guarantees that you will always believe that no one else can see any more clearly than you … unless they agree with you.
Why is it that wealthy liberals ALWAYS say that and yet ALWAYS display the opposite? Whimpy-self-delusion: “No one is smarter than Me … Me … MEEE!”
There is a very strong tendency in nature to assume in some way that the self is better or smarter than another. At the root it is the comparison of self to another, judgmental bias tinged with a rebound of insecurity in one facet that cause other facets to highlight themselves to give you a sense of self worth, too often at anothers expense. To say that Kropotkin is limited by his lifestyle is to say the same of your self. Even in this, in a way, I view myself to be smarter because I feel that this advice is needed. I find that often, at the core of such interactions, that we view others to be better than us at the same time as seeing how they could be better. We try to help them avoid the weakness we feel and it just gets to the point of bias and prejudice and discontent since we arent really learning to work together. Two warriors that are bonded in struggle will move in tandem, each of them covering the others blindspots and dealing with what is in front of them. Why not collaborate?
K: feel free to show us how at any point in my over 4000 post, I have said I am smarter than people.
I am average in intelligence. I would guess out of the 7 billion people on earth, I rank somewhere in
the top billion or billion and a half. I am then saying that I believe that there are over 1 billion people
on planet earth smarter than me. I am old and no longer have any fantasy’s that I am special. I am not.
However I am honest and will take points for that. As you have made this personal, I shall return to the
point of biases. We each of us, have biases and we make judgements based on those biases. I hope to
temper my biases by having read many, many other people who are bias. I used their bias to balance
my bias. Nothing more is possible.
PS, my family lost all its wealth before I was 10. my mom was a single mom with 4 kids and needed
government programs to feed us. Much later in life, I was homeless for about 3 months. So save your nonsense
about wealth for someone who cares because that ain’t me.
Kropotkin
K: I don’t view anyone smarter or better than me as I don’t view myself smarter or better than anyone else.
We each have strengths and weaknesses that make us different than other people. I am very weak in math as
is my whole family (except my brother who is a math genius) I recognize that we each have strengths. However
I am at the point in my life where I am just working on me. I just do my thing making me better and this
whole ILP thing is simple another way to do that. That is why I don’t give a shit if anyone reads me or not,
because my writing is for me and no one else.
Kropotkin
PK, many of those billion who are smarter than you understand that almost nothing applies to everyone. So when you say “everyone is biased and prejudiced (just like me)”, speak only for yourself, because even that you don’t really know very well, and others, even less so. Implying and accepting that everyone is as bad as you is rather revolting and insulting.
“It’s okay to be excessively bias, prejudice, and hateful of others because everyone is.”
“It’s okay to cheat on my taxes because everyone does.”
K: and you have spun this with your bias and prejudiced and I might mention hate. I am sorry you really
hate people but it has nothing to do with me. You are bias and prejudice as is every human being on earth.
Deal with or don’t deal with it. It doesn’t matter to me. Because I deal with my issues, not yours.
Kropotkin
Only you, PK (from your demonstrations on this forum for years … not prejudiced, not biased).
K:as I have already stated, I have biases and prejudices. Try reading this thread again to see this.
What I am saying is, everyone and everyone by definition includes me has biases and prejudices.
the goal seems to be to limit the amount of bias one has and to do so requires some method.
I suggest reading others who have a different bias and prejudices and use that to limit one’s own
biases. Other methods exist.
Kropotkin