what is space and time? however the human sense and human reason and
human math make of it… we create the idea of space/time for our benefit
and our use, by our senses and math…
it is not necessarily what space/time actually is…
Kropotkin
Einstein said that we feel time subjectively. sometimes we
feel time moving quickly and sometimes we feel time
move slowly… usually at work… so time is subject
to our own interpretations…as we call it space/time…
we also feel/understand space in a personal fashion…
in other words, space/time is a function of our perception of it…
we have created space/time with our senses and our reason
and our perceptions…
space/time is a human construct just like math and science
and history and biology and physics… different environment,
different senses, a different reality and we have different math,
science, history, biology and physics…
Kropotkin
so, what does this all mean?
we have to redefine what is the “meaning” of government and the “point”
of our economic systems…
in short, what is the point of life?
what we call science and government and biology
and history is really a function of how we have constructed it…
they are artificial ways of looking at the world… created
by the way we see and understand the world…
so we see the world as a conservative see’s it and the world
is a dangerous place, full of people, events, institutions all trying to
damage us, destroy us…orrrrrrr,
we can see the world as a liberal see’s it, where the world is a positive place,
where we create our own vision of “the pursuit of happiness” and
the world is a social world, not every man for himself/herself…
both are right… because the world is as we see it… dangerous if we see it
that way, and positive if we see it that way…
now one argument for a conservative vision is the idea that
humans are basically selfish and all about their own happiness…
as with all visions, that is only partly true…
at my work, we have a store manager that only concern is to make her
bonus…everything single thing she does is subject to that one goal…
she couldn’t care less if the store burned down as long as she got her bonus…
because of this single minded pursuit of her goal… from a workers viewpoint,
there is no benefit of any kind to do the things needed to help the store…
we don’t clean up the store because that has no benefit for us…
we don’t do customer service because if we do it right, no one notices
or CARES…it makes no difference in how the store is run because the manager
only cares about her bonus…and only cares about customer service if it
affects her bonus (and it doesn’t) she has trashed the store by cutting hours
and never, ever complimenting anybody for a job well done, or for that
matter she isn’t on the floor to even see what happens in the store…
she is in her office talking personal business on her cell phone all day…
that is pretty much all she does…
but what if, what if we got some feedback as workers even if it was negative,
it would be a improvement over what we have now…
where we have no incentive to do anything but show up and collect our paychecks…
a shitty place to work where it really doesn’t have to be that shitty…
so what does my little story have to do with anything…
more on that later…
Kropotkin
as has been stated, I am researching philosophy…
I was going along with the standard Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz
understanding of the philosophers…but as I have gone into my studies,
I must, with some confusion I admit, I must include Newton…
now I did not expect this… but it seems clear that Newton was not
a scientist doing philosophy, but a PHILOSOPHER doing science…
and this I did not expect…one cannot understand philosophy after 1675 without
understanding Newton… it is just that simple…without Newton, Kant for example,
makes no sense…I find it strange that all the “standard” histories of philosophy
do not mention Newton or limit his influence, but his work is absolutely essential
to the understanding of philosophy for 200 years after him…
Kropotkin
[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
so, what does this all mean?
we have to redefine what is the “meaning” of government and the “point”
of our economic systems…
in short, what is the point of life?
what we call science and government and biology
and history is really a function of how we have constructed it…
they are artificial ways of looking at the world… created
by the way we see and understand the world…
so we see the world as a conservative see’s it and the world
is a dangerous place, full of people, events, institutions all trying to
damage us, destroy us…orrrrrrr,
we can see the world as a liberal see’s it, where the world is a positive place,
where we create our own vision of “the pursuit of happiness” and
the world is a social world, not every man for himself/herself…
both are right… because the world is as we see it… dangerous if we see it
that way, and positive if we see it that way…
now one argument for a conservative vision is the idea that
humans are basically selfish and all about their own happiness…
as with all visions, that is only partly true…
at my work, we have a store manager that only concern is to make her
bonus…everything single thing she does is subject to that one goal…
she couldn’t care less if the store burned down as long as she got her bonus…
because of this single minded pursuit of her goal… from a workers viewpoint,
there is no benefit of any kind to do the things needed to help the store…
we don’t clean up the store because that has no benefit for us…
we don’t do customer service because if we do it right, no one notices
or CARES…it makes no difference in how the store is run because the manager
only cares about her bonus…and only cares about customer service if it
affects her bonus (and it doesn’t) she has trashed the store by cutting hours
and never, ever complimenting anybody for a job well done, or for that
matter she isn’t on the floor to even see what happens in the store…
she is in her office talking personal business on her cell phone all day…
that is pretty much all she does…
but what if, what if we got some feedback as workers even if it was negative,
it would be a improvement over what we have now…
where we have no incentive to do anything but show up and collect our paychecks…
a shitty place to work where it really doesn’t have to be that shitty…
so what does my little story have to do with anything…
more on that later…
K: so its later, much later then I thought before I got back here…
think of my little store in terms of government as a whole… what if
the government was run in a similar fashion as the management runs our store…
the burden falls on those who have the least ability to deal with it…
by that I mean… think of those on the bottom rung who have little say
or influence into the running of the business, just like employees in my store
have no say or influence in the running of the business… the citizens have
done the same thing we employee’s have done which is do your time, collect your
paycheck and get the hell out of there… management in both business and government
managed to turn off any interest in their “working” team, citizens and workers are treated
the same here… and they have lost interest and have stopped caring about what
happens in both the store and in government and this is on purpose…
45 is a perfect example of a manager who only cares about his bonus and
he doesn’t care what happens to the worker/citizen below him…
higher management in this case, the federal government has made it clear,
it doesn’t care about the average worker/citizen and those workers/citizens
have lost interest in the goings on in the state/company…
management agenda has nothing to do with helping or improving the
average citizens/worker… and so we check out… millions of American’s
have lost interest in the goings on in government simply because they feel, correctly,
that the government couldn’t give a shit about them and so these millions of people,
don’t participate or involve themselves in the going’s on of government…
they don’t vote, they don’t protest, they don’t say a word and actively
avoid paying attention to the news or any information about the government…
and the government like big business loves this… less people involved the better
for those who can implement policy…connect the average worker and the average citizen
and you can see a remarkable similarity between both… and how management treats
them and the workers/citizens reaction to this mistreatment, very similar…
so how do we reengage the worker/citizen?
the answer is very similar… engage the worker/citizen in all the steps of
the business/government… bring the worker/citizen back into the decision
making process… give them some accountability and some voice in the
actions that affect their lives… reengage the worker/citizen in the business
of governing and business… make them part of the business/government, not
just a token level but a real level of engagement… make them part of the business,
not just expendable workers/citizens…
Kropotkin
I haven’t been around much because work has been trying to kill me with
long and ugly hours and because of that, I have been in a state of sheer exhaustion…
which tells a story in of itself… one way to keep the masses down is simply work them
to death… if one is exhausted from work, you don’t have the energy to protest or to
work to bring about necessary changes in the world… this is simply a technique to
maintain the system… now on a second note, not long ago, my nephew, who is an idiot,
got into a flame war with me on facebook… one of his comments was to “fight the man”
and I haven’t been able to get this idea out of my mind for a simple reason, there really
isn’t a man to fight, it is the system that we must fight…there are those who take advantage
of the system, those are the ones we call “the Man”…once again its about gaming the
system to get the results you want and the wealthy and powerful have the resources to
game the system…you have even heard 45 saying he has gamed the system and thus
he is an “expert” on cleaning up the system…another lie in a long midst of lies…
anyway, as a lower middle class person, I don’t have the resources to game the system…
so to connect these two idea’s… I am being worked to death because the system
is being gamed by the company who uses its resources to bribe officials to change
the rules to allow the company to work me to death… it isn’t a “MAN” to fight but
a system to fight and that is far harder to imagine and understand… and to fight…
ok, now we have a second point to cover…
life is a series of problems to solve… and much of what exist today, exists
to solve a problem… philosophy is a means to solve a problem and government
is meant to solve a problem and history is to solve a problem and science
is to solve a problem, in other words, we have created many diverse means
to solve problems, from institutions to government to academic solutions…
schools and universities are a solution to a problem and what they teach
are introductions to the problems that need to be solved and what problems
have been solved already and by what means…
so our system of government was a solution to a problem…but if a system no longer
solve our problems, it is to be changed… and the problem to our system is not
that the system doesn’t work, it does, but it has been hijacked by those who use/game
the system for their advantage… and that is the problem to be solved today…
we must return the system to working for the majority and not the small, moneyed
minority…not to fight the man, but to fight the system that has been bought
and corrupted…
my father believed in work and a fair day pay for a day worked…
I was delivering newspapers at age 9 and I also had a job mowing lawns
along with my paper route…the only stretch of my life where I didn’t have a
job was my first three years of high school…otherwise I have been working all my life…
I have contributed my entire life…to work in a system that takes advantage of
everyone is not in my best interests nor is it in yours…I have no problem with
a honest day pay for a honest day’s work and that is the point… it is no longer
a honest day’s pay for honest day work…what is the solution for getting a honest
day pay for a honest day work? we are no longer being paid an honest wage for our
work… and in fact, those who are gaming the system are trying to steal our pensions,
via dishonest plans like the ones that want to take away our social security and replace
it with market accounts in which wall street will steal most of our money… once
again gaming the system… so we need to understand life is a series of problems
and we need to begin to solving our current problems in order not to leave our
children an unholy mess…
Kropotkin
I have been on vacation this week… Went to LA and parts around LA…
Was in Santa Monica when Comey was fired…
I am feeling more refreshed and alive after this week…
as I have described before, Philosophy is about values and science
is about facts…What values are most important and why, is philosophy…
Now given the universe has features… gravity and motion and weight for example,
we have those facts gained from Science, we then conclude what value are important
in a universe of gravity and motion and weight, what values are important…
given that the universe is clearly chaotic and random and unpredictable,
we must have values/philosophies that are reflected in this chaotic universe…
for example, the old idea of the clockmaker universe no longer exists because
the universe is chaotic and random, totally different from a clockmaker universe…
so we discard that clockmakers universe along with the Ptolemaic universe as
systems that we once had that described the universe… so for those keeping track…
we have had multiple descriptions/idea’s of the universe…Ptolemaic and the clockmaker…
we have had multiple descriptions/idea’s of different political systems and we have had multiple
descriptions of economic systems…for example, in the political systems, we have monarchy,
dictatorship, oligarchy, representative democracy among others and for economic systems,
we have hunter/gatherer, capitalism, communism, mercantilism among other economic
systems…
so along with philosophy working out the values necessary for a given physical universe,
so working out values for our current scientific understanding of the universe…
we also work out the values for our economic system and our political system…
in other words, the values that are important in an capitalistic system are different
then the values in a communistic system…
the different realities creates different values… it doesn’t change the facts…
the sun will still be 93 million miles from earth and so it doesn’t undercut science…
but the values of a society changes if it is a capitalistic system or a communistic society…
and that is philosophy job… thus we have a connection with Nietzsche… who commented
that the legislator creates values… he was referring to Jesus for example…
but those values only work within a specific system and if you change systems
or if the system changes within itself, the values must change to reflect those changes…
America refers to its values as… Truth, justice and the American way of life…
so we have the current administration trampling on, Truth, justice and the American way of life…
so we must have values that reflect the current situation, so we have lies and obstruction,
denying justice… but those values cannot exist for long as they bring about disorder and chaos…
recall we strive for either order or disorder in our systems and the values we create
reflect this drive for order or disorder… to create order, we must, must put in
energy… to maintain order in any system, we must put in energy… a car for example,
we must put in time, money, effort and energy to keep the car, otherwise known as a system,
running… just like a car system, our political SYSTEM, and our economic SYSTEM, we must put
in time, money, effort and energy to maintain our system… and we must have values
that reflect our system…a system like a political system or an economic system
needs values to reflect what the system stands for, what the systems means…
so we connect our idea of values with our idea of systems and we have created a home
for science… it tells us the facts of our universe and we then use philosophy to create
values that make sense of the facts of the universe…notice I have kept away from
any specific values, for example, honesty or dishonesty… as honesty brings about
order in our system and dishonesty brings about disorder, we have a sense of what
values we must be striving for… values that bring about order in our current system…
when the current system changes, we must change our values to reflect those changes
in our current system, be it political or economic or social…
it all ties together…
Kropotkin
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that ALL men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their creator with CERTAIN RIGHTS,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness- that to secure these rights, government is
instituted among men, deriving their just power from
the consent of the governed…
Yesterday, my wife’s cousin, her son graduated from
Hastings Law school in San Francisco… so we went to the city
to see the graduation…as we waited for the ceremony, I was thinking…
being a law graduation, I was thinking about the law…
as I was thinking, I wonder about the law and its effects on
people… I got to thinking about the above passage, where
our founding fathers also thought about the goal of people and
they thought that the goal of people was “life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness”… we often think about what is the meaning of life and here is
one possible definition of the meaning of life, “life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness”…and then I got to thinking about 45 and his attempts to limit
or end this meaning of life for people… and the criteria they used was
citizenship…in other words, if you are not an American citizen, you aren’t
provided or afforded the same rights as an American citizen…The criteria used
is being an American citizen…you only have rights if you are an citizen…
but, but that is not the criteria used by the founding fathers… ALL MEN ARE
CREATED EQUAL… it doesn’t say, ALL AMERICANS CITIZENS ARE CREATED EQUAL…
and another very interesting point made is this, it says, to secure these rights,
government is instituted among men… in other words, these rights are prior, before
the act of creating government…and to secure these rights, government is created to
protect these rights… so we have these rights and then the government is
created to protect these rights…in other words, the right to “life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness” existed before government…and before this idea of
citizenship…the founding fathers thought that these rights were present before
the founding of government…thus is it no longer a question of citizenship…
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL…thus to say, that you can only have these
rights if and only if, you are a citizen is denied in the very words of our founding
fathers… you cannot deny basic rights to anyone because they are not
a citizen because they already have these rights prior to, before the founding
of government…before citizenship comes the “right to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness”…and it says so in the declaration of independence…
now we either accept these words or we deny them and if we deny them,
we deny the basic concepts of what the founding fathers themselves believed
to be true… we cannot cherry pick what beliefs they had and then apply it
to ourselves… either we believe all of it or we don’t believe in any of it…
so to deny basic human rights to people based on whether they are citizens
or not is wrong and fundamentally opposed to what the declaration of independence
very specifically says… ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL… and endowed by their
creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness…and we must grant every single person these rights regardless
if they are a citizen or not… they pass the basic test of our founding fathers
and that is being a human being and by being a human being, they are granted
the inalienable right to, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”…
Kropotkin
so bought I this book in Ojai, “The rise of scientific philosophy”
I was reading the first couple of chapters and notice something interesting…
the author, Hans Reichenbach, claimed that philosophy had already
created language that made philosophy, scientific… he then brought
up Kant… using Kant’s Analytic-synthetic as the basis of this, making philosophy
as scientific…in Wiki, this is what I found…
"the analytic-synthetic distinction… is an semantic distinction, used primarily in
philosophy to distinguish propositions (in particular, statements, that are affirmative
subject-predicate judgements)into two types: analytic propositions and synthetic
propositions. Analytic propositions are true by virtue of their meaning, while synthetic
propositions are true by how their meaning relates to the world…However philosophers
have used the terms in very different ways. Furthermore, philosophers have debated
whether there is a legitimate distinction…
UMMMMMM, a semantic distinction…in other words, not based in reality but in thought…
just like Descartes… how do we define this sentence or these words…not how do
understand our place in the universe or how do we face death or what is the meaning or
purpose of life…it is just another attempt to find certainty in the universe using words
and not actions or the reality of the universe…Kant is another philosopher who is great
because he, like Descartes, wasn’t facing our reality of life and death and meaning, but
in semantics, words and ideas that exist only in our head, in our thoughts…
just like Plato and other “Great” philosophers… he achieved greatness, not in
helping us to become better people or curing our souls or finding new ways to cope
with the realities of life…no, he achieved greatness with words, discussing how
certain concepts are mental concepts and have nothing to do with our reality…
birth and death and all that which exists in between… just mere words talking about
mere words and describing more words, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…
no wonder philosophy has lost touch with the questions of the average person…
it is about words and concepts that have nothing to do with our lives…
return philosophy to the people and what their concerns are and you will return
philosophy to something that matters…
Kropotkin
in thinking about values… as philosophy is about values and science is about
facts…so what are the values of America? America at one time stood for something…
Raygun’s America as a “shining city on the hill”…we, at one time felt, true or not, that
we were morally superior to everyone else… and that is no longer the case… we don’t stand
for anything any more…Trumps America is saying we can no longer afford to feed the poor
and homeless and old…so what is the point then? if we make the value of America being
about having the money to feed people and not in the morality of feeding the poor, then we
stand for nothing…if our value is about feeding the poor, then it doesn’t matter how much
money we have, we feed the poor…our values are defined by our actions…
if we are moved to protect our wealth by lowering taxes, we are making a moral judgement…
if you say, we cannot afford to feed the poor and shelter them, you are making a moral
judgement…what are your values when you make such a statement? We cannot afford to
feed the poor…that is a moral statement…
so what do we as American’s stand for? what values exemplify what America stands for?
what values did you vote for? did you vote to “Make America great again”!!!
then how does allowing the poor and old to starve to death, how does
that “make America great again”? what values are exhibited in “Making America
great again”? what values are you protecting or promoting when you make your priority
limiting how much taxes you pay instead of thinking about how we feed the poor? or
shelter the homeless or educate our children? what are our moral values there?
every action has a moral value, a moral judgment…
what you promote as an action is a moral judgment…
so what moral judgments are you in favor of?
Kropotkin
if I am sick, I go to the doctor… he/she will run through the list to see
what is the problem… are you feverish? do you have the runs? do you have
chills or feel hot? do you have any pains or aches? by working through the list,
which is a method, you can begin to understand what is the illness …
and by finding out what is the illness, you can begin to understand the cure…
I have a fever and pain and aches and am very tired… I have a cold or a fever or
perhaps a virus… the doctor can then look to possible cures based on the symptoms…
you don’t cure a cold by beginning radiation treatments… that cure works on cancer
and other similar illnesses…not on the common cold and understanding the general
illnesses and their possible cures are part and parcel of how doctors cure us…
so I have an illness and I go to the doctor…
but what about all of us having a illness?
we have a national illness and how do we find a cure?
What? a national illness? like bird swine flu or typhoid epidemic?
Yes, but not an illness like a physical illness, an illness where we are sick
but not physically sick… we are sick because we have somehow lost our core values…
there is a malaise out there, a fog like malaise that has infected America and we
have lost our values that made us Americans… We believe that giving millionaire’s
and billionaire’s huge tax cuts is somehow more important then feeding the poor and
giving shelter to those without shelters…it is a mental illness because it is
so delusional as to being beyond the pale… it is mental illness that believing that
starving people and making people homeless will “make America great again”…
the path to “making America great again” is the path to putting people first and
not tax cuts and not concern with how much money I make this year and how much can
I save in taxes from the government… that is not the path to greatness…and only a
small mind could even attempt to justify “making America great again” by depriving
millions of people of basic necessities…“making America great again” is about every single
American having values that necessitates us to make feeding the poor as having a higher
national priority instead of tax cuts for the wealthy…one of the higher values is
having empathy for those who are less fortunate then us…look at those we have
put on the highest pedestal and they are the saints and religious types… we have
understood them as being the highest type or value of a person and without exception
they, the saints and religious types, have made empathy for our fellow human being
as a priority… From Jesus to St. Francis to MLK and Gandhi…
take Saint Frances for example… once a disciple came upon Saint Francis
without clothes in cold, snowy weather… the disciple couldn’t believe that
Saint Francis would shed his clothes in such terrible weather… asking the saint
as to why, why would he go naked in such weather… the Saint replied…
millions of my fellow humans go without proper clothes in such terrible weather and there
is nothing I can do to clothe them, so I go without, in sympathy with those
who have no clothes…we are so impressed with those who have created such values,
that we make a pilgrimages to where they lived and we see their homes and visit their
churches and see how they lived and how they died… but we don’t attempt to be like them…
we don’t attempt to make ourselves great by emulating those who are great and they are
great because they have put the human race, their fellow man, before their own needs…
they have shown empathy for their fellow man and attempt to better the lot of those who
need it most…before “we make America great again” perhaps we should try to make ourselves
great by holding to values that put our fellow human beings first, not by “making America great”
but by making human beings great…one might argue that we can’t all do that…
but why not? why can’t we all begin the task of making ourselves great by following the
path of those who we have deemed to be great in making our fellow human being our priority
and not our selfish needs and desires…as a doctor, my cure for my fellow man is this…
cure your own self by becoming aware and attuned to the needs and wants of your fellow man…
the path to curing America is to cure each and every single one of us, of greed and desire and
“I want this” and “I must have this” the path to American greatness lies in finding our own
greatness and that is in helping our fellow human beings as our primary objective…
you want to “Make America great again”… begin by making yourself great…
Kropotkin
if philosophy is about values, then what values are worth pursuing?
we have “American” values such as has been proclaimed in this saying:
Truth, Justice and the American way"…not too long ago, I don’t remember
which of 45’s henchman said this, but one of them said that, “in order to be safe,
we have to forgo our values”. My question is this, if we forgo our “American” values,
then what exactly are we protecting? If I forgo my freedom in order to be safe,
then what exactly is the point of being safe? This returns us to the age old battle
between those who demand safety over freedom and those who want freedom over
safety…my thinking is simple, if I am not free, what is the point of being safe?
So what values are worth living for and what values are worth dying for?
Is life a “value”, a value above all other values? For me, life itself is not
the supreme value… that there are cases when life is not worth living.
one of the things that happens when you get old is you think about these things…
Again for me, what if I lose the rest of my hearing and that is a distinct possibility…
I had small amount of hearing in my left ear and one day, it just disappeared, again
granted it was not a large amount of hearing, but it was just gone and who is to say that
won’t happen in my other ear… So is being deaf, totally deaf, enough of a deal breaker
to suggest that life is not worth living…no, not in my mind… but is going blind along
with being deaf enough to warrant a decision to end my life…it becomes a much
closer decision now… more like a 50-50 decision… is paralysis enough to create
a decision? Yes, to my mind…loss of physical control such as paralysis is enough to
force a decision one way or another, yes…is loss of mental facilities enough?
yes, very much so…becoming senile is reason enough to want to make the decision
that life is not worth living…for me, it is not enough to physically enjoy life,
one must also mentally enjoy it and without my mental facilities, I wish to end this
existence…
so let us continue on… would loss of physical freedom such as jail be enough to
encourage a decision to end my existence? No, because there is always a chance
to be freed…
so we have talked about personal decisions that might be decided upon
our mental and physical states… but what values are worth living for?
I believe freedom is the highest value we have and losing our freedom
for security is a major loss… but, we can regain our freedom…
so again the possibility exists that we might become free again…
so here HOPE is a value that allows one to continue existence because
HOPE gives one a belief that tomorrow will be a better day…
What if we remove HOPE from people’s lives?
will life be worth living for? No… hope is a value that
gives life some meaning… without hope, what is the point of going on?
so what about truth? is the truth worth living for, worth dying for?
Depends on what truth we are speaking about…
As Pontius Pilate correctly noted, What is the truth?
My truth or truths, are not your truth or truths…
you may believe that security is more important then freedom
and only security is worth living for, not freedom…
My values and your values are not the same and we may disagree about
what is the worth of any given value such as, the value of hope…
How do we reconcile two people having different values?
How do we reach consensus between two people having different values?
and in that, we reach the modern American problem…
how do we reach consensus between competing, different values?
there are those who believe that there can be no finding middle ground…
in other words, there are absolute truths that cannot find compromise
because they are absolute and thus unchanging, past, present and future…
they are values that cannot be about finding middle ground because
those values are absolute and unchanging…
God is a value that is absolute and unchanging and there can be no compromise
or finding a middle ground…it is the believer who has certainty that
cannot brook compromise or the pursuit of a middle ground…to find middle
ground is to break with god’s laws…which are absolute and unchanging…
so what begins as an abstract discussion about values becomes what it is, which
is a discussion about who we are as Americans and what values should we hold dear…
Truth… Justice… and the American way of life…
Truth which has been a victim of the 45 administration because of its
constant lies… Justice which is another victim of the 45 administration
because Justice is bought and sold by the wealthy… pay to play and that
includes Justice…and the American way of life is under attack because
the American institutions are under attack as the former head of the
NSA, James Clapper said yesterday on TV… and when the institutions of
any society are under attack, the society itself is under attack… for the
institutions of a society represent the values of that society…if we put time,
money, effort and energy into an institution, which is a system, that means
we value that institution…if we reduce the time, money, effort and energy into
a institution, we devalue that institution…
it is my belief that one of the key values of any society, any civilization is
its pursuit of justice for ALL of its citizens…the smaller number of citizens
that are allowed justice, the more decayed the society is… Rome fell in part,
because the number of citizens given justice became smaller and smaller,
thus Roman citizens lost faith in getting justice in the Roman society and
when people lose faith in getting justice in a society, they disengage
in that society… as we see today in our modern society… people are disengaging
because they feel they cannot get justice in our modern society…For example,
who can get justice when lawyers cost so much money… and lawyers are indispensable
in any effort to get justice… the average cost of paying for a partner in a law
firm is 600 dollars an hour… who can afford that? Not the average person…
getting justice is a matter of being able to afford it and the average person cannot
afford the cost of getting justice and so they lose faith in the judicial system and
disengage…
why put money, time, effort and energy into a system that one has lost faith in?
so this question of values has lead us here…
so what values drive you? and more importantly, why?
Kropotkin
As I am reading of and about such thinkers such as Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza,
Locke and Hume among others, I am forced to confront my thoughts about this
question which haunted those thinkers, Knowledge…what it is and how do we
have certainty about our knowledge…how do we know the real world?
and how certain are we about it? there is certainly a school of thought
that suggest we cannot have any knowledge about the real world… we
cannot be certain about our knowledge of the world…
yet, we do know the world… I can see tree’s and plants and grass
and dogs and cats and sky and sun and stars and light and table and
my computer…the question really becomes this, what does it mean?
for example, my daughter has two cats… I have the scars on my arm
to prove it…the question becomes what does it mean, I see the cats…
I must do something with that knowledge… I must interpret it…
and it is in that interpretation I put a human spin on the information of the
universe…I see the cats and I interpret it in terms of my humanness… I
understand it with knowledge of being human… I give all information,
all knowledge, a human understanding, I interpret it in human terms because
that is how I think… in terms of being human and what it means to be human…
there is no knowledge that isn’t thought of in terms of human understanding…
even such “objective” thinking about the universe as Mathematical thinking…
I see one cat plus one cat equal two cats…that is true because we think that way…
our knowledge of the universe is bias because we see all knowledge in terms of being
human and having human categories… such as Aristotle’s and Kant’s categories…
they are a human inventions… time, space, weight, height, are human categories…
given a human slant…from a human perspective…our knowledge of the universe
is gleaned from a human standpoint, a human understanding, from human categories…
aliens from outer space will understand such things as math, science, history, philosophy
from their standpoint, their perspective, from their categories…we create
our own reality…now it this innate??? no, I don’t believe so… I believe
as we go about our lives, we gain an understanding of the universe from our experience…
thus, as we humans travel through time, from Egypt to Greece to Rome to the medieval
experience and on toward today, we gain experience which we pass down as idea’s and
experience and culture and schooling and within institutions… this experience gathering
lead each generation to a closer and closer understanding of the values we need to
gather to lead our lives…progress as we understand it, gaining knowledge is right,
but within limits, the actual progress is in gaining an understanding of the values
we have and need to go about our lives… it is not in the understanding that
sun is 93 million miles from earth, an understanding the Greeks, for example, didn’t have,
but what we do with that understanding, which is what values are about…what does
it mean to know that the sun is 93 million miles from earth…what value do we gain from
that knowledge? that is the point of “progress”… in gaining understanding about the values
we live with…not in the facts we gain…because we have to interpret those facts to
mean anything and we interpret those facts in terms of values, human values…
Kropotkin
I have a car… my car breaks down…
I take the car to the mechanic and say, my car broke down…
now the mechanic isn’t just going to start taking parts out of the car,
no, he is going to ask questions about what happened…
he will say, what happened… I say the car just stopped…
so he says, was there any different sounds just before the car stopped…
uh, yes, I heard something…ok, what did it sound like he asked…
what the mechanic is doing is simple, he is using a method to discover
what is wrong with the car… a method is simply tool, a problem solving tool…
then once the mechanic gets to the point of actually being able to open the hood and
look at the car engine… he then has other tools to open up or pull out engine parts
to see if they are in working order… now, he has hammers and screwdrivers
and pliers and other tools to problem solve this issue of the car breaking down…
so when you answer the questions, you either include or exclude car problems…
doctors use the same technique… I go to the doctor and say, I don’t feel well…
the doctor will say, ok, what is wrong? I say, I feel nauseous and have a headache…
the doctor with that information can exclude possible issues like a broken leg or
a hearing loss and include issues like the flu or a virus depending on what the symptoms
are…the doctor can either begin with an hypothesis, he has the flu and be
various questions rule in or rule out having the flu or the doctor can look to
various symptoms and from them begin to make a guess as to what is the issue…
these questions by the doctor is once again, a method which is another word for
a tool…there are several methods or tools that the doctor can use to discover
or ascertain what is wrong with the patient…
at that point, the doctor has other tools to deal with any given problem for example
if I seem to have food poisoning, the doctor would use one tool, rest or bed rest to
solve the problem and that is what is really at work here… the use of tools to solve
problems… what tool or method one uses to solve problems
we have a problem and let us use method or tools to better understand the problem
my question or problem is, what is the meaning of life?
I have several different ways or methods or tools to attempt to discover
the answer to this problem… I can create a general hypothesis… the meaning of
life is to worship god forever… this is the religious and one particular religion in
particular answer to the question, what is the meaning of life?
so, I begin, the meaning of life is to worship god forever…ok,
this asked the question, is there a god? I must understand if there
is a god before I can include or exclude this possible question…
if I conclude there is a god, then it includes the possibility that the
meaning of life is to worship god forever, but if by method or tools,
I conclude that there is no god, then my hypothesis that the meaning of life
is to worship god forever is wrong and I must try another hypothesis…
the meaning of life is to make money…so I, by a method or tool, ask
questions that attempt to include or exclude this possibility…
or I can attempt another means to answer the question of is there
meaning to life by looking at the evidence and not by creating a hypothesis…
so, I look about me and so what method or tool would I use to help me answer
this question…I might list several different answers to the question of is there
a meaning of life… so one answer is to make money or one possibility is to
worship god, one answer is the answer of the founding fathers, life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness as an answer to the meaning of life… I would then find other
possibilities such as pursing goals or enjoying life or traveling or pursing knowledge as
some possible answers to the question of what is the meaning of life…
and with each possible answer, I must somehow include or exclude those
possibilities…so I use a method or a tool to narrow my search for what is
the answer to the question of what is the meaning of life? the problem
is what is the meaning of life and the solution to that problem is…
now it seems to me, using the scientific method requires having a scientific
question… for example, a problem might be how do I discover how far
is mars from the earth… this is a simple search for facts in which I can
use measurements, facts, to discover the answer to my problem…I don’t for example
use values to discover what is the distance from the earth to mars… truth, justice
and the American way of life will not answer the question of how far is it to mars…
math and other tools will answer my problem…so it is all about using the right tools,
the right methods to discover the or answer any given problem…
answering the question about what is the meaning of life might be a question about
values and thus becomes a philosophical problem and not a scientific problem which is
about facts…and once again it becomes a question of what tools or method I use to
answer the question of what is the meaning of life? different questions require different
tools or methods and perhaps we have failed to answer the question or to solve the problem
of what is the meaning of life because we haven’t explored all the tools or methods to
answer the question… perhaps we must find a new method or tool to answer the question
of what is the meaning of life…Newton and Einstein were faced with problems
that needed solutions, they created new methods, new tools that allowed them to
answer their question, Newton created Calculus and Einstein created the theory
of Relativity and by creating those methods or tools, there were able to solve their
problem… so in solving a problem what tools or method are needed?
if you don’t have the right tools or methods available, then the right tool or method
must be created to solve that problem… if the question is, what is the meaning of life
and that question or problem hasn’t been solved in all this time, then perhaps, we don’t
have or we haven’t created the right tool or method to solve our question…
if the question of the meaning of life is a question of values, then we must
focus our tools, our methods on this idea of values and their relationship to
the meaning of life… what values give us the meaning of life?
and then the question seems to begin to come into focus… we are asking about
which values give life meaning… love, justice, hope, faith, all become possibilities
for the answer to the question of what is the meaning of life… so how would we further
reduce our problem into more manageable portions? what method or tool would we use
to further understand our question??? solve our problem??? we would then
explore the question of values, what are they? how many values are they?
are they 5 values or 50 values or 50 million values and what are they? let us list
all the possible values and from that list, we can by a tool or method, include or exclude
values as being an answer to our problem…this is one possible way or method to
solve our problem of what is the meaning of life… there are many different ways
to solve our problem… so what method or tool would you use to solve our problem?
what is the meaning of life?
Kropotkin
As noted, we have a series of problems to solve…
now different idea’s flow from this…
the problems flow and we then try to classify those problems and
solutions into categories like Philosophy and history and science
and politics, both theory and action,
and different theories abound as to how to answer those theories…
for example, the religious say “all your problems will solved by god, trust in god”
the hedonist say, “there is no problem or you can’t solve these problems, go,
eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow, we die”
every major philosopher and thinker we have has tried to answer
their particular question, everyone from Confucius to Jesus to Mohammed to
Newton to Einstein to Lincoln to Socrates to St. Augustine… each of them have
had a question or a series of questions and the answers they gave, we
have studied in books and in that place in which we spell out problems and
answers, schools and universities…
How do we properly education our young into what we think is important
so they can maintain and expand our understanding of the universe…
Schools and universities…
all our institutions are responses to problems of one kind or another…
how do we educate, schools, how do we protect ourselves, police in the small
scale and the defense department in the large scale, how do we discover what
the universe is and made up, science,
you can go on and on, every single question we have has been provided
either an institution, the judicial system for example, or we have methods,
like science and philosophy and political theory that help us understand
the questions and whatever answers we have…
so we have a problem, one solution is a dictatorship, a political dictatorship
and we then go to school to that study the question that brought about that
dictatorship and then we talk about why, why we don’t want dictatorships as
an answer to this question or questions…every single aspect is tied up, neat
and clean into questions and answers and why we study those aspects…
so I ask once again, as I have asked before, what is the problem you are trying to solve?
What is the problem society is trying to solve? What is the problem that threatens, you
personally and us collectively as a society?
finding the right question is as important if not more important then
finding the right answer…and because we have failed to clearly
state the problem, we cannot clearly begin to answer the questions
that bedevil society and ourselves individually…
so what are our problems? collectively and individually…
begin there and we regain our focus on what our problems are and what
might be possible solutions…
Kropotkin
now depending on how we understand a problem or a class of problems, we
might turn to reason to understand and solve that problem or we might turn
to emotion… some problems require an emotional understanding and some
some problems require a reasoned understanding… thus we have a choice
in how we approach every single problem, we can either think about it or we can
emotional react about it… the world is a comedy if you think and the world is a
tragedy if you feel…
part of the problem we face when dealing with problems is the wide
variety of possible tools or method we might use to understand and
solve that problem…part of our failure is we often use the wrong tool
or method to solving a problem… if we pick the right tool or method,
be it reasoning or emotional, we give ourselves a chance to be able to solve
that problem or problems…
we need to rethink how we approach not solutions but how we approach
problems… this is part of our reevaluation of values… how do we understand
problems and answers…
Kropotkin
When we read thinkers like Hume or Kant or Socrates or Adam Smith or Karl Marx,
we should be thinking, what is the problem or problems they are trying to solve…
what is their analysis of the problem and what is their solution…
when you are reading a person or thinker, you are engaged in their problems
and their solutions…some problems are evident and easily understood,
some problems are not clear and very hard to understand, but the bottom
line is this, there is a problem and here is one possible solution…
every book ever written has at its core, its center, a problem and
the book either deals with the problem or deals with the solution or both…
so write a book or a paragraph or a line about your problem and what tools
or methods will you use to solve your problem…
Kropotkin
OK, so we understand that life is a series of problems to be solved…
and we have our tools that are needed to solve those problems…
the tools can be methods, the tools can be categories like
philosophy or religion, the tools can be ideologies like capitalism or democracy…
so we have several different ways to go about solving a problem…
first of all however, we have to figure out if we have a problem…
as has been stated, the first step to any situation is to determine if
there is a problem and then we can decide what tool we need to solve that
problem…
I have stated it before but I shall state it again… I believe that
belief in god, belief in religion is one of the, if not the greatest
obstacle to the betterment of the human race… I believe that
belief in religion has damaged the human race in ways we can’t even
understand…
I believe that religion/god is a problem that needs a solution…
upon what do I base that on?
belief in god/religion has lead people to certainty and the path
to wisdom does not lie in certainty but in doubt…
if we are certain, we don’t seek any other answers…
for example, if Einstein was certain that Newton was in fact right,
there would have been no reason for Einstein to search for a solution to
those problems… why search when you are certain you have the solutions already?
it is only in doubt that we make progress and solve problems…most all advances
in the world, scientifically and philosophical and socially are because of doubt,
not being certain…
so let us doubt…if you are certain the universe is a certain way,
that god exist and the goal of the universe is to die and be reborn
and spend eternity worshipping god in heaven…then no other possibilities
will occur to you, no other options will influence your thinking…why
entertain any other possibilities when you are “certain” that if you follow
the rules of god and you will die and be reborn into an eternal heaven, then
no other choices exist before you… that is the path of human beings, you don’t doubt it…
and therein lies the problem… you are so certain that no other choices occur to you…
your path is set and you cannot change your path without violating your basic core beliefs…
but the path to both individual and the species survival is this path of being able
to adapt to changes in the environment and changing your path… but you can’t change because
of your beliefs…progress, the ability to create solutions to any given problem lies
in the ability to adapt to new solutions and if you are already committed to one path
and one path only, you cannot find any new solutions to a problem…you cannot problem
solve because you are already committed to a certain problem (the only question to
the religious is how does one find salvation and what is the path to salvation… how to
saved is the only question that the religious seeks solutions to) but being saved is not
the only question human beings face and seeking religious solutions to every problem
is not a viable means of solving problems…but in doubt, doubt leads one to seek
alternative solutions beyond the religious solutions to the problems of being human…
the religious seeks religious solutions to every problem… but problems solving requires
one to adapt and understand what tools are needed to solve that particular problem and
quite often the religious solution is not the answer to any given problem…
so for global warming for example, the answer given by the religious is to trust
god… but that solution will only suffice if you actually believe in god or believe
in a religious solution to a scientific and social problem…
religious belief forces one on one and only one path when problem solving
requires individual and societies to seek many different solutions and this
is the problem with religions and religious belief… it only allows religious
solutions to political, scientific, philosophical problems… this is the failure
of religious belief… it only allows one path to a solution when we must
explore several different paths to find a solution to any given problem…
every problem to the religious is a religious problem and in real life
there are many different problems and many different solutions and
those solutions require thinking about problems not just from a religious
standpoint but from a scientific, political, philosophical standpoint…
we must open our eyes to finding solutions wherever a solution is found
be it scientific, religious, political or philosophical or even another
path outside of those listed…
the path to finding solutions is not ideological but practical…
given a certain problem, what possible solutions can be found…
and what methods or tools do we need to find a solution…
Kropotkin
the great failure of philosophy and of society is to search for certainty
when no such thing exists… we have wasted many pages, many years
searching for certainty in knowledge and certainty in morals and certainty
in life when no such thing as certainty exists at all…
once we approach our problem without the question of certainty hanging
about, we can finally begin to make progress in questions that have
bedeviled human beings since the beginning of time…
Lose certainty as a factor in our search for understanding
and accept the fact we cannot be certain of anything…
base our thinking and our philosophy on the fact we cannot be certain
about anything because what exactly can we be certain about?
facts… facts change all the time… values… values change all the time…
scientific truths… they change all the time… religious certainty… that is the road
to failure…
our universe is a chaotic, uncertain, unpredictable universe
with no certainty anywhere…we must begin all our thinking
with this notion that there is no certainty of anything…
and go from there…
begin with uncertainty and philosophize and think from there…
Kropotkin
this is a topic I have been thinking about for quite a while now…
We in America have this vision that our activities lead to
the ultimate goal which is the house with a white picket fence,
a two car garage with a yard in back, two children and a dog and a cat…
that is the American dream…a lovely place in the suburbs where the sun shines
all day and the grass is mowed every Saturday morning…
however several questions come into mind while thinking about this American fantasy…
what if… what if this is just another false dream while the reality of our lives is something else?
to understand our love affair with private property… we find the philosopher for whom
the idea of private property was his ideal and that ideal was passed unto the middle class of
both the UK and the US…John Locke… his defense of property has passed into our
collective conscience and drive the middle and lower class to this day…
as we recall from a prior post, the founding fathers felt that there were inalienable
rights, among them, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness… and these rights,
for the founding fathers, existed before government and was the reason for the creation of
government…now for the founding fathers “inalienable rights” were derived from Locke
who put property as the key feature that existed before the government and was the reason
for the creation of government, now the founding fathers took from Locke the idea that
the holding of property was the basis of freedom… you were free if you held property,
that was guaranteed to be held sacred from the government… for Locke, the main purpose
of government was to secured for the landowner his right to keep his property…
the only purpose of government was to maintain the landowner property as the landowner
property…to Locke this was the very definition of freedom… and the
founding fathers keep this purpose for government as the way to maintain private
property for landowners… to maintain it from other people attempting to take it and to
maintain it from the government taking his land… in large part, this is why the founding fathers
wanted a limited government… if you allow a strong government, it might be tempted to
take your land…you could almost make the argument the entire point of government for
the founding fathers was to protect property for the landowner…
the phase they used was life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…
with liberty being the holding of property and the pursuit of happiness
being the pursuit of property/land…
We have to this day kept this idea of property… but we do allow
another understanding of land… we have private property but
we also have public land… land that is held for all the people, by all the people…
we have parks both in cities and public parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone…
so we have expanded our concept of land to include public ownership of land…
we also have public domain ideas whereas the government can take private land for
public use… so we feel that at times the public need for private land out ways
the private need for the land…
we have expanded Locke’s idea to include the right of government to take land
that is necessary for the public good even though it damages the idea of private property…
situations and circumstances may require us to expand our idea’s of private and public
property…so it is under this idea that we examine the idea of property…
the notion of private property makes a whole lot more sense back in the day,
when 5 million people occupied the United States and we had an entire
continent to expand to… but the idea of the frontier disappeared when it was
decided that we no longer had a frontier and that date was in 1894…
(the government actually made this decision that there was no more frontier
in 1894, it became a legal fact)…
we no longer have the land that the founding father had to expand and explore…
and this is a crucial fact…given we have over 300 million citizens, we no longer have
the land needed to offer every single citizen the opportunity to hold private property…
the reality has changed and we must change with it…
but let us hold off on the practical realities of today and try something else…
let us explore this idea that the goal, purpose of human beings is to hold land/
property…we must understand that we exist in a different reality then generations
before us existed in… we are an age of limited resources and limited land…
we can no longer offer an ideal of private property… a house with a white picket fence
is no longer feasible given the realities of our time…
but this leads us to a even more basic idea… the idea that having property is
even a goal worth pursuing…or even that given history, that the idea
of private property was worth pursuing…
an brief look at history shows us that land is land and the creatures that
exist on the land had no sense of private property… even human beings
didn’t have a sense of private property until fairly recently in our history…
hunter/gatherers didn’t have private property… they simple moved with the
food… if the herd of deer moved, they moved with the deer to maintain the food
supply… land was simply not the resource as we think of it… it was just there…
feeding all creatures great and small…human beings have existed for
over a million years and it has only been in the last 10,000 years that we
have begun to understand private property as we do today…
the founding of cities and the creation of our agriculture society
begins that idea of private property…
so it is a relatively recent thought that brings us this idea of private property…
most of human history doesn’t have this idea…
now why this idea? by this I mean, think about it…
the concept of private property is really an artificial one…
how are we able to even tell which land is my land and which land
is your land? we have entire elaborate system to judge where my land
begins and your land ends…and we have fought wars, both private and public
to clear up this issue of where does my land begin and where does your land
end…wars fought over land has killed millions of people, almost as many
people who have died in religious wars…
but this land we fight over… we can’t even tell where one land begins and another ends…
drive over the border between say, Canada and the US… if you don’t know exactly which land is
which, you can’t even tell the difference between Canadian land and US land…
but we have one line being American and one line being Canadian and we can’t even tell
which is which… you’re being American and you’re being Canadian exists because
of an artificial border where you can’t even tell which land is which and private property
is the exact same thing… we fight wars and go to court and brawl over land in which
we can’t even tell which land is our land without appeals to surveyors and governments
and the court system…
this appeal of private property being our god given right and being the reason
for and the existence of government no longer stands…
we can no longer use of private property as being the basis of
our “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as we no longer
have the resources of land to promise everyone a chance
to afford buying land…
take a room… make it a moderate size room… put 5 people in that room…
then divide that room into parts where 2 people “own” 90 % of that room
and the other 3 share 10% of the room…upon which basis would you
divide that room into 90% and 10%? this is our modern world in a nutshell…
we have a small number of people owning a large share of land and upon
what basis do we allow this? Either they Inherited it or they bought it…
so those without money aren’t allow access to the land in any case…
so we have land divided up and we can’t even justify our reasoning for
this divided up the land… upon which basis would you divide up land
for the purpose of ownership of land? what logical reasons could you
use to justify ownership of land?
look at land and ask yourself, why does this land here belong to him
and that land belong to her and that land belong to them when the land
in question looks exactly the same? the owning of land, private property
is not a logical issue, it is an emotional issue… we feel justified to own land
based on emotional reasons, not on any logical or justified reasons…
we know that people and cultures in the past existed without recourse to the use
of private property… so this notion of private property being inherent in people
does not work… the ownership of private property is an artificial idea and any artificial
idea can be change or modified in whatever way deemed necessary given the changing
conditions … we have arrived at the point where we must, because of changing
conditions, change our ideas about owning private property…
Kropotkin