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