a new understanding of today, time and space.

The question of man, who are we and what is our possibilities…

we have had many different answers…the Buddha said we are about
suffering and some have said we are about self-interest and others have
said we are about god and some have said, we are about the search for
knowledge…

but these are all secondary possibilities…

they are not the primary answer to who we are and what is our possibilities…

the first and foremost answer to the question of who we are and what
are our possibilities is simply this, we are social creatures…

you don’t think about humans alone, no, you think about human in
as they are… in groups or a society or a family…

we do not and cannot exist alone… that is where we must first
start with any understanding of the human creature…

we exist within a group…we are social creatures who need and must
exists within a group…

that is the beginning of understanding who we are and what are our possibilities…

we are group creatures and we can only find our possibilities within a group…

we can only find out who we are by the comparison and contrasting
ourselves with other human beings…we measure ourselves, as it were,
with other human beings… and in that measurement we see, where we are
as human beings…this comparison between us humans is one way
we find out who we are…

bob is a friendly guy…it is only by comparison can we understand that
bob is a friendly guy… we can find out if we are fast or smart or
clever or tall only by comparing, measure ourselves against someone else…
that doesn’t mean life is a competition… competition is just another way
to measure ourselves against other human beings…

let us look at a particular circumstance… what if we all acted
with only self interest in groups… say the family group…
what if families members acted only with self interest…
that family would fail… a group only works when
enough members act within the group context…
take a basketball team… what if every member of the team played
only with their self interest in mind? that team wouldn’t win one
game…for a group, any group to succeed, you must have the group individuals
act with the group in mind… not with every member acting only with
their own self interest in mind…you cannot name me one group
situation where the group succeeds where the individuals members
of the group only have their self interest in mind…

and yet, believers in capitalism would have us believe that
capitalism succeeds because of the individual members
having their self interest fulfilled… why does a rule that
doesn’t work anywhere else, work here?

it doesn’t… … and the failure is self-evident in massive
wealth inequality and the widespread suffering in the
capitalist world…here suffering is not the cause of things,
but the result of things…as suffering is not a cause but
a result…

every team, family, work situation that has more then 1 person,
is a situation where one must engaged in working for the team and not
achieving personal self interest before the team, family or work situation…

we must begin with understanding, that we are social creatures and that
we can only exist within a group situation and in any group situation,
we cannot have members of the group practice their own self interest
before the group because that will lead, sooner or later to group failure…

these are the beginning of the understanding of who we are and what are our possibilities…

so let us look at what are our possibilities…

achieving our possibilities is only possible within a social context, within
a group… we cannot achieve anything within a personal, individual context…
I can only understand how far I have come as a human being within the context
and comparison with other human beings… am I a good person? only comparing myself
to other people can I learn that answer…I am better then some and not as good as others…
I can use the ones who are good people to become my teachers and I can learn to become
a better person using those better people as a model of how to be good…

thus the value of a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi or a Socrates… we can compare
and contrast ourselves with these good people and then begin to understand who we
are and what is possible for us…

I may not be able to run a 4 minute mile, but I can follow Socrates or Descartes
or MLK and become a better person… I can follow philosophy and learn what it
means to pursue wisdom… but it is only in context and comparison that I can learn
who I am and what possibilities exists for me… I can join a team of
people who are trying to discover who they are and what is possible for them…
just another group of humans… and that is all we are and all we can ever become…
group of people… that is the beginning and the end of our understanding of
who we are and what can we become…the group… be it a large group, millions or a small
group, a family… but not individually… we cannot learn who we are alone…

it requires a group, a society, a city, a state, a culture, a team for us to learn
who we are and what is possible…

Kropotkin

as noted before, so much of the enlightenment arguments,
was based on their readings of the Greeks and Roman writers…

their ideal of morality was based on Cicero, for example…

and their idea’s about toleration and not using authority as a basis
of their idea’s also came from their readings of the Romans/Greeks…

so, on whose idea’s should we base our idea’s upon?

the Greeks, Romans, medieval, Renaissance, or the enlightenment?

Kropotkin

i have commented upon this idea of myths and biases
and prejudices and superstitions…and I have commented
upon them negatively…but why? what does it matter that
we have such codes… in fact, these things, myths and biases
and prejudices and superstitions are a good thing…
they help us follow the past and in doing so, we don’t get
carried away with modern notions that have no basis in
traditions or facts or logic…the old ways, the old myths
are the basis of our society and we should always follow them
for they are the only true basis of society that is possible…

the traditionalist argues from the basis of, the past having served
as the collected experience of our ancestors, are the true basis
of society… in other words, the past, because it works and has
work well, is experience we should follow because it did work well…

the new stuff hasn’t been tried and lacks experience and thus is theoretical…
it hasn’t been tried and true like the past experiences which are embodied
in our institutions and politics and history… this stuff works, which
is why we should keep and maintain the past, knowledge of
the past which is based on experience is better then will oh wasp of
modern thinking that is based on unproven and untested theories…

the theory is because the past worked for our fathers and grandfathers,
it will work for us…the past being our laws and institutions and political
methods and ways of doing things… stick with these things, says the conservative,
because they have worked in the past…the new is unproven and untried…

so the conservative argues from the principle of experience… we have experience
with the old ways which have worked, so let us stick with them because we
know they do work… look at society today… it works… that is the conservative
argument…

the liberals says, look around you… see the conflict and damage done by
the old ways… it can be improved… and it must be improved because
we evolve in such things as technology and science and we have such
a growth of population that we must, we must engage in the evolution
of idea’s and in the improvement of laws and institutions and
political methods to match the evolution of our society and culture…

we must engage in the evolution of our activities because they have
evolved… we no longer exists in a world of horse drawn carriages
or of authority given by the church… we must change and adapt to
the current environment we find ourselves in…

the conservative says, no, the old way was good enough for my father and
it is good enough for me…neglecting the fact that your father
also adapted his institutions and society and actions due to the changing
environment and changing conditions… and we must do the same…
as the environment changes, we must change…

one of the things that conservatives fall trap to is this…
because of their faith in habits and myths and biases and
superstitions and that they don’t challenge or attack them…
they see things through the eyes of those habits and myths and
superstitions…

what does this mean? well, let us try this…
one argument for god is, every tree is an example of god
creating the world… when I see a tree, I see god…
that is childhood training and habit working…
we see things through the eyes of our childhood habits
and myths and biases and prejudices and superstitions…

we see something and we interpret it in terms of our childhood
myths, habits, bias, prejudices and superstitions…
if we are taught that liberals are evil or troublemakers or
wrong… we see liberals through that lens of the myths
we were taught… some around here have proclaimed
that “being liberal is a mental disease”… those are not
responding to liberals, but they are responding to their
childhood training… they see liberals in terms of their
childhood bias and prejudice and myths and habits…

they haven’t freed themselves of their childhood biases and habits…
and everything is seen through the lens of their childhood habits and beliefs
and biases…Liberals are evil… and they were taught this as children…
and they see liberals and liberalism throught this lens…

“it is not enough for the courage of your convictions,
you must have courage enough for an attack upon your convictions”

and conservatives don’t have the courage for an attack upon their
convictions…

they see life through their myths and habits and prejudices of childhood…
and not through eyes that have been opened by new realities and the
evolution of such things as technology and science and the ever changing
enviroment we find ourselves in…

we must adapt and change with the new realities of our life…
we must evolve or we will die… that is the lesson of nature…
if animals don’t evolve to adapt to the changing enviroment,
the animals die… it is just that simple… and we too must
evolve and adapt to our ever changing conditions… and that means
seeing our evironment without the preconceived notions of childhood
myths and habits and biases and prejudices and superstitions we were
raised with… to see our world with eyes not prejudice with old
habits and superstitions…for if we do see with eyes of
habits and myths and superstition, we will see the world wrongly
and with the prejudices of ages past…to see the black man as
inferior, is to see the black man with the prejudices and superstitions of the past…

we must see everything with new eyes and eyes that haven’t been
determined by past myths and habits and biases and prejudices
and superstitions of the past…

to see clear, we must see with eyes of experience that
aren’t clouded by the myths and biases of the past…

my experience is that the black man is equal to me in every respect
and that women are equal to me in every respect and
any bias or superstition from my past that says otherwise, is wrong…

but to see without bias or habit or myth or prejudice, we must search
who we are and we must see with new eyes and we cannot accept without
understanding where this habit or this myth comes from…we must
engage in understanding who we are and this self engagement is hard
and lenthy and not without risk… but it must be done…

for to be human means we must engage without our past
myths, habits of childhood giving us a wrong understanding of what we see…

to see clear is hard… but to see wrong is to see and act upon
information that is bias and prejudice is even harder, for it
leads one to have the wrong information and the wrong course of action…

in other words, if we hold to our childhood bias and prejudice that
black men are evil or wrong, we will be wrong in our actions in regards to
black men…or if we learn that liberals are evil, then any action we take
in regards to liberals will be wrong because it is based on the wrong information
regarding to liberals…or said another way, garbage in, garbage out…

so, what bias or habits or myths do you act upon?
you don’t even know because you have never engaged in an attack
upon your convictions… exposing the myths and habits and prejudices
you act upon every single day…the wrong myths and wrong habits
and the wrong prejudices…which leads one to the wrong actions…

if your map is wrong, any attempt to use that map will lead one astray because
the map doesn’t have the right information to use to guide one through the area…
you will become lost… and we have become lost as a society… and this is why…
we are using the wrong map and you are using the wrong map…

so what map should we be using? or said another way, what ideology
should we be using as our guide into life? ism’s and ideologies are just maps…
so what isms and ideology should we be using?

Kropotkin

what I about individuals having biases and myths and prejudices
that are wrong, holds true for a society…

we, as a society, believed that slavery was not only right, but
necessary… we held to that myth and bias and prejudice and
superstition for many a year… until we were forced to overcome it…

if a society holds to a myth or prejudice that is harmful or
just plain wrong, it will take actions based upon those myths or
prejudices that will then lead society to a wrong place… because
the starting place is wrong, the ending place will also be wrong…
it is the nature of a map, that any starting place that is wrong,
will lead one to a wrong place…

so if we start with a wrong place, we will end up in the wrong place…

if we accept the myth of the second admendment which is the right to bear arms…
we have thus have given the rights to the bearer of arms over the right of
people not to be shot… in other words, by we have given owner
of guns, rights we have denied those who are shot…

we say that the second admendment rights are greater then the rights of
those who have been shot…

this has been dismissed by this argument…

we accept the notion, that a person cannot, CANNOT, shout fire
in a crowded theater because the ensuing panic will cause many
injuries, even deaths… thus we acknowledge that the right to be safe
overrules one’s free speech protection… we cannot allow free speech
which is a guaranteed right in the constitution, to supersede our right
to be safe in a theater… we curtailed free speech, a guaranteed right,
to allow people to be safe in a theatre…we also can do the exact
same thing, give people the right to be safe by curtailing guns in America…
if we allow guns right precedence over our personal safety, then we can also
allow one to shout fire in a crowded theatre under the same idea…
which admendment are we going to priority to? we have given priority to the safety
of people over free speech in one case… shall we do the same and give priority to
people’s safety over the second admendment?

so shall we follow prejudice?

in another example, we claim that America is the greatest country on earth…
and we then follow this opinion with actions based upon this opinion…
we have invaded far away countries with adverse reactions here in the US…
We suffer in part because we have taken actions based on our wrong
bias, our wrong prejudice and we are damaging ourselves in the process…

society too can suffer from having a wrong bias, a wrong superstition,
a wrong prejudice and we can tell if they are wrong because of the results
of any action taken based on the wrong bias or wrong superstition…

we must engage in a national discussion of who we are…

we must make an attack upon our convictions to discover
who we really are… just like individuals must make the same effort…

but who has the courage for an attack upon their convictions?
and who has the courage for leading an attack upon our national
convictions?

Kropotkin

1 + 1… is this a problem or a solution?

1 + 1 = 2…is this a problem or a solution?

so for most people, 1 + 1 is a problem…
and 1 + 1 =2 is a solution…

now is E = mc2… is this a problem or a solution?

now most people won’t know if this is a problem or a solution because
most people don’t understand this… they can’t tell if it is a problem or a solution…

now for some people, they can’t tell if 1 + 1 is a problem…
how would you explain to someone that it is a problem and not
a solution?

this tells us that sometimes we can’t tell what is the problem and what is
the solution…

so we have Nietzsche eternal reoccurrence… is that a problem or is that
a solution?

now the vast majority of people have no idea if this is a problem or a solution…

it doesn’t make people smart if they know and dumb if they don’t know…

so, is life a problem or a solution?

now most people won’t even venture a guess because
most people don’t even think in these terms…

life just is… it isn’t a problem or a solution… to most people…

but to some people, life is a problem…to a Kierkegaard or to a Nietzsche,
life is the problem…

to an existentialist, life is a problem, without a solution…

and to a Christian, life is a problem and death is a solution…

so what is a problem? and what is a solution?

and what is your problem?

is life a problem or a solution?

each question determines your search parameter and each
answer determines your search parameter…

so what is life?

so what question drives your life?

are you looking for questions or are you looking for answers?

Kropotkin

when talking to people… they don’t see things that are a problem
that I see… for example, this question of who are you…
most people don’t see that as a problem… they think of themselves
as their roles… husband, wife, father, son, daughter, aunt and they
see themselves as their job… another role…
people are what their roles are… and nothing beyond that…

I see questions where other people see answers…

how are we to live our lives? most people say, to be good…

but what does that mean? what actions specifically make you good?

education is meant to open one up to the possibilities of life and education no longer
does that… it is meant to create workers and producers…
education no longer educates… so we can’t depend upon education to
answer our questions…

when other people see answers, I see questions…

and that is a true philosopher…

Kropotkin

let us further look at this problem/solution situation…

Ronald Raygun famously once said, that
“government is the problem, not the solution”…
because people have a hard time understanding the differerence
between problems and solutions… just like they have a hard time
understanding cause and effect…
they have a hard time trying to decide if government is the problem or
is government the solution?

so is government the problem or is government the solution?

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
let us further look at this problem/solution situation…

Ronald Raygun famously once said, that
“government is the problem, not the solution”…
because people have a hard time understanding the differerence
between problems and solutions… just like they have a hard time
understanding cause and effect…
they have a hard time trying to decide if government is the problem or
is government the solution?

so is government the problem or is government the solution?

K: so we have had time to think about this…
let us understand this historically…

We have Raygun in 1981 say that government is the problem…
going back into history, this is a return to the age of the Robber Barrons…
from roughly 1880 to the start of the first world war… again, roughly…
there they had the belief that the best government was the least amount of government…

that notion evolved as the situation changed… people could see the harm and
havoc that arose from the “pure capitalism” that was in use during that time period…

as it was also the time period when the U.S became a international power…
and during a time of being a power, a govenrment that is the least
amount of goverment cannot fulfill the functions of government that is necessary
to sustain that power status…the final death blow to the “pure capitalism” was
world war 1… where the country had to moblize quickly and the only way to do
that, was by govenrmental control…the old ideal of the least amount of
government was in place during the 1920’s and look at the end result of that…
the great depression…and it became quite clear that this ideal of the least
amount of government is the best is dead… and it was dead for 50 years until
Raygun brought it back…but under the guise of the governement being the
problem… and “pure capitalism” being the answer… but the modern world
is such, you cannot have a return to the least amount of goverenment… or to
“pure capitalism”… you have an amount of complexity that precludes any
attempt to return to the old system of the least amount of goverenment…

now what would be a cynical look at this attempt to return to the least amount
of government? it would fall along the lines of criminals trying to reduce the
amount of police involvement in dealing with crime… by reducing the government
involvement, it allows corporations and powerful individuals to escape detection and
any possible punishment…by reducing the government involvement, you in effect,
reduce any governmental actions into your business which allows one to commit
crimes undetected… imagine what criminals would do if there was no
police department? now imagine what corporations would do if they had no
governmental oversight? same thing…and we reach what is the real
result of a reduce government oversight into corporations? and the real
attempt to reduce the government… to allow corporations freedom to act
however they want and kill and maim and pollute to their hearts content…
with no governmental oversight, this is what will happen…
just as we have checks and balances in government, we have oversight
and regulations to business and corporations…and for the exact same reasons…
it has nothing to do with “personal freedom” and everything to do with
corporations wanting to act in whatever fashion they want…
and that is the result of Raygun’s attack on government… it is simply
an attempt to hide corporate malfeasance under the guise of “personal freedom”

but that would be an cynical look at the government that function best
is the government that functions least…

heaven forbid we look at this cynically…

so, is the government the problem or the solution?

the government is the policeman on the corner and the
worker who fixes the street and the schoolteacher in a school…

you get clean water and your garbage taken away and
the sewage disposed of and that is government…

and anyone who tell you that the clean water you have or the fireman
who is ready to put out your fire…is the problem… is clearly confused
as to what government actually is…

to call for less government is to call for a “wild west” mentality

and we have passed beyond that, for we are a complex and integrated
society that must have rules and regulations for it to work…

for to demand less society is to ask for a return to that society imagined by
Hobbes…“life outside of society/government is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish
and short”…for this the end result of having less government…

so Raygun is wrong and bigly wrong…for his suppose solution is no solution at all…
government is not the problem… greed and lust and hate and anger and envy
are the problems… these lower instincts which lead us to actions that damage
and hurt society… and that is the base statement… does this action help or hurt
society at large? and by any definition or understanding of the question…
is the government the problem or the solution? the answer is government is
part of the solution to the problem… how do we make an environment
that allows the most people the chance to become who they are…
and the Greeks solution was the city… and the city means government…

and who are we to argue with the Greeks?

Kropotkin

I have been reading a biography of David Hume, when I start
my research into a philosopher, I like to read a biography of them…
to begin to understand them, the times they lived in… what they faced…

and in reading Hume, I am struck by the fact that everyone claims he
is one of the top 3 English philosophers of all time and yet…

as I read it, I am struck by the fact that he has good and interesting
philosophy, but for the life of me, I can’t see how to translate
that philosophy into real life action…how am I suppose to act if I were
to live my life based on his philosophy?

ok, I understand how his cause and effect works… we act as if the past
gives us the future, but that cannot be true and… so what?

how am I to act given this information? what is an moral action given
my understanding of Hume?

he answers technical philosophical questions which is nice but
real life questions of who am I and what are my possibilities
he doesn’t answer… it is said Hume gave an understanding of self,
but I don’t see that…I see his philosophical value but not his
real life value… what does Hume say to me that will allow me
to live my life as an complete human being?

and I run into that problem a lot with philosophy…
they attempt to answer deep philosophical questions but
fail to answer basic questions of a person’s life… what am I doing here?
the who, what, when, where, how and why questions of life, philosophy doesn’t
answer those and that is part of the failure of philosophy…

how do I become who I should become? and who is that?
what are the values I should live my life by?

philosophy has become divorced from real life…
philosophy deals with technical questions of philosophy but
doesn’t deal with the questions that matter to me…

maybe that is why existentialism was so popular… it at least
dealt with questions of who am I and what are my possibilities?
what is the meaning of life and what is the point of life?
Hume would call these types of questions “metaphysical” questions
that because of their vagueness, they lead us into meaningless
arguments and discussions that lead nowhere…

but Hume doesn’t talk about how do I find value in my life…
how do I become who I am… he doesn’t deal with questions
that we grapple with everyday… what is the right thing to do?
and how are we to do the right thing? what is the point of all this?

for Hume, these profound questions are just dismissed as pointless exercises into
meaningless babble…

if philosophy doesn’t talk about what matters to us, what is the point
of philosophy? it needs to address those questions that keep us up at night…
or it doesn’t have a point or a reason to exists…

Kropotkin

an honest look at “America philosophy” based not on words,
but on action…

America claims to be the foremost follower of freedom and yet
the actions deny this claim…for how can one be a true follower
of freedom when large segments of the population want to ban
abortions, ban gay marriage, ban pot use and ban these things based
on “moral” values…values that are part and parcel of the
“pride and prejudice” of American’s…“pride and prejudice” meaning
we hold these values from the pride and prejudice of American’s…

the pride comes from exporting “freedom” to obscure places like Iraq
and Afghanistan and prejudice from attempting to ban American’s from the most
fundamental right of voting… by creating barriers to voting of minorities and the poor
with such things as closing polling places where minorities and the poor live and
and cleansing the polling list which disproportionately removes minorities and
poor voters…

the “pride” of proclaiming America as the greatest country on earth but
that is merely prejudice for what criteria would one use to determine such
a thing? any such creation would/could be use to easily disprove any such
notion of America being the greatest country on earth…

by any objective standard, America is not even in the top ten of the greatest
countries on earth… but the astonishing thing is, we could be if, if we actually
practice what we preached in terms of our ideals…

if we tried to use as much energy to export freedom and liberties to other countries,
as to our own country… if we spent as much effort on reducing poverty in America
as we do in Africa and Asia…if we practice freedom with as much vigor as we
preach freedom… if we practiced our idea of safety across the board instead
of selectively practice safety when it suits us… one man tried to blow up a plane
with a shoe bomb and now every single person in America has to take their shoes off
at the airport… one person poisoned people via opening a vitamin bottle
and now every single medicine in America is protected by a seal opening…
we have extreme safety measures based on the actions of one person
and yet school shooting after school shooting broken up by workplace
shootings and the occasional concert shooting and yet, we still allow
such things as automatic weapons… in the name of freedom…
but we then turn about and decry that exact freedom for transgender
people and homosexuals and those who want to use the restroom for
the sex they feel the most at home with…

we don’t have a unified philosophy… we have “pride and prejudice”
masquerading as a coherent public philosophy…our “pride and prejudice”
allows such thing as our massive income inequality and our daily
contradictions in the use of freedom for American’s…among other things…

and once again, we must begin by first understanding our double
standards and phony concern over safety for American’s…
double standards like claiming to be pro-life and then denying
life the means necessary to survive… by denying food stamps and
WIC programs to those who need it and denying benefits and the
income for the older population who need it by attempting to
reduce such things as medicare and Medicaid and Social security…
act like this are damaging attacks to those who need these supports
just to survive… “pride and prejudice” in pride in claiming to be “pro-life”
but actively attacking those who need it the most, that is prejudice…

our actions are not “pro-life” but pro-money and pro-materialism…
we value our money and our taxes and our private property before
we value the lives of those less fortunate… and that is “pride” of
wealth and the “prejudice” of wealth which is believing that wealth
is the highest value to be achieved… and we offer up rich man solutions
to a poor person problem by offering up such useless benefits as in
taking away money and vouchers and replace them with boxes of food…
a rich man solution… replace badly needed money with boxes of food…

and too often we think in this manner… using white man solutions
to a minority problem or a rich man solution to a poor person problem
or a man’s solution to a women’s problem…we take “pride” in our
solutions when they are in fact, just acts of “prejudice” for solutions…
based on our “pride” of being rich or being a man or in being white
and thinking that because we are white or rich or a man, we have solutions
for those who aren’t… us… we act with “pride and prejudice”
in offering solutions to those who aren’t us…

so our actions betray our lack of coherent philosophy in terms of
who we are and what should be our actions instead of acting
from “prejudice and pride”…

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
an honest look at “America philosophy” based not on words,
but on action…

America claims to be the foremost follower of freedom and yet
the actions deny this claim…for how can one be a true follower
of freedom when large segments of the population want to ban
abortions, ban gay marriage, ban pot use and ban these things based
on “moral” values…values that are part and parcel of the
“pride and prejudice” of American’s…“pride and prejudice” meaning
we hold these values from the pride and prejudice of American’s…

the pride comes from exporting “freedom” to obscure places like Iraq
and Afghanistan and prejudice from attempting to ban American’s from the most
fundamental right of voting… by creating barriers to voting of minorities and the poor
with such things as closing polling places where minorities and the poor live and
and cleansing the polling list which disproportionately removes minorities and
poor voters…

the “pride” of proclaiming America as the greatest country on earth but
that is merely prejudice for what criteria would one use to determine such
a thing? any such creation would/could be use to easily disprove any such
notion of America being the greatest country on earth…

by any objective standard, America is not even in the top ten of the greatest
countries on earth… but the astonishing thing is, we could be if, if we actually
practice what we preached in terms of our ideals…

if we tried to use as much energy to export freedom and liberties to other countries,
as to our own country… if we spent as much effort on reducing poverty in America
as we do in Africa and Asia…if we practice freedom with as much vigor as we
preach freedom… if we practiced our idea of safety across the board instead
of selectively practice safety when it suits us… one man tried to blow up a plane
with a shoe bomb and now every single person in America has to take their shoes off
at the airport… one person poisoned people via opening a vitamin bottle
and now every single medicine in America is protected by a seal opening…
we have extreme safety measures based on the actions of one person
and yet school shooting after school shooting broken up by workplace
shootings and the occasional concert shooting and yet, we still allow
such things as automatic weapons… in the name of freedom…
but we then turn about and decry that exact freedom for transgender
people and homosexuals and those who want to use the restroom for
the sex they feel the most at home with…

we don’t have a unified philosophy… we have “pride and prejudice”
masquerading as a coherent public philosophy…our “pride and prejudice”
allows such thing as our massive income inequality and our daily
contradictions in the use of freedom for American’s…among other things…

and once again, we must begin by first understanding our double
standards and phony concern over safety for American’s…
double standards like claiming to be pro-life and then denying
life the means necessary to survive… by denying food stamps and
WIC programs to those who need it and denying benefits and the
income for the older population who need it by attempting to
reduce such things as medicare and Medicaid and Social security…
act like this are damaging attacks to those who need these supports
just to survive… “pride and prejudice” in pride in claiming to be “pro-life”
but actively attacking those who need it the most, that is prejudice…

our actions are not “pro-life” but pro-money and pro-materialism…
we value our money and our taxes and our private property before
we value the lives of those less fortunate… and that is “pride” of
wealth and the “prejudice” of wealth which is believing that wealth
is the highest value to be achieved… and we offer up rich man solutions
to a poor person problem by offering up such useless benefits as in
taking away money and vouchers and replace them with boxes of food…
a rich man solution… replace badly needed money with boxes of food…

and too often we think in this manner… using white man solutions
to a minority problem or a rich man solution to a poor person problem
or a man’s solution to a women’s problem…we take “pride” in our
solutions when they are in fact, just acts of “prejudice” for solutions…
based on our “pride” of being rich or being a man or in being white
and thinking that because we are white or rich or a man, we have solutions
for those who aren’t… us… we act with “pride and prejudice”
in offering solutions to those who aren’t us…

so our actions betray our lack of coherent philosophy in terms of
who we are and what should be our actions instead of acting
from “prejudice and pride”…

K: we act on our pride which is based on our prejudices…

Kropotkin

I finally have a few days off…and I take
a self inventory…

I am exhausted beyond belief…work has been pretty bad…
and because I am always at work, I don’t spend anytime at home with
the family…work has been an very toxic and nihilistic place…
and that has worn me out…I feel empty and… alienated from
my life…and this is certainly due to the environment at work…
and environment is the key…

each of us exists within an environment… an environment where
we must interact with and are part of…my emptiness and alienation
and nihilism are a reaction to my environment…

we tend to separate out work from any environmental concerns and
yet we spend more time at work then we do at home or anyplace else,
for that matter…if work is toxic and nihilistic and empty…
we are reacting to negativity that is bound to influence us and who we are…

our environment influences who we are and modern corporations are
presenting values like nihilism and toxicity and emptiness…

whose soul can survive under such an assault of such destructive values?
I feel the weight of society and its influences on me like I have never before…
I am tired…and worn out…I now know what Sisyphus felt like…
eternal punishment for crimes unknown…is death my only freedom from
pushing that rock uphill? for over 40 years have I pushed that rock uphill?
how much longer? it is my birthday today and I feel no joy, no passion,
no happiness, just being tired, that is all I feel…the years are weighing heavy upon me…
and I see no end in sight… so I return to my rock… and begin again…

Kropotkin

ok, we have the enlightenment which is trying to free
human beings from myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions…

and the last 200 years has done just that… and yet, we haven’t seen
any noticeable improvement in human beings or in their environment…

the old myths of superstitions like belief in god are dying…
and we haven’t seen anything that would suggest we have been improved in
any way since the loss of this myth in particular…

so, what happened?

I believe what happen is this… as we have lost the old myths and habits
and prejudices and superstitions, we haven’t replace them…

we have an empty spot where the old myths and the old superstitions used
to reside…and we have nothing to put into that empty spot…

nothing positive anyway… what is now in the spot of those old myths and old habits
are the current negative ism’s…

Nihilism exists in that spot… and the pursuit of money/profit is in that spot…

or said another way… we are not guided by negative values instead of positive ones…

the rise of negative values like fascism and Nazism and capitalism are fueled by
this emptiness of our souls… the place where god and habit and superstitions like
the devaluation of man exists… devaluations like the black man is inferior to the white
man and a women is worth less then a man… and where Jews run the world…

superstitions like this used to have a spot in human beings heart and because
of the loss of positive values the negative values have a home…

or said another way, nature abhor’s a vacuum…and in in the loss of those
values that were myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions… they are replace
by more myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions…

myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions like belief in god
and nationalism and Catholicism and in fact, any ism or ideology is
a myth or habit or prejudice or superstition…

and what is to be done?

Kropotkin

remove the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions of
a person and what is left? apparently not much… what do we believe
that is not a myth or not a habit or not a prejudice or not a superstition?

remove any ism or ideology, capitalism, nationalism, religion,
and what is left?

for most people, they would be an empty shell…
is that a failure of education or a failure in people in general or
a failure in society?

remove that which is a ism inside of me and what is left for me to believe in?

so the question really becomes, what should I believe in?

stripped of our habits and myths and prejudices and superstitions,
what is left for us to believe in?

I offer up a couple of a different things… ONE, a trust in experience…
we have experiences and we understand the world in terms of and in light
of these experiences…experience has taught us that we are equal…
for to be unequal means to be treated differently… and everyone wants
to be treated the same or said a different way, equally treated…

and in in this being treated equally, we want, we expect to be treated equally
politically and judicially… so justice and equality are the same thing…

so remove myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions, we
would be treated equally because without those myths and prejudices
and habits, we wouldn’t treat those with wealthy and power and those of
importance any different than we treat anyone else…

we treat people differently like those in wealth and power because of
the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions we follow…
and we treat those with disabilities different because of myths and habits…

remove those myths and habits… and we would treat everyone the same,
we would practice equality and we would also practice justice… for they
are the same thing…

for without myths or habits or prejudice to guide us, we would use experience and
experience tells us that some people lie and some cheat and some tell the truth and some
are honest…and experience tells us that by their conduct and people’s actions,
we treat them differently, not by myth or habit or prejudice, but by actions do we
treat people differently…

we allow experience to guide our judgments and actions…
not myths or habits or prejudices or superstitions…
but experience…we would no longer use those myths and habits
to guide us, but experience… no longer would we use ism’s and ideologies to
guide our actions or tell us who we are, we would use experience to guide us
and tell us who we are…

so what does this mean to education, for example? we would no longer use
education to promote myths or habits or prejudice, but to the understanding
of experience is the point of education… how would you explain this
experience becomes the standard line in education…knowledge or facts
becomes a means to understanding experience…

a total revision of the educational system is what is needed…

but what about the emptiness of the soul without myths and habits
and prejudices and superstitions to keep the soul company?

we now tell stories of the interconnection of everything…
we humans are connected to each other, we humans are connected
to earth, we humans are connected to every atom in space and time…

for that is the point of these myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions anyway…
a means to connect people to each other… we will do the same thing but without
those myths and habits…we will connect people with experiences and with
an understanding of how we are connected and interconnected to everyone and
everything…we replace the emptiness of our soul with a new connection to
each other and to everything… no longer do myths and prejudice inhabit
and guide who we are, but experience and a new connection to each other…

I am an American and I have this myth inside of me and it has been ingrained in me
for as long as I have lived…but what does being an American actually mean?
it is following certain values… and frankly having a piece of paper that says I
am an American… change an artificial line, like make Minnesota part of Canada
and I become Canadian…and that is all nationality is… an artificial line agreed
to by countries, which is an artificial concept also, we are bounded by so many
artificial concepts like country and nationality and race and creed and religion…
and such artificial concepts, ism’s and ideologies like capitalism and
Communism and Catholicism and Americanism and Materialism…
so many ism’s and ideologies that we follow and they are myths and
habits and prejudices and superstitions…instead of
using our minds/reason and experiences to explain and understand experiences…
for we explain and understand experience in terms of and in light of
other experiences…

man is born free and yet everywhere is in chains…

those chains are the myths and habits and prejudices and
superstitions of our education… an education which is lazy
because it depends upon arguments from authority and prior
myths and habits…the goal of education is no longer to train
workers or to create consumers… but to free us of our chains,
our myths and habits…a reevaluation of values…is what is needed…

the truth is not just out there, but inside of us and inside of every
experience we have…

so think about this, remove your myths and habits and try to understand your life
via experiences, what do you now believe in?

Kropotkin

as I am studying the enlightenment right now, I do cheat
and look ahead to modern philosophy occasionally…

I have notice that questions that drove philosophy for
centuries no longer are even an issue… for example,
the problem of the certainty of knowledge which drove philosophy
for 200 years, from Descartes to Kant, no longer is even an issue…

either it has been ignored or declared solved… I don’t know…
but it isn’t a topic in modern philosophy except as a historical
understanding of philosophy past… what drove Descartes was
his attempt to understand how we can be certain of knowledge and this
is how he approached the problem… but this isn’t a modern question…

today we work with language and science and techniques and …
but not, not how is knowledge certain…

this evolution of philosophy tells us a couple of things…

first of all, philosophy must be understood historically, within
the context of its time and we understand that the understanding we
reach with philosophy will change even historically…
for example, our understanding of say, Hume, changes with
new historical research into his philosophy and new research into
his times and other theories current during his times…putting
Hume within a historical context helps us better understand what
Hume is trying to say…take past, present and future of Hume
and we get an better overall understanding of Hume…he was part
of a system, he had context in his historical times… he was part of the overall
system of the 18 century and he was part of the philosophical system of that time
and he was in turn influenced by cultural and philosophical events of his past
and his present…could we say for example, he was, to use a 19 century phrase,
“alienated from his times”… and it is quite clear from his biography, that this man,
David Hume was a man of his times and existed quite happily in it… to approach Hume
with 19 century or 20 century or even modern terms or idea’s is to rip Hume out of his
times, his system… and to do so, means we falsify or take out of context his person
and thought…David Hume can only be understood in terms of his times and his
place within the 18 century systems… he must be understood within the context
of his times and not with modern ideas or philosophical idea’s current in our time…

the next aspect of the changing understanding of philosophy is that
the philosophy of tomorrow will be different then the philosophy of
today which is different then the philosophy of yesterday…
which means idea’s like language understanding of philosophy is
historical driven… they exist as part of the times, within the context
of the times and may or may not be part of philosophy in 5 or 10 or
a hundred years… just as we no longer pay any attention to the
question which drove philosophy for 200 years, the question of the
certainty of knowledge, the questions that drive us today, won’t be
applicable tomorrow because of the changing nature of our systems
and the changing nature of who we are and the changing nature
of philosophy itself… questions that drive us today will most
likely become meaningless tomorrow… and that is a rather depressing
thought, for me anyway… all this hard work of understanding and my
understanding of what is philosophy and its nature will become moot
as I change and philosophy changes and our society changes and our
systems change…the philosophers of tomorrow will simply
ignore my work and work on the questions of their time… it is the
nature of things and philosophy…

Kropotkin

having studied philosophy from the beginning to where I am now which
is the enlightenment… I now face my greatest challenge which is
an in depth study of David Hume…I shall spend more time
on Hume then I shall spend on any philosopher up till now…
partly because it was Kant who said that Hume “woke him up from
dogmatic slumbers” and so to know Kant, one must know Hume
and from Kant arises 19 century philosophy… and one must know
Hegel to make sense of such thinkers as Marx… I must spend a great
deal of time with Hegel… so, my next year, shall be engaged
with Hume, Kant and Hegel… a long year indeed…and in preparation
for Hume, I went out and bought several books on Hume… spent a fair
amount of money… but if I am to make a stand in philosophy, I shall
make it with Hume, Kant and Hegel…

Kropotkin

here I am attempting a thought experiment:

so genetic codes for all life… we are programed via
our coding which is part of the messenger RNA…
Genetic code is basically the rules by which information encoded
within genetic material is translated into proteins by living cells…

so by these genetic codes, we can understand that a person, a man,
cannot, cannot grow wings… because his code, the rules won’t allow him
to grow wings… wings like an angel wings for example…

these rules which are coded within our RNA is what makes us a certain height or
have brown hair or be a certain skin color… we cannot go outside of the rules coded
in us…

so we also have rules of the universe… a certain coding within the universe
and these codes are, in part, the 3 laws of thermodynamics, among other laws…

so the universe cannot go beyond these three laws… just like we cannot go beyond
our coding… so what happens if the universe does, somehow, go beyond one of the
three laws? the stability of the universe depends upon the three laws being obeyed…
because if they are not obeyed they the universe will suffer instability… and in any
system instability, the system will quite likely fail or collapse…

so if for some reason, the sun decides to disobey the basic rules, like for example,
he simply goes out of the path the sun has been on for, forever basically…
the sun just leaves the planets behind, those dam deadbeats the sun says,
and he takes off…what happens? well, the solar system fails or collapses…
it becomes chaos and anarchy within the solar system which in fact without the sun,
is no longer even a solar system…our system fails… for material objects in
the universe must obey the basic rules of whatever system they are in… and every
single system has rules, we may not know or understand the rules for any given system,
but every single system has rules and any attempt to violate those rules leads us
to a system collapse… every single system collapse if it doesn’t follow the rules…

which leads us to the question of how did those rules get set up?
depends on the system… for example, baseball, it rules were
created 150 years ago and as the game progressed, the rules changed…
it is a system with rules and it goes along its way as long as the rules are being
followed by everyone…

this leads us a couple of different ways… if IQ45 doesn’t follow the rules,
that has been set up, it creates chaos and possible collapse… the system,
any system must have rules of some sort… and by violating the rules, IQ45
threatens to damage and possible destroy the American system

one might claim that Obama violated the rules, but the clear fact that
the system wasn’t in chaos or threaten with possible collapse suggest that
Obama in fact did follow the rules… today we see chaos every single day
with the GOP and with IQ45 with their brazen attempts to maintain their
power by violating the rules of the system…

you can stretch this idea in many different ways…

for example, in miracles, religious miracles… and here is where we
get the Hume connection because one of his attacks was upon this idea of
miracles…if the system, any system has rules and the rules must be followed
or we get chaos and possible collapse…now miracles violate the rules,
scientific rules like the 3 laws of thermodynamics… let us take for example,
the bible has the sun stopping over the battle… uh,… Joshua 10, NIV…
where the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down for about
a full day…we have our three laws of thermodynamics… the law of inertia is
the first law… “an object in motion… the sun…continues in motion with the same
speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force”

but the sun and the solar system is part of a much larger system, we
are surrounded by many stars and solar systems… you cannot stop one
and expect the whole surrounding area not to be disturbed or effected…
the stopping of the sun would create widespread interference and an action
that is quite a bit further beyond just the earth or sun…

let us say, you claim just the earth was stopped… now we have real
problems… if the earth stopped, what would happen?

think of a car with passengers… the car hits a brick wall and stops…
but the people and material inside the car is still moving… you have
quite a mess and dead people on your hands… stop the earth and
you still have everyone and everything on earth still moving…we would
suffer the same fate as the passengers in the car…we would tumble
and fly into the direction that the earth was spinning… and yet we have no
record of any such thing and believe me, it would leave quite a mark on
planet earth… think of all that water that was still moving on a stopped planet…
the planet may have stopped but the water didn’t stop and it will keep on going…

so in two ways you cannot have the miracle of Joshua…and we can
continue this in terms of any miracle you may present me… the laws of
the systems, regardless of the system cannot be violated without severe
consequences to the system, chaos and possible collapse of the system…

so I believe that Hume was right, we cannot have miracles such as given
in the bible…

Kropotkin

we will be touching on areas we have hit before but with a slightly
different ending…

there are schools of thought in regards to whether we
have innate idea’s or do we gain knowledge via experience…

I stand with the experience group…if you think about it,
we gain all our knowledge with experience…

look at children… they must be taught everything…
from what is heat and cold to learning to separate
themselves from other people… experience teaches children
they are separate entities from other people…and we must teach children
1 + 1 = 2… and basic point of language… now some have made the argument
that children learning language is “innate”… now that depends on how you
define innate…I believe that language is only innate in a the sense
that a million years of speaking has rewritten the code within the brain
and thus has allowed speaking… but, I have heard it said that children learn
to speak language “perfectly” and that is clearly not true…if that were
true, we wouldn’t need to have children take years and years of English, for
example… we spend time with children learning such things as the, to be verb…
I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, you are, they are… if language with innate,
why must we spend so much time learning such basic things as I am and you are…
and if math were innate, then why do we spend years teaching math?

I recall my youth of 1 + 1 =2 and 1 + 2 = 3 and 1 + 3 = 4… if this is innate, we wouldn’t
have spent years, YEARS, learning this stuff…

what I think happens is this… people forget their childhood, forget the years spent
learning all the crap we need to know to become adults…

it is easy to claim we have innate idea’s when we are adults because
we have forgotten our long youth of learning such things as language
and math… a child has to be taught everything… what are fingers,
what is colors, what is 1, what is hot, what is mom, what is grandpa,
what is light, why do you think children have so many questions about
things… why do birds fly? where do children come from? why is the sky blue?
they don’t know anything, anything at all… and it must be taught to them…
now some things are instinct such as the flight or fight instinct we have or
our natural fear of falling…

now for example, people might bring up this idea of children having
dreams or nightmares of monsters under the bed… but like everything
monsters under the bed is learn, try reading a children’s book, it is full of
terrors and monsters and creatures… no wonder children have fears of
the monster under the bed… they learn that from children’s books or
on TV or in the movies… think about children’s movies… they are full
of monsters and terrors…

would a child that hasn’t read a children’s book or seen a children movie,
would that child still have monsters under the bed? I don’t think so…
the children experienced the monster and then by imagination, put that monster
under the bed or in the closet… the child cannot create a monster
from just the thoughts in their head… the monster needs to be experienced
for the child to put it under the bed…

now if you want to create different people, then you must change the
experiences of children… we become who we are by experiences
and by having different experiences we can change people…
for the most part, we know that those people who engage in violence,
either domestic violence or random violence were exposed to violence as
children… they experienced violence and they return to that violence
they experienced…mass killers were quite often as children exposed
to violence, they were mistreated as children, they experienced violence
and they return to violence as they return to something they know…

how we are treated as children, will tell us how we act and interact
as adults…the experience of a child repeats itself in adulthood…
does this cover absolutely everyone? no, of course not…
there is always an exception to every rule…and to make the exception
the deal breaker of my saying, that the experiences of a child repeats
itself, doesn’t negate my saying it… the exceptions, they don’t disprove
what I said about childhood being repeated in adulthood…

we are who we are by the experiences we have as children and as
teenagers and as adults… it is the experiences we have that
determine who we are…

so with this, we can begin to understand that to create a better society,
we must have better experiences for children…if we have children
have bad experiences as children, that damages them and that damage
lingers into adulthood… it creates who we are…

if you wonder why life is so cheap, it is because we treat children
lives as cheap…if we deny them food, shelter, education, clothing,
then we are treating their lives as cheap and meaningless… we reap what
we sow and into adulthood and that is what we shall see from those children…

Kropotkin

morality: if you want to have “moral” people, you first
have to understand your goal…

Morals have nothing to do with god or any religious action…
think of society as a boat… and we have many people on this boat…
as long as people sit peacefully on this boat… the boat just floats
along the river with no problems… but what if started to get up
and fighting and causing arguments all over the boat? the boat
becomes unstable and is in danger of capsizing… society is that boat
and we are passengers on that boat…it takes all of us to keep that
boat working and afloat…but what if a large group of passengers decide
to just do their own thing regardless of what is happening on the boat…
that is capitalism… following your happiness no matter how much danger
it puts society in, the boat…granted, if the boat is big enough and sturdy enough,
it could take quite a bit of individualism within the boat to threaten the boat from
going down… how the boat is run, that is a matter of preference… it could
be lead by a traditional hierarchy, Captain, second in command and first mates and
all the rest or it could be run more on a equality basis or even other ways…
as the boat is just floating down the river, its main goal is to avoid capsizing…
for the boat to thrive and grow, we must all work together to make the boat as
safe and sea worthy as possible…we must practice equality and justice to make
the boat function… think of a boat where some passengers have better rooms
and is waiting on hand and foot because they have more resources then other
passengers even though contribute the same as other passengers…
a boat where some passengers are treated differently because of
race, creed, color, wealth, will be a boat heading toward trouble…
here is where human nature takes over… why is he being treated
better then I am just because he is…this results in anger and jealousy
and envy regardless of the person, if in a situation one person is treated
differently because of accidental reasons, it causes resentment
and creates problems within the boat… this is why we must treat
all passengers with equality and justice…it helps keep the boat
from capsizing with discontent and hatred and anger…

so what is needed on this boat… first of all, we must have
an environment that is conducive to allowing people to have
the resources they need to survive… and by resources, we
also need, not just material things like food, water, air, education,
but we need love and security and hope, as much as the basics
necessities… and our environment must allow that…
it is not competitiveness that grow the human soul but love
and being wanted and security that allows us the room to become
who we are…so we must focus on environment first of all…

if you want healthy, valuable, hard working individuals?
then you must value them and love them and cherish them…
the environment decides who we become… if we have a harsh
and rough environment, that is who we will become…
our environment dictates who will be and so with that in mind,
we must create an atmosphere that is positive and not negative…
so we must give them the tools they need to succeed…
books, papers, pens, computers, great teachers, we must foster
an positive environment within the schools… that is the environment
which allows children to succeed… then we can add in competition…
for there is nothing wrong with competition as long as it is secondary…
a complement to the positive environment we must provide for the children…
we must encourage the positive traits of human beings, cooperation,
working together, valuing each other, listening to each other…

we must discourage the negative traits of human beings, greed, anger, lust,
envy, hate…

to create the environment of positive and lasting growth, we must work together…
and that is the point, we must emphasize working together and cooperation as
the success method of becoming who we are…you want to raise healthy,
happy, successful people, it begins with the environment we provide to them…
simple as that…to achieve this today, requires a reevaluation of our values…
because today we emphasize tax cuts to the rich, materialism, individualism,
money/profits, values that harm society…values that don’t promote
a positive environment to raise children… must we cater to children and
make them our focus instead of us…YES, yes we must do that…
that is what parents do, we focus on and promote children’s values over
our own selfish values… we put children first with an understanding
that the key to raising children is environment and we must create a public
environment that values positive values… not negative values like hate
and violence and anger…

this is why IQ45 is so dangerous, he promotes negative values like hate
and anger and violence…and why Obama was so good, he promoted
positive values as should we… so you want to improve the world…
begin with improving the environment of people…make positive
values the ones we pursue and engage in… cooperation, tolerance,
service to others, love, hope…

it all begins with environment…

so how are you going to improve your environment?
how are you going to make it better?
how are you going to make the environment of society better?

Kropotkin

so what does the above have to do with “Philosophy” …
that answers comes with an understanding of what philosophy actually is…

philosophy isn’t the pursuit of knowledge, it is the pursuit of wisdom
and there in lies the problem that most people have…
Philosophy is divided up into traditional areas of study…
Aesthetics
epistemology
ethics
logic
metaphysics

now tell me, which area is the study of wisdom?

recall that the word philosophy itself means…love of wisdom…
and this is where people go wrong… they pursue knowledge of one
of these branches of philosophy but they don’t pursue the wisdom aspect…

how would you go about changing people to become “good”?

would you knowledge or would you use wisdom?

a logical question would be what is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

knowledge is facts… wisdom is values…oh, we have seen this before haven’t we…
science pursues knowledge/facts and philosophy pursues values

this question of the beginning of creating better people seems to begin, here at least,
with knowledge… creating a better environment is the start of creating better people…

however, it isn’t knowledge that answers the question of environment,
it is wisdom… and sometimes the difference between wisdom and knowledge
is small, very, very small…

so, what are you pursuing, knowledge or wisdom?

Kropotkin