a new understanding of today, time and space.

questions we need to be asking:

what answers do we need?

is the goal of life to be… successful or loved or honored… to work…
what is the goal of life?

if you look at human beings, what do you see?
I see beings who play… we have sports, games and acting…
all of which is playing a game of some sort…and some of our
highest paid people on planet earth are people who play…
they play sports or games or act…
I would also suggest that telling a story is part of play as is
reading a book…
in fact, we could define human beings as creatures who play…

talent is someone who can hit a target no one else can hit…
Genius is someone who can hit a target that no one else can see…
so what target can’t we see?

I exist to…what do you exist for?

I belong to… what do you belong to?

what I want to know is…?

is death the end or the beginning and why do you need to believe in your answer?

Kropotkin

Peter,
Sometimes there are answers to these types of questions, sometimes they’re left open , or remain in the unconscious store. Evolution can be said to work the magic of its working on its own goals without the presumption that we’ve got the whole nine yards in our hands.

and there is evolution…it is just another question in the midst
of many, many questions…

one can get lost in the pursuit of the many questions that
plague MAN…

I have tried, as much as possible, to use myself, instead of the
whole human race, to understand what questions are important…
forget answers, dam, I am still working on the questions…

but like morality, I do not exist separate, independent of everything else…
I am part of many different systems… my family, wife and daughter,
my mother and my siblings, work, living in my condo complex, my city,
and my many political AND economic systems…within each system, I exist
in some fashion…depending on the system…my role is large or very small…

we cannot account for human beings unless/until we understand both
our small individual role within ourselves and our larger role within the various
systems we each belong to… I think of it like the scientific problem of
macro systems that Newton and Einstein gave answers to, gravity, which
solved many problems like how the planets and sun and solar system and
the galaxies all worked…and the microsystems, the small, atoms
and the current quest to work out laws that connect the large-solar systems
with the small-atoms… this is the holy grail of science at the moment…
and a great analogy for human beings and the systems we belong to…

how to connect the micro-human beings… with the macro-the great
systems we see around us… the immense political and economic systems
that dominate the world at this point… we now see that
the great scientific problem matches the great political/social
problem of our age… how do we connect the small with the large?

what is the relationship between the atom and the solar system?
what is the relationship between a human being and capitalism?

we can extend this human being part to include democracy or
communism or dictatorship… whatever political or economic
structure that we must connect…at this point, I don’t think
waiting for a new understanding of evolution will help us solve this
immense problem…

we have our large understanding of the world… like gravity, in
communism and democracy and capitalism and Catholicism…

and we have our small understanding of who we are…

but to connect the two?

to connect the two requires some facet of experience that
somehow allows us to connect the two…

because it is from experience that we understand the world…

as my formula says, to understand the world, we must first experience it…

so what “law” or “laws” like the “laws of thermodynamics” would allow us to
understand our connection to the large?

and perhaps, from this lack of connection, can we attribute our host of
issues that plague human beings? such as alienation, the angst,
the fear we have, the unease of our modern age, the disconnect we
feel in regards to our modern age?

I cannot help but think that we can solve the immense personal issues
that plague us by making some sort of connection between the large
superstructures that exists in our world and the small, us, as individual
human beings…

Kropotkin

So to connect the two, simply , try dwelling on dreams or phantasies , which may come up unintentionally. ?

K: I don’t know the answer… maybe dreams might be the answer, maybe experience,
maybe some third alternative? that is what I am working on…

the real key, as far as I can tell, is not the answer, but in how we ask
the question…ask the right question and maybe, maybe we might
find the right answer…

Kropotkin

talent is hitting a target no one else can hit
genius is hitting a target no one can see…

so what can’t we see?

We can’t see the beginning or the end of things…

we can’t see the meaning of or the point of experience…

we can’t see values…for values aren’t material objects…

existence or experience…is about the here and now, this time and this place…

but existence/experience is influenced by and impacted by prior existence/
prior experience…events and people and material goods created in the past
still exists today…we see the past in our buildings, our language, our body types,
who we are, in our very name we see past existence, past experience…

the key to understanding life lies not in our understanding of
concepts or in subjects in school like history or English…
but in understanding existence/experience…

what does it mean to exist? what does it mean to experience?

throw all the rest away and focus on this one point…
I exist today… that is all I can know for sure…
I exist right here, right now… I can’t be sure about anything else…
but to exist today, as a biological being means I have a past, a past
that extends into the very beginning of biological existence…

experience or evolution is an extension into the past where
we can trace the biological beings that created me and this moment
into the distant past…back to 3 billion years ago, when life, however it started,
started… we can trace us as biological beings back 3 billion years…
we are the latest in experiences or evolution, not the culmination, but
the latest of…life is simply about existence…
life is about experience… life is evolution…
and all three words, existence, experience, evolution…
are simply three words that mean the same thing…

as a biological being, I am existence, I am experiences, I am evolution…
and my existence, my experiences and my role in evolution
goes on into the future…and I cannot see that either…

Kropotkin

still working on things we cannot see…

Political philosophy is based on the study of politics, liberty,
justice, property, rights, laws and the enforcement of laws by
authority, what laws are and why they are needed, what, if anything,
makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and
why, what forms should it take, what the laws are, what duties citizens
owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately
be overthrown, if ever…

I think these questions, while important, misses the real point…

and the point lies in the very title, political philosophy…
philosophy is the understanding of values…
so what values are important in a political sense?

and the second “miss” is this, what is the role of the individual
in a civics sense… in other words, what is the relationship between
the government and the individual citizen?

our understanding of this relationship does not stem from
our understanding of the economic…in other words,
our economic system, capitalism, the attitude of laissez-faire,
doesn’t play into our understanding of the relationship between
the government and the individual citizen…

to have a laissez-faire attitude from its citizens to its government
is not an acceptable attitude from it citizens to the government…
for a government to be successful, it must have active, engaged, willing,
participation from its citizens…it could be argued that the Soviet Union,
failed because it was a top down government and its citizens didn’t or
weren’t allowed to engaged or be active within the governmental process
of deciding policy…the U.S has succeeded because its citizens
have been active, engaged and willing participants in government and
the governmental process in deciding policy…

a laissez-faire attitude from its citizen’s about the government and
its actions will lead to the failure of that government… that is the first
point to remember…

the second point is about values and the political process…
this is where philosophy can aid in the political process…

what values are important in the relationship between
a government and its citizens?

as we understand that a society where the citizens react
to the government with a laissez-faire attitude will fail,
we must have active, engaged, willing participation
by its citizens, so to allow the citizens all the knowledge needed
to make participation effective, we must have open, transparent
government…to prevent citizens from having knowledge
of governmental actions and policy, means the citizen
cannot make an honest engagement with the government…

hiding the truth prevents someone from being able to make
choices about governmental actions and policy…

if in playing a game of chess and I am unable to know
my opponent’s move, how can I make good moves?

I can’t… the key to making decisions, any decision, is to have
all the facts, all the knowledge necessary to make an intelligent
choice and by the government hiding information prevents that…

so, a value we need from government is transparency and openness…
honesty is a value we must have from government to better allow
citizens to make “good” moves…

the key phrase is
“government of the people, for the people, by the people”

either that is true and we must, must have more inclusion of the people,
for the people, by the people in government or we risk failure of the government
as the failure of the Soviet Union shows us…

so one of the key understanding of the political is the
inclusion of philosophy into the political as we must
begin any thought or action to be taken in terms
of values… what values do we want to express
by governmental actions and by governmental policy?

do we want to express values like hate, anger, violence,
bigotry in our governmental actions and policy or
do we want to express values like love, hope, honesty,
peace, charity in our governmental actions and policy?

decide on which values we want to express and we effectively
decide governmental action and policy…

do we follow anger and fear by governmental actions
and policy with say, an increase of the already massive defensive
budget or do we express values like peace and love with an equally
impressive increase in our social budget…

and in this we return to an earlier point, which is
what value is more important, security or freedom?

and we now can express values in terms of governmental
actions and policies by asking, is it security we are focusing on
or is it freedom… with our governmental actions and policy…

which values are we going to support as citizens?

political philosophy is really about which values we should
and must support… and so, political philosophy is about values
and values is philosophy…

Kropotkin

conservatives hold security as the primary goal and
interest of government…security as in a strong defense
force in the world… to “protect” us in an insecure world…

the liberal ask, what is the point of a strong defense if
we don’t allow such values as freedom and the right to
our “inalienable rights” as defined by the declaration …
“the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
and those “inalienable rights” have been extended by generations
of Americans to include the right to the essential
necessities of life which include food, water, shelter and healthcare
and education…

the conservative considers those essential rights of life of food, water,
shelter… as to be of less importance then the right to security…
as they, conservatives, have pursued a public policy of increased
“security” spending over increased essential necessities like food and water…

this is self evident by their spending bills of conservative congresses
and presidents…in the last spending bill, they cut social services
and increased defense spending… those actions tell us the values
that conservatives hold…safety/security over freedom or the essential rights of man
as defined by the declaration…so which values should we hold?

now the second point of understanding political philosophy is
what is the role of the individual within society/government?

it has been said that political philosophy is really about two things
and two things only… who is in charge and who pays for things…
that is all political philosophy is engaged with… who is in charge,
who makes the decisions and then who pays for those decisions…

but nowhere in this cynical viewpoint of political philosophy
is any commentary or concern about values and which values
should, we as a society or government hold?
and that includes which values we as individuals should hold in
regards to governmental actions or policy…

in which lies my second point, which values should we as individuals
should hold and engage with politically?

the oath of the President states: “he” will to the best of his ability,
preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States"

this lead us to an interesting conclusion about this oath…
it doesn’t say, to "defend the United States… no, it says the constitution
of the United States…the constitution is a continuation of the
“declaration of independence” which is a document about values…

which values shall we uphold…and what is the role of the
individual citizen in our government…

as government and political policy seems to be about values…
is the same to be said about our economic system?

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin:conservatives hold security as the primary goal and
interest of government…security as in a strong defense
force in the world… to “protect” us in an insecure world…

the liberal ask, what is the point of a strong defense if
we don’t allow such values as freedom and the right to
our “inalienable rights” as defined by the declaration …
“the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
and those “inalienable rights” have been extended by generations
of Americans to include the right to the essential
necessities of life which include food, water, shelter and healthcare
and education…

the conservative considers those essential rights of life of food, water,
shelter… as to be of less importance then the right to security…
as they, conservatives, have pursued a public policy of increased
“security” spending over increased essential necessities like food and water…

this is self evident by their spending bills of conservative congresses
and presidents…in the last spending bill, they cut social services
and increased defense spending… those actions tell us the values
that conservatives hold…safety/security over freedom or the essential rights of man
as defined by the declaration…so which values should we hold?

now the second point of understanding political philosophy is
what is the role of the individual within society/government?

it has been said that political philosophy is really about two things
and two things only… who is in charge and who pays for things…
that is all political philosophy is engaged with… who is in charge,
who makes the decisions and then who pays for those decisions…

but nowhere in this cynical viewpoint of political philosophy
is any commentary or concern about values and which values
should, we as a society or government hold?
and that includes which values we as individuals should hold in
regards to governmental actions or policy…

in which lies my second point, which values should we as individuals
should hold and engage with politically?

the oath of the President states: “he” will to the best of his ability,
preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States"

this lead us to an interesting conclusion about this oath…
it doesn’t say, to "defend the United States… no, it says the constitution
of the United States…the constitution is a continuation of the
“declaration of independence” which is a document about values…

which values shall we uphold…and what is the role of the
individual citizen in our government…

as government and political policy seems to be about values…
is the same to be said about our economic system?

K: ok, in terms of the economic, what seems to be “our” values?

we have profit… modern capitalism is all about profit…
and both human beings and human values are irrelevant, because they don’t contribute
to profit…thus modern capitalism is nihilistic… anti-human, anti-life…

so, we ask, what is the role of the individual in regards to capitalism?

clearly, the individual has no value in modern economic theory, the
individual has no value in capitalism outside of being a worker or
a consumer… that is the extent of capitalism interest in the modern worker…
either they work or they consume… and the creation of profit is the sole
and only concern of capitalism…this leads us to the understanding that
capitalism has no values…we cannot engage with capitalism in terms
of values because capitalism has no values… so what is the role of the
individual in regards to capitalism? the role of the individual within capitalism
is simple to be cannon fodder for the capitalist… to be used and abused
as capitalism see’s fit and then discarded when no longer necessary…

we must engage in capitalism in these terms… we must remove or
eliminate the only goal of capitalism which is profit… until we remove
profit from capitalism, we are only a tool to greater profit, a tool which
has little or no value outside of the creation of profit… we, we humans
are expendable and only have value for our role in the creation of profit…
we have no other role in capitalism…

so, we have “inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”…

but our rights are denied by the corporation right to profit… we are dehumanized…
because of this fact that our “inalienable rights” are deemed to be of far less
value then profits… which has come first for corporations, life or profits?
that answer is quite evident for anyone with eyes… our liberty is sacrificed to
the alter of profits and the only pursuit of happiness allowed is the pursuit of
material goods and our lives are defined and given value by our creation of wealth…
both personally and collectively… we, Americans call ourselves the greatest country on
earth due to its GDP and for no other reason… we define ourselves due to our
economic activity and not for our virtues or goodness or values… but economic
activity…and this is how we define the pursuit of happiness… economically…
and not by any other standard…

so the political and the economic exists on separate fault lines…
the economic being the far greater danger and far greater
tyranny to our well being…

Kropotkin

the question becomes, what is the role of the individual
in this modern age? From jesus to Marx, ism’s and ideologies
have pointed out the role of the individual within society…

in the enlightenment for example, the role of the individual was
to become free of the powerful groupthink of religion and authority
and to become free of the habits, prejudices, superstitions of the age…
the enlightenment had a much more of a individualist belief in
the role of the individual in society…the enlightenment was
a liberal understanding of the role of the individual within society…
the enlightenment was fighting the groupthink of the religious and authority
which is by definition, conservative…and that is how we should understand
conservatives, they engage in groupthink to religion and authority and the past…

for a conservative, everyone should be a Christian, everyone should bow
down to the authority of the state, everyone should be the same, act the same,
believe in the same…different is unwanted and discouraged in the conservative
groupthink…the role of the individual in conservative groupthink is to
obey, not question, fulfill their respective role as given to them by
the authority of the state and church…

and the role of the individual in liberalism is to think for oneself,
free oneself of the habits, myths, prejudices and superstitions
of the past perpetuated by conservative groupthink…
but the downside of the liberal understanding of the individual,
is there is no goal to aim for… like the liberal idea of progress…
there is no ending point, it just goes on… forever…

and therein lies a failure of liberalism… it doesn’t have or
doesn’t create a goal or ending to reach for… for liberalism to
make the next step, it needs to find the next step for the individual
and society to make… it must find a goal or ending to reach…
it must create a road map from start to finish… but liberalism
by its very nature, says improve yourself… by never asking why or what
is the point of improving oneself?

ok, we have freed ourselves of our habits, myths, prejudices and superstitions…
now what? and therein lies the problem of liberalism…now what, should
be them mantra of the liberal… after the ideal individual has created himself,
now what? liberalism never asks that question…

so ask yourself, what is the role of the individual within society?

and therein lies the question of the modern age… what is your role within society?

yah, you… what is your role within society? can you even tell me?

define yourself in terms of your place in society…can you?

and if you can’t, perhaps that is a problem…and if you can’t…
we might have the source of modern alienation… the inability to connect
with the society in which we live in…feeling separate from, isolated from
society is the classic sign of alienation and we feel it… we feel it all too well…

so what is your place within society?

Kropotkin

so we see, in various ways, the alienation of people
in the U.S…those who support conspiracies are just one group…
those who say, “Pox on both houses”… referring to the political parties…
are another group…the fact that 50% of all possible voters stayed home
last election is just another indication of the alienation of people…

the thought is that why do anything when nothing will change…
you see that alienated thought even around here…

I would guess that at least 25% of all Americans fit into this alienation…
or perhaps between 80 and 100 million Americans are alienated from
society and the government…and I am guessing that among those who actually
voted, they voted largely for IQ45…

which leads us to the point that no society can survive with so many
people feeling alienated from the society or government…

so is there an answer to bring these people back from being alienated?

is there an solution to this problem and I do suggest it is a problem when
a quarter of your population just couldn’t care less if the society/government
succeeds or failed because they think it doesn’t affect them in any way, shape, or form…

I think this problem stems from two factors… political and economic…

the political is obvious, the feeling that the government serves the wealthy
and powerful instead of the people on main street…the government is bought
and paid for by the wealthy… and we have no voice in America any longer…

over 300 million Americans are left voiceless because of the selling of America
continues on…the recent tax law is just another example of this…
a majority of Americans opposed the tax bill and no one in Washington
could have cared less because they no longer serve the American people…

that is one source of the alienation of America and the other source is
the economic… in two ways, first it is no longer true that we
have a society that is open to those who work hard get rewarded
equally well… the economic system has been rigged, with the help
of bought and paid for politicians, to reward those who are already wealthy,
and punish those who are middle or lower class… and the second way is
the mind boggling nihilistic manner in which the workers are treated
by corporations… workers are used and abused and then discarded
when they have no financial value… money/profit is valued higher
then workers or their lives or their values… we are a society that
prays to money and profit and anything that is not about money/profit
is crushed, denied, forsaken, abandoned, discarded…and this
is when profits are valued higher then people lives… this pursuit
of profits that is nihilistic has feed into alienation of American’s…
we don’t need to be told we have less value then money/profit…
we see this every single day in the words and actions of corporate
america where causing the deaths of thousands of people is simple
the cost of doing business and written off in a tax break…
no loss for the business if it causes peoples lives to be ruined
or wasted or finished… they have bought off the politicians
to escape responsbility for their actions… and we continue
the path to the alienation of America… and what is our role
in the alienation? we are complict when we say silent and
hide behind the lie that it is nothing personal, it is the system,
the blind impersonal system that decides the winners and losers…
but that is a lie…because corporate america has rigged the game,
so they are the only winners in the system…

and we stay silent and complicit in this shell game…

the march for our lives yesterday is an example of
people no longer being silent and complicit in the rigged game…

you say, you are wrong Kropotkin… but you are lying, to me and to
yourself… for you know the truth… in modern America, workers
are simply cannon fodder to be sacrificed in the name of profits…

and by being silent, you accept this… by doing nothing, you accept this…

the alienation of America has lead us to this point… but what is the solution
to the alienation of America?

Kropotkin

so, when last seen, I pose the question, what is the solution to
the alienation of America?

first of all, it requires a recognition of our/your alienation
from America…

understanding that there is a problem is the first step to
being able to find a solution to the problem…

the problem lies in our values… we value money/profit over
lives… we must have a reevaluation of values to correct this
basic modern understanding of today’s America…

the next step is to no longer remain silent and complicit
in the continuing nihilism of America…

as the problem lies in two, separate areas of American life,
we must attack both areas, the political and the economic…
we must attack until the two, as with all values, actually
are one, but we have failed to see this… the political and the
economic are two sides of the same coin and then someday,
we shall understand that they are the same coin…
dress up in different clothing, but the same underneath…

the understanding in that they are the same lies in the fact
that both attempt to offer up solutions to the problem of,
how are we to live our lives?

the two, the political and the economic are the same because
they attempt to answer that question from different places…
how are we to conduct our relations with other people via the laws,
and how are we to conduct our relations with people via making a living,
or really put, how can we insure the basic necessities we need to live
like food, water, shelter, clothing, education… that is what making a living
is about anyway, how do we procure the basic necessities to survive…
and what is the basic necessities? you already know that…
and now the question becomes how do we achieve that?

a good place to start is with Maslow’s hierarchy of values/needs…
in which we see what a person needs to become fully human…
we must begin with our basic necessities like food and water and
shelter…and then we rise to the safety level and then the love/belonging
level, then the esteem level and then the self-actualization level…

this guideline tells us the goals and we need to create a course to
accomplish those goals… we have foolishly chosen capitalism as
one means to accomplish the goal given by Maslow…

and this is the point, we aren’t about the values presented or
the means used to accomplish our goals, such as ism’s and ideologies…
we are about reaching the goals, which is to survival and then
safety and then love/belonging… and so on… that is
what we must be thinking about, not the ism or ideology
we are using to reach these goals, but about reaching these goals
without the use of ism’s and ideologies…we must being with the
understanding or acknowledgment of the fact that we are alienated
from society because of the ism’s and ideologies in present use…

we must have a reevaluation of values that return human beings
to or before or ahead of money/profits… lives before money/profits…
this is the basic step that must occur before we can begin the process
of accomplishing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs…

the question becomes, how do we feed people, clothe people,
house people, educate people without ideology and ism’s?

what does it take to accomplish our goal of reaching the basic goal
of life which is to reach self-actualization… becoming a human being…
becoming who you are…we can reach that goal within the confines
of the modern world if, if we put people lives and their values first,
before money/profits…

one method is to have economic equality…no longer will people have
more money then the rest of humanity… the top 400 people in the world
have more money then half of humanity… 3.5 billion people… that issue
alone prevents us from achieving our goal of reaching our self-actualization…
we cannot even reach the basic level of our needs, the physical, the basics of
eating, water, shelter, clothing…if there exists economic inequality of this
immense level…if some say, well, if we prevent people from having billions,
then what incentive do they have to benefit the world, Ayn Rand…
but I ask, what incentive do people have to work if they spend their lives
barely able to feed or house or clothes themselves in 40+ years of slaving
for their corporate masters? any question about incentives or desire to
allow people their billions can be applied to the middle or working poor classes
in the world…

so, we have a goal, we must find a way to make it happen…
how do we allow the most people to reach the basic levels
of survival or of achieving their basic necessities without recourse
to an ism or ideology?

is this even possible?

then after reaching the basic level of necessities, how do we reach
the next levels of safety and of love/belonging and then esteem and
then self-actualization…we have a destination, now we need a road map,
a guide into reaching our goals, our destination…and our modern
ism’s and ideologies are not only preventing us from reaching our goals
and destination, the current ism’s and ideologies are a sure path to failure…
don’t believe me… look around you… see the failure in our alienation from
society/government… see the poverty in terms of not only our standard of
living but in our poverty of values and our failure to understand
that we exist beneath Maslow’s hierarchy of needs because we
don’t even see a problem…we don’t even see how we value money/profits
before people and their lives/values… that we don’t even see this modern
nihilism is an indictment of our failure to see or to understand the problem…

to become who you are is not about becoming in an isolated, personal
standpoint but a collective understanding that we can only find out
who we are collectively, together and in full view of everyone…
we are a social species and in light of this, we can only become who we
are in light of being social with our fellow citizens…

it is all the same, you just have to see deep down and understand
that everything is one and the same…

at first, two concepts seem apart, separate and distinct…
then they become two sides of the same coin and
then they become one…that is life…
it looks separate and distinct and then it becomes
two sides of the same coin and then it becomes one…

so, how do we end or solve the problem of alienation in America?

we remember that we are the same, not distinct and separate
and not two sides of the same coin, but one…

Kropotkin

When more are alienated then none, then they are no longer alienated , but become the majority. The big problem with alienation is not the fact of being alienated, but of losing the center of the majority. Disperaty then happens, and as it happens , it is in fact the object of political manueverability.

Perhaps even the purpose of it. The question becomes critical when the control and management is lost.

K: I would make the argument that control has already been lost…and I do agree
with the idea that the alienated have become the majority… but once again,
the question becomes, how do we end this alienation? is there even a solution
at this point? to “recover” people from alienation, we must give people the knowledge
that they do have a voice, that people do have a say in their lives, unlike today,
where people no longer have a say in or control over their lives… either politically
or economically…if we are to be “saved” from our alienation, we
must regain control over our lives… to become who we are, we
must, must get control over our lives… we must have a voice in
our lives…

Kropotkin

That’s the million dollar question question, how indeed?

Granted , both parties have been de-centered, how else can the whole population be prepped for a centrist government?

perhaps by beginning to accept the idea that parties, as we know
them is part of the problem, not part of the solution…
it is not as Raygun said, government is the problem, no, the
problem is the political parties in charge of the government is
the problem…so once again, a reevaluation of values in that
we reevaluate the role of political parties as being part of the
solution… they are not and in fact, a solution won’t be
found until political parties are reduced or even eliminated…

now in my advocacy for a “new America” with new values,
I haven’t advocated for party, I have advocated for a position,
a position of liberalism without party…and it is possible to
have liberalism without a party being our “polar star” as it were…

now would the elemination of party help the current
nihilism and alienation of the American people?

yes, I believe it would be a start, a start to the return of
people to begin the engagement with their society/government…

until we get people to engage with, to have a voice in society/government…
we must remove those obstacles that prevent engagement of the people
with society or with the goverenment…and political parties are increasenly
an obstacle to the people have a voice with or having an engagement with
society/goverenment…no one solution however will be enough
as every problem as multiple reasons, not just one reason for
the problem, but many, many reasons a problem and thus
we must offer up many different solutions to our myriad of problems…

for multi-problems like the ones we have, required multi-solutions
and removing political parties is just one solution to the problems…

Kropotkin

in moving about some books, I came across a very important
book I haven’t read in a very long time…
“All that is solid melts into air” by Marshall Berman…

I have begun to reread this classic and quickly realize what I had
forgotten about it… and then I compare it to the though of Hume,
for example, who I am studying right now… I see how sterile
Hume is… the dynamic thoughts of modernity makes the thought
of Hume seem to be standing still…it is true that without Hume,
the modern world is radically different but still, it is remarkable to
see how sterile Hume is compared to thought of the last 200 years…

and I can see/understand how with each generation of thinkers,
from Descartes to Hume to Kant to Kierkegaard to Nietzsche, we
see the complexity and depth of thought increase…with each generation…
and this complexity challenges us and pursues us to ever greater complexity
and challenges…another way to think about it… the great thinkers
of modernity from Kant to today are playing 3 dimension chess while
Hume play 2 dimension chess… it was revolutionary in its time…
and Descartes? he played one dimensional chess…and today,
today we must now engage with 3 or 4 or 5 dimensional chess…
to become understood in our modern age…

Kropotkin

the depth and quality arise in our age due to the experiences
of the last 150 years… from the deaths of millions in WW1 to the
concentration camps of the Holocaust and the deaths of millions more
during WW2…how can we have sterile discussions of how our knowledge
is exists in certainty like Descartes does when in the background places
like Auschwitz existed…it has been 73 years since Auschwitz was closed
and yet it still exists as experience in our collective conscience…
and the deaths of those millions in those wars of extermination still
exists in our collective conscience…and the most philosophers offer
is a deconstruction of text… if philosophy will not engage in events…
experiences that have become who we are, then philosophy deserves to
fade into nothingness…we philosophers, we who talk of how is knowledge certain
or how language games gives us texture to philosophical texts… and we fail
as human beings by not fully engaging in matters of experiences like the
the Holocaust or the violence that is war…

to be a philosopher is to engage in the matters of life, of experiences that
collectively has made us, us…and we are social creatures of the collective
and what experiences of the collective impacts us as individuals…we share
in society collective beliefs and traumas and highs and lows that the society
experiences…it is not enough to call for morality of our human beings when
we haven’t faced the trauma of 9/11 and faced it squarely as philosophers
when face with experiences… we must explain experiences and turn them
into a source of a guide, a map of who we are and where we want to be…
9/11 effect has been to turn the U.S into a fear ridden society…
and fear has driven every single decision we have made since then…
and fear is a lousy way to make decisions… make a decision from
fear and chances are that decision will be a bad one because
that is what fear does… it drives people into making bad decisions…
Germany got Hitler from being driven by fear… we are on the same path
with IQ45…we philosophers haven’t come to grips with the events of the
last 118 years… not the science, not the political events, not the social events,
… we talk of the deconstruction of the text as if that has something to do with
life… it doesn’t… it is sterile and pointless… we talk of the language games
and what does that has to do with our lives as we have experienced it in the last
118 years or since 1900…nothing…we haven’t come to grips about the deaths
in either World War and we haven’t come to grips with the rise of the Nazi’s and we
haven’t come to grips with the Holocaust and its aftermath…we have fled
from our responsibilities and we have failed…we talk about metaphysics
and we ignore the reality of experience…our collective experience of
the World Wars and of the violent deaths of Vietnam and other such experiences
that lay upon the heart of the land…we cannot move on past these trauma’s
until we come to grips with them… we are survivors of trauma and how does
any survivor learn to cope with their trauma? they talk about it, they discuss it…
they cry and they experience it in the ways necessary to overcome the trauma…
we have post traumatic syndrome and we don’t even know it…and until we come
face to face with the trauma, we cannot overcome it…we still exist
with 9/11 and until we come to grips with it, it will continue to haunt us…

as we continue to exists with the World Wars and the Holocaust because we
haven’t come to grips with it… we have failed and we will continue to fail
until we overcome our trauma…but one may say, that is psychology, not
philosophy… haven’t you learned yet… there is no separation between things…
everything is connected…and once we understand that we are our experiences
and we are our events and we are our knowledge…we are one with those
experiences that we have had, both past, present… and we will become
those future events/experiences…and they will be added to who we are…

we are our experiences both individually and collectively… that is who we are…

experiences make us who we are… to exist, to experience is to understand…

Kropotkin

ok, let us do a little historical study…

I am at this very moment listening to Mozart… now to get his music played
he had to bring his music to someone else to get it played…
and the same exists for artist in other fields…

let us say, you have something of importance to say…
you must bring it to someone for them to publish it or
find a means to hold a concert or some other medium…

and this is important… the act of medium… be it a publisher
or a concert hall or the radio or movies… you cannot just create
something and then play it… it needs someone else to
either create the medium for which you can say your something…

the act of creation not only needs an medium in which the material is
distributed, but the act of saying something needs a medium like
playing music or writing a play or writing a book…

so you have two, two different aspects of medium…one is the actual
act of creation and the other is the distribution of that act of creation…
the artist has little or no control over the distribution of the material…

I wrote a book and I couldn’t find anyone to publish it… I couldn’t find
a agent who would act as a facilitator to publish the book… I was unable
to find a medium to publish the book…I finally published on a website…
I found a medium in which to say my thing… but I couldn’t write it and then
find some way to distribute it… I needed a middle man to make that work…

let us say, you make bread and you find out the same process applies to you…
you need to get your bread into a supermarket… which is a middleman between
the creator and the consuming public…now niche creations can often go and
find a means to take their work to the public directly… either online or direct sales
or in farmers markets for example…

so Mozart needed a middleman in which to publish his works, or
another middleman in which to put his music into the music halls…

what if the musician build his own music hall?
then the musician would become businessman…
in which he became the middleman… trying to get works to
play in his music hall… and then as a middleman, content becomes
important… think of TV… think of all those hours that must be filled…
or a website where you must fill the site with something… quality no
longer becomes the operative objective, no, quantity becomes the problem…
having enough material to fill up 24/7/365 worth of space/medium…
for a website is a medium, as it is a middleman between the artist/creators
and the public… so here we know understand why so much content is crap…

turn on your TV…if you are like me, you have 500 channels… and nothing to watch
because those 500 channels have quantity instead of quality…

could Mozart exists today? yes, but he has the same problem today he had back
then… finding a middleman that will distribute his material/creation to the public…
to make money which is the goal… one must somehow be able to distribute your
work to the public… but therein lies the problem… should the goal be to make
money…shouldn’t the goal be the act of creation… of finding a personal medium be it
writing or painting or sculpturing and creating… and creating should be about quality,
not quantity…it is common, very common for the biggest seller of the day, be it
Mozart’s day or be it our day, that the biggest seller of material, say, composer for example,
was not the best composer at the time… Mozart was clearly the greatest composer of
his time, but was he the biggest seller/draw of the music industry at the time…no…
it is rare indeed that the most creative/greatest creator of material at the time…
be it music or writing or the creation of art is also the biggest seller of the time…
the Beatles were the greatest creators of rock music of their time AND they
were the best sellers of their time… but that is rare…let us look at creators
in their time… Van Gough… he sold one painting in his lifetime… Nietzsche
sold very few books while alive…Hume first book, the one we know him by,
was certainly not a very big seller… the creators who created the art they
are famous for quite often had a hard finding a middleman to distribute their work…
and even if they found a middleman, the work in question quite often
sold badly or not at all…this leads us to asking if, if the artist should
write their works with the immediate public in mind to make money or
should they create the works they want and let the consequence be dammed…

this entire question is part of the individual’s role within society…
the artist… what are their role within society? what part or what role do they
play in society? and how different is their role from my role? or your role within
society? we are both producers… and this is important to note… the artist is a
producer… he creates something he hopes to sell to make money so he can afford to
produce more…like me, his production can be found in a corporate setting…
I sold my work, my production to a big corporation for 22 bucks an hour and
I spend my days scanning and weighing items for sale… and how is this
different then Mozart trying to sell his work? Mozart is the creator, I work
for the middleman, selling material to the public…we lie at different
points of the distribution circuit…now I have railed against the pursuit of
profits/money… let us apply it here… in the supermarket, we buy a product
from someone, the creator, and then we try to sell it for more then we bought it…
that creation of profit fuels the next round of buying things from creators…
so, let us say, I buy Mozart’s work… as a middleman, I now am tying to get
others to buy it from me, at a greater price then I paid for it, to make a profit,
so I can go out and buy another round of things from other creators like Mozart
and sell those thing and the process goes on and on and on… as long as their
are creators like Mozart, I can continue to buy his stuff and as long as there is
the public that will buy his stuff, I can continue this ongoing pattern of being
the middleman buying stuff from the creator, be it Mozart or be it bread…
and selling it to the public…at no point here does quality enter the
picture… selling on a mass market scale isn’t about quality but about
quantity… 500 channels on TV…how do you fill those hours?

so the modern world is really just a world filled with middlemen who
buy things from the creators be it Mozart or be it bread and then the
middlemen sell that merchandise to the public for more money
the middleman paid for it…and the process continues on as long
as there is creators and there is the public who can buy that stuff…

the creators be it Mozart or bread must find a middleman to sell their
products to the public… otherwise someone like Mozart would spend their
entire time engaged in the selling of the material and have no time for the act
of creation of that material…

so in a real sense, the act of the creation of the economic systems, be it
capitalism or communism is about the distribution of material goods between
the creators and the public…the act of the economic system is really an
act of the creation of the middlemen who are necessary to stand between
the creators and the public…you want to understand capitalism,
really understand capitalism, understand the role of the middleman in
capitalism…and that role of the middleman is another understanding
of the role between the individual and society…

Kropotkin

capitalism could be, rightly, called the creation of the middleman state…

food for thought…

Kropotkin