[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
We have this question of identity and the Modern age that exists
because we are uncertain or unable to get a fixed on
what vision we are to follow. Are we to pursue a prior vision
of what made us “great” or should we attempt to pursue a vision
of the future and its possibilities?
Ours is truly an age of ideology, Capitalist, communist, liberal,
conservative, totalitararism or democracy? All of these are not
statements of fact, they are possibilities for who we might be.
We are in the midst of severe issues and the solutions offered up
are ideological solutions, not solutions based on the problems.
Let us look at and understand the nature of our problems.
First we have structural problems, non ideological problems,
climate change, extreme poverty, massive pollution, the coming
scarcity of resources… these are not left/right issues but issues
that challenge us as human beings. Another way to understand this
might be this, these issues are issues because we have to come to
understand that the rights of human beings are a legitimate concern…
Thus we can state that human beings have the right to… food, water,
clean air, education, medical resources and care and the right to determine their
fate, both economically and politically.
these are the rights we can state that are basic and inherent in every human
being. That there are other rights can be accepted but note, that the
concept of rights for human beings change and adapt. This idea of rights
has changed and evolved as our economic, political and social systems
have changed and evolved. The rights of human beings during the times
of the Pharaohs were different then the rights of the average Greek
and different then the average Roman. The evolution of the human
being since ancient times can be rewritten as the evolution of rights in
human beings. The Egyptian had no rights, the Greek had a few rights if, if they
were a citizen, the average Roman had more rights under the Republic and
gradually over the years lost their rights until by 300 AD, the average Roman
had virtually no rights. This state of affairs last until the rediscovery
of rights when the Renaissance rediscovered ancient writers like Cicero and Horace.
The Roman writers brought home a new/old idea of rights that was unknown
during the Medieval times. The Renaissance writers were not about
exploring these idea’s, they were simply about discovering these idea’s.
The exploration of these idea’s was the beginning of the modern world.
The modern world began by reacting to the ancient idea’s of science
and religion and philosophy. For example, Descartes was simply following an idea that
was suggested by St. Augustine over a 1000 years earlier. But if you think about
Descartes and his suggestion, you see the new thing about his “radical” thought
experiment. He thought of himself as a single entity. I, Descartes, to discover
the thing I can be absolutely certain about, will try this personal experiment,
using my thought and my body as part of the experiment. Descartes thought
of himself as an individual participating in an individual experiment. This is
the radical nature of his experiment. He was simply an individual, one person,
not as the medieval man thought about it. For the medieval man,
he was simply another person hoping for a ticket to heaven
and god. The artist of the medieval times didn’t sign their works. We don’t
know who built the massive cathedrals of the western world. Who actually
built the Chartres Cathedral in Chartres France? We don’t know and they
didn’t care about taking personal credit in medieval times. It was a collective
effort. We don’t hear about the individual in medieval times.
We begin to hear about individuals during the Renaissance. Not just
about Kings or Popes or nobles, but about the average citizen in a way
that didn’t happen during the Middle ages.
The question of “who I am” changed from the medieval times to the
Renaissance and then changed again during the period of the Enlightenment
and changed again during the Romantic period. This change has continued into
the Modern age. But it has become complicated, this idea of “individual”,
but the question still remains, why? Why do we have the question of
identity when no other culture or society or civilization had this problem before?
And the answer lies once more, with the industrial revolution.
It has changed the nature of who we are and what are our possibilities.
We must confront the industrial revolution in a way that we have never
done before and we must confront the nature of production and consumerism
that exists today. The answer to “who we are” lies, in part, in our economic,
political and social systems that we have today.
what to make of the current social, economic and political systems
that created both the modern man and the modern age.
Kropotkin