—^^^
As I have been studying Aristotle, I have also been reading history books about that time period.
I am trying to connect the time period with all its political, social, economic activities with
the philosophy that Aristotle (and Plato and Socrates) were doing. by that I mean, if you read Aristotle
and read about his say, logic idea’s and compare them to the socio-economic activity of the day, you
wouldn’t even know that during Aristotle lifetime was war after war and economic rise and fall of whole
communities. Yet, Aristotle was writing about logic and the physiology of plants and animals all the while
wars going on all around him. You don’t any sense of the current activities outside of random comments
made while writing certain books. Then you look at other philosophers, much later in time.
Hegel wrote during the long wars between France and Europe from 1798 to 1815. Nietzsche served
during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and Wittgenstein served in World war one as a common soldier,
but you don’t get a sense of any of that reading those philosophers. They were writing as if those events
didn’t seem to matter or even happened. These philosophers were writing as if above and beyond those
human events but those human events are who we are (in part) and any explanation of reality must somehow
include those events. As everyone knows, humans have two sides (well to be precise we have many sides as
stated by Goethe when he said, “alas, I have two souls in my breast” which I believe to be an understatement)
Outside of Nietzsche, who else has even approached trying to understand and explain those two sides,
the rational and the emotional which of course N. called the Apollonian and Dionysian. The rational side
was the Apollonian side and the emotional side was the Dionysian. this division clearly is shown in
our modern age with conservatives attempting to destroy everything gained in the enlightenment and
on toward our age. the Holocaust was simply the first shot fired in a long and prolong war against
the enlightenment which continues today. The failure of philosophy that I first notice is in part because
of this war, renamed the culture wars in America that has lasted since 1980. Philosophy has failed to take
into account this division between the rational and the irrational. We must address this in the philosophy of
the future.
Kropotkin
The conspicuous problem is that while you are doing that, you are filtering and assigning good and bad based upon childhood biases prejudices.
Education merely makes a hateful person more specific.
Peter Kropotkin: As I have been studying Aristotle, I have also been reading history books about that time period.
J: The conspicuous problem is that while you are doing that, you are filtering and assigning good and bad based upon childhood biases prejudices.
K: ummm, that is what we do, we filter and assigned based on biases and prejudices. that is the human condition.
to say you do anything else is to simply lie. The best we can hope for is to balance our biases with
other biases. The world is viewed by relative standards created by biases and prejudices.
In other words, all points of view have the same validity unless it can be shown to be wrong thus one
who claims the moon is made of cheese is easily disproved and thus does not have the same validity
as one who states the moon is made of rocks and has the same properties as the earth and then one
who states that this is true except that the moon doesn’t have air/oxygen and with each example we
get closer to what the moon really is despite our biases and prejudices.
J: Education merely makes a hateful person more specific.
K: education is merely an attempt to limit our biases and prejudices, not eliminate biases and prejudices
because that is impossible.
Kropotkin
If you’re looking to pre-moderns, I think the Neoplatonists had a vision closer to the truth about time and space than Aristotle did.
Now we exist in a time when science and metaphysics have again merged, with ideas like quantum consciousness and holography.
K: perhaps the Neoplatonists do have a vision closer to the truth, but as I am still engaged in Aristotle,
I shall reserve my judgements about them to a later date.
And I believe you are correct as to science and metaphysics merging but the question becomes,
what does this mean? For us, for science, for the future?
Kropotkin
Really, you cant claim to understand history. What someone wrote or didnt write, what is truth and what is lie, what people wished to be true and what was. If aristotle wrote of the war, what would he have written? Was he involved or removed? What walk of life did his writings stem from compared to others? A lot of variables. Its much easier to witness life around us and see how those philosophies may have came from similar origins. Place your rough knowledge of history onto todays problems and see if you can find a pattern. That would give you more of a look into those minds than a direct approach. Try to experience life as they did.
To call me a liar makes you the liar.
Many people have awoken to the prospect that certain things they always believed to be true, never really were and that at times, the good guys really were the bad guys. I was raised thinking that Science was far more genuine than it turned out to be. I never questioned whether the Judists or Christians were good guys. And now I have to very highly question reported “history”, especially since even Science can’t stay honest or accurate.
Discovering truth in history requires a high degree of analysis, far beyond superficial reading (much like scriptures). Some people learn to question properly, most do not.
K: very carefully reread what you wrote. “certain things they always believed to be true, never really were”
That is a long version story of a bias, prejudice. Each of us, all human beings, are raised with certain biases,
prejudices, we get these from family, school, church, society at large. I was raised in an upper class, liberal,
family that had political connections. My own personal journey has been philosophical in nature which meant
I went through a very long period of questioning my own biases, prejudices (I was influenced by Nietzsche in this)
I countered my biases by reading many, many other bias accounts of history, philosophy, economics, political theory, theological. For that is all we have biased accounts written by biased people. Is science bias, prejudiced?
Of course it is! But the way science questions it own bias is simple, it uses the scientific method to limit,
LIMIT, one’s bias. If you can use science to predict future events, you have a means of limiting bias.
If newton’s method was used for hundreds of years to predict event (and very successfully I might add)
then you have an bias to Newton’s method. Along came Einstein who created? devised? found? a method
which was more accurate means of predicting future event. The orbit of Mercury was the actual reason
for Einstein to revise Newton, because Newton method just didn’t get the prediction quite right, whereas
Einstein method did. This shift of bias is closer to the reality of the situation, (we have a better gauge of the
orbit of Mercury) This shift helps limit bias.
Your very statements are biased, prejudice as are mine. We seek to limit the bias in our thinking because
we are philosophers (this is in fact a philosophy site) We are never clear of the childhood clutter that
is the biases and prejudices that we were taught, but we can limit them.
Kropotkin
Which guarantees that you have absolutely no hope of ever seeing clearly. And also guarantees that you will always believe that no one else can see any more clearly than you … unless they agree with you.
Why is it that wealthy liberals ALWAYS say that and yet ALWAYS display the opposite? Whimpy-self-delusion: “No one is smarter than Me … Me … MEEE!”
There is a very strong tendency in nature to assume in some way that the self is better or smarter than another. At the root it is the comparison of self to another, judgmental bias tinged with a rebound of insecurity in one facet that cause other facets to highlight themselves to give you a sense of self worth, too often at anothers expense. To say that Kropotkin is limited by his lifestyle is to say the same of your self. Even in this, in a way, I view myself to be smarter because I feel that this advice is needed. I find that often, at the core of such interactions, that we view others to be better than us at the same time as seeing how they could be better. We try to help them avoid the weakness we feel and it just gets to the point of bias and prejudice and discontent since we arent really learning to work together. Two warriors that are bonded in struggle will move in tandem, each of them covering the others blindspots and dealing with what is in front of them. Why not collaborate?
K: feel free to show us how at any point in my over 4000 post, I have said I am smarter than people.
I am average in intelligence. I would guess out of the 7 billion people on earth, I rank somewhere in
the top billion or billion and a half. I am then saying that I believe that there are over 1 billion people
on planet earth smarter than me. I am old and no longer have any fantasy’s that I am special. I am not.
However I am honest and will take points for that. As you have made this personal, I shall return to the
point of biases. We each of us, have biases and we make judgements based on those biases. I hope to
temper my biases by having read many, many other people who are bias. I used their bias to balance
my bias. Nothing more is possible.
PS, my family lost all its wealth before I was 10. my mom was a single mom with 4 kids and needed
government programs to feed us. Much later in life, I was homeless for about 3 months. So save your nonsense
about wealth for someone who cares because that ain’t me.
Kropotkin
K: I don’t view anyone smarter or better than me as I don’t view myself smarter or better than anyone else.
We each have strengths and weaknesses that make us different than other people. I am very weak in math as
is my whole family (except my brother who is a math genius) I recognize that we each have strengths. However
I am at the point in my life where I am just working on me. I just do my thing making me better and this
whole ILP thing is simple another way to do that. That is why I don’t give a shit if anyone reads me or not,
because my writing is for me and no one else.
Kropotkin
PK, many of those billion who are smarter than you understand that almost nothing applies to everyone. So when you say “everyone is biased and prejudiced (just like me)”, speak only for yourself, because even that you don’t really know very well, and others, even less so. Implying and accepting that everyone is as bad as you is rather revolting and insulting.
“It’s okay to be excessively bias, prejudice, and hateful of others because everyone is.”
“It’s okay to cheat on my taxes because everyone does.”
K: and you have spun this with your bias and prejudiced and I might mention hate. I am sorry you really
hate people but it has nothing to do with me. You are bias and prejudice as is every human being on earth.
Deal with or don’t deal with it. It doesn’t matter to me. Because I deal with my issues, not yours.
Kropotkin
Only you, PK (from your demonstrations on this forum for years … not prejudiced, not biased).
K:as I have already stated, I have biases and prejudices. Try reading this thread again to see this.
What I am saying is, everyone and everyone by definition includes me has biases and prejudices.
the goal seems to be to limit the amount of bias one has and to do so requires some method.
I suggest reading others who have a different bias and prejudices and use that to limit one’s own
biases. Other methods exist.
Kropotkin
That (bolded) is your prejudice, accusation, and condemnation of people whom you have never met.
I am not arguing that YOU are not prejudice. I am pointing out that you are demonstrating your prejudice … again.
Let me call you on your shit. If this was just for you, why post it here, why not type it up in MS Word or scribe it out in a journal. You reach for others to intrude into your thoughts. I think that you are just looking for some sort of validation or verification of what you want to believe. Perhaps Aristotle didnt write of those wars because he thought that by preventing knowledge of it that there would be no more wars. Maybe he was afraid or maybe they didnt want philosophy mixing with war in those times. You might be looking to him as great inspiration when he was probably just another man. It is rather vain to post this here and then say that it’s just for you.
After some ugly days of work, I’M BACK.
I see doubters hard at work here and that is ok. I don’t mind.
Because I don’t get worked up about those who doubt anymore than
those who approve. I treat each the same. I write for me. This format
is simply for convenience sake because I have tried other methods and this one
fits best into what I am trying to do, so I use this. If you don’t understand, I really
can’t help you.
Because of work and its detrimental effects on me, I have been thinking about it in terms
of economics and not just work. We have today anyway, a mixed economic system.
The mix is of capitalism and socialism. (is this a complete and faithful representation of
our economic system, nope, but I am not interested in a complete and faithful representation
of our economic system because that is very involved and it doesn’t change anything I say)
We sacrifice millions of humans to continue this economic system. To give you an example whereas
any number of examples exists, I am a checker in a large supermarket chain. As far as the managers and
company goes, I am completely expendable. Once my value decreases, I am gone like yesterday’s garbage.
And yet I have given years (8 as of August 9) and I have damaged my health in numerous ways helping this
company and yet I am still expendable. It is completely irrelevant to the company as to what I want or would
like to achieve, the only thing that matters is my making the company money. Once I don’t do that, poof, gone.
I believe I have value beyond just creating profit for the company but you wouldn’t know it. I am a cog in
the machine. Is my value or even the company’s value just in making a profit? I don’t believe so. And this
is the reason I stand with Marx because I have greater value as a human being than just a profit making machine.
this dehumanization of our modern workers damages not only the worker but damages society. Human value
is linked to economic value and humans have a greater value than just economic. The company and societies
emphasis on the creation of profit is really nothing more than Nihilism, Nihilism carried out society wide.
Let us explore this notion further. Look into the dictionary and see nihilism as: The general rejection of
customary beliefs in morality, religion. But look deeper and see. Is not the exclusion/rejection of
human values such as love, honor, piety, hope, also Nihilism. We see this in our economic system which
excludes/rejects such human values as love and hope as economical unnecessary, unwanted.
To reject such human values is Nihilism. The current economic system in its pursuit of profit has
excluded and rejected human values and thus promotes nihilism. this dark and underlying feeling we
have of impending disaster is really our unconscious understanding that our economic system is
nihilism incarnate. We totter on the brink because we recognize on some level that human values that
we need are excluded and rejected as being unnecessary in the modern pursuit of profit.
Love and honor and hope and dreams have no value in the modern economic system.
Human values have no value in the modern economic system. The only thing that counts
is profits and the creation of enough profits so a small few can increase their value from millions to
billions to multi-billions. We are modern day slaves. Yes, slaves because we cannot escape our system.
we cannot go to some company that doesn’t follow the current economic system because it would go out
of business. We must go to a company that practices and preaches and obeys profit as the final, only goal
desired by business. We have two choices, one work in the modern economic system and be exploited
as cogs in the machines and having no other value or we opt out of the system and thus die.
(to those who claim to have opt out and have no economic footprint, you are simply fooling yourself.
you have an economic footprint which contributes to modern day society, you just don’t know it or pretend
it not to be true. It is there.) The option is to work or die. simple as that. You have no other choice because
for society to exist it must have as many people as possible working in its economic dungeons. creating profits
for our economic overlords, those who benefit from all our work and soak up that profit.
the modern economic system is simply an exercise in nihilism. The modern day denial of human values such
as love, hope, honor, forgiveness, and so many more human values that are denied as unwanted in
our modern economic system.
Kropotkin