I hope to tie together several strands of thought here…
the question I have asked is simple, Who am I?
and the answer tells us everything…
Ask the man from the medieval times and he would have answer
the question of, “Who am I” far differently then we would answer the question
and that is because of the understanding that someone would have answered the
question by… they understood themselves not to be separate individuals but
as part of the whole… they thought of themselves as existing within a hierarchy…
you didn’t exist outside of this hierarchy… you didn’t separate yourself from this
hierarchy…one saw themselves as a piece of the whole… a single brick within
the whole building whereas we see ourselves as the building…recall that
medieval artist rarely if ever signed their art works… it wasn’t about them personally…
a concept that we don’t understand today… we proudly and loudly sign our
name and claim it as ours even if it isn’t whereas in the medieval times, the artist
as well as the average person on the street was simple just a brick in the wall and
nothing more…
so today when we answer the question of “who am I”…
we might say, we are a Christian… for example…
we answer as the medieval man but we mean a far different thing then
a medieval man would when we answer, we are a Christian…
so I answer the question of “who am I” by stating
I am a Christian or I am a grocery clerk…
(many answer the question of who
they are by stating their job or their job title… that is how ingrained this
idea of we are as being what our job is… we self identify by our work and
not by any actual reference to ourselves)
what we really say when we say I am a Christian or I am an American,
is to say we accept certain values and adapt them as our own…
as we our born into our values, recall we are born into an already built
house of values which are called ism’s and ideologies and paradigms…
we are born into a situation where the idea that god exists is already
built into the house we are born… it is part of the values we
live inside of all our lives…it is a value and we are born into that value…
and if we say, I am a Christian as part of the self identification, we
we have simple given a rote answer to who we are…
in other words, to say, I am a Christian is to say, I accept certain values…
to say, I am a Christian is to follow that ism, that ideology you were born into…
you have simply and blindly followed the ism that you were born into and if
you defend capitalism, you are simply defending that value you were born into…
to be a conservative, is to accept the values you were born into without any
any critical examination… you accept the idea that the past that has lead
you to today, we call this tradition, and you accept this tradition…
that is a conservative… you defend tradition as being the best values to
adapt… if you attack liberals, you are saying their values are wrong…
but you do so without any critical understanding of your position…
you have blindly accepted tradition as being best… you have
accepted the idea that the values your were born into are
the values you believe in… the house of your childhood, the
values of your childhood… the already created values that make up
the house of ism’s and ideologies you were born into, are the values
you accept…you have done so without any thought given…
you have simply accepted those values without any evaluation of their
value…or to put it into Nietzsche words, you haven’t reevaluated
your values…if you attack liberals, you have accepted that
conservative values are your values… that the values of the house
you were born into are the values you accept…
a reevaluation of values that Nietzsche calls for isn’t what you done…
for to do so might mean you might call into question those values
you were born into… that house of values you were born into might
be wrong… and so, the conservative doesn’t think about or
wonder about or reevaluate those values…you simple accept them
as a given… as tradition…what exactly those values are and what they
mean are never evaluated because that might cause a shift in those values…
so you blindly follow values, you don’t really understand or know what
they exactly entail…because that is the point of following tradition…
you don’t have to exam those values or understand those values…
they are a given as tradition…values given to us by authority…
the past which has sanctified certain values is another means
of authority… the medieval times followed authority, be it
Aristotle or the church and the authority was never questioned…
it was the authority that matter and this following of the values
of the house your born into is exactly the same thing…
it is the values of authority as dictated by the past…
and any reevaluation of values might challenge the authority of the past…
challenge the idea’s and ism’s an ideologies and paradigms, you were born into…
that is why conservatives don’t reevaluate values… it is a challenge to already given
values that you were born into, values given to you by authority, the past…
who am I? is defined by already given values of the past…
I am a Christian… is simply stating that I accept the values given
to me by the past…you are defined by the values of the society
you were born into because if you have simple accepted those values without
question… you have carried on the values from the past into the present and therefore into
the future without any critical evaluation of those values… without challenging
the authority of the past…
I have often heard conservatives stating that liberals have forsaken thinking
and rational thought and just act on emotion… but they are simple projecting
as conservatives often do… liberals do challenge the values of the past…
that is the defining value or defining understanding of being a liberal…
we don’t accept the past as an authority and we don’t automatically accept
those values given to us by the past…we challenge authority… in this case
the past… that is what being a liberal is defined as…we reject
the past as being an adequate judge of values… we reserve the right
to reevaluate our values in terms of new information and a new environment…
that is why liberals are attacked… we don’t automatically accept the values
of the past like the conservative do…the conservative believes the values
that sustained their father and their grandfather is good enough for them…
the house of values given as authority is good enough for a conservative…but it
isn’t for a liberal…
now conservatives will simple say, you are wrong… that is their standard
operating statement but they will not engage in reevaluating their values…
they will simple state that I am wrong without thought to if I am right,…
I have revaluated my values hence changes in my core values
both politically and philosophical…
a conservative would never do that… their core values are values given
to them by the past and that past being authority is considered untouchable …
to reevaluate one’s values cannot be conducted by a conservative…
because to do so would mean you doubt the authority of the past
and that basic principle cannot be challenged…
so the question of “who am I” is both a personal statement but also
a statement of values given to me by society and my parents…
“who am I” is a question of what values do I accept…
values created by me or given to me by the house of values I was born into…
so this question of “who am I” lies at the heart of the core values we believe in…
past and present and future lies in this question of “who am I” and the values
of ism’s and ideologies and paradigms that I was born into come into play when
I answer the question… “who am I”?
Kropotkin