a new understanding of today, time and space.

Nietzsche often called for dancing, dancing on the edge of the abyss…

perhaps we should…

most people search for, demand for certainty, for security, for a safe and secure life…

what if, what if that wasn’t the goal… what if the reality is, we should be searching
for doubt and uncertainty and dancing on the edge of the abyss…

There is nothing that is certain…we cannot just accept the proposition that
all of life is searching for something to ground our beliefs on, too create that
which is certain…

we see that in life there is not certainty… we live from moment to moment
in a universe that is full of uncertainty and doubt and chaos…

let us learn to dance to the abyss that has doubt and uncertainty and chaos…

We imagine that we need a safe and secure place to grow… but look outside your
window… we see a whole growth of life in the wild, outside in unsafe and uncertain
world…

all of life has grown in a wild, chaotic, uncertain world… look about nature…
what is certain about nature? nature is chaotic and uncertain and full of doubt…
it has nothing certain about it and yet life thrives there… perhaps our failure has
been to create certainty and safety and security when we should be
dancing within chaos and uncertainty and doubt…

the Greeks were fond of logic and order and symmetry and yet, yet they
had chaotic and disorderly side of dancing to Dionysus… they learned
to integrate their need for order and certainty and symmetry with their
chaotic and uncertainty and doubtful aspect of their lives…

a trick we certainly haven’t mastered…

humans have a chaotic and anarchistic need… sometimes we feed on
anarchism and chaos and uncertainty… we must learn to
incorporate that into who we are…
The “Purge” movies seem to capture that need… (movies I have yet to see)

as I am old, my days of chaos have passed and yet, I believe in doubt and
uncertainty… we can separate out chaos from doubt and uncertainty…

sometimes, sometimes… it thrills the soul to destroy… sometimes
it is fulfilling to knock down a building or create chaos…
but the rational, logical mind rebels against this creation of chaos and uncertainty…
and that is the struggle… finding the balance between this need for chaos and
uncertainty with the need for rational, logical, certain thought and life…

we have yet to find that balance…

the rational, logical mind rebels against chaos and uncertainty because
it know the energy it takes to create something is much harder
the energy to destroy something…

we bounce between this need to build and create and this need to
destroy and create chaos…

finding this middle ground was the work of Nietzsche…
once again, no matter where I go, Nietzsche has already been there…

the young want chaos and uncertainty and doubt and the old want
certainty and safety and security… we can have both if we accept
the fact we need both…

or said another way…the right fights for certainty, security and safety…
the left fights for doubt and chaos and uncertainty…

let us learn to accept that which is doubt and chaotic, uncertain…
all the while building a world where we are safe and secure…

we can have both once we understand the need for both…

learn to dance next to the abyss and you will achieve security and safety
it makes no sense but it is true… for often the truest part of life makes
little rational sense…

Kropotkin

Upon further reflection, I see that the search for god is the
search for certainty and security and safety whereas
the search for the dark side, those who believe and follow the
devil is a search for doubt and uncertainty and chaos…

I don’t mean this search for god and the devil as literally
a search for a god or a devil but what they stand for…
good and evil… for good is certainty and safety and security
whereas evil is doubt and uncertainty and chaos…

we cannot have one without the other…
we must unite or combine the two, good and evil, into
a understanding of life… the meaning of life is… whereas
part of the answer to the meaning of life is this union of
good and evil… the need for chaos must be balance with the need for
certainty… at times, we need and must create chaos and other times,
we must have and need certainty…the trick is knowing when
the time for chaos has come and knowing when certainty is needed…

the dance on the abyss require us to understand the balance between
good and evil… the balance between certainty and doubt…
the balance between chaos and security…

Kropotkin

Order, beauty, certainty chaos, ugliness, uncertainty

deep needs we all have deep needs we all have

truths to be found truths to be found

an understanding of the universe and understanding of the universe

security, safety, certainty hatred, destruction, anger

search for the light search for the dark

how do you hope to become whole, how do you hope to become whole

a nature to be found, a nature to be found

truth to be known, truth to be unknown

thesis, antithesis, antithesis

we search the light for truth,
we search the dark for the truth

we unite everything boxes
we divide everything into boxes

but we must not, we cannot,
look at things divided and separate

to analyze a flower
to dissect a flower

is to kill the flower
and how do we hope to understand that which is dead…

order, chaos, beauty, ugliness, certainty, uncertainty…

we cannot separate them out at the cost of our soul…

Kropotkin

K: ummm, that was an experiment that didn’t quite work out the way I wanted…

Kropotkin

to continue on the theme of being saved and a savior…

to be saved or to have a savior implies going from doubt and uncertainty
and chaos to certainty, security, safety…

to say, “I am saved” is to suggest I have certainty about my fate…
yet there is no certainty, no security amidst the chaos and randomness that
is life… and that is what being saved is, being saved from… being saved from
uncertainty and chaos and randomness

one is dancing on the abyss and by believing one is saved, the abyss no longer
becomes a danger… you no longer believe you are in danger by being saved…
the fear of the future is decreased and that fear of falling into the abyss is lessen…

but the whole point of dancing next to the abyss is the possible fate of falling
into the abyss… the uncertainty, the doubt, the fear of dancing next to the abyss
leads one to no longer taking life for granted, to accept the certainty in life along
with the uncertainty of life…it is not longer either/or… it could be both and at
the same moment…

to be certain is to be no longer by challenged by life
to have all doubts removed…to be certain is to be safe and secure
when in fact, we must have doubt and uncertainty to grow and become something
greater then what we are…

doubt is growth, certainty is satisfaction with the statue quo…

Kropotkin

Imagine you’re on a battlefield, in the middle of a phalanx unit, thousands of years ago. You’re surrounded on all sides. Your unit is being slaughtered. The men you’ve grown up with, fought in battles before, known for years, gone to training and boot camp with, are dying left and right. Your brothers in arms are succumbing to horrible fates. There is no hope. Your entire unit is destined to die in a painful and gruesome fashion. Your efforts and resistance are wasted. You barely have the strength to hold up your weapon and shield.

Then the horns cry out across the field. The reinforcing cavalry has arrived, unplanned, surprised. Your saviors have arrived. The lord from the next kingdom over has come to aid your own clan. Forces greater than your own, unknown by you, have plotted to ensure this victory. You knew not of the plans of your Lord. But He has come regardless.

It is moments like these, echoed throughout human history, that people form the concept of a Savior.

It is monumental, unforgettable, tales passed throughout the ages.

Real-world actions and consequences. These form the premises and underlying concepts. That is what it means “to be a Savior”.

Imagine in the mix of that that they died tired, fighting until arms became too heavy, legs and bodies beyond sore until their movements became almost mechanical and as they died around you one by one, what little energy they had left transferred to you and that you were more than on your last legs when the cavalry showed up, still swinging the heavy sword, still lifting that heavy shield. For all your muscles and training, even in stamina and endurance, they did not actually prepare you for the emotional and psychological and spiritual strain of continued combat through the day, hour after hour against an unrelenting enemy, nor did you figure yourself the type to fight to your last breath after all your kinsmen were gone and dead. That it surprised you in the midst of combat to be carried on the swell of becoming limitless and still almost dead, almost wishing for it. That as the Lord of the next kingdom enters in, it’s not being saved that crosses your mind, though that crosses your mind surprisingly fresh. Your thoughts are noted for the weariness in them, the actual faded nature of them from a life time of having been yours. You are the last of your people and as you become fueled by the energies of the ‘cavalry’, your enemy breaks and is slaughtered before you, yourself finding feet numb and weary beneath you, and falling down in seeming gratitude.

If they had not shown, would you have won? Would you have continued on just the one to take down the many or would you have been cut down the same as your kinsmen? You would have almost preferred the latter, though wished for the former just to live it. The ‘cavalry’ robbed you of both and have become leeches to you as they put you beneath them. They are no saviors, only pretending to be. And their praise is marked by the lack of detailed knowledge that their supporters and redeemers have. They rely on bad salesmanship to pitch bullshit and spread it around and push it down the throats of others like it was their verbal cock.

Was that too crude and harsh? Did I shred your concept apart, urwrong? I think I did and I think it wasn’t done crudely or harshly enough.

a hero for out times…

we humans… we have to look for hero’s…

For the children of the sea, it was Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon, Odysseus…

For the children of the seven hills, Romulus and Caecus and Scipio

For the children of the cross, Jesus and Paul and Augustine

but who are your hero’s?

We have many different types of hero’s…

of the word and of the sword and of the spirit…

our cities have Monuments listing their great deeds…

we have holidays in remembrance

but who are the true hero’s?

today millions go see CGI hero’s…

and we have a self proclaimed orange hero

from his empty tower he preaches to the blind

and what is his sermon?

he preaches devotion to dead presidents…

but who should our hero’s be?

but really, what are hero’s for?

they exists as examples for us all…

they exists as an path for us to follow…

they exists as possibilities for us to emulate…

Hero’s… rare these days…

for they get shot on balcony’s in Memphis

and in Dealey plaza on a Friday…

and walking toward prayers on a day in January…

do hero’s only have value being dead?

but is that really the best way to remember a hero?

as a martyr to the cause?

look around you, right now, today…

and who would you call a hero?

maybe that is what we are missing today?

examples for us to follow…

someone devoted to a higher ideal

even to the point of death…

so, where are our hero’s today?

rise, show yourself, become who you are…

guide us, lead us, show us the way…

so we can do, what we always do to hero’s…

betray you undo death…

and I promise you, your monument shall rise high…

and we will devote days to your memory…

who are your hero’s?

the one you shall betray…

Kropotkin

if you think about it… physics and science is about motion…
you have the motion of the stars and the motion of man and
the motion of the atom…Einstein’s theory of relativity is
simply a theory of motion… and Newton? it too is about motion…
as is all branches of science… science is about how things move…

Philosophy is about values… values don’t have motion…
values are about justice and truth and freedom and love…

which values are the values we should be living by?
that is not a question of motion…

that is why you can’t use science techniques in philosophy…
science tells us how things move…

science tells us that if we move in space, this will happen…
but philosophy tells us why, what is the value of moving in space…
why does it matter that we go into space, what is the value of that?

when science rises up and tells us why we move in space
and when philosophy rises up and tells us how we move in space…
then we have combined the two… science and philosophy become one…

I am interested in the values of life, not in the motion of life…
and thus, I study philosophy but one day, the two, science and philosophy
shall become one…

Kropotkin

But we do face our fates looking them dead in the eyes and heads held high, for what its worth. Looking life and death both square in the eye and never flinching. We may get shot up; we may get made to look like criminals and told that appearances are damning, damned if you do AND if you don’t, called hypocritic, lied about; have our lives torn apart… But we have our courage, our confidence, our unwavering resolve and determination. We have what fuels all of eternity. Take away everything we are and everything we love, rip it to shreds in front of us, break us… and it will always be the worst mistake you ever make. And when it comes down to our ungrateful protected ones as they turn against us and judge us and shed their respect and begin to claim they see what the world is like and dig into us the same as others not even knowing the fight we fought… It further burns the tragedy in deep beyond removal and we overcome even that. As far as I know, no one gets out of life alive and either you stand for something or you’ll fall for anything and everything.

After a while, the heroes just fight for themselves and the other heroes and eventually others they feel like fighting for, for love; because they are warriors.

I expect my enemies to cut corners, to try to make that stick and last based on so much shit that would work if they didn’t try to Tim the Toolman rig it all.

At the point of knowing I’m not able to dissuade them through violence or other means, I store my revenge for other days, other lives. I turn my back on it all. That is what a Hero does without tears, without pity or sympathy, but just a simple decision. That’s what all of a Hero’s battles buys them. A seeming coldness beyond breaking because they’ve already broken too many times along the way if they’d actually been fighting.

You can look around you at all the stories of heroes, but you only see the abridged stories, the happily ever afters. You don’t see the in betweens, you don’t see them all the time. You base in two hours the sum of an entire person, when their entire life might be a lie, pandering to an audience they might not know is there and can not reach except in abstract thought at best if they do. They don’t show Aragorn popping a squat in a field and shitting while trying to not piss on his feet. They don’t show the Heroes’ insecurities behind the scenes when they’re out of the public eye and all alone.

If they did, you would think them depraved, you would think less of them, for them made into mortal men and women that you can touch and relate to.

the new science came about when man discovered this idea of motion…
the new science was formulated from ideas developed by men like
Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo and all of their ideas are based
on the idea of motion…this moved and that moved and the entire
universe moved…and along came philosophers like Descartes and
Spinoza and Leibniz and Hobbes and Locke and all of them made
motion the basis for their philosophy…if the universe moves such,
then man must act this way…at no point were values such
as justice or truth or love involved…

the idea of philosophy is the love of wisdom…
the pursuit of wisdom…

is wisdom found in the motion of things?

now motion can tell us where we fit into the universe…
our sun lies here within this galaxy and here within the
arm of the galaxy and this location within that spiral arm
and that we exist on the third planet from the sun…
the bright blue planet…

but how does having our location give us wisdom?
how does motion give us wisdom and understanding?

this has been the failing of philosophy…
the thinking that the understanding of our location as giving us wisdom…

if I tell you where I am sitting in my house… at the kitchen table,
near the sliding glass doors leading outside… 7 feet from the fridge
in one direction and 15 feet from the TV in the other direction…
does the knowledge of my location make you or me, any wiser?

and if tell you when I move to the bedroom, motion, does that give you any
more wisdom? no…the understanding of motion or location does not
give us any more philosophy, love or pursuit of philosophy…wisdom…

so we must regroup philosophy around another principle…
and it seems to me, that needs to be an understanding of values…

but perhaps, even that is short sided and too narrow…

under what principle shall we begin to understand philosophy?

Kropotkin

if as I have suggest that fields of study such as history, economics,
sociology, philosophy are simply studies of the various values
of human beings… for example, history is a study of what values
are important in that particular time period… if we read about a society
going to war a lot, that value was important to that society…
in other words, history reveals who we were at that time…
economics reveals another aspect of the human nature…
sociology reveals another aspect of the human animal…

but what about such studies as biology and astronomy…
they don’t seem to be human centric but they reveal
how we exist in relation to these area’s of study…
animals biology is this… and we know from prior
study that human biology is this and we can compare
and contrast our differences… also we can see
how we stand in relation to animals in regards to biology…

and in astronomy, we can see our relationship to the universe…
the sun is 93 million of miles from earth… from us…
and we exist in the milky way galaxy… once again giving
reference to where human beings exist…

our fields of study are simply studies of the relationship
of that field of study to human beings…

we still haven’t escape from our need to study and understand
who we are and where we are and where we need to be…

we shall remain a small and insignificant species until we remove
our human centric vision of the universe…

the universe doesn’t revolve around us, we revolve around the universe and are
a part of the universe…we are a small part of the universe…
we need to understand our small and insignificant role in the universe but
also to understand it is small and insignificant …

Kropotkin

Man is thus…

the pronouncement of a person…

Man is violent or man is greed or man is hateful or lustful

we have heard this…

from preachers and politicians and on the nightly news…

the human creature is defined as one thing, be it hate or greed or whatever

the failure of the pronouncement lies in its narrowness

the human creature is greed and lust and hate and love

and all those other values we believe in…

but that too short sided

we human beings are so much more…

yes, we are greed and lust and hate and love

we are all the values you can list…

but we reach so much more then just a list…

we underestimate all the values we encompass

within each of us lies the possibilities of human expression…

each of us feels hate and love and fear and lust and anger

and on any given day we might show those emotions…

or we might show them all in one day or an hour…

the range of human possibilities lies within each of us…

each of us can become another possibility

each of us could be a killer or lover, a scholar, a mechanic, an actor or a teacher…

all we have to do is make a choice…

because all of those choices is possible for us

whatever lies within the human realm is possible for each of us…

we could be creators of sonnets and plays and symphonies and cities

or we could be destroyers of life and liberty and happiness…

all that is possible and more…

we just have to embrace what is possible within each of us…

and everything human is possible…

we just have to choose…

life, death, creation, destruction, hope and despair…

all is possible once you have make your choice…

and decide which human possibility you are today…

Kropotkin

it has been said that man is searching for knowledge…
that is, a human being, being, is about searching for knowledge…

there are all kinds of knowledge, facts among those…

the sun is 93 million miles from earth…

but this fact means nothing unless we put it into some kind of context,
compare or contrast this knowledge… what does it mean that the sun is
93 million miles from earth?

there is other knowledge that is less certain…
we call this knowledge, opinions, ideologies, ism’s…

God does exist…
Hitler was a leftist…
there is no such thing as global warming…

each of these requires a different argument and a different
argument to disprove…

god does exists… no evidence of any kind supports this conclusion
it is a statement taken on faith without any recourse to evidence or facts…

Hitler was leftist… this opinion takes its basis from simple ignorance…
even a modest reading of what Hitler believed in show us that Hitler was
right wing… I have read Mein Kampf… and it clearly shows its allegiance
to right wing extremism…it even follows right wing ideology in its
use of conspiracies and blaming others for one’s failures and
in distortions and outright lies… it is a perfect right wing manifesto…

that there is no global warming… this just ignores science
and the science is quite clear and a vast majority of scientist
believe in global warming but that aspect is ignored but the real question is why?

each of these opinions and ideologies and ism’s are matter of faith…
and these “Facts” are used to justify these matters of faith…
that Hitler was a leftist is used to justify hate and anger and bigotry
against the left… but the real truth is Hitler was a right wing dictator
but to make your bigotry against the left work, you create lies that
Hitler was a leftist… it has nothing to do with Hitler but everything to do
with your hate and lies and falsehoods against the left… you would happily lie
to make a hateful statement against liberals and liberalism… that is the real target…
not hitler but liberals and liberalism…

to say there is no global warming is to deny science…
to remain ignorant of the world but to what end?

to save the ism that there is a god who is in command of everything…
what is important is not the global warming and not the science but
to do everything to save the ism, the ideology and no matter what lies,
what untruths, denying science, whatever it takes to maintain the ism,
the ideology is what it takes…to save god, one must deny science
and attack global warming…

the question becomes a question of what it takes to
preserve the ism, the ideology… the believe in god,
the belief in conservatism and the hate of liberalism and leftist…
that is what counts, not the courage of convictions, not the truth,
not the facts… but the ism is what is important…
and reality itself will be sacrificed to protecting and saving
the ism, saving one’s belief in god, in saving one’s belief
in the current ideologies be it capitalism or democracy or
AMERICA as an ideology…

this is not a search for knowledge… this is a conformation of previously
held ism’s and ideologies… knowledge exists to confirm one’s strongly
held beliefs and ism’s… that the ism and ideology is more important then
the truth or facts…facts that deny the ism is denied… science is hated…
the left is hated because they deny the faith, the ism and ideologies one’s lives
by…to have faith regardless of the facts or truth… that is what this
alleged search for knowledge means… searching for knowledge that confirms
previously held ideologies like belief in god and the truth of America as an
ideology… not a real search for the truth or a real search for knowledge…

but what does the search for knowledge really mean?

it is about searching for the possibilities that is the human being…
what are human beings real potential and possibilities…
that is what knowledge is for… finding out what is possibly for
a human being…

Kropotkin

Philosophy: love of wisdom…

Love is pursued so love of wisdom means we pursue wisdom…
we find wisdom within knowledge, within experience, within facts…
with these things, knowledge, experience, facts, we are attempting to
discover or interpret this knowledge into wisdom…

all humans die… this is wisdom gained from knowledge, experience, facts…
but what does it mean to face death as a human? for example, I don’t believe
in an afterlife… I think when you die, its just like falling asleep but there are no dreams,
just the silence of being dead with no sensory input going into the body, so the
body becomes unaware and silent…but what wisdom do I gain with this knowledge?

I gain the wisdom not to fear death… it will happen regardless of what I think about
it…when I was much younger, I had an crisis of the soul… somewhere in my twenties,
I became aware of death, not as a abstract theory that the young have, but as a real
question of human existence…I was haunted by the thought I was going to die…
one might call it a spiritual crisis…this crisis took a long time to resolve itself…
but the wisdom I gained from this crisis has been crucial to my understanding of
the world… I gained wisdom from knowledge, experience, facts…I gave up the
traditional beliefs in the metaphysics, god… heaven… hell…angels…the
resurrection and became an atheist many years after my initial crisis but that
crisis helped shape who I am and what I believe about the world… I gained
wisdom… I followed the path of philosophy (even though I didn’t know it at the time)
going from experience to wisdom…

now, in terms of Nietzsche, I overcame, I reevaluated the values of the society
with its focus on spiritual matters…

but what about a believer, a true believer…
a true believer believes they already have the truth,
that they already have wisdom…now this truth might
be religious in nature but it may also be political in nature…

there is a god thinks the religious believer…
there is no greater political system then democracy…
there is no greater economic system then capitalism…

these beliefs are core beliefs that constitute part of a belief system…

so for one who believes that they already hold the truth, that they
already holds wisdom… what do they do with new, incoming knowledge,
new experiences or new facts…they already believe they hold the truth,
they hold wisdom already… what they do with these new facts or new knowledge
is to use these to confirm their core belief system…

so stated in another way, they used facts or knowledge to confirm
already held biases, ism’s, ideologies or paradigms…
god exists… so the way the solar system circles and is a
very rational system is proof of god’s existence…
evidence is used to bolster one’s already held biases and ism’s…

ok, so the search for wisdom doesn’t exist for the true believer because
they already believe they have true knowledge, true wisdom, the truth…

the value of facts and evidence for the true believer is to find support for
their particular ism, bias, ideology…

the so called war between science and faith is really not that science can’t deal
with faith, but that faith can’t deal with science… because science can
show us facts, evidence, experiences that contradicts the “wisdom” of the
true believer…if the earth is 13 billion years old, it contradicts the
“knowledge” of the believer and so to maintain their beliefs, the believer
attacks science and its facts and evidence and experiences…
this is the reason for the war against science… the attack on science
in regards to global warming and evolution and physics is because
faith cannot deal with new facts or evidence that might contradict
faith… this is just as true with the true believer of any ism or ideology,
or paradigm be it religious or be it political or be it social…
this is why those of the true believers of capitalism attacks with such vigor
those who argue against capitalism… because the faith of capitalism
is no different then the faith in god and with the same amount of evidence for
either belief system…

the value of facts, knowledge, experiences for the true believer is to
maintain and support of the belief system… but that is not a search
for wisdom… it is not philosophy… it is religion and nothing more then
religion to use wisdom to confirm one’s bias, ism, ideologies…

Kropotkin

I have at some length discuss the fact that we humans are
problem solving creatures… if you look at history, you see that
we have created our institutions like monarchy and armies and
ideologies in response to some problem or another…

everything you see is a response to a problem, be it medicine to
philosophy to radio to computers to roads and schools and books
and glasses to clothes to democracy to communism to swimming pools…

everything is a response to a problem…so we have problems and we seek solutions
to those problems…but, but what about those people who I described in my last
post… those who by faith believe they have the answers to the questions of life…

we know those people are only interested in facts and experiences and knowledge
by how it confirms their biases and ism’s and ideologies… they don’t see solutions
to problems because they believe the object of their faith already gives them a solution…

an example is when faced with a problem, people will often say, Trust in god…
as an solution to a problem…these people of faith don’t want to react or create
solutions to problems because they believe, have faith, in a god that will solve
the problem for them… why search for solutions for a problem when god
will take care of it? that is having faith… there are no problems that can’t be
solved by faith… that is according to those with faith…but a problem like
global warming cannot be solve by prayer or faith in the divine…

and that is the problem with those with faith…they believe any problem can be
solved by faith and prayer…if you want to solve the problem of
overpopulation, faith and prayer are not solutions… they in fact, create
even more problems…at some point, we must act to curtail our growing
population or we face extinction… faith or prayer isn’t going to solve that…
you must act, we must act…

if you believe that you already have the solution to a problem,
if you have faith, then you won’t be able to hear a real solution
to the problem… because you are so tied into your bias and your ism…
that you think the bias will somehow solve the problem… it won’t…

if we have complete faith in such ism and ideologies like capitalism
and democracy and communism that you might miss the problems
that each system creates… you will fail to see the massive problems
that is caused by capitalism, problems that threaten the human species…
but you can’t see that in your devotion to this particular ism…

and this is where we stand… there are those that are so committed
to their biases and ism’s and ideologies, that they can’t see the damage
that the ism is causing the earth and the human species…they
aren’t open to the problems and any possible solutions to that problem…

those people are too engaged, to invested in their ism’s to notice
the problems of that ism, of those ideologies…they don’t even see
a problem and won’t be looking for facts, evidence or experiences that
might present a solution to those problems… because they use facts
and experience and knowledge to justify or to confirm their biases instead
of searching for truth… and in that truth, we see evidence of problems,
if we are honest searchers for the truth

the beginning of wisdom is to begin to doubt and doubt ism’s and ideologies
and paradigms… to discover solutions to our problems, we must begin
without any bias that undermines the truth… we can only find the truth if
we don’t believe we already have the truth in faith in ism’s and ideologies…

there is a public danger by those who insist that they hold the truth
ever certain because they are in possession of wisdom that exists
beyond the need for doubt or uncertainty… those who have faith in god
regardless of facts, evidence or experience and those who have faith in
an ideology regardless of facts, evidence or experience… like those who
have faith in the ideology of America… America, love it or leave it…
America, the greatest country on earth… they proclaim this because they
have faith…

“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator
with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness”

and yet, those with faith in the American ideology don’t have
faith to challenge their beliefs as proscribed by Nietzsche…

it is not enough to have the courage of your beliefs…
you must have courage enough to challenge your beliefs…

so this problem and solution issue that we face is render in doubt
by those who are believers and cannot see that a problem exist
because to admit that problems exist might challenge their certainty
in their ism or their ideology… and here we stand today…
the faithful in their determination to keep the faith, threaten
not only America but they threaten the human species because they
won’t even face the fact that there are problems and we must find solutions
to those problems…we must have doubt and uncertainty if we are to
find solutions to our many problems…it is doubt and uncertainty
that allows us to explore the possibilities that exist in finding solutions
to the many problems we have… not faith and certainty…

Kropotkin

As I do my research in philosophy, I noticed that
during the 16 and 17 century, there was much philosophical
investigations of science, the science occurred, then years later
the philosophy began… so you have Kepler and Copernicus
and Galileo first, then you have the philosophers…
so for example, you have Copernicus who lived from
1473 to 1543, a full half century before Descartes, who lived
from 1596 to 1650… you have the scientist who laid the groundwork
and then later you have the philosophers to take the facts and knowledge
and make those facts and knowledge into values…
after Descartes, you have a long list of philosophers who wrote like
Spinoza and Leibniz for an example…

now you compare that with science and philosophy in the 20 and 21st century…

you have a completely new understanding of the universe lead by Einstein but
you don’t have the same philosophical out burst by philosophers trying to turn
these new facts and knowledge into values… which is philosophy…

why didn’t the new scientific breakthrough of the 20 century lead to the
same philosophical outburst that occurred after the scientific revolution
of the 16 and 17 century…

it should have but it didn’t… inquiring minds want to know…

Kropotkin

those who promote the philosophy of hate and anger,
those on the right… don’t have a positive philosophy to offer…
those on the right, disparage such values as toleration and acceptance and
equality…what values they promote is never known because these
philosophers of hate don’t have any values to promote…they just have values
to hate, no values to offer…

the left has values to offer, positive values like tolerance and acceptance
and equality and we can use these values to better improve society and the
individuals within that society…the modern world is based on these
values of tolerance and acceptance and equality, these liberals values
are the values of the modern society…

and they work for modern society… the idea behind tolerance
is basically, we tolerate whatever idea’s you have and whatever you want to be…
that idea is you are free to work out who you are without interference from
society… and you can become who you are in a wide variety of ways, sexually,
intellectually, emotionally…and you then return to society the knowledge of
those experiences you have learned…it is from experience that we learn…
and if we limit those experiences to set ism’s and ideologies, such as limit
sexuality to man and a women with the goal being procreation, we limit our
experiences so much we don’t learn anything new… the experiences of
homosexuality increases the knowledge we have of sexuality…

you can hear someone describe the color red but until you experience
the color red in some fashion, you will never be able to understand what
red means… you can have someone tell you what a concussion is, but
until you experienced a concussion is, you have no real understanding of
a concussion… which I have had, I was unable to function for a month…
or someone explain baseball in exact detail to you but until you try to hit
a round ball with a round bat, you don’t really know what hitting a baseball is…

so the experiences that we allow people to go through by the acts of toleration
and acceptance increases people experiences and that benefits society…

there is no path to becoming who you are without some toleration and
acceptance from the very least your family and from society…

the path to justice also lies here as justice is having people become who they are
and those who attempt to stop people from becoming who they are, are committing
acts of injustice…

we must be free to, not only in theory, but in practice, experience to
engage in acts that explore the human potential even if those acts
are proclaimed… immoral and forbidden by god… the only way we human
can begin to understand what we are and what we can become is by tolerating
and accepting actions that are deemed immoral… animals are limited
by their programming to only act in certain ways… we humans have
much more open programming and that allows us to grow and engage in
behavior and actions that go beyond our programming, our instincts,
and we can only understand who we are and who are we becoming
when we engage in new and quite often unsettling actions and behaviors…

we can only grow when we have the toleration and acceptance of society
that allows us to engage in actions and behaviors…

that is a clear defense of liberalism and it’s engaging in toleration
and acceptance and equality…which allows us to explore our
possibilities and potential…

can those who oppose equality and toleration and acceptance create
a philosophy that promotes their values into an idea of a society?

I doubt it… for the opponents of toleration and acceptance and equality
can only oppose, they cannot create positive values that are useful within
a society… they are the party of no… and have nothing to offer anybody…

Kropotkin

I am eating breakfast, my mass produced breakfast…
I am typing on this computer, this mass produced computer…
on my mass produced kitchen table and chairs…
listening to music on my mass produced Iphone…
I can move over to my mass produced couch
to watch mass produced TV shows…
later the wife and I will drive to the coast
in our mass produced car on mass produced roads…
we will stop at a burger place and
eat mass produced burgers…

tomorrow I will go to work…
as a checker in a grocery store…
I will be one checker in a row of checkers
all of us checking on mass produced scales
using our mass produced bar codes to scan
thousands of mass produced items…

on Thursday, I will get a paycheck
for I am one of over 200,000 people working in this company
and we all want our mass produced paychecks to deposit
in our mass produced banks to pay for our mass produced lives…

what is authentic…
when everything we do and everything we eat
and everything we see is mass produced

my education was part of a mass production line…
my government is part of a mass production line…
my church is part of a mass production line…
my job is part of a mass production line…
my entertainment is a mass production line…

so how am I supposed to be real
and authentic and alive…
when everything in my life is
mass produced…

I am a mass produced person in a mass produced life…

Kropotkin

so yesterday, I spoke of having a mass produced life within
a mass produced world…

and later that day, the wife and I went to a museum in San Francisco,
the Legion of Honor… they had a Degas exhibit she wanted to see…

so, we drove in our mass produced car with a whole lot of other people
to SF and found our way into the museum…

we saw art… not mass produced art or but real one of a kind art…
that wasn’t mass produced or artificial in any way…

it was paintings and statues most glories…

men and women who toiled, sometimes for years to
paint something…create something… build something…
something that wasn’t mass produced and it was the reason we have art…
the need to express something and do it once and then leave it to history to judge…

it was refreshing because it a single human expressing their feelings and thoughts
in a non-modern way… not sometimes the medium is the message and if we see
the same message in the same medium, then we are, in part and parcel, being programmed…

the medium of mass production where we have the same mass produced mediums
of TV and Radio and Movies and advertising and digital… this whether it is meant
or not, to make us conform to a certain message, the conservative has heard that
message… everyone must be the same… wearing the same jeans, smelling the same,
having the same haircut… our own personal message is being programed into us,
by the mediums we listen to and we see and taste… the conformity of
McDonalds is that we are eating a mass produced, same taste, same texture,
hamburger… that is a message sent and received…

art is an attempt to bring us past mass produced things…
art is an attempt to show us something different then our mass produced lives…
art says, there is more to live then a mass produced live, so live it…

so maybe that is the question of our age… how do we live our lives
in a mass produced world without ourselves be caught up in this mass production
world we live in? how do we live non-mass produce lives?
how do we avoid the various mediums telling us the same message everyday,

how do we retain our individuality in a world trying to make us one?

Kropotkin