a new understanding of today, time and space.

So, last seen we have 1…1…2

• =…

Now, we have notice that we can’t add 1 table + one Airplane = because
one table and one airplane aren’t equal… we can only add equal things…
in other words we can only add things that are alike or fall into a certain set…
we can add pieces of furniture because they are alike in some fashion…
and we can add people because they belong to a set… but what about items…
that aren’t alike… we can’t add or do any math with items that aren’t alike
or fall into a certain set… this call into question the idea that math is
the highest value thing in the land because math only works on like items or
certain items that fall within a set… so math is in fact, very limited in what it can do…
it can only handle like items or items that fall within a certain set…
anything outside of that, math is useless…1 apple + 1 table =… you can’t do that…
you must equality between the items otherwise the math doesn’t work…
and if math doesn’t work… where does that leave the world? because the world
is math based…

Kropotkin

the focus in mathematics has always been the numbers, but the numbers
change, 1…1…2 can be written with plenty of different numbers…

so the real thing to study is not the numbers but the + = - -:- and all the other
connecting signs we use…for example equal =… this is a very important aspect
of mathematics… equal, this number and this number equals this number…
this commonality that numbers must have to be equal…
you must have numbers that are equal or have something in common to be able
to add, subtract, divide or multiply… you cannot add one airplane and one elephant
without creating a new class for the equal sign… =… what would equal an airplane
and a elephant? what class or things in common can you say about an airplane and a
elephant? for mathematic to work, things must be alike and/or part of a set…
like furniture…

En Tisch + Ein Stule = 2 pieces of Mobelstuck…

a table + a chair = 2 pieces of furniture…

for mathematics to work, it demands likeness, commonality, a set, similar things…

if we take mathematics as being the pole star of what we should strive for…
then for life to work, it demands likeness, commonality, a set, similar things…

we can add similar things like love and honor and hope and charity because they
all represent values… a commonality or a set…

we can strive to love and hope and charity because they are all positive values,
they are values that are similar…those values are values that lead to our better
angels… we have over 2000 years of human beings proclaiming that these values
of love and hope and charity are higher values, values that lead us to happiness…

and we move to avoid similar values of hate, anger, greed…
similar values of negative values… these values have been preached against
since humans could preach… these values are lower values that lead us to
unhappiness… you cannot add up dissimilar values… for example…
you cannot have love + hate =… because what would love and hate equal?

you must have an equality of values for this to work…
equal values are values like love, charity, hope, honesty…

you can add equal negative values like anger and hate and greed…
because they equal something… anger + hate = conservative

negative values go down to instinctive values… we instinctually have
anger and hate and greed just like animals…for they are the base values
of human existence…

but higher values like love and hope and charity are higher because
they go away from an instinctual understanding of the world…

you might I am so wrong, that I am wrong everyday of the week and twice
on Sundays… and I say, so what…

if as Nietzsche suggest that life is an experiment, then we need new
hypothesis all the time… it doesn’t even matter if I am right or wrong,
if it leads us to new understanding of the world and our place in the world…

what matters is the new understanding of the world, not the hypothesis that
got us the new understanding…

so…

Kropotkin

so in talking to my mom yesterday, she and my sisters have been
interested in those DNA test… my younger sister bought my mom a kit
and my mom sent it out and just received her results…

my mom was 98% northern Europe… 50% from England, Ireland, welsh and
Scotland… 40% was from France/ Germany…what did turn out surprising
was there was native American, less then 1% and two separate African sources…
one was from Western Africa and one was from Sub-Sahara, so we have two separate
African sources… and there was a .1% of east Asian… don’t know where they came from…
and one more very surprising item… 1% of Ashkenazi Jews… WTF…
we have no fracking idea where that came from…now this test besides it
interest value, does have another value… it places us into the world we live in…
we now see where we are from… this has value to us because it tell us who we are…
I am part African… and part Jew and part Swedish and part dutch and part Irish
and part English… I cannot classify myself as solely one thing or another…
I am part of the world as it exists within me, as part of me… I cannot express hated
of jews or Africans or Swedish because I am them… and this is the value of
understanding who we are…and understanding where we came from…

those who hate Jews and blacks and Catholics simply don’t understand that
when they hate, they hate themselves because they are part Jew, blacks,
Catholics…the world doesn’t just exist out there, it exists within us,
as part of us… as part of who we are…we are Jew and we are black
and we are Swede and we are east Asian… all you have to do is
understand that we are part of the world and the world is part of us…

this understanding of who we are is important because it places us within the
world… and we better understand what it means to be human…
we have place ourselves in the world and we are better for it…

Kropotkin

we have a problem…
and that problem is simple…
we have a separation between philosophy and
how we live…
in other words… we have separated our philosophy from
how we live…

when I was an anarchist and I was an anarchist for a decade…
I didn’t just have a anarchist philosophy and I lived a normal
life within society… I lived an anarchist life… I didn’t have a car,
I didn’t file taxes, I didn’t have a bank account… I didn’t even have
a home or an apartment… I was truly off the grid… I lived my
anarchist philosophy…I lived my political philosophy…

but, but who among us lives their philosophy…
you have a philosophy and then you have your life…
the two are separate and distinct…
one doesn’t live their philosophy… they have their philosophy
and they have their life… may the two never meet…

but who among you have the courage of your beliefs to actually
live your philosophy!

who among you have the strength to become your philosophy…
to live your life according to your philosophy…
who is prepared to have your philosophy become a way of life,
and not just a separate and distinct belief system that exist
outside of yourself and is just a series of beliefs not to be lived,
but to be studied…

it is not enough to have a philosophy but to live that philosophy…
to live your life according to your philosophical beliefs…
just as I lived my anarchist political beliefs, one must live
their philosophical beliefs or it is just a theoretical exercise
that means nothing because it doesn’t have real life experience behind
it…philosophy must be lived and not just be an theoretical
exercise… philosophy is a way of life, not just a theoretical, academic
study of beliefs that have no baring on one’s life…
you can’t just study philosophy and then live
your life as if that philosophy is academic…

either you live that philosophical life or it is not much
more then mental masturbation…

what shall it be?

Kropotkin

what does my understanding of 1…1…2 tell us?

it shows that we don’t have any innate idea’s… that what we
learn, we learn from experience… our idea of god and our idea
of good and evil and philosophy is all learned from experience…

this raises an interesting point… if the knowledge we have is innate,
then it really doesn’t matter what kind of experiences we have…
we don’t learn from them, our idea’s our innate and thus not affected
by experiences… but if we do learn from experiences as I suggest,
then it would make sense to think about what kind of experiences we should
use to teach our children…and our selves…I read one time,
that by the time a child reaches 18, he/she has seen over 10,000 violent deaths,
either on the TV or in movies…and we wonder why the young think life is so cheap…
if experiences frame who we are, then we should be more aware of the experiences
in our life and in the life of our children…this learning from experiences last
our entire life…I am old and I am still learning from experiences…

and that is the point of experience… to learn from… to understand who we are
and where we are going… or said another way, going from become to becoming…

the lessons of experiences cannot be underestimated or ignored…

every experience must be looked at with an eye toward this one fact…
what can I learn from this experience… every experience can teach
us something, even if it is a lesson that we have forgotten from the past…

our experience with the understanding of 1 + 1 = 2 shows us even
that which has been in our lives the entire time, can still teach us something…
if we look at it with new eyes and as an example that every single
experience can teach us something, even something so basic as 1 + 1 = 2…

if we look at it from a new standpoint, not the numbers but the signs
of the + plus sign… and the = equal sign…

it is more then a reevaluation of values… but a reevaluation of experiences…
and a reevaluation of certainties from the past… 1 + 1 = 2 is a certainty
but now, what is it? a new understanding of mathematics…

what experiences are truly valuable when given a new look…

I believe we vastly underestimate the strength and value of love in our lives…
and we overestimate the power and efficiency of violence and hate…

renew the search into your life and see what had more power to change your life…
love or hate/violence… I would say that love has change your life far more then
violence or hate… rethink your experiences and come to understand what is really
important in your life…

we are made by the experiences in our life…at least come to an understanding
of those experiences and what they mean…revisit how you came to be today
and rethink what those experiences that made you who you are and
how they made you into you…

1…1…2 is only true if we supply the plus sign and the equal sign…
so supply the signs of your life… + … =…

Kropotkin

What is the point of philosophy if we look at it academically…

Nietzsche believe in the “Ubermensh” and Plato believed in “eternal forms”
and Descartes believed in X and Hegel believed in Z…
this is no different then learning that the Magna Carta was signed in 1215…
it is just a fact and nothing more… part of the failure of philosophy is thinking
that philosophy is just knowing that Nietzsche believed in the “Ubermensh”
or that Plato believed in “eternal forms”… so what… what is the point of knowing
that? what is the value of knowing what Nietzsche believed or what is the point of
knowing what Plato believed…the value of knowing about Nietzsche’s Ubermensh is
what you do with that information… the value is how does the knowledge of
the ubermensh changes or affect you or changes how you view the world…

it is no longer enough to view philosophy academically, we must engage
philosophy personally, emotionally, with a view of how knowledge changes us…
philosophy: love of wisdom… love…love isn’t impartial and love isn’t passive
love isn’t academic…love is engaging with all your heart and soul and passion
into the object of your love… love is not a game for the meek or the passive…
love demands, demands we engage on all levels of our understanding…
intellectually, emotionally, physically and so is the same for philosophy…

knowledge, facts are in fact, boring… the sun is 93 million miles from earth…
a fact that has been known for a rather long time and that fact is boring…
but if we engage in finding that fact with passion… we change how we understand
that fact…we are 93 million miles from the sun and that puts us into the
goldilocks area of where water can maintain itself, not to hot, not to cold…
we exist because we are the right distance from the sun… 93 million miles…
that boring fact becomes something interesting now because it is one of the
reasons we exist… we can approach this fact with passion because we
exist because of this fact…we can engage in philosophy with the same
understanding that we function, in part, using philosophical idea’s and
understanding of the world…science is facts and philosophy is about values…
and we live in a value based world… we inquire into what
values are values we should have and what values are values we should share
with those who come after us… this is philosophy…inquiry into values,
pursuit of values…we quite often reverse the order of our understanding…
we act and then we try to understand the values of that action…
we should first work on our values, what value is right and then act…
for example, we have stated for decades with different presidents of different
parties that we believe in democracy, the shared valued that gives the power
to the people and we have acted upon that value… we understood that value
and then we acted upon that value…understanding comes first then actions…

and this applies to philosophy… we must understand first and then act…
so what understanding first you have that you act upon later?

this is the value of philosophy… understanding before action
but this understanding is done with passion and emotion, so the action
doesn’t need to be done with passion and emotion…

philosophy must engage us, not just on a intellectual level,
but on an emotional, passionate level… what philosophy engages
you on a emotional, passionate level?

Kropotkin

what is the philosophic life?

Kropotkin

Charlottesville Va… right now has a great deal of violence going on…

let us think about this in a philosophic context…

How would you or how do you think about Charlottesville in a philosophical context?

Kropotkin

violence occurs because men are jealous of the beauty of women.

children should be seen, not heard…

anyway, after a long weekend of thought, I admit in a different path
then I anticipated…

we have the events in Va, the violence and hate… and what should our
response be? would should our solution be to the hate and violence?

the solution is in philosophy, but a different understanding of philosophy then
we have engaged in…

Recall that our understanding of events changes just as the events themselves
change… what is considered knowledge changes over the years… what we consider
wise has change and will continue to change… events, people, knowledge
don’t remain static, they keep changing and evolving…

Philosophy: the love of wisdom… the problem has always been in this
question of wisdom…what is wisdom? is wisdom, facts? the Greeks thought
that wisdom was knowledge… knowledge of how the world works was wisdom
to the Greeks…what we would call science today… but, and this is important…
Socrates successfully change the Greek idea of wisdom from having knowledge
of how the world work to a more personal understanding of philosophy…
philosophy for Socrates became more about who we are and not what we know…
recall his favorite phrase, know thyself…Philosophy is more about understanding
our own soul instead of understanding what makes the world or how the world was
created…science looks out into the world and philosophy looks into our soul…
that was Socrates idea… philosophy is not about Plato’s eternal forms or
Spinoza one substance, god, but philosophy was about who we are,
how to go from being to becoming… we must become something else
and according to Socrates, that becoming was wise about who we are and
what is the proper subject of philosophy was discovering what was the state
of our soul… he goes on rather a bit about wisdom being found in the
knowledge of the soul…philosophy was not out there, but inside of each of us…
Socrates took philosophy out of the sky and put it inside of each of us…

so we begin… is anger and hate and violence really the way we
want out to soul to be? this is the question…

what type of soul should we be? think of the people you have meet…
think about the people you have read about, heard about…
what was it about their soul that you admired or made you feel good about
yourself…chances are, if your are honest, it is the people who
soul was about love, goodness, integrity, honesty, betterment of life…

think about those who admire and respect people like Hitler and Stalin,
Jack the ripper, think about the soul who admires and respect these
people, I have meet people who admired and respected Hitler and
Stalin… their souls are dark and black, not people we would respect
and admire… who you admire and respect tells us who you are and
who you want to be…name the ones that society respects and
builds monuments to, and they are not the one who hate or the
ones who advocate violence and their souls are not dark and black…

blessed are the peacemakers… and we honor and value
them… Jesus and all other creators of religion are
advocates of peace and love, respect…
these are the values of the peacemaker and we honor them…
but we should also want to emulate the peacemakers…
for they promote values that we already honored…

blessed are the ones who pursue knowledge…
and we honor and value them…
Einstein and all the other creators of science and knowledge
are advocates of knowledge and understanding
these are the values of the seeker of knowledge and we honor them
but we should also want to emulate the knowledge seekers…
for they promote values that we have already honored…

we do not bless the ones who pursue hate or violence and anger
we don’t bless them, we don’t honor them and we don’t value them…
Hitler and all other creators of hate and violence
are advocates of violence and hate and anger
these are the values of the seeker of hate and violence
and we do not honor them…
we do not want to emulate the violence seekers…
for they promote values that we do not bless or honor…

for those who oppose liberalism because we promote values
of the future, then listen to those who promote values of the past…
they have clearly stated their promoting values of peace and love
and charity… they have built monuments to those who have
promoted love and honor and peace and they have taught the values
of love and peace and hope to the generations that have followed them…
we can listen to those who came before us and we can see they honored
the peacemaker and the ones who promoted knowledge and love…

so if we can promote them, we can also emulate them, the peacemakers
and those who value love and peace and hope and charity…
we can train our souls to be like those we honor and build monuments too…

that is the value of those who come before us… they can show us to what end
we must begin to train our soul… what values we must begin to emulate
to become better people… and that is the name of the game…
how do we become better people!

and now we reach the point where we have found a solution to VA and other
places of violence and hate and anger… we begin to emulate those who
values we already honor and build monuments to… the peacemaker
and the seeker of knowledge and those who value love and charity…
if we follow their path, all of us, we will find the solution to VA and
other acts of hate and violence and anger… the solution lies in each of us…
we just have to have the courage to begin the search for the wisdom of
Socrates… to know thyself… and the not the search for the knowledge of
the heavens and the stars and the truths of the universe…
but the truth of the human heart and the human soul…

Kropotkin

so we begin… is anger and hate and violence really the way we
want our to soul to be? NO

I enjoy your posts.

Regards

Aaron

K: why thank you… not every one enjoys my posts…
but you have to wonder, why? my guess is that those people
are unhappy with who they are, but because they don’t
engage in this idea of “know thyself” they don’t know or understand
why they are unhappy with themselves…they don’t enjoy being
reminded that they do not engage in an honest “reevaluation of values”
as Nietzsche called it, or as Socrates called it, “know thyself”…
it is the same thing, reevaluation and knowing oneself…

the truth is, most people are cowards, not physical cowards, although
they are plenty of those, no, most people are cowards of the heart,
they are afraid to engage in a honest evaluation of who they are…
they are afraid that they might find out that their self understanding
of who they are, is wrong… and that they aren’t who they thought
they were and that journey of “becoming who they are”, again Nietzsche,
is denied because of their cowardice of the heart…

to “know thyself” to really know thyself, takes real courage, real
trust and most people don’t have the courage it takes to “become who
they are” or to begin that scary journey to “know thyself”…

I have in the past called this a “nihilist” age and that it is,
but it is also an “age of cowardice” because people are afraid to
explore or begin the journey to discover who they truly are…
to examine without fear, their true nature… to become who they are…

it take courage to see the truth about oneself, real honest courage…
and that is hardly seen today…

and seriously missing from society and from this site, ILP…

I challenge the people here to honestly begin the
journey to discover the truth about themselves,
to “know thyself”… in a real and honest way…

Kropotkin

To know “thy self”…

I have become aware of myself of late…

I am not a generous person… I see a homeless person and they ask me for money
and I always refuse… I do not give people money… I am not generous…
I might have a million dollars in my pocket and I still won’t give them a dime…

I have realized this about myself… I hate sharing food… my wife will always ask
to sample food on my plate at dinner and after 20 plus years, I still hate to do that…

and yet, and yet, I still, as part of my political philosophy ask that people give
up their tax dollars to feed the homeless and clothe and give them shelter…

is that a contradiction? yes, I will agree to that… is that knowledge, the understanding
of who I am, enough to think about changing? yes, is my being not generous part of
who I am, yes… the question becomes, who shall I become, as Nietzsche called it,
is who I am, the not very, ok, not generous person at all, who I should become,
or should I become a more generous person… doing something I am not comfortable with,
which is being generous… who shall I become? the holder of all things Kropotkin or
should I learn to share?

I do not like to be touched… I hate being touched and I hate touching people…
my mom tells me when I was a baby and it was time to feed, most babies liked
to be held close to the body, I didn’t… I would only be feed on the edge of her knee…
away from her body… I am no different today, over 55 years later… I hate to hug people,
and I hate to be hugged… people who know me, know better then to hug me…
I don’t even like to shake someone’s hand… I hate to touch and to be touched…
I have to make a conscience choice to even touch someone… I dislike it that much…
I know thyself and yet, is it enough to change my choices, my behavior?
to become who I am, should I remain the person who hates to touch and be touched
or should I become someone who touches and is touched…

to know thyself… I am more comfortable with theory then with action…
I am not the guy who will organize the march… I will sit at my kitchen
table and create the theory for the guy who organizes the march…
I am a theorist… not an action person…I know thyself
and yet, is it enough to become who I am which is the theory guy
or should I try to go outside of my comfort zone and become
the guy to organize the march… the question is, to become who I am,
should I become something “better” then I am or should I simply become
who I am? the guy who hates to touch, the guy who is the theorist, the guy
who won’t share? the answer is quite clear but shall I follow it?

who shall I become?

Kropotkin

in thinking about his whole physical contact…

I have noticed that upon meeting someone or greeting someone
or renewing contact with people, physical contact occurs…
either a kiss or a hug or a handshake occurs when people are
greeting each other… the is the way of humans and I totally
hate that shit…I hate touching people… so why must I engage
in doing something that I hate, that seems instinctive with people…
should I become who I am or do I strive for something better?

Kropotkin

Philosophy: love of wisdom…

Philosophy is seen as something that is like knowledge,
like the earth is 93 million miles from earth…this knowledge is
just knowledge… Plato believed in eternal forms… that knowledge
while true, doesn’t change us, affect us, move us or it doesn’t become us…
we say that Plato believed in eternal forms in the same intensity
as we announced its time to brush our teeth…

philosophy is not just the statement of facts like Spinoza believed in
one substance which he called god… may as well be ordering food
with that sentence, with no feeling, no sense of how it affects us,
with the same depth of feeling… philosophy done right is about us…
it is not about whether Spinoza believed in one substance, but
what does that information mean to us…philosophy is not done
as statements of fact, information we have stored about various
philosophers but about philosophy as a way of life… about us, within us…
the value of philosophy is about how it changes us at our very core…
it is not information or facts, but it is how we live our lives…
philosophy lies within us and moves our soul and is done not as statements of
knowledge or facts but as a deeply felt way of life…
that is where philosophy goes wrong… when its about statements of facts or
knowledge instead philosophy needs to be about us and what is important to us…

every watch a good cook at work in a kitchen… they have a recipe but that
recipe is not some abstract, words on a piece of paper, those words have depth
and feeling to a good cook… cooking is not just recipes, but about emotion
and feelings and the intensity of cooking… cooking is done with love and passion
and emotion…

philosophy is like cooking… you have a recipe, Spinoza believes that
there is only one substance and that substance is god…
but real philosophy is about the emotion and feelings and intensity
that ones brings into the understanding of Spinoza thought…
and then brings that emotions into our thought…

philosophy is LOVE of …

love…

when I was young and I read Nietzsche and I was moved… as with all young men,
I too believed, I was the unbermensh and I was above the crowds and I was
superior… I no longer hold such foolish thoughts, but I was moved with passion
and feeling and emotions into bringing Nietzsche beliefs into my own
belief system…and that is philosophy…I took Nietzsche beliefs
and made them my own with feelings and passions and emotions…
I was for the first time in my life, not only thinking about philosophy
but I was engaged in, part of, with all my emotions about philosophy…
I was living philosophy… not just talking about like I was ordering
dinner, but living it… it was a part of me…

I can still remember the emotions of those days of love…
I turned that recipe into an act of love by living the philosophy,
by being that philosophy, by engaging in that philosophy with not only
my thoughts but with my heart…it was a part of me and I was a part it…

that love affair soon cooled and I moved onto another love, Hume
and another and another… until today, when I am active in my philosophy…
I am living my own philosophy and that is not just reciting cold and empty
sentences like “Plato believed in eternal forms”…I am engaged in philosophy
as part of me, with passion and emotion… as a way of life, not just reciting
“Spinoza thought that there was only one substance” real philosophy is engaging
with Spinoza… taking it personally, taking it to heart… living it, not just blandly
reciting it…and that is where philosophy is going wrong today… we don’t live
our philosophy, we recite it, but we don’t live it or become a part of it or feel it
with passion and emotion and feeling… that would be true philosophy…
not the crap we have today…philosophy is done just as much with the
heart as it is with the head… if you don’t live your philosophy, if you
don’t have passion about your philosophy, then you are wasting your time
with philosophy… do something else and stop wasting your time…
because philosophy is a way of life and is felt down to the soul with the
same intensity as love… that is true philosophy and the only
philosophy one should engage with… with passion and intensity and feeling
and emotions…

Kropotkin

there is a sense about philosophy, that philosophy is
done by the solitary man, thinking his solitary thoughts,
Rodin thinker, just sitting there and thinking, alone with
his thoughts and that is the modern context of the
modern philosopher but that is not the Greek or Roman
idea of philosophy…the ancients thought that philosophy
had a communal, group context…
philosophy wasn’t done like Nietzsche or Spinoza did it,
alone, thinking their thoughts separate from other people…
no, the ancients felt that philosophy was done with other people,
in contact with and for and by other people… philosophy was a social
activity, not an individual activity…
the group participated in philosophy… recall Plato’s School and
Aristotle’s School, they were involved in philosophy together,
discussing philosophy together as a group… they lived together
and ate together and had classes together and discuss philosophy
together… philosophy wasn’t a solo event done by one person,
people engaged together to discuss philosophy as a group,
not an individual thinking their thoughts alone, apart…

philosophy is a social event with other people…

and this in part, is another failure of philosophy…
thinking philosophy is a isolated, individual event where
engaging in philosophy is really a social act with other people…

and this engagement is engaging in…
we go to baseball games and watch baseball…
we are not engage in baseball, we are watching baseball…
but if we go down to the field and engage in playing baseball,
then we are engage in baseball…

philosophy has the same aspect to it… if we watch or read about
philosophy but don’t engage with it, we are just spectators
of philosophy…

philosophy is not a spectator sport, it requires us to engage within
philosophy and with philosophy… it must reach us emotionally,
with passion to be philosophy…

to do philosophy, you must play philosophy, just like baseball,
if you are passively watching philosophy, you aren’t doing philosophy…
philosophy requires active participation, it isn’t a spectator sport…

it must be engage with, with your whole soul, body, mind…

philosophy requires, demands participation or it has no value…
no point… understanding must come from participation,
not just watching it… philosophy requires engagement,
not passivity…

philosophy is not a spectator sport…

Kropotkin

in reading the news and in reading the responses to the news on ILP…
it leads me to, somehow, connect both the responses on ILP and the
terror attacks with philosophy…

how is philosophy, pursuit of wisdom, suppose to engage with
terrorism and the many responses to terrorism?

that depends a whole lot on how you view philosophy…

should philosophy, as done by modern philosophers, be this, passive,
beneath our dignity, not relevant to philosophy type of philosophy?

or should philosophy be as one famous philosopher thought,
“it isn’t enough to understand the world, we must change it”
Karl Marx said that…

or should philosophy be as the ancients did it, both as a way of life
and as a antidote to the storm and stress of daily life… becoming
indifferent to the daily news and becoming above it, by becoming indifferent
to it…

let us first explore this way of life idea…
philosophy was for the Greeks and Romans,
not just passive attempt to understand life and the universe,
but as a way of life… each school of the ancient world, was a
school in how we make philosophy a way of life…those schools,
now just names in philosophy books, were attempts to just to know
philosophy but to live philosophy… that was the point of philosophy,
how to live the philosophic life and the schools were the means to
understand how to live the philosophic life…it wasn’t knowledge for
knowledge sake, but knowledge to live the philosophic life…

so the various school, epicureanism, stoicism, Platonism, Aristotlism,
Pythagorean, Cynic and hedonism, were all schools or ways of life,
how to live the philosophical with the school of Stoicism, for example,
or using the cynic school to reach the philosophical life…the goal was
to discover what the philosophical life was and then live it within the schools…’

but our understanding of philosophy isn’t about the philosophical life, but
rote learning what Plato meant by “eternal forms” or Spinoza one substance…
philosophy today doesn’t engage with how do we live with the philosophical life,
BECAUSE NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE PHILOSOPHICAL LIFE IN THIS MODERN DAY AND AGE…

if ancient philosophers like Socrates and Plato came back to see what has happened to
philosophy since their time, they would be agast and dismayed at what
philosophy has become…because they wouldn’t considered that what passes
for philosophy today as philosophy, is philosophy…philosophy then had an active
engagement with life that we don’t have today…they would consider our modern
philosophy as empty, vacant, worthless, passive…

so we return to the question of how do we engage with philosophy in terms
of our modern events like terrorism? passive or active?

is philosophy meant to help us understand terrorism or is philosophy meant
to help us become indifferent to current events like terrorism? and in becoming
indifferent, we rise above it and thus are better able to control our emotions
and actions in light of those current events like terrorism…we see how
philosophy works with abstract idea’s like “eternal forms” but how does
philosophy work with emotional idea’s like terrorism?

is philosophy even the right choice in such modern current events like
terrorism? so many questions and so few answers…
and I must go to work, as promised…

Kropotkin

so I try to work out philosophy response to current event…

I shall try philosophy and the current response to terror event
like charlottsville and the recent events in spain…

I have seen some responses to the events in VA as the right being one
side and the left being one side and that they are somehow equivalent…
you can only make that argument if you totally ignore the message
of the two sides… the right has clearly stood for hate… the KKK
hate blacks… they don’t hide this fact and they hate Jews…
they aren’t shy about this… the white nationalist who joined the KKK
in this demonstration have clearly express hate of foreigners… they aren’t
shy expressing their feelings… and neo-nazi’s have expressed their hate…
also… what seems to be the common denominator? hate…
these groups hate and make it very clear about their hate…
so how do all these groups who make hate as their central theme
become equivalent to the left who have expressed themes of toleration
and acceptance and love… so how does one group who expresses
hate as their theme become equivalent to those who express love as their theme?

I am not sure how to create a philosophical response to hate or a philosophical
response to love…and how to create a response to those who have made
a response to the hate or love within these groups…

or should I just work on my shit and ignore everyone else?

that has been one very accepted philosophical response since the beginning
of philosophy… simply work out your shit and let the world pass you by…

on several levels, I have a hard time with that… but it is a natural and
understandable response… tend to my own garden and just let the world go…

but I feel an obligation, a responsibility to my species and an obligation to
my society, which is in essences is my family… I was born and raised within
a society… we all are…and that society has been instrumental in our very
existence and our beliefs and our current place in life… I have a nice couch
and a nice TV and a nice fridge because of the society I live in… and I don’t live
in fear like many in other societies do… I am safe and secure and relatively free
and those gifts are a creation of the society I live in… I should at least return
the favor and tend to the society that has created me… I feel that much
obligation to society… and so I shall respond to the attacks on society as best
as I can… not with marching or organizing as they aren’t really my thing,
I am not comfortable with marching or organizing but I am comfortable
with this… with working out the theoretical aspects of life in a society…

action without theory is mindless and theory without action is impotent…

Kropotkin

what does philosophy have to say about our day to day events…

for example, on Saturday, the wife and I had to go to a wedding
of her cousin… the wedding was at 4:00 and we spent the day
running around getting my wife ready… picking up shoes
and getting her hair done, that type of thing… then the wedding
was a catholic affair with a priest and a lot of “the father, the son
and the holy ghost” and amen…it was a short ceremony and a open bar…
anyway on sunday worked all day from 11:00 to 8:00…

so this weekend I had two prominent aspects of human experience…
the pomp and ritual of a wedding and the daily grind of work…

what does philosophy tell us about these events?
events that we have regularly, social events like a wedding
and daily events like work…

for human beings, ritual events, like a wedding…
are common for human beings… we like these events
and we have a lot of them… weddings, funerals, birth and death…
we have a ritual for every event in our life… retiring… we have an
ritual event for that… getting a new job, we have a ritual for that…
graduating … we have a ritual for that… for every event is a ritual…
some big and some small… but we have a ritual… but why?
why are rituals so important? why do human beings need rituals
so much?

and what can philosophy tell us about work… we work all our lives…
I have worked for over 40 years and no end in sight… but what can
we learn or know from our lifetime of work…what philosophic truths
can we learn from work?

Kropotkin

I note with some interest that the anti-globalist…
defend the interest of the “individual” without
explaining the role, method, function of the individual
within modern society…
they hold the “individual” as the highest ideal of
life and yet, and yet, never actually work out a theory
of the individual… they are anti-globalist, for the individual
and yet they don’t have a clue what they are arguing FOR…
they are arguing against but not for… I stand for…
no, they say, I stand against…
so they don’t have a positive argument for their position…
so I shall do so… because of their ineptness or incompetence
or laziness, they are unable to make an argument for the individual…
but I shall place the individual within context…

we are born…are we an individual?
human babies are unable to care for themselves…
in fact, humans are shelter by their parents and cared for
for almost 20 years… the longest such period in nature…
this long period of being taken care of, suggest that we
are not individuals yet…and society agrees with this assessment
as children under 18 are not allowed to make contracts, buy guns,
purchase booze, or serve in the armed forces…

but the children are born into a society…
can a child raise themselves? can a child educate themselves?
can a child protect or feed or house themselves?
no…an infrastructure must exist…we are not born into a vacuum…
we are born into an already created infrastructure…
now just as we are born into a infrastructure, we are born into
already held beliefs… ism’s, ideologies, paradigms… that
we are exposed to our entire childhood…
the ism’s are different for a child of a different country…
god may look like jesus in one country and god may look like shiva
in another country and god may look like mohammed in another country…
but the concept of god exists and is part of the ism’s and ideologies and
paradigms of the infrastructure of our childhood…
if you believe in god… you believe in god because of your childhood…
you were indoctrinated since birth with this notion of god and this
indoctrination is part of the indoctrination we use on children…
we indoctrinate children from birth with various ism’s, ideologies, paradigms…
examples of this indoctrination from birth is belief in various ism’s
like capitalism and democracy and rugged individualism and
the superiority of the American way… other countries will use
their time, money and effort to indoctrinate their children with
a different set of ism’s, ideologies and paradigms…

I was raised in the 1960’s in the Midwest and the indoctrination, for the
highest aspiration of children was to be a good American…
as I was raised in the land of Lincoln, he was used to create
an ideal of what a American was all about…but and this is important,
we weren’t raised to think about ourselves as individuals, we were raised
to think about ourselves as Americans and as god fearing people…
we were raised to think of ourselves as part of a social structure,
part of an infrastructure, we are Americans… and all the social
context inside what that statement means…context from the ism’s
and ideologies and paradigms we were raised in from birth…

you aren’t raised to be an individual, you are raised to be part of
a social structure, part of the infrastructure that being an American
means…sure you can be an individual as LONG as you fit within
those parameters of being an American…that was first and foremost…
be an American…not an individual…those who attempted to
be an individual were frowned upon, disliked and in some cases,
even persecuted… don’t think that persecution is about the legal,
you can be persecuted in a non-legal fashion… in the form of
being ostracized for one example…

so the question becomes…how does one raised to fit within
a social structure, being an American as being the highest
possibility for a human being, become an individual?

if one stand apart from being an American and truly an
individual, then one will be attacked as being
a traitor, as being un-American… which is the gravest
charge we can hurl against people… you are un-American
and that is the hardest charge to defend against… but
you are being an individual… so clearly being an individual
is less important then being an American…

so to be oneself and be an individual and be attacked for it…
or be an American and not be an individual…

your choice…

Kropotkin