a new understanding of today, time and space.

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

I have for several reasons, stayed away from one of the
primary focus of philosophy which is ethics, morality…

I have yet come to some angle to approach ethics, morality…
the problem I’ve reached is philosophers like Descartes through
Kant have made ethics and morality a major aspect of their philosophy…
I am forced to confront ethics, morality…
the problem of a philosopher of ethics, morality in 2017 is
the 20th century… World war one, world war two, the holocaust,
9\11… how does one approach ethics and morality after those events?

what can one say about ethics or morality while recalling Dachau?

the problem of ethics is simple, if ethics, morality is based on
absolute standards like the word of god, then god has to exist and
Dachau makes belief in god very, very hard to accept…
I see no evidence for god and that makes accepting an absolute
standard impossible… but if we accept relative values, ethics
is relative or situational ethics, then we run the risk of not being
able to find justification for an attack on the ethics of Dachau…
how do we criticize the Germans for lacking ethics and morality
for allowing Dachau when ethics and morality is relative or situational…
is there an ethical or moral support for a Dachau?
if morality, ethics is relative, then it is possible to create an ethical
position to support Dachau…and yet, we know, know that Dachau
is wrong on every level but we can’t find a morality, an ethics that
clearly condemns Dachau because absolute morality demands
a god and relative morality is relative and situational… it doesn’t
create any guidance for acting ethical or morally… we have a problem
and no real solution in sight…but we are a problem solving species
and so how do we solve this problem?

Kropotkin

Kant spends quite a bit of time writing about the “law”…
the question becomes whose law do we follow?
do we follow gods law or do we follow men’s law?

read the bible, and I have, you see the god of the bible is
violent and murderous, quite vicious…

God tortures Job, he demands that Abraham sacrifices his son,
allows Samson to slaughter thousands, even allows his son
to be brutally tortured and killed…these are a few examples,
just off the top of my head, given some thought I could add to them…
but what about the ethics of god? the acts of god certainly call into
question his ethics, his morality…the entire old testament is a
clear indication of his violence and absence of ethics and morality…
for example, you just can’t defend the torture of Job on any level
and yet, there it is…

but what about situational ethics, relative ethics… there lie
issues also… the law of man is just as questionable as the law of god…

to follow the law of man has meant that one can create a Dachau and
slavery and torture and murder… the law of man is just as riddle with
failures of ethics and morality as the law of god… but one must obey
the law… and faced with questionable, at best, questions of ethics
and morality… slavery was the law of the land and Dachau was
was the law of the land and 9\11 was the law of god and the torture
of Job was the law of god… so how do we escape?

we must find a new path, a new law… if the laws of man is riddle
with failure and the laws of god is riddle with failure, then
we must find a new path, a new law, a new future of ethics, of
morality…

at its heart of the new morality, a task Nietzsche spent a lifetime
trying to find, must exist one simple idea, life is good and worth
preserving…let us start there and try that idea… if that fails
then we try to find another idea to build our new laws around,
our new ethics, our new morality…life is an experiment and
we must experiment with the new ethics, the new morality,
the new laws…until we find one that works and we keep that
until the new laws fail us, and they will at some point, then
we try again, to find the new ethics, the new morality,
the new laws…

each society, each civilization has created its own new ethics,
new morality, the new laws from the Egyptians to the Greeks to
the Romans to the laws of the middle ages to each newly arrived
civilization and society…

we must now do the same, create a new ethics, a new morality
to fit the new times we live in… we exist in a different world then
the Greeks or Romans or the Medieval man or even the British of
the 17 or 18 century, we people who live in the “modern” world,
needs a new ethics, a new morality to fit our modern times…

and those will exist until they must be changed because of
the changing times, the new conditions which we must adapt
to by changing our ethics and our morality…

finding the law that exists for the times…
that is our task…

an edit: almost forgot that job was torture on a BET between
god and the devil… he torture Job because of a bet…
is that really a god worth following?

Kropotkin

we see problems of the world through the lens of
our previous indoctrination… of the ism’s and ideologies
and paradigms that we were born into… so we
see a problem such as god and we see that through the
lens of our infrastructure, the isms of our childhood…
and so we assume that god exists because of our childhood
indoctrination…instead of seeing the problem of god in terms of
our understanding of the world as adults and I see the world different
today at 58 then I did at 48 or 38 or 18 and my viewpoint of god
must evolve as I age and gain in experience… I have left the indoctrination
of my childhood behind and I look at the problem of god in terms of
my age and my experience and my current thoughts… which does
allow me the opportunity to change my thoughts if need be and as
experience shows me new solutions to old problems…
I reserve the right to believe in god again if experience
dictates it is needed or necessary…
I cannot become so entrenched in an idea or idea’s that I am unable
to adapt or change my idea’s based upon new experiences…

to change and adapt, I must leave behind my childhood
indoctrinations and childhood infrastructure of idea’s,
ideologies and paradigms…the path to the future is not
through childhood indoctrinations but through a understanding
of who I am and what my experiences are…

so what law or laws, I am to follow, flows from
my understanding of who I am and what experiences are…

so do I look into following the law set from authority,
which is god or Aristotle or Descartes or society…
or do I follow the law that comes from my own understanding
of the universe and my experiences… do I create my own
laws as Nietzsche suggested or do I follow society’s law, which is
just another way of saying, to follow authority’s vision…

do we have the right to understand the laws in terms of our
own vision or must we follow the law regardless of our own
feelings about it… if slavery is the law of land, must
we obey it regardless of own personal feelings about slavery?

this is also true in regards to ethics and morality…
the laws that govern our own behavior and our own actions…
do we follow them or do we act from our own thoughts and
understanding of the universe…

if I am LBGT, should I follow my own light or should
I follow the laws of god or of man?

must the laws of society always be in control of me or
do I have options?

what are our choices in regards to obeying laws and to
our obeying the choices of society or do we go our own way?

Kropotkin

rethinking Descartes…cogito ergo sum…I think therefore I am…

thinking… come to think about it, thinking is an act of experience…

look at newborns… do they think? do they have thoughts…
I would say no, they have instincts… and they have needs,
but to have thoughts requires words… and newborns don’t have
any words… how do you think without words? to think, I am hungry,
is to know what “I” is, is to know what “am” is and to know what
“hunger” is and yet, we know that newborns don’t have an instinctive
understanding of words, they must be taught everything…

for example, newborns don’t have a sense of “I” they have to be taught
what “I” means…they have to be taught they are a separate beings, apart
from their parents and apart from other human beings…what would
a newborn think about? every single thing a newborn could think about is
beyond their comprehension and beyond their knowledge…
thinking arises from experiences about the world… put an object
in front of a newborn and they can’t even see that object as vision takes
a while to develop…what thoughts can a newborn have?
only by experience can a new born child begin to have thoughts…
thus thinking is not innate but learned… we learn to have thoughts
and thus to say, I think therefore I exist, really means I have experienced
and thus I can think…

talk to a young child of three and their thought process is very limited
they can only express thoughts of things they have experienced
and they may not be able to explain what those experiences mean because
their thoughts are not developed or not experienced enough to explain them…

so thought is really just experience given form…
and to think, I think therefore I exist… means nothing
because all it says is, I think therefore I have experience…
nothing more…

Descartes is wrong…

Kropotkin

if thinking is experience then by learning to think, we have
already learned to experienced ourselves… the I exist part has
already occurred when we learned to think… so the correct
application of Descartes saying instead of : I think therefore I exist…
is really more like this:

I experienced therefore I can think and because I have experienced
I already KNOW I exist because I can’t think without already have
experienced in which then I discover I exist…

to experience is to discover I exist because prior to thinking, lies
experience and in that experience, I become aware of myself…

experience gives me the knowledge that I exists…
not thinking…because we must experience to be able to think…

Kropotkin

I watched with interest the growing jackpot which last night
hit 700 million dollars… I wanted to win the money…
I play the lottery anyway and so I got my tickets and
privately I was excited to win…I was excited to
see if I was going to win…after coming from work last night, around 10:00…
I went online to see if anyone won… I admit I was disappointed when
I read that someone had won… I was sad and depressed last night…
but let us put this into context…

I was excited about something outside of me… beyond
my control… my odds of winning were somewhere around 1 in 300 million…
and yet I was excited to win and disappointed to lose with events
that were completely out of my control… I have a wife who loves me
and a paid for house… we live comfortable middle class lives…
I have a shitty job but all in all, I have a good life and yet I was
disappointed not to win the lottery…isn’t what I have not enough
for me…do I really need more and more importantly, why did
I allow events that were totally out of my control to affect me so…

and I realized I failed to follow my own advice which is to
tend to one’s own garden…take care of one’s own business…
I became wrapped up in matters that I had absolutely no control over

I became happy and sad and depressed over this lottery in which my involvement
was simply going into a smoke shop and spending money to buy tickets…
I was emotional invested in this lottery for what it promised and not
what it did…the promise to retire, which I so desperately want…
I’ve worked for over 40 years and I am tired of it…so I
invested in this lottery in this vague hopes of escaping
and never seeing what I had…I looked outside of me
and forgot what I had…

so is philosophy about gaining equilibrium within oneself…
or is philosophy about changing the world…
or is philosophy just about understanding the world…

Kropotkin

which is more accurate?

he took the 5 dollar bill that wasn’t his…
he made a mistake…

or

he had a weak and corruptible soul and was in need of redemption and saving…
and because he took a 5 dollar bill that wasn’t his…
and this shows us the misery of man without god and how nature is corrupted
without god…man is a weak and corrupted being without god…

which is true?

Kropotkin

K: what would be the best method of understanding which statement is true?
how would one go about trying to decide which statement is the correct one?
and how certain would one be that the answer found, would be the
right answer?

Kropotkin

K: is one statement a physical statement and is the other statement, a
spiritual statement?

Kropotkin

as I have stated before, human beings are problem solving
creatures… and god knows we have problems galore right now,
but, we’ve turned away from this idea or notion of the
problem of human existence… what is the human condition?

you don’t hear any talk of that… yah, you hear global warming
and the usual suspects, but you don’t hear about what it
means to be human… is the human condition really what the
existentialists thought…which is the problem of being must
take precedence of that of knowledge in philosophical investigations…
the problem of existing rather then it a problem of knowing or
knowledge or gaining facts…we are condemn to be free is one
such example of this problem of being rather then knowledge or
the gathering of facts…who are we and not what are we…

and I suspect that why we have so many problems like global
warming and the deepening crisis of left vs right lies in the
not knowing or in the lack of knowledge, of who we are…

peace is not found at the end of a rifle or the end of a club…
peace is found in our self knowledge of what is really valuable
to our existence…if there is one and one only lesson
about being a human being, it is this, we need each other…
simple as that…the problem of the individual is really a problem
of how we fit that individual into the larger social organism that
is society…we are born and we live and we die in a social
construct of human creation and we call society…
the real question of human existence is how we are to fit
within society…what is my role and place within society…

we have all types of ism’s and ideologies and paradigms…

capitalism, communism, democracy, feudalism, hunter-gatherer,
monarchies, dictatorship just to name a few… and the question
becomes how do we fit into the ism of the society we were born
into… how do we adapt to the ism and ideology and paradigm
of the society we were born into…

we are not born outside of society and we are not born outside
of ism’s and ideologies and paradigms… we are born
inside of those ism’s and ideologies and paradigms and
we must learn to adapt to the ism’s and ideologies, we are born into…

to be a radical is to suggest that the ism’s and ideologies we
are born into must be changed or even ended… that is the definition
of a radical… someone who believes that the ism’s and ideologies
that we are born into must be changed or even be ended…

and the list of radicals is a long and distinguish one… from Plato to
Jesus to Martin Luther King and Bernie Sanders…note
I didn’t include Socrates… think about why…anyone who
believes that the ism we are born into must be changed is a radical…

so what is the human condition? what does the human experience
tell us about what it means to be human? how is being human different
then being an animal, a dog or an elephant? what is the point of being
human? how do we fit into an already existing society with already existing
ism’s and ideologies while being an individual? what does it mean to be
an individual? many questions…

Kropotkin

let us take a common and longstanding philosophical idea,
the problem of multiplicity vs unity… the one vs the many…
how does one substance become two substance?

how does change create or go from one substance to two or more
substances…

how one approaches the question of unity vs multiplicity,
how one asks the question determines the answer…
the question ask, will decide the answer given…

that is why Einstein was a great scientist, because he
ask the right question… everything depends on asking
the right question…

so, is existence a more profound question then knowledge?
what does it mean to be human? what has priority, the individual
or the society and why?

Kropotkin

this question of ethics, morality…seems to haunt
philosophers…From Plato to my present ground of study,
the rationalist philosophers, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz,
and I am beginning to study Hobbes, Locke and Hume…
and they all have ethics, morality as part of their program…

and as brilliant as these philosophers are, they are writing
about ethics and morality for the common man in language
that the common man cannot understand…

so let us look at ethics and morality…
if you read philosophers and their discussion about ethics
and morality… you see that it is a question of pursuit…
we pursue something to gain something…usually, ethics
and morality end with the goal being happiness…
and how do we gain this goal?

we pursue virtue or we pursue knowledge or we pursue controlling
our emotions… our passions and by controlling them… we gain the goal
of happiness…but herein lies one of the problems of ethics/morality…
is happiness really a goal we should pursue?

it is claimed by various factions that the pursuit of happiness is the
point of life… now happiness has several different possibilities…
we can find happiness in pursuing god or in pursuing knowledge
or in personal satisfaction like wealth or fame or respect…

but if we are wrong about happiness being the goal, then we should
rethink, reevaluate our thinking about the goal…let us
throw out different options… perhaps the goal is freedom/liberty…
perhaps out goal should be personal development… or understanding
who we are…none of these goals require happiness or the pursuit of
happiness…perhaps we should pursue security as conservatives seem to think…

perhaps we should be more basic which is the goal is the preservation and
continuation of the species… perhaps that is the goal of all species and
not happiness…until we decide upon a goal, we really can’t approach
this idea of what is the value of existence… in other words, we
exist… what should we do while we exist… what goal/goals should
we pursue, if any, while we exist…is the point of existence really happiness?
or the pursuit of wealth or of power or of fame or the pursuit of freedom?

we have many possibilities to pursue in our understanding of what is
the point of existence…what should we do while we exist…
and some think the point of existence is basic survival and that is called
work… is that really the point of existence… to just spend our lifetime
trying to make enough to eat? we have so many different possibilities
and to choose the least productive one seems to be silly… we can be so
much more then just working drones and yet we don’t or can’t seem
to engage in the possibility that we are so much more then working drones…

is it laziness or the lack of imagination that limits us to thinking all
we can be is working drones…

so what is the goal? what do we do while we exist? maybe this will tell us
what our path into the future should be…should we exist
as moral creature? should we exist as consumer/producing beings?
should we exist as god focused creatures? or perhaps as man focused creatures?

in part, this is why we humans are so lost today… we don’t have a goal or
a understanding of what we should do while we are here… what
should we do while we exist?

Kropotkin

in line with yesterday’s post… we touched on goals and also values…
for happiness is a value…it is something we value and we pursue
for its own sake…as it says in the declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths (values) to be self evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty
and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS” …

and yet yesterday, I questioned this value, this pursuit as being a
a value we should be pursuing…

I am thinking part of our failure today has been this pursuit of happiness…
it has lead us away from values we should be pursuing…
what values should we be pursing instead of happiness?

values like justice and values like freedom and values
like love and peace and hope… instead of pursing values like happiness…

this may be why we have gone wrong… we are pursuing the wrong values
and our current predicament with a failed president and failed polices of
the GOP have lead to this place of failure in which we exist in now…

the classic definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results…we have pursue happiness and we are here…
perhaps we should rethink or reevaluate what we are doing and try something new…

perhaps searching for happiness isn’t really the right path… perhaps its another value
we should be searching for…and that value should be justice…

think about it…

Kropotkin

we are born… we live… we die…

what are we to make of this…

we have no control over our birth and we have no control over our death…
so that leaves our life in which we have some control over…

life= existence…we exist for a certain period of time and then we end
our existence…

during our period of existence… what are we to do?
I think most people just fall into their existence…
they don’t give any thought to what should their existence be…
instead they follow the human path of school and work and marriage
and babies and retirement and then death… people follow this time
honored path without really thinking about what it means…
without asking why… why should we follow this path instead of another…
the other path being one of making a conscience decision to become
who you are…engaging in the pursuit of some value that makes this
existence worth living… values like love and peace and justice and hope…

it is not the activity of daily life that makes it worthwhile…
it isn’t the daily grind of work and taking out the garbage and feeding the kids
that makes life worthwhile… it is the pursuit of a value upon which we can
give our life some value… it is not the act of marriage that gives marriage its
value… it is the love between two people that gives marriage its value…
the value of work is not the work but in the gaining of resources that allow one
to eat and have shelter and clothes… quite often its not the activity that
creates the value but the value behind the activity that gives it the value…
it is not freedom of speech that has value but the idea behind it…
the right to speak ones mind is the act of giving validation to our idea’s…
we have value if we can speak our minds…it is not the actually freedom of speech
that is important but the value behind it…this is why love is more important
then hate… because hate is about intolerance and violence and putting people down…
whereas love is about rising people up and tolerance and peace… it is about the higher value
that makes love a more valuable asset instead of hate…it is not about what love is,
but about what love can do… it is not about the work but about what the work means or
represents…it is not the action, but what the action means or represents…
work is soul crushing and devoid of the positive but that is what the work means,
what it represents…work is not the highest value but simply a task to be
accomplished…like taking out the garbage… a task to be done…

marriage fails when it is a task to be done…when marriage has value
is when its about something greater then the task but when it is about the love
and that is what we fail to see… it is not about the task at hand… but what
the task actually means… what it represents…the higher value behind the
marriage which is love… marriage without love is a task to be done…
we find our value not in the task at hand but in the higher value behind each
task…

so instead of happiness, we search for higher values… like justice and love
and peace… why should we reject happiness as a value?
because it is a personal, selfish goal that can only benefit yourself…
love can benefit more then one person… peace offers benefits
for more then one and justice is more then just one person receiving
justice…values that benefit more then one person are values
worth pursing…

the world is a cold and impersonal place because we are each searching
for solitary goals like happiness instead of communal goals like justice
and love and peace… we don’t exist alone… we exist with others and
we only can exist because of others… we cannot exist alone… we
need others to survive and others to become who we are and others
to find values worth living…we exist with others and so we must
find values that include others and not just our selfish, personal goals…

values like love and peace and justice…
values that include others and not just ourselves…
we have failed today because we don’t have values that
include others… we pursue individual values like money
and hate and happiness… the idea of the pursuit of life, liberty
and happiness is not an individual pursuit but a pursuit including all
of us and that means values that include all of us…justice and love
and peace…

Kropotkin