a new understanding of today, time and space.

so we have this concept of private property…
and we must not only understand what is private property,
but what is its value… what are going to do with private property?

one of our muddled concepts is private property…
private property makes sense when there are only a few
people in a certain location, but when you have millions
of people on limited land, private property no longer makes as
much sense…think of New York city… what sense does
having private property makes in a location like NYC…

take a piece of land in, Montana for example, and given its location,
land isn’t as pricey as land in NYC, but it might be the exact same piece
of land and in NYC, the cost of that land could be worth millions
and in Montana, it might be worth $500 bucks… the same land, just different
locations and worth vastly different amount… this shows us the artificial nature
of land and private property is no different…we have a small, two bedroom condo,
roughly 1700 square feet, and it is worth over $800,000 just because it is on the
San Francisco Peninsula… put that condo almost anywhere else and it is
a couple of hundred thousand, at best…every single house in my little city is
worth over a million bucks, no matter how bad of shape it is in because of where
it is… put that same house anywhere else and it is maybe 200,000 or 250,000 bucks,
maybe… this show us the artificial value we put on private property…
given the nature of housing prices, we might as well be growing tulips
and selling them… that is an historical reference… see the Dutch…

it isn’t real… so what is the point of private property? to feel safe from
the government? well that ship sailed a long, long time ago…
we have no reason for private property outside of ego, vanity drives
our quest for private property and for no other reason…it isn’t real…

yet much of our laws and our ideologies are driven by this ego driven
quest for property…this property we can’t even explain why we want…

Desiderius Erasmus once said, home is wherever my books are…I actually
agree… so why is private property so important to you?

Kropotkin

ok, we have written about private property, but what
about the other concepts we have written about like justice?

Justice is the act of equality… either bringing someone up to be equal,
like rules that give the handicap equal access that others have or
to treat others equal either politically or legally…

so let us discuss justice and private property…

justice is the act of treating equally and private property is just
the opposite…there are those who can never be able to afford
property in my city and yet others who by no other reason then being
born rich can afford it… I have heard it said, that life isn’t fair…
which is another way of saying life isn’t just… but why not?
what is stopping us from having a just, equal, society?
simple greed would be one answer…also that the fact that
we accept the idea of political equality but we don’t accept the
idea of economic equality… economic justice is no different then
political justice and just as important…we don’t require someone to
accomplish something before we give them political equality…
someone gets political equality by virtue of birth… you get all the rights
and privileges just by being born an American… a privilege offer just
by being born within certain artificial lines… lines that have been changeable
in the past and are easily changed in the future because they don’t really exist…

How can we rationalize political equality without accepting economic equality?

now one may make the argument that by equalizing everyone economically,
we take away their incentive to work… as if work was the thing we live for…
the battle is not to posses material goods or buy a bigger TV… the battle
is to become human… the march in mankind is not in technology or in GDP,
but in becoming better human beings and in creating a better society…

better human being and better society can be one whereas
there is more order and unity and a worse human being and a worse
society is a disorder society and a disorder human being…

the sign of a functional society and a functional human being is
tending toward order and unity… look at functional societies
and functional individuals… they are ordered and have unity
and there is less chaos and randomness…that is a sign of
a functional society and a sign of a functional human being…

Sweden is a far more functional society then Kenya and that is
a sign that there is order and unity in Sweden and more chaos and randomness
in Kenya… look at history… the societies that lasted are the ones that
have more order then disorder… think of systems and systems that
function better are ones that hold their order better… think of a car…
a car that functions better is one that has order and runs when you want it
to run and works the way it supposed to… a disorder car, one that doesn’t run
when you want to and is chaotic is a less functional car…is less likely
to last…order and unity are partly the reason for systems lasting longer…
the reason our cars and our solar system and the human body last
is because there is order and unity… when there is disorder and chaos
and randomness… the system is in danger of failing…be it a car or a body
or a solar system…

justice is a form of order and unity… the amount of justice in a political system
will help decide how long that system, be it Rome or Egypt or China or Sweden,
will decide how long that system will last… because without justice there is
disorder and chaos and randomness in the system…and that will decrease the
length of time a system, a political system for example will last…

so if we allow injustice in the economic system, we increase disorder and chaos
and that threaten the structure of society which means the system may fail…

we must have justice or the system might fail from chaos and randomness
caused by the lack of equality…think of inequality as a scale… put too much
weight on one side and it is no longer in balance and that balance is needed for
any system, be it a car or a solar system or a political or an economic system
to survive…justice and equality and balance are all the same thing…
and all are needed to make a system work, any system…

so we must have political equality as well as economic equality
for our system to work, to be balanced, to last…

private property threatens that balance of equality
and must be addressed…

Kropotkin

The Buddha said that suffering was being sick and aged and death…
those aren’t suffering, they are just natural events in our lives…

Real suffering is what humans do to other humans…if you want to end
the suffering of people, be kind to human beings…follow the path
of love instead of hate and anger…suffering, real suffering is caused
by humans acting on other humans…be the person who helps end suffering…

Kropotkin

as I wrote, the Buddha felt that we must escape suffering
and that suffering was growing old and being sick and dying…
but these things are normal and expected… how can they be
suffering if everyone becomes sick or grows old or dies?
I have been sick, I needed three operations to heal, did I suffer?
hell yah, the pain was overwhelming at times, but I, eventually,
became healthy…but that kind of suffering is part and parcel of the
human experience… I suffer from pain from a bad back and have for
years and will suffer until the day I die… and yet, I realize it is what it is…
and as for growing old, I am 58 and I grow older every single day and yet
it is what it is and nothing I can do will stop that process… I just consider
it being part of the price of being alive and as for death, I have no choice, no freedom
in the matter, so how can that be suffering?
I will die… it doesn’t matter how I feel about the matter, I will die…
I just don’t know when…

all of these are natural occurring event in life we all go through… it is
what it is and that there is nothing I can do about it. period. end of discussion…
why lament that which I have no control over… I cannot control that “suffering”
even if it isn’t really suffering, it is just part of the gig of being human…
deal with it…

but what about the suffering of millions who don’t have the necessities of life?
while some have billions of dollars, in fact the top 10 wealthiest people
on planet earth have as much wealth as the bottom half of the population or
have as much wealth as 3 billion people… how is that just? how is that equality?
by having the economic system we have, we have billions, BILLIONS, of people who
lack the basic necessities of life…they are suffering, not from age or sickness or death,
but from the actions of their fellow human beings…

Justice demands that we treat people equally but if we don’t do that due to economic
reasons, we are engaged in injustice… a society cannot last engaging in injustice…
it becomes unbalanced, unstable, it becomes threatened… so where is the justice
for those who suffer from lack of resources? if all men are created equal, then we
need justice, equality, for everyone regardless of their politics or their religion or
their race or their color… equality is the answer for suffering… you want to end
suffering… end injustice, end inequality…to follow the Buddha and end suffering,
you must end the suffering of our fellow human beings… who suffer under a unequal
political and economic system…every single reformer since before Jesus has had
the same message…to heal thyself… one must begin by healing those who suffer…
because their suffering is your suffering because we humans… we are
of that universal classification… HUMAN BEING…we are one and the same…
individually and collectively…we have an economic system that demands suffering as
a price for our couch and our TV and our nice car and house… we can go with less
and end the suffering for others… equality… is justice for all…

Kropotkin

I am reading a book called: History of Philosophical Systems…
it is edited by Ferm… Published in 1965…
a group of writers write about various Philosophical systems from
the earliest times, it begins with the “Story of Indian Philosophy”
and works it way through various systems up to recent events like Pragmatism
and Logical Positivism and into recent events in Philosophy, well recent as
of 1965…

I thought about our American system and what is in that system…

we have a representative democracy and we have capitalism as our economic system
and we have three distinct and equal branches of government and we have as our basis
a equal justice system, whereas the symbol is the women wearing blindfold and
using a scale which means she judges blindly and without discrimination or benefit
to anyone…this is our American system writ large and not getting into the weeds
with all the other stuff that our system will entail…

now our system like any other system must be balanced, to work it must
be equal and fair and honest… the failure of our American system lies in the
fact that it has introduced chaos and uncertainty into our system and within
that chaos lies the means to threaten our American system…

think of our political system like the solar system… it works smoothly
and easily until something throw the system into chaos like for example,
let us say a planet comes into our solar system or a nearby sun has some
gravitational influence on our system that would throw our solar system into
chaos and make it unbalanced and threaten its equilibrium…

we have caused chaos and unbalanced into our system with rulings like
hobby lobby and citizens united and thus we have a system that is out of
balanced and we have justice that is no longer blind but she sees exactly
which people are on trial and money talks and justice walks…

we have threaten the system in large part by our own actions
and it is by our own actions we must save our system…
when politicians make millions of dollars from campaign contributions
and then get a small salary from American’s, who do you think the
politicians will listen to…the millions of dollars or the citizens
who put them there… there is no doubt who the politicians listen
to and answer to and it ain’t their constituents, that’s for sure…

the bottom line seems to be money and there where the danger of,
and the threat comes from, money influencing and changing
the dynamics of justice and the dynamics of democracy…

money makes the blindfolded lady see and makes justice becomes
a system of money, justice is simply the person with the most money,
and thus threatens the balance of the American system…

justice is no longer equal and justice is no longer practiced
from a position of blindness…

want to know how America is being threaten, it is money that
has unbalanced the American system

this morning it was reported that a homeless man asked a woman
to move her Porsche… and she shot him…how much you want to bet she
gets off scott free…better then even money, she doesn’t spend a day in jail…and
that is the new American justice system…money talks and justice walks…
you want to rail against something, try this inside of dumb discussions of
liberals and their alleged hatred of America… you want to fix America,
help fix the systems that have become corrupt and unbalanced, thus
threating American stability…

Kropotkin

most people approach philosophy with
such seriousness that is entirely unwarranted…

becoming who you are, isn’t about drama and seriousness
that drains all the life out of the process…

Nietzsche was right, we can dance and laugh and cry
on the path to becoming…

Philosophy isn’t about a set series of exercises like
studying the verb “to be” in another language…

I am
you are
he/she/it is
we are
you are
they are

Ich bin
du bist
er/sie/es ist
wir sind
ihr seid
sie/Sie sind…

philosophy exists in both the joy and terror of discovering
who we are and who we might become…
it is about finding out what is possible
and singing a song about that…

we can become… all we have to do is understand that…
I can become something better then I am today and that
something is to be found in the study of life of which philosophy
is part of…I have learned things about myself lately, at my advance
age of 58, that has surprised me and frankly, has brought shame to my
heart, but that is part of the journey… not to learn safe and comfortable
things but to learn everything, not just the fun and safe stuff and that
sometimes leads us to feel shame and terror and joy about who we are
and then who we can become, and that can bring us the same feelings of shame and
terror and joy… if we don’t feel something about our journey, it isn’t much
of a journey…we are simply engaged in a very safe exploration of who we are…
it is like thinking that traveling is going to a safe place and thinking you are really
traveling, but real traveling is about stretching who you are by going beyond
what is safe and going beyond your comfort zone… going to the local, nearby street
is safe and predictable, but going to some new country and going out of your comfort
zone is really what traveling and philosophy is about the same thing… go beyond
your comfort zone and challenge yourself just like you would if you were
traveling…

safe and boring is Kant and Hegel, stretch who you are by engaging in
Nietzsche or engage in your own exploration of who you are and challenge
who you are and who you are becoming…

Kropotkin

in my journey of being and becoming…
I have discovered I have a mean streak a mile long…
and that is my being… but do I simply accept that or
do I try to become, becoming, something better…

I can simply accept that I can be mean but that is not
a choice, that is simply accepting or I can make a choice,
which is freedom, choices means freedom, and I can choice
to become something better, which is not being mean and being
nicer and a kinder Kropotkin… what I choose defines me as
a person and I choose to be a nicer, kinder person…

so, I just have to practice being nice and being kind,
every single day… and it will be hard because
being is easier then trying to become something else,
being is easier then becoming…so what route do I take?

the easy path of being or the hard path of becoming?

Kropotkin

now one might say, but Kropotkin, you are espousing new age nonsense or
religion or utter nonsense or whatever you seem to be babbling about…

but the truth is… it doesn’t matter what we call it…

a journey is never about the destination, but about the trip, the journey…

the human journey is never about the end, the destination, which is death,
but about the journey and it doesn’t matter what we call death, be it death
or non-existence or non-being or passed on or gone to a better place…
it is about the journey we take before that final experience…

so if after death and you could report your journey of life, what would
you want to be able to report back about your journey?

I did this or I was that or I traveled or I became this on my way to…
being or becoming? did you engage in simple being or did you engaged
in becoming? which one would you rather report back to the living?

I was or I engaged in becoming?

Kropotkin

so, my “system” is one of order vs disorder…
that which improves the order of the system is
approved of and that which increases disorder is disapproved of…

we, each of us, exists in a series of systems, politically, economically
and socially…so in the political, that which improves the order of the
system is approved of and that which increases the disorder is disapproved of…
but does that “disapproval” include dissent?
dissent does cause disorder within the society and so, theoretically must
be disapproved of…

not at all, even if dissent does cause disorder within the society/system…
dissent must be part and parcel of any political system, either officially
or unofficially and it would be better if dissent were part of any
political system officially…if fact, it is the genius of the American
political system that the use of dissent is officially protected by
the bill of rights…

the value of dissent is for what must be avoided at all cost, which is
the natural conservatism of “people” to codify values and beliefs and
actions…values in fact, must be changeable and adaptable to
to fit any new changes in society…values are meant to be of value to
to serve the people in their pursuit of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
values are a tool, nothing more, and values must be flexible enough to enable
people to navigate life…dissent is also a tool to help people navigate life…

occasionally we must dissent, to increase disorder to the overall benefit of
the society to which we belong as benefitting society does benefit us
personally…and occasionally, dissent is the means to improve society…
the trick is to know when dissent is the answer and when it is not…
this understanding of when dissent is needed and not needed is the
understanding of political science…

I believe that this is the time for dissent for the forces of government
are engaged in the acts of disorder, which is the exclusion of, the
discrimination of, the refusal to integrate people within society…

laws that discriminate against people, laws that exclude people,
that laws don’t integrate people are acts of disorder against
the benefit of society…and must have dissent against them…
disorder…for to pursue laws against people and their values
is really an act of nihilism… for that is nihilism, the negation of
human values and negating human rights, negating people’s
right to act in their own interest is nihilism…and being able
to pursue one’s own values within such values as tolerance,
and respect and freedom to act is paramount…

in other words…we must pursue justice and freedom as
fundamental properties of a society… justice is the act of
equality and inclusion and freedom is the choices allowed…
and any actions which deny justice or freedom must be fought…
give dissent to…

so laws which deny justice or freedom must have dissent
as their response…we cannot codify any attempt to
deny justice or freedom…we must fight, dissent in any attempt
to legitimize denying justice or freedom…thus we have
a course of action… we allow voting rights, we allow abortions,
we increase toleration and increase justice for all…
freedom and justice is our template for actions as that
is the path to order in our political system…and anything
that denies freedom and justice must have dissent
as it consequences…

Kropotkin

I want just mention Hegel who says, that philosophy is the conceptualization of one owns time. This is a way to concile the truth while being human and making Errors. The dissent culminates in critique. Philosophy is built in this way: making Errors which survive time by it s performative value.

Been on vacation and doing this on my
cell phone, soooooo

Was thinking last night about existentialism and it’s
Understanding of angst, anxiety and despair.
We have in opposition to or to combat angst, religion
and philosophy and science. I have felt angst over
the years and one way for me to deal was
philosophy. The Greeks used philosophy as a
way of life. It wasn’t academic as we use philosophy
but genuine means to finding a way of living.
Each school, platonic, Stoic, Aristotle, epicurean ,
was a way of life and understood to be such by everyone. The Christians took this idea from the
Greeks and meant Christianity to be a way of life.
So which ancient school best fit your way of life?

Kropotkin

So in my last post, I mentioned existentialism
And I mentioned philosophy as a way of life…
Now can we used existentialism as a way of
Life? To have anxiety and despair and angst
as a way of life would get old, real fast…
That is why existentialism failed as a way
of life, it cannot exist as a way of life. So
the one possibility for a way of life
in the last 150 years failed…

So what are our options? Or is even
finding a way of life not practical? The question
of how we live our life found in finding a
a way of life or is it something else?

This idea of, how is one to live, is not
just an individual one, it has social,
political, economic, cultural impact…
Our individual decisions impact society…
If I have a child, that impacts society…
Every choice we make, leaves our
footprint on society… so we must understand
How we are to live, in a wider context, that
of how it impacts society. We live in a spider web
where all parts of the web, society, is
connected.

Kropotkin

Yes there is a web; it is holistic. The riddle of intentionality (Husserl) could be solved (Lévinas). It does mean that the constitution of some singular Event is mirrored within the whole. And the whole says to the singular: you are false if you restrict yourself to the singular. That’s the definitive. And you are right, as a part of the whole. That’s performative. So we can understand history: all instances have a self-understanding as truth, but in the course of history it is false. The performative binds the two perspectives.

As I have been on Vacation for the last week and a couple of days,
I have a notebook full of thoughts and idea’s…

So what does it mean to this question of “how to live one’s life”
in regards to say, patriotism? some here have made ill defined
and ill conceived statements about patriotism…
How standing for the flag is patriotism because it supports
the military but that leaves the problem of why do the
military stand? is it for themselves? No, the truth of the matter
is that we stand for the values that this country represents…
but that leaves a secondary problem… .which values?

I stand for the values that the flag represents and what values are those?

It has been said, truth, justice and the American way of life…
or perhaps it is freedom and honesty…
that is part of the problem… our values have never been clearly
defined or stated…so what are patriotic values… I am sure the
64 year old guy who shot up that festival last night felt he was
a super patriot and doing his patriotic duty…and without any
clear values to point to, I can’t say for sure if he was actually right…

so how are we to live?

Kropotkin

K: this statements leaves me with many questions for the simple reason, I have no idea
what you said…note the language I use… it is simple language of a simple man…
which leaves me with a question I have had for a long time… why the need
for such complicate language? why not simply say what you mean without
all that gooblegook? for example, “That’s performative” I have no idea what that
means and I shouldn’t have to look up every word to understand what someone
means…I make it a point to keep my language simple and clear…
I use language that any kid in high school might understand. I think
this language use is part of the failure of philosophy… it very language meant
to hide and confuse the actual thoughts involved…read Hegel or Kant,
its unreadable crap designed to hide the fact that they are, Hegel and Kant,
trying to pretend to be smarter then we are by using language we don’t understand…
its a game, nothing more…when reading Kant or Hegel, all I can think of
is the old story of the emperor new clothes…with Kant and Hegel being
the emperor…

Kropotkin

system: is a regularly interacting or interdependent group
of items forming a unified whole. Every system is delineated by its
spatial and temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced
by its environment, described by its structure and purpose
and expressed in its functioning…

Holism: is the idea that systems emphasize the priority of the whole
over its parts…

the word system means “something to look at” you must have
a very high visual gradient to have systematization… or so says wiki…

Boundaries: berries that define a system and distinguish it from other
systems in the environment.

Homeostasis: the tendency of a system to resist change and maintain
status quo.

adaptation: the tendency of a system to make the changes needed
to protect itself and grow to accomplish it goal…

Reciprocal transactions: circular interactions that systems
engage in such that they influence one another…

feedback loop: the process by which systems self-correct
based on reactions from other systems in the environment…

Throughput: energy in the system to accomplish its goals…

these are the important ideas we need to understand to make
sense of my next number of posts…

Kropotkin

we have, for thousands of years attempted to define man/human beings…
and we have failed… but why? why have we failed to understand man/human beings?

I believe its because we haven’t put human beings into the proper context…
we have isolated our thinking about who we are…
in other words, we haven’t seen ourselves in our rightful context…
we look at ourselves as separate individuals with no context to
our environment or what is going around us…

I am Kropotkin…
I am of medium height and built…
I am older but still have my hair but its going gray…
I am a liberal… I watch baseball and basketball and hockey
but not football.

all these things are true about me, but they don’t put me into a context…

I am a father and a husband, brother and son…
now all of these things put me into a context because
they place me into systems…

systems as defined as a regularly interacting group…
that is being a father and a husband and son and a brother…
the family is one type of system…my family, my immediate
family and my mother and brother and sisters are a system…
and we fit into the terms I offered earlier…
there is feedback and adaptation and homeostasis and all the
other signs of a system…we will call this type of system as biological…
a biological system…

we live on planet earth, the third planet from the sun,
in a solar system with 8 planets… this is by its very name,
a system…
think of our solar system, imagine as the planets revolve around
the sun…we are an open system which means, matter and energy
go into and out of the system… just as a biological system is an open
system and just as the family is an open system… matter and energy
go into and out of the biological and solar system…the human body
is also a system and a biological system which has matter and energy
going into and out of…the solar system is an natural system…
thus meaning it was created naturally by forces like gravity and the big bang
and material like dust…

and then we have systems like a car engine… which is also an open
system in which matter and energy passes into and out of…
we call this type of system a mechanical system…

so far, we have three different types of systems, the body which is
a biological system and the solar system which is a natural system and the engine
which is a mechanical system…we have plenty of other systems but first let us
understand these three systems…

all three operate as systems and can be defined as systems, the body,
the solar system and the car engine…

the matter and energy used by each is different however…
the input and output of each system, biological, natural
and mechanical are different…now each of these systems
operate within both larger and smaller systems…

the car engine for example, doesn’t exist in isolation by itself,
it has the other systems of the car also working to achieve its
goal and that is the movement of the car toward some destination…

the engine is part of a larger system, the electrical system for example
in a car and the input and output of the system called gas and carbon
monoxide for example helps the car achieve its goal of moving…

the car has its feedback loop and adaptation and homeostasis aspect…
just like any system of which the engine is part of that system…

so the engine is part of a larger system… just like the body or the family
is part of a larger system

and the solar system is part of a larger system, the milky way galaxy…
imagine the milky way galaxy as its revolves around in space and then
try to find our solar system in the midst of that milky way galaxy…
you can’t… but the solar system is part of that immensely large
galaxy and that milky way galaxy is part of a larger system, the local
group of galaxies which is part of the Virgo Supercluster which is part
of the Laniakea Supercluster… each cluster gets bigger and bigger…
and all of them part of larger system in which passes matter and energy
and another component, which is gravity and gravity is why the solar system
is different then a biological or mechanical system… so each system, be it
natural or biological or mechanical have slightly different aspects to it…
but they are still systems, just as we humans are a system in our bodies…

so look out the window and see a tree or a bush, we tend to isolate
that tree or bush into a separate thing, whereas the tree or bush exists
within a system, an ecosystem, in which the tree and the local systems
exchange matter and energy and support each other…so to properly
understand a tree, you must understand the ecosystem around the tree
and explain how the tree interacts with the local environment…
to make sense of a tree…that is why we have failed in our understanding
of the man/human being… we isolate the human being from the systems surrounding
us… we exist in many different systems… for example,
we have the economic system, the political system,
the social/society system and the cultural system,
we have many more systems but let us understand these
system first…after a short break…to finish laundry…

Kropotkin

that took a bit longer then I thought…

anyway, we return to systems…

we have systems such as natural, the solar system, we have systems that
are biological, human beings, and we have mechanical, car engines…
is this the complete list, hardly, we can go on naming systems until the
cows come home, but I have my eye on other systems…

we have Kropotkin once again…
a human being…
who is a biological system unto himself but
also part of the larger biological systems that surrounds
him…as mentioned earlier, we have trees which are part of the
ecosystem and so is Kropotkin…I also exist within a natural system,
being part of planet earth which is part of the solar system…
so I exist within several different types of systems…

now as far as any mechanical systems, I have a car
and I wear a hearing aid and glasses. so I am engaged in
mechanical systems and I use computers and cook dinner
and other such uses of mechanical systems…

as noted earlier, there are also systems that are of human construct…
economic, political, social/society, cultural… among others…I exist
within various aspects of these systems and I act and interact
with some more systems then other systems…

I mentioned I am a father and husband, so I interact with my wife and
my daughter all the time…I engage with that system many, many times a day…
the family system…as a family and individually, I/we interact with other
systems such as our economic, political, social/society, cultural systems…
I work so interact with other systems… family, social, economic but not so much
political…but the political does interact with me at work, the political system
does create rules and laws that affect me at work and I must work with…
a company is a system and it works with other companies which are their
own systems and each company works within an economic system…
think of growth of systems from human being to the planet to the solar
system to the local group of stars to the galaxy to the local supercluster
of galaxies to ever larger superclusters until we reach the universe…
the universe is just another system abet a very large system…

recall those Hubble pictures of the universe with galaxies lined
up as far as the eye can see and how do you find the milky way
in the midst of all those galaxies? our economic system is the same
way…once again with stand with Kropotkin, but this time at his checkstand
ringing up groceries and creating economic activity with every single
transaction…withdraw a bit and see the company at large and my work
get very, very small but it is still there being a part of the system,
an open system which has matter and energy going into and out of the system…
then look at the even bigger picture of all retail business and my company, which
is a very, very large company becomes much smaller and I, Kropotkin, is no longer
seen… my economic activity is very small indeed in the midst of all the retail activity
within a county or a state or a country and then you add in not just retail activity,
but all kinds of economic activity, all kinds of economic systems, that in the end
add up to the GNP, Gross National Product, which is a listing of all economic
activity in the country of which I have a small, miniscule part of, as a worker,
as a consumer, I also have a small, miniscule part of, but that is another part
of the economic system, you have producers, and I exist as a worker in that aspect
of the economic system and as a consumer, I buy things and that is part of the
economic system and you can follow that line of consumers from the very small,
Kropotkin and his system the family, to very large consumer actions, the government
for instance…

but we don’t engage just with the economic, not as Marxists suppose,
we deal with the political system also and we can follow that in
same way, from Kropotkin to paying taxes to larger companies paying taxes,
I wish, to larger and larger political activity in which we have the federal
government…I vote every single election and that is part of my
political engagement and that political engagement can be affected
by the economic and social/society and the cultural…
we exist within many different types of systems and sometimes
it is hard to distinguish between the many different systems…
is it the economic that is affecting us or is it the political
or is it the social/society or the cultural system that is affecting
us and sometime is it is more then one system that is affecting us
and it makes it hard to understand and/or distinguish between the
various systems…many people blame the political system
for their problems when in reality it is the economic systems that
that are causing many of American issues…

but we cannot tell because it is so hard to break out the economic
and the political from each other…

and where does little ole Kropotkin fit into all this?

that is the question…

to understand one person, Kropotkin, you have to place him into
context of the many, many different systems that he exists within…

so how am I to live? that is the question but how do we answer that
within so many different systems? how am I to live is different
within the political and different within the economic and different with
the social and different within the cultural…

and within each system we have the feedback loop and the adaptation
aspect and the homeostasis aspect…and within each larger system, we
also have those aspects but with every single increase in the system,
the ability to create feedback and to adapt and to control the
homeostasis gets harder…the larger the system, the harder each
of these aspects of a system becomes to interact…my feedback on
a small, store level is greater then on a company level and much smaller
on the entire retail level and so on…this is one of the great problems with
systems, as they grow larger they no longer operate as systems should…
for a system to be successful, it must have a feedback loop and an
adaptation and homeostasis aspect, but as our systems grow larger,
these aspects become less able to engage within the system…
I have a larger voice politically within my small city then I do within
a state, politically and far less so within a country aspect…

as the system grows larger, the systems that maintain the systems
become harder and harder to maintain those systems because
of the fact they lose their ability to interact with the larger systems…

and we rest for a minute… for I have more to go…

Kropotkin

we have a multitude of systems like there are galaxies in the sky…
and like galaxies, the systems on earth not only cover height, depth,
width but cover time… just like those pictures of the multitude of
galaxies in pictures we see from the Hubble… how do we tell where we
fit into such a large group of systems…when we can’t even tell where
the milky way system lies in a group of galaxies…little less our own little
solar system…this very size of everything keeps us from knowing where
we are… which leads us to the next problem…

perhaps the greatest understanding of human nature occurred under
Marx with his analysis of alienation…but how does this alienation occur?
we have a multitude of systems, economic, political, social/society and
cultural…and we can become alienated by the systems preventing us
from actions such as our feedback loop and adaptation… a system preventing
us from giving our feedback leads to our alienation from the system…
and we see this today, with millions of people being alienated from various
systems including the economic, political, social, cultural…

now we can be alienated from one or more of these systems leading to
not only alienation but angst and anxiety and despair…

I am clearly alienated from the economic system we have…
and I can either learn to accept it or, or fight the system…
I have chosen to fight…I am to a lessor degree, alienated
from the political and to an even lessor degree from the social/society…
and I don’t give a shit about the cultural, so I am not alienated from that…
and people are in various stages of acceptance or alienation of/from
the various systems…how well do we fit into the various
systems is a factor of alienation… and we cannot fit into every single system
because of the sheer number of systems we have, so on some level,
everybody is alienated from one or two systems to many, many systems…
and responses can be from taking guns and shooting at innocent people,
a rather gutless and shameful action because guns and violence never
solve anything to feeling angst and anxiety and despair about oneself…
much of our current problems stem from our alienation and anxiety
from not being connected to our systems, not being part of the system
and not allowing our input and feedback and adaptation to be accepted
by the system…we are uncomfortable with and shut out of our many systems
in which we belong to, be it economic, political, social/society and cultural…
the anger and frustration many feel comes from being shut out of our systems,
not allowing system functions like feedback to allow the system to adapt to
the feelings of the people…we are shut out of many systems and that causes
angst and anxiety and anger and despair and all the other feelings we have as
we become more and more alienated from those systems…

and the question remains, given all of the above, how do I live my life?

Kropotkin