a new understanding of today, time and space.

I return from mundane questions to my study of the enlightenment…

one thing I note is that “the philophes”, the name they gave themselves during
the enlightenment, study theory for the use of action…

we have action, but very little theory and that is our weakness…
we must have theory AS WELL as action for us to properly achieve or
undertake something… it is the theory of who we are and what we are to do
that is weak and that is part of our failure…for it requires both action AND
theory for anything to be accomplished and we have action but no theory and
until we work out theories that underline whatever action we wish to do, we shall
be spinning our wheels…

Kropotkin

this most ancient of questions lie at the heart of the modern world,

in what am I to have faith in?

the old forms of god/gods and religion has been eroded away… swept away by
science and doubt…

how can I have faith in science? all science is facts and facts change
single day… what is “true” today is false tomorrow and I must believe/have faith in
something that is more permanent… something that will be not only today but tomorrow…

this leads back to our motivation post… what motivates us? is it truth or justice or
material good or fame? what are we to have faith in, what are we to believe is a worthy
goal to pursue? and once again, two distinct and separate questions become one…

so, brave soul, answer me this…

in what do I have faith in?

be honest, what do you have faith in?

Kropotkin

when I ask, who are we?

I don’t just ask who are you individually, but I ask as a people, a culture, a society…

who are we as a people? who are we as a cultural, who are we as a society?

we are blind to who we are individually, but we are even more clueless when
asked about us as an people or a society or a culture…

I live in California and have done so for decades, but I was born in the Midwest,
born in Minnesota and lived in Illinois for several years… so how is Californians
different as a people then those of Minnesota or Illinois? and does it even matter?

what culture do we share on the west coast that they don’t share in the Midwest? or
visa versa?

who are we? this is not an individual question
but a collective question…a social question…
what do I share with you? and what do you share with the guy down the street and
what do we share with the man in China and the women in Africa and the
boy in South America?

the commonality of the human being… we are one…

Kropotkin

Hey Krop, I’m transitional ly from Minneapolis and live in Los Angeles. What year did you get here? I got here in the late 60’s.
I remember talking to you before your trip to Europe. Well ILP is a small world after all.

K: I was born in Minneapolis and now live just south of San Francisco, on the peninsula…
I arrived here in June of 1973… freshman year of high school…and yes, not only is ILP
a small world… but I bet my next week paycheck that we know someone in common…
everyone on earth is only 6 degrees of separation from everyone else

which is kinda my point… we are connected in far more ways then we suspect…

Kropotkin

…whenever men are told to live according to nature, to acquired
knowledge by discovering universal truths and the natural law by which
the physical and moral world is governed… this is in my book on
enlightenment “the Enlightenment” an interpretation by Peter Gay…
what I would like to point out is this idea that we can live according to nature…
what exactly does this mean? nature is this thing, of which we are part of, that
exists around us… the tree you can see and the sky, bright and blue today, and
the sea in which the fish live in… how do you turn that into living life
according to nature? Perhaps being part of the natural cycle, not changing or
adapting the environment? but that is not true for many animals do change their
environment to suit their needs…living as we live in part of a system…
perhaps recognizing we exist in a system and doing everything we can to
keep the system stable and functional… maybe that is part of living within nature…

acquiring knowledge by discovering universal truths… but how do we
know first of all, A. that what we have discovered is universal truths?
and B. how can we live according to universal truths?
how do we live according to the theory of relativity?
or how does the theory of gravity help us understand how we are to live?
how does a scientific theory help us with morality or ethics?

and the natural laws by which the physical and “moral” world is governed…
how are we to understand how we are to live in terms of natural laws in
a physical world… the second part is “moral” world and what is the connection
between a “moral” world and the physical world?

is morality based upon natural laws like gravity or evolution or relativity?
I don’t see how… the disconnect between the theory and the practice,
theory and action is great here… this disconnect is part of the modern world
problem… we are disconnected from the theories which are supposed to
help us formulate actions…this divorce of theory and action is at the heart
of the modern problem which we face… how do we connect theory with action?

because which theory should lead us to which action? we have no means to judge
what theories of life, be it Christian or stoic or medieval that we should follow to
what actions?

Kropotkin

we have economic systems and political systems…
economic systems are capitalism and feudalism
and hunter/gatherer and about 5 other economic systems

the economic system creates a morality… is a way of behavior…
our economic system is a way of behavior… how are we to act toward
one another…

what is the definition of capitalism? private vices which creates a public good…

in other words, a moral man doesn’t factor into capitalism… we can be greedy
and selfish and immoral in capitalism… in fact, it is expected and DESIRED in
a capitalistic system…our morality is determined by our economic and political
system…our public behavior is determined under our economic and political system…

want to have moral people? then our economic system of capitalism is not the way to go…
for it encourages immorality and greed and selfish behavior… private vices for the public good…

do you want “moral” people… want a “moral” society… then you must advocate for
communism or socialism… because in communism and socialism… private vices are not
for the public good… private vices are detrimental to a communistic system,
detrimental to a socialist system… both economical and politically, private
vices are detrimental to each whereas in capitalism and in democracy,
private vices are valued…democracy… whereas every man decides for himself
on grounds he chooses to value… we decide our private actions based
on what is best for us… EVEN IF those actions are detrimental to the group or
the society at large…we have the freedom to act in our own best interest
even if that action harms and damages the group or society or the culture at large…

private vices that create a public good… what is capitalism…
private vices that create a public good… what is democracy…

and what is the value of private vices that harm society, that harm our group,
that harms our culture?

Kropotkin

what we need is not the courage of our convictions,
but the courage for an attack upon our convictions…

as my last post touch upon, was the idea that capitalism was
the idea of private vices creating public good and I touched upon
democracy as within this framework of private vices creating public good…

I do believe in democracy as the best system but that is my conviction…
and worthy of an attack…

perhaps we should be clear about what I’m talking about…
are we talking about democracy or are we talking about representative
democracy? I believe we should start with representative democracy which
is the system we have in place right now…(once again, we are talking about theory
instead of reality… and this vital problem of theory vs reality in the modern world)

I have railed against representative democracy, time and time again…
and for good reason… any thinking person who is even vaguely honest can
see for themselves that the representatives we send to our local state capital and
Washington DC have failed to represent us, the people and those same representatives
have sold themselves to the highest bidder… that much is starkly clear…
the entire tax cut bill just passed is one big giveaway to their donor’s as
several congressman have stated that their donor’s are pushing for this tax bill
and that is good enough for them to pass this bill…

if we are being sold down the river as is evident by the congressmen actions,
then we must take matter into our own hands…

but that leaves the second matter at hand which is the problem of
private vices creating public good… how does direct democracy solve this
problem?

it doesn’t… that seems to be the conclusion we can draw here…

so now what? we try other failed experiments of the political among which
are monarchy and oligarchy and dictatorship and tribal and chiefdoms
among other political systems…each of those had their time in the sun
and then they too failed… and failed because those systems failed to adapt
to the growing populations…to adapt to changing environments including
fast growing population and changing environmental conditions must mean
we must have an adaptable and changing political system… which leaves out
several of these political systems as too unchanging and dogmatic…

private vices creates public good… but we know that is not true…
capitalism has created severe and very damaging political, social, economic and
environmental damages to the western world…

we only have to look and see that damage…

so what is left? I believe the answer is in democracy but not in
representative democracy… those people can be and have been compromised
by money and greed… we can no longer trust our representatives to do the right thing…
so we must take matters into our own hands and reclaim democracy to be ours…
direct democracy seems to be the answer… but once again how do we solve this
problem of private vices creating public good?

the answer lies in a reorientation of values… we no longer can accept or value
money as the arbiter of values… we can no longer accept money or profit as
a motivating value of human beings… that leads us to unacceptable and damaging
consequences of nihilism that dominates our modern world… we must return to
human values such as love, justice and peace and forgo monetary and financial
goals, material goods as the motivations for our lives…we must reject the nihilism
of the modern age and turn to? I would suggest we return to a value like the pursuit
of justice as a value we can support… or we can undertake the exploration of space
as the motivation for our persons and species and society… a goal that we can support
and will create a goal worth aiming for…

the key here is the sound rejection of materialism and nihilism of the modern age…

Kropotkin

it is clear to any who pay attention that
the political system is failing…the saying of
“clean the swamp” is just a low rent version of
the system is failing…

I would suggest that the failure comes from failure of leadership and
that lies with congress and lies with elected officials…including the
President…one of my complaints with Obama was this lack of
a goal…yes, he did an excellent job rebuilding the economy
and keeping America safe and all that, but he didn’t have a vision
of where we were and where we needed to be… that in my mind
is his greatest failure… he was an excellent administrator but he
didn’t have any type of vision or a goal to follow…

the congress has no concern at all about a vision or a goal except
to make money… that drive to wealth, that drive to nihilism is
what makes congress so terrible…representative democracy has
failed for this reason… the representatives are only concerned
about getting theirs and they don’t care about the needs or concerns
of the average American…we must replace representative democracy
with direct democracy… we should vote on these matters… and technology
has made this possible…with computers and smart phones…
we can vote on matters directly of concern to us
for example, congress can write the tax laws and we, the taxpayers,
make the final vote on yes or no… we can make it a simple majority vote
on matters of state…congress writes the laws, we voters vote on those laws…
no law can be rushed through congress and the president enforces our votes…
I believe direct democracy can eliminate the worst aspects of representative
democracy… we must see all bills and all aspects of that bill before we
vote on it… voting can last maybe a week on any given bill… but we
voters…in fact, anyone over 18 can vote on these bills regardless of their
circumstances… we give everyone the right to vote on these bills…

we the people in order to form a more perfect government…

the we is now all of us and that is a good thing…instead of a congress being
bought and paid for, we decide our fate…

as a side note, congress no longer have fixed terms… we can vote them in or out
at our convenience and we no longer allow unlimited terms… congress gets
term limits of 6 years… we must make congress answer to the people and not
to wealthy donors who get to pay to play…we must, must take back the
the government which has become out of reach of the average American…

congress, indeed the entire government must be held accountable to the
people… we the people in order to form a more perfect union…

we must carry the notion of government of the people, for the people,
by the people to its logical conclusion…we have gone half way with that
idea and its time has come to complete the task… make America
a direct democracy…that is the only path left to us…

Kropotkin

I can imagine a reader reading the above post and thinking,

" But Kropotkin, how could you mix perfectly good philosophy with
politics. I mean common day to day politics… what does philosophy
have to do with politics"

if there is one lesson you should take away from my threads, it is this,
there are no isolated, separated idea’s like politics and philosophy…
if you think about it long enough, you will realize that they are one
and the same, politics and philosophy and history and economics
and poly sci…who are we and what are we to do, both individually
and collectively are politics and philosophy and history and economics
and poly sci…

who are we and what are we to do is part of our exploration of
science and math and history… they are one and the same…
to discover who we are and what are we do to… requires tools
and some of those tools are science, math, history, philosophy,
poly sci…

to talk about our current political situation is to use the tools
of science and history and philosophy, among others, to
discover the reality of our current situation…

we are social animals, we exist in groups and in both large and small
systems…to talk about politics is to understand how we are to organize
ourselves in order to accomplish our goals, our visions…

in the day to day rush of modern life, we often forget the value and
purpose of our tools, tools like government, science, history, philosophy…

we use those tools to advance the cause of the human race, the cause of
humanity…and the cause of the human race is simple, the continuation
and perpetuation of the human species…

and all our wonderful tools are meant to aid in this one goal… to continue
the human race… but that one goal doesn’t preclude in us finding
individual goals and meanings and purpose…

we do exist within groups and systems but we can also discover what
drives us, what excites us, what motivates us, what we can live for
and die for if necessary…

meaning for the human being is not just individually, but collectively…
for we cannot find out who we are in terms of us individually, for we
are social creatures, meant for and born of a collection of other human beings…
we can only exist for others, with others, by others…
government of the people, for the people, by the people…
that phrase is not a random phrase, but it is fixed within the confines of
being a human being…we exist together, part of each other,
politics is just part of a way we can exist together, look at poly sci
as a means for us to exist together… what political system should we
have considering we are social beings, beings who exist together and
in groups…the search for justice is rarely the search for individual
justice but a search for a collective justice, justice for all, equality for all…
so if you understand our tools like science and philosophy and history,
as a means for us to understand how we exists together and learn to grow
and thrive and become, human…fully human… for that is the real task
of human beings… how do we become who we are, HUMANS, and because
we exist in groups and various size systems, we must learn to understand
who we are not only as individuals, but as members of many groups, many different
systems… the path, the real path to becoming fully human lies, not individually
but collectively… together…for the road to becoming human is a shared, collective
road…

Kropotkin

“there is only one relation to revealed truth: believing it”
Kierkegaard.

revealed truth, the voice of authority…the authority of god, the
authority of Plato, the authority of the state,

each of these have offered up their “TRUTH”…

thou shall not…

the eternal forms are…

America is the greatest country on earth…

one only needs to believe… to be saved…

I look into my past, I see me, believing, oh, did I believe…

first, I believed in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny and the
tooth fairy…

then I was taught that there was a god and there was Jesus and
there was the trinity and heaven and hell and angels and the devil

then I was taught to believe that 1 + 1 = 2…
and the earth was 93 million miles from the sun…

I was taught that the United States was the greatest country on earth

I was told not to trust my reasoning but trust the revealed truth,
trust authority and I will be saved…

one day, one day I opened my eyes and I saw that reality was different
then the revealed truth… who was I to believe? reality or authority?

was I to trust my eyes and doubt or was I to believe and have faith
in the revealed truth?

if I believed in the revealed word, I would have certainty and peace of mind
and a place in society…

if I believed my eyes… all I would have is doubt and uncertainty
and I would stand outside of the church of faith and the church of state
and the church of knowledge…

it is so easy to accept the word of authority because it takes the burden
off of you… you can just believe and nothing else is expected of you…
just believe and you will be saved…
so says the revealed word of the church and the revealed word of the state…

I could take the soft, easy path of accepting the revealed word…

I choose not to believe and not accept the revealed word

and according to authority, I am dammed… for doubting the word,
for not believing in the revealed truth…of god or state or Plato…

Kropotkin…

as I read the enlightenment I see and compare that time with ours
and I see…I see that the enlightenment was a time that decried the
passivism of the church and the state and Plato…

to believe is to accept and obey and be passive in ones belief in
revealed truth…

the enlightenment encourage humans to engage in, reclaim their lives…
not the passivity of belief or the passivity of simply obeying the laws,
be it church or state…

the naysayers who belong to the party of no…
they have no agenda of their own, but to say no…
their passivity requires, no demands that they
continue their saying no, long after it matters
they still attack Clinton and Obama, long after they cease to matter…
the election was over a year ago and yet they still say no…

to create an agenda of yes means taking responsibility for life…
the party of no, the party of no cannot do that…
the enlightenment was about taking control of and accepting
responsibility for life…
being passive and accepting the revealed truth was no longer possible…

and it is still no longer possible to be passive and just blindly accept the revealed truth…

to the conspiracy theorist and a pox on both houses person…
being passive is not longer any excuse for being lazy and accepting
the revealed truth…

for the truth is passivity is what killed the Roman Empire… it brought
on a malaise that Rome couldn’t recover from and that same passivity,
that same malaise is threating America today… from the party of no to
conspiracy theorists, they all bring their passivity, their malaise,
their revealed truth into common currency and the decline and fall goes on…

being passive is another link in the chain that weighs us down…

Kropotkin

the party of no… the ones who praise the past and proselytize
for passivity…and have no words for the future…

the past, where humans life expectancy was under 30
and public executions were entertainment…
and where man could honestly believe the earth was the center of the universe…

the past where many were illiterate and
one doffs your hat for a passing nobleman…or gets punished…
where doctors were feared as worse then any disease you might get…
where praising the wrong god could result in the loss of liberty or limbs or life…

the party of no… who praises passivity and hate and anger…
become resigned to your fate, says the party of no…
listen to authority…know your place… be who we tell you to be…
listen to music sanctified by those who know better…
read books that have been sanctified by we, we who know better…
watch TV and movies that have been sanctified by the state…
don’t dare to become great or wise or honorable…
the party of no disapproves because we must all be and think as one…

know your place…as consumer and producer…
any other role is against the spirit of the time…
which is to say,
consume or produce because the state will fall without it…
to be a good citizen is to consent to be exploited…

the party of no regrets creating any inconvenience to you…
and hopes you have a wonderful day…
benign words used to cover the fact the party of no
has no plans or desire to create a future worth living…
just be passive and remain a good citizen…
we thank you for your time…

Kropotkin

when I was young, I wanted so much…

I wanted to be rich and famous and have all sorts of
sensory experiences…sex, drugs and rock and roll and
moonlight walks and every sensory experience under the sun…

as I have gotten older, I changed…

my mom who is 82, has for the last couple of years, begun to
get rid of her stuff… she has uncluttered… she stays home and
reads… that is what she does… I couldn’t understand why she
has so simplified her life… and now, now I do understand…

as you get older, you begin to realize that material possessions
don’t matter… they are just stuff cluttering your house…

as for sensory experiences, they matter less and less as I have gotten older…
I enjoy travel, but as I’ve gotten older, it has become more of a hassle then
it is worth…I truly enjoy going to Europe but the work involved, makes it
less fun then it might have been…

if material goods and sensory experiences have become less important,
what has become important? and why?

on my days off, I usually just stay home and read or study or
write…but I also have realized that my family has become much
more important then material objects or sensory experiences…

as you get older, the unimportant stuff just drops away and
and the important stuff becomes far more valuable…

I don’t rush around any more and need a really good reason to even leave the
house these days…they aren’t important…

if my house burned down, the only thing I would miss are my books,
all 5000 of them… and even a lot of those can go away…
maybe 2000 books of mine are really worth the trouble…

I could live in another house and rebuild my library…
but I need my family…it is the relationships that makes
it all worth while…

not work or material goods or money but family relationships that
become most important…

sure, sometimes they are irritating as hell, but that is how you know
they are important, they still irritate you…the other stuff doesn’t irritate
because they have become unimportant and not worth the effort…

you want to know what is important?
see how you react to it…if it provokes strong emotions,
it is still important… even politics, which as you all know are important
to me, have become less and less important to me… I don’t have the
truly strong reactions to politics that I used to… soon, even politics
will become unimportant to me…and I am ok with that…

as I grow older, I become calmer and more relaxed and more secure…
as the external world become less important, the internal world becomes
more important…as I grow older, I discover the only thing I need, was
to learn who I was and be comfortable with that…the rest is unimportant…

Kropotkin

now some believe that the value of a society, civilization comes
from economic or military strength…

for example ask someone, what is the greatest country on earth?
and many in America will say the US…
and asked, why is America the greatest country on earth?
many will say because we are the greatest economically or
the greatest militarily… but is that really the value we put on
a society or a culture? is the GNP is really a sign of being the
greatest country on earth? let us think about other cultures, other
societies… let us, for example, take ancient Greece…
do we value them because they, Athens for example, was the
greatest country on earth because of economic strength or because
of military strength? No, the value we place on ancient Greece and on
Athens in particular is the understanding and creation of such things
as culture and arts and philosophy and history and mathematics…
we remember Greece and Athens not for its military or economic GNP,
but for the other things, for its philosophy and arts and history and math…
Greece created far more in its roughly 180 years of existence then
Rome did in, in a thousand year’s…do we value Rome for its military
and economic strength? No, what value Rome has for us is, in its
legal system…we have a Roman legal system and we have a Greek
everything else…the real value that comes from a culture is not from
its economic or military strength but from its contribution to
succeeding generations…contribution like art, science, philosophy,
history, mathematics and economics…that is the real value of a society…
the value of the Renaissance is not in its economic or military strength but
in its art and philosophy and culture…the rebirth that is the Renaissance is
not economic or military but something greater then that, more profound then
just economic or military…but in the act of creation of beauty and the creation
of knowledge and understanding… so when history writes its verdict of the US…
it will be a negative one… because we stood for false and phony values like the
economic and military… instead of creating real values like artistic or philosophical
or culturally…we are an empty society, creators of empty values like money or fame…
and pretend strength of the military…we offer lower values like greed and
self protection when the higher values of art and philosophy and culture go unanswered
and unwanted…we must become who we are and that isn’t about money or greed
or pretend strength of the military… that becoming is about creating art
and philosophy and a greater understanding of what it means to become human…

the rejection of the lower values of greed and anger and violence and
hate…the rejection of instinctual values and the acceptance of
higher values like love, peace, acceptance… values that make us human
unlike lower values that make us animals… rise above that and become
human… understanding what is the higher values and rising toward those
values is what makes us humans and the true meaning of life…
becoming who we are… which is human beings…and accepting values
that are human and not animal, not instinct…

who are you?

animal or human?

Kropotkin

science is about facts…

philosophy is about values…

Can facts explain values?

does the fact that the earth is 93 million miles from the sun
give us values?

but what are values? a value is justice or honor or beauty or creativity
or fairness, faith, fun, love, pleasure, respect, wisdom are a listing of some,
some of the possible values we can have…

science cannot tell us about values because values aren’t facts…
you cannot create a fact about fun or a fact about love or a fact about respect…

a value is a theory… we have action and we have theories…
we need both in order to have a successful completion of any activity…

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

we act in some fashion… we build a tree house and we say about that
experience, it created pleasure or it create self-respect or we might say
happiness or we might say peace or optimism or meaningful work or learning or
inner harmony or growth or determination or we can use any other VALUE word to
describe our experience of building that tree house…

this description of our house building is not about facts…
we used 17 cords of wood and 13 bags of nails to build our tree house…
that doesn’t tell us anything about building a tree house…
or how we felt about building that tree house…

values give us some emotional idea about our building that tree house…
we felt pride at building that tree house or we felt at peace while building
that tree house…

values are an emotional description of events…

is justice an emotional event? is equality an emotional event?

my wife is always telling me to describe how I feel about something whereas
I usually give facts… it cost me 50 bucks to build the tree house and it took me
13 bags of nails… but I won’t give any type of emotional response to the
building of the tree house… I won’t give a value to building that tree house…
and the fact I won’t give an emotional response to something, pisses off my wife
no end…I normally won’t give an value description of something, I will give
a fact about something… except IQ45, I’ll give you value descriptions of that fucking
moron…anyway, values seem to be an emotional description of an event…
or I could just be really wrong…

science gives us facts…

values give us some emotional response…

and we need both to successfully accomplish and to describe both…

a value is a judgment about something… a value also can give us the why to
something…I built that tree house to give me some peace…
I needed to learn some skill… with learn being the value here…
building that tree house gave me some self respect…
building is the action and the value word can be learn or peace or
self respect…

so let us take another example… the GDP went up by 1.2% last month…
ok, we have the fact, what would be the value? the Gross domestic product
went up and that created …what value word would be appropriate?
what would be an appropriate emotional word to describe a 1.2% rise in the
GDP? what word would give us a why? or what word would tell us
what that means to America? relief? but is that a value word?

all this about value words is tricky stuff…as philosophy is tricky stuff…
because a value word like honesty can mean different things to different
people… to one person, honesty can be or mean something different then
to another person… my idea of honesty is different then my wife’s…

let us say, hypothetically of course, let us say while in Vegas I went to
a strip club, of course this is hypothetical… I never would do something like that,
anyway, I went to a strip club… I didn’t tell my wife about his visit, why would I
given this is hypothetical, now is not telling her being honest… I just never volunteer
this hypothetical fact… my wife would say I am being dishonest by not telling her…
but I didn’t lie to her… I was completely honest with her… I just left out the hypothetical
strip club… and what judgment would you make? honest or dishonest?

this value judgment is at the heart of philosophy…going to this hypothetical strip club
is fact, but what value would you put on it? what emotional response would you make about
the visit and not telling my wife?

science would say, Kropotkin gets this physical response when seeing tall, beautiful
women but science can’t give us a value judgment about this visit or if I am being
honest or dishonest about my visit with my wife…this hypothetical visit…

that is the value of values… they complete the facts given…
for facts can only get us so far and values get us the rest of the way to
some sort of answer about events or people or life itself…

the average human being lives to 70 years of age… fact, I think,
anyway this fact doesn’t give us any value to this information…
it doesn’t tell us anything outside of the fact the average human being lives
to 70… we must supply the rest of the needed information with values,
both about the why and the emotional content of being able to live to 70…
living to 70 with crippling physical aliments is not my idea of quality of life…
I wouldn’t live to 70 if I was in so much pain as to make my life not livable
or bearable…I would make a value judgment as to whither life is livable or not…
this emotional response to a fact is as important as the fact itself…

let me think some more about values and facts… science and philosophy…

judgment and truth… a rather good name for an autobiography…

anyway, what are values and what are facts?

and you get to the heart of philosophy and science…

Kropotkin

so we have values… but some values come into competition…
for example, one of the primary values for liberals is justice
and one of the primary values for conservatives is security…
how do we resolve this conflict when one side is pushing for
security and the other side is pushing for justice?

this is a common issue within a society or a culture…
how do we resolve conflicting values? or as William Barrett
put it, conflicting goods…

a group of people want certain values to be a primary goal and
another group wants other values to be the primary goal…
this is reflected in business wanting to maximize their profits
at the cost of hurting their workers/producers…

this is reflected when businesses want to open up wildlife
preserves or national parks and turn them into money making operations and
people want to save and maintain those wildlife preserves or
national parks like Yosemite…

these are conflicts of value that engage parts of or the entire society at large…

the answer in this conflict of values becomes or SHOULD become
the values that prevails really lies within the answer to
the question which is, what values are the values we belief in
AND we should act upon… and the goal determines that… this is why,
in part, why we should create a goal is because the goal decides what
values become the chosen values and we begin to act upon those values…

ok, so let us start from the beginning… we have values and by creating a goal,
we can then know what values are needed to accomplish those goals…
the goal helps us know what values we need… if the goal requires us
to pursue justice, then that is the value we need or if the goal requires us
seek security, then that is the value we seek… the goal decides the value/values…

the Greeks valued arête and that was excellence… now at first this value was
meant to belong to a soldier and the goal was to create better soldiers…
so by having this value, arête, we would have better soldiers…a worthy goal indeed…

the medieval man goal was to reach god and for them, the best value was faith…
that was the value they needed to reach their goal…

the goal and the value reinforces each other…

today, we have values like greed and lust…

what would the goal be if we have greed and lust as our values?

greed and lust as values only serve as values for the pursuit of material goods
and the possession of people… greed and lust really don’t serve any other goal…
for the truth is simple, the possession of goods or people doesn’t fulfill one’s heart…
greed and lust must go on being greed and lust for there is no end in sight
with greed and lust… there is no other goal then the continued pursuit of
goods/people…for greed and lust to be fulfilled, it must posses everything…
and that is not possible… this is why modern capitalism fails… as its operating
values is greed and lust and they can never be satisfied, no matter how much we
posses, it is never enough…that is the failure of our modern age… we can never
posses enough to satisfied greed and lust…as values, they fail us…
greed and lust fail because we cannot ever, ever reach the goal of
greed and lust which is the possession of everything…

this in short, why the modern age has failed and will continue to fail…
because its values can never be completed or reached as a goal…

we must choose other values and other goals… but as we have values
in conflict, such as the left value of justice and the right’s value of security,
how do we resolve these conflict?

by deciding which value is more important right now because
values like all things, must change and adapt to the current conditions…
sometimes the values we need are different then the values we pursue
because we fail to see or to adapt to the changing conditions or environment…

our values must correspond to the current conditions and environment…
our values must reflect what is happening on the ground…
and also reflect the goal that was chosen… that is why I believe
that the right’s goal of security cannot succeed because it is not rooted
in the current conditions and environment on the ground in this time and place…
and the goal to be reached by security is no different then the goals of greed
and lust as it cannot ever, be reached…we cannot ever reach a situation where
we are totally secure…the goal of being secure cannot be reached because no
matter what we do, the goal of being secure cannot be reached… we always will
fall short of being secure…

but the goal of justice, of treating everyone equally, that goal can be reached
because all it takes is everyone be treated equally regardless of position, wealth
or status… and if we achieve justice, then people can then go on and be and do
whatever they want… justice is simply a step along the way…but it can be a final
goal if we wish… that is the beauty of justice being the value we reach for…
it can be both reached and be the value we live by…justice should be the
current value we strive for and perhaps if the situation and environment changes,
we can find another value to strive for…

what value/values would you suggest for our society/ culture?
and what goal would come from these value/values?

Kropotkin

as suggested, we have values and sometimes those values
clash…we have seen the value of justice and the value of
security clash in the last couple of decades…
the pursuit of wealth is a value
and the idea that we are more then just consumers/producers is
a value and clashes with the pursuit of wealth…

the conflict between values is strong and often violent…
the clash of values between the west and the values of the
middle east have clashed for over a thousand years…

in the U.S, you have “rural” values and “urban” values that have clashed
for over a century…beginning in the 1880’s, during the rise of the
industrial revolution in the U.S… this is the watershed moment
when the industrial revolution began and that created this “rural” vs
“urban” values clash…for it is clear that events like the industrial revolution
and the Crusades create and changes values… our values change and adapt
to events just like we change and adapt to events…

and how do we resolve conflict in values? oftentimes with violence…

look at every single war or violent conflict as a conflict of values…
sometimes the conflict is over the interpretation of a value sometimes
the conflict is over two separate values competing with each other…

greed is a value and a driver of many conflicts…
thus many religions try to discourage greed…
Buddhism for example, makes greed a principle reason
for misery in the world and one of the creators of suffering…
and Buddhism is all about ending suffering, not on a
society or group or culture basis, but on an individual,
personal basis…

in Catholicism, greed is consider one the seven deadly sins…
and a value to be avoided…

I will have more to say about this in a later post…

we return to conflicting values… in some ways, we can consider
government as a means of competing value resolution…
we use government to mediate between competing values…
an impartial referee as it were…but what if, what if the government is
no longer an impartial referee… what if the government takes sides…
that is in part, what has created many of the difficulties of our society…
the government has been bribed to take the side of the wealthy and powerful
and thus abandon the economic lower classes to their fate…
thus the mistrust of the people for the government…
if we play a game and the referees make all the calls favoring one
side or the other, the players will cry foul and demand changes…
this is what has happened in America today… we no longer have fair
and impartial referee’s and America is calling for changes… thus we
got IQ45 as president…this is a sense of justice that people have…
the treating of people equally… and that idea is being violated
with the preference toward the rich and powerful against the middle and
working poor class… we are calling foul and asking for changes…
if there are no changes, then violence will happen as the middle class
and the working poor try to force the government to be equal in its
treatment of its citizens…the middle and working class don’t want
special or preferential treatment, we just want to be treated equally…
and not just be treated equally bad, but equal with the wealthy and powerful…
and that demand for justice is strong in people…
is this idea of justice innate? no, it is learned… we see injustice
and we learn what it means as we grow up… thus we often attack
kids in school we called “teacher pets”… they were treated differently…
we see injustice from an early age…and some respond with
calls of indifference and calm and others respond with calls for
violence… it is the difference between people’s nature for what they
call for…

so conflicts in values… what is the solution?

conflicting values is perhaps the major problem
in society and we must approach this issue head on…
it is the basis of and reason for government…

what is your answer?

Kropotkin

now as part of my researching idea’s, I happened to come across
a wiki article: Western philosophy and Buddhism…

very interesting article and it has lead me into some interesting
thoughts…one of these thoughts is this…

if you read about a religion, you see its focus… for example,
Buddhism is about suffering and eliminating suffering by
certain practices…and I got to thinking about other religions…
for example, Catholicism and Judaism and Islam…

what is the focus of each of these religions…
for example, Catholicism is a guilt base religion…
and the focus is to be released from guilt…

and the focus of Islam is… submission…

and the focus of Judaism is the law…

each of these have a different focus… and I now believe that
each of these is an emotional state… for example, guilt is
part of the human experience and suffering is part of the human
experience and submission is part of the human experience and
obeying the law is part of the human experience…

the various religions try to capture various aspects of the human existence…
the human experience… suffering, guilt, submission, obeying…
you decide on a religion based on which aspect of the human experience
you consider most important… if it is guilt, you choose Catholicism
if it is suffering… you choose Buddhism if it is submission… Islam…
Obeying the law… Judaism…,and as far as most religions go,
they are usually, usually…salvation based… so
some part of us is about being saved and so we choose religions based
on how we want to be saved… so in other words, we have
inclinations, psychological leanings toward guilt or suffering or toward
obeying or toward submission and we then lean toward the religion that
best fulfills that psychology leaning…and what about Atheist?
well I can’t speak for atheist at large, but I know about myself is
that I don’t believe in guilt or believe that suffering is key or obeying
the law is key or submission so I don’t have any psychology leaning toward
any religion and so, I don’t have a religion… so if we put emphasis
on guilt, we think Catholicism and being saved, on any number of religions,
and submission, Islam and so on…

our psychological bent decides our religion or religions…

as there are thousands of religions… what does this tell us about humans?
that we have many, many different motivations that drive us…

Kropotkin

as we have these psychological inclinations, ( we can also be taught
to have guilt and be aware of suffering and so on, so it is not just inclinations)
and we can also understand that these inclinations can also be unhealthy
for people…but any malaise taken too far can be unhealthy…
we in America have been in fear since 9/11 and it has become
unhealthy to the point where we elected a president with dementia…

so what can be done? when an individual has emotional or psychological
issues, we suggest or encourage them to see a psychologist or a therapist…
but what if, what if the malaise is throughout the entire society, the entire
culture has some sort of issue or issues that threaten to damage the entire
society? what are we to do?

let us look at some examples… greed for example… what would happen
to a society where greed is one of the primary drivers…we know
that greed has been condemned in the past, so we know that greed has
been a issue for a good deal of human existence… one of the seven
deadly sins within the Christian teachings is greed/avarice…
(the total list is gluttony, lust, pride/hubris, sorrow/despair/despondency,
wrath, vainglory and sloth along with greed/avarice)

let us look at another religion like Buddhism… greed is one of the 3 poisons to be
fought against… the other two is ignorance: confusion, delusion
and aversion is the third poison… aversion is also ill will…

so we have two distinct and separate religions developed in far different places
and both warn us against greed…yet, today we not only promote greed, we
put it at the heart of our economic system…just as greed damages the
individual, it damages the society at large… that is why both the Christian faith
and Buddhism warned us against greed…so we have a society wide
crisis because of greed, a malaise that threaten society to the point of seriously
damaging that society… once again when an individual has issues like greed
that threaten their mental state, we refer them to a psychologist…
but what about a entire society that is threaten by something like greed?

who do we listen to then?

the issue of the last century and that has lasted to today is nihilism…
the pursuit of profit has created a wholesale state of nihilism within
our entire society and threatens our society with falling apart…

who was brave enough and far seeing enough to predict the 20 and 21st
century would be centuries of nihilism? Why, Nietzsche of course…
he foresaw what would happen and he tried to see his way out of it…
he himself proclaimed his mission clearly enough. to paraphrase,
how to find morality when god is dead… as morality, thou shall not,
is based on their being a god, but what is god is dead… on what shall
we base our morality on? indeed, on what grounds shall we base our morality
on and our sense of right and wrong on if there is no god? the rise of the century
of greed came after Nietzsche and has been the basis of our society for the last 100
plus years… Nietzsche was right… the century after him was a century of
nihilism… he foresaw it and he tried to find a cure for that…

Nietzsche studied philology which is the branch of knowledge that deals with
the structure, historical development and relationship of a language or languages…
that was his major field of study… he was well read in Greek… he knew
Plato and Aristotle and the pre-Socratic philosophers quite well…
one of the key understanding about Greek philosophers as well as others
who lived in those times, was the influence of medicine…one of the key
points of all three major philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle was
the key role that medicine played for them… Socrates called
himself “a midwife” that brings about idea’s and understanding…
and he also talks about the role of a doctor within a society…
he talks about a philosopher being the same as a doctor, a doctor
diagnosis of a patient and what is a possible cure for the illness of
that patient… and Socrates felt that a philosopher should be
a doctor to the society at large… this was a trend throughout Greek
history… a philosopher should be able to diagnosis a society and
offer up a cure for what ails that society… and if you look at the
history of philosophy… that is exactly what philosophy has done over
its long and storied career… philosophers have both diagnosed society
and has offered up cures for that society…

isn’t that what every philosophers since Socrates has done?

isn’t that the role of philosophy… to offer up solutions to that which
ails society?

we are societies physician…

and what ails our society at this time is a combination of factors including
greed and fear and hate and this has resulted in the election of IQ45…

for our ailments has direct consequences because we act upon those
ailments and we don’t even understand how we act… we are blind to
both our ailments and how we act upon those ailments…

and what is the cure for that which ail us?

Kropotkin