a new understanding of today, time and space.

For social change, often, a valued idea gets hijacked.

What you call nihilism, in this case, is editing values. Not pure and true nihilism, but yes, nihilistic.

The value of money sometimes becomes higher than the value of life.

It’s sad but i think it is happening as we speak.

K: yes, it is sad that money/profit is valued higher then human life…
when politicians say, we must protect the taxpayer at all cost, they really
mean, we must protect money over human life…thus negation of life
comes at a cost…and the cost is coming due… we cannot maintain our
current capitalistic course because resources are limited and our current
course assumes that resources are unlimited and they are not…
but once again greed plays a role in this… greed doesn’t matter if there
is enough resources to maintain its greed… greed is all about greed…
and nothing else…the pursuit of money/profit is an empty pursuit because
it is empty goal… much like soda and popcorn is empty calories…
it is there but it isn’t worth anything… and in fact is harmful but it does
fill one up, for the moment and because it is empty calories, you are in need
of more empty calories… you can never get really full on empty calories
and you can never get full on the empty promise of money/profit…

you always need more and more and more…and no matter how much you get,
it is never enough… that is the empty promise of money and profit…
and we are foolish enough to put that empty promise over people…

it is sad…

Kropotkin

And greed will save us all:

youtu.be/VVxYOQS6ggk

K: I do not look at youtube video’s posted here because I think that
is the height of lazyness…if you have an argument, tell me about it…
I quite often will give another person’s argument but I will not be lazy
about it and post a video…not to mention the fact, I am so technology
inept, I can’t post it here… so tell me the argument made in your own words…

Kropotkin

Allow me, Kropotkin. It is a video of Michael Douglas portraying a character called Gordon Gekko. He is addressing a crowd of people. He first tells the assembled gathering that his last seven deals have netted a pre-tax profit of 12 billion dollars for 2.5 million shareholders. Gekko is espousing the virtues of greed, “for want of a better word”. The character suggests that greed is good - right- works - clarifies and cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all it’s forms, greed for life, for money, for love - knowledge…

Greed will save The USA

I’m not convinced greed is the answer. I question whether it is the essence of the evolutionary spirit?

I wonder what Pandora had in mind when she posted her video?

K: why thank you sir…I thank your for your kindness in watching that video and
your explanation… greed is a lower instinct and cannot be the answer because
to make it a basis of human existence is to create a system that will fail… because
greed is not a way for systems to work, be it a family or a economic system or a
political system…Greed turned into a universal value is a path to failure,
both in the short term and in the long term…for greed puts our own needs ahead
of everyone else and we know that, from our experience of being children
and being parents, that to practice greed as a family and as parents is a path
to failure… our experience shows us this… a parent cannot be about personal
greed for that leads to putting the parent first and not the children… and as a
parent, I know you don’t put yourself first, you put your children and spouse first…
not yourself…to put yourself first is to fail your children, fail your family…
this is the lesson of experience and the lesson of the family…
Greed fails on every level… and on every system…
it cannot be the answer if it fails on a system wide basis…

Kropotkin

the human experience… is one of pain, suffering and anguish…
and the human experience is one of joy and life and happiness…
and the human experience is one of boredom and monotony and much wasted time…
and the human experience is one of good and evil…

so which human experience is the “right” one?

all of them… but how do we reconcile these opposites?
how do we fit god into these opposites?

God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and is the ultimate good…
how could the ultimate good create evil? the believer in saving god,
blames the human being for the creation of evil… but, but if god
is omnipotent, he cannot be blameless in the creation of evil…

if evil is out of god’s hand, then god is not omnipotent…
either god is omnipotent or he isn’t… either god is
responsible for evil or he isn’t god as we know it…

but how does the believer answer this? by then changing the Goal line…
by saying that it is all part of god’s plan and that plan is beyond man’s
understanding… but that means that god has created evil and is responsible
for evil, but evil serves some unknown reason of god…and we are unable to
understand god’s plan… but evil then does exist and god created it…

the two concepts clash… either man creates evil and god is no longer
omnipotent or god creates evil and is all part of god’s plan for man…

but the problem for today’s believer is simple… how to believe in the
face of the 20th century history… how to believe in the fact of two world wars
and the Holocaust and the death of millions in disease and warfare…
if god is omnipotent, then god is responsible for the deaths of millions,
we just don’t understand why or god isn’t responsible and man is responsible
and god isn’t omnipotent… the solution for today’s believer is simple,
pretend that the events of the 20th century didn’t occur…and this
alone allows the believer to believe in a omnipotent god…
the world wars and the Holocaust simple didn’t occur…
and we can then hold our beliefs intact…

those who try to have it both ways, by saying god is omnipotent
and yet man is responsible for evil is simply avoiding the issue.
by pretending that god is omnipotent and man creates evil…
but to make god omnipotent means god is responsible for evil…

and so they flee to the second choice which is, evil is beyond man’s
comprehension…there is a limit to man’s understanding about god…

I suggest that there is a much easier way to understand the world…
take out the belief in god… and now the universe makes much more sense…

but, but it then requires some understanding of the world without
support of some belief system in divinity…

how are we to understand pain, suffering and anguish…
how are we to understand joy, life and happiness…
how are we to understand boredom and monotony and the wasted time…
and how are we to understand good and evil?

the Buddha believes that suffering is the problem of human existence
and if we find a way to remove suffering, we find a way out of the problem
of human existence…

Jesus believes that the finding salvation is the problem of human existence
and if we find a way to find salvation, we find a way out of the problem
of human existence…

but they are both wrong for they only account for part of the problem,
not the whole problem…
we can remove some suffering by our actions, but not all suffering…
we do grow old and we do die, no matter how hard we try to avoid them…
but by accepting what is to be regardless of what we do, we come to grips with it…

I shall grow old and I shall die… it doesn’t matter what I do, I cannot change that…
so I accept it… and that is the solution… by accepting what is unchangeable,
that of growing old and of dying…I have seen friends and family die… it is
suffering, but I cannot change it… I cannot do anything else but accept it…

I shall continue to see friends and family die… I cannot do anything about it
and I shall suffer from it… but I cannot change it…I can only understand that
aspect of life and accept it… I can do no other…

it is a fatalism of sorts, but only of a sorts…
for I can change other aspects of my life…
and this the key… some aspects of my life, I can change…

I can reason and by reason, I can understand what is changeable and what
isn’t…and I can, by emotions, feel suffering and pain and anguish.
and I can by emotions, feel boredom and monotony and wasted time,
and by emotions, I can understand good and evil…

but then how do I understand the “evils” of the twentieth century?
how do I understand the two world wars and the holocaust
and the deaths of millions?

at this junction lies Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and existentialism…
instead of reason, we turn to emotions… we use art as explanation
for the understanding of “evil”…

for how can we rationally explain two world wars and the holocaust and
the deaths of millions?

for art is the experience of turning explanation into some form…
be it pictures or statues or movies or literature…
we can explain actions that are otherwise unexplainable into the explainable…
by art, we can make sense of the world which is otherwise without sense…
how do you explain the actions of the twentieth century…
the two world wars, the holocaust, the deaths of millions?

do you like the Christian simply pretends it didn’t happen or
do you blame god or do you simply say, it is beyond our understanding?

simple copouts like this is to be expected because people won’t
challenge themselves to actually understand and/or explain
the actions of the twentieth century…

we cannot advance as a people until we come up with an
understanding of the actions of the twentieth century…
and we cannot understand who we are until we also
put into context the science of the twentieth century…

context is just another word for experience…
how do we put into context the science of the twentieth century?

how do we make sense of quantum physics into our lives?
how do we understand gravity into our lives?

perhaps the answer lies in some other area?

perhaps instead of the material world, the tree’s and the stars and
the earth, we find answers in the changes of the world…

perhaps we can find answers in the processes of the world
and not in the material aspects of the world…

perhaps?

Kropotkin

the question has been asked and it is our time to answer…

How is it possible to be a Christian in light of the events/ atrocities
of the 20th century?

we need a new Kierkegaard to explain how we can be Christians
after the 20th century…

is it finally time to depart the faith because faith cannot understand
or explain how we can have faith after the events/atrocities of the 20th century…

Kropotkin

I was going to create a separate thread for this next topic but
decided to keep it here for reasons that will become apparent…

I am going to do something that the opponents of liberalism won’t/can’t do…
which is argue for my position of being illiberal… I will argue against
liberalism and for some position…

to argue against liberalism is to argue for intolerance and for
superstition and for bowing down to authority…

for these were the main features of the time period before the
enlightenment…and the enlightenment argued against intolerance and superstition
and the enlightenment created the modern framework of liberalism…

now the enlightenment as with other time periods, was a response
to something…each time period responds to the time period before
it…so who or what was the enlightenment responding to?

so let us, to correctly understand our concept a bit better,
let us take a look at history as we understand it…

you have the Greco-Roman time period… which ended roughly around 500 AD,
then you have the medieval period which lasted from, again roughly, from
500 AD to about 1500 AD…then historically you have the Renaissance,
the Reformation, the counter-reformation, side by side with the scientific/
philosophic revolution… then comes the enlightenment…
again, this gives us a ball park understanding of history…

so was the enlightenment a response to the Renaissance or the Reformation?
not really…it was a response to the middle ages, the medieval period…

the important fact to understand is how well read the enlightenment thinkers
really were…and their main reading was the Greco-Roman writers…
this is truly important…they of course knew the writers before them,
like Descartes and Spinoza but they really read the Greco-Roman writers
and in the original Greek or Latin, mostly Latin but many enlightenment
thinkers knew Greek and read the Greek writers in Greek…

this is monumentally important… and you cannot understand our
own age until you understand this basic fact…

so you have the Greco-Roman writers, then comes the Middle ages…
so, the medieval period is a reaction to the time before it…
so what was the Greco-Roman period? it was very religiously
tolerant… the Romans for example, gave religious freedom to its
citizens… the Jews for example, were allowed to freely pray to its god…
without restrictions… as long as they paid taxes to Rome… Rome didn’t care…

this Greco-Roman religious tolerance is the basis of the enlightenment call for religious
tolerance…why? because the middle ages was a time for intolerance and superstition
and bowing to authority like the church or Aristotle…this is the war that the
enlightenment period was fighting… the middle ages…and it was in their
reading of the Greco-Roman writers that lead them to the enlightenment ideals of
religious tolerance and freedom and not bowing down to authority…

so we have the Greco-Roman time period of religious and personal freedom
giving way to the Medieval period of intolerance and superstition…
and the Renaissance was not a period of religious or personal freedom…
it was the period where people started to relearn the old Greco-Roman
writers… the mania in the Renaissance was to find and translate the
Greco-Roman writers like Cicero… the idea was not to create ideals from them
but to relearn them… remember the idea behind the Renaissance was rebirth…
to recall the old masters and bring them into the world anew…

the Renaissance brought new translations of the important writers
of the Greco-Roman world and that was the importance of the
Renaissance…but the Renaissance didn’t bring about new ideas
like the next period of the scientific/philosophic age or the enlightenment
period did…the template of the enlightenment was the Greco-Roman writers
and not the Renaissance…and in opposition to the middle ages ideals of
intolerance and superstition and bowing down to authority…

so we have the Greco-Roman world of religious toleration and personal
freedom… the medieval world reacted to this by thinking that the
Greco-Roman world was too liberal and too free thinking and really corrupt…
in both thinking and in actions…the morals of the Greco-Roman world was
far too liberal for the medieval period…and the medieval period was
modest and closed off and fearful and far removed from the concerns
of the Greco-Roman world…

then we have a return of ideas of the Greco-Roman world of liberal thoughts
of religious toleration and personal freedom in the enlightenment…

so we have a liberal time period, the Greco-Roman world,
we have a conservative time period, the medieval time period,
then we have a return of the liberal time period, the enlightenment…

the question becomes, what is next? do you want a restoration of
the medieval ideals of modesty and religious intolerance and bowing
down to authority? that is what conservatives are saying when they
are arguing against liberalism… we want a return of medieval values,
of medieval ideals… is this what you want?

this is the big question of our time… which values, which ideals are
we going to follow… the Greco-Roman/enlightenment ideals of
religious tolerance and not bowing down to authority or, or
a return to the medieval values, ideals of religious intolerance
and ignorance and superstition and against personal freedom…

that is the question… which values are you going to follow?

Kropotkin

what am I searching for?

I am not searching for answers… I am searching for the questions,
the right question… you can have your answers as long as I have my questions…

What was the brillance of Einstein? not in the answers he found, but in the
questions he asked…

Kropotkin

Philosophy has been done all wrong and you
are doing it all wrong!!!

What? What did you say? Wrong… nonsense, I am doing
philosophy as it has been done since day one…

and it is wrong!!!

look out the window and spot something, say a tree…
look at that tree… tell me what you see…

I see a tree… about 20 feet tall… with branches, no leaves
because it is winter…and in winter… a tree loses it’s leafs…

what have you described? a tree… yes, but you missed the basic,
essential aspect of the tree…you missed what makes a tree a tree…

what in god’s name are you babbling about? I did describe that tree and
I got all its essential parts…no, you didn’t…

what did you miss?

you looked at the tree as if it was a static, unchanging object…
but that tree is not just an static, unchanging object…
it is one step along a process… that tree is everchanging…

it was born, as trees are born and it has grown and someday, someday,
it will die…we look at that tree at some point during its process and declare
it to be static and unchanging but it isn’t… even as we look at it, it is changing…
slowly, imperceptible, but it is changing… in the midst of process…
the tree has been programmed by its DNA into changes, into a process of
birth, life and then finally death…

just as all matter is changing… we might not be able to see the change but it is
there… all matter is process… going from one point in time to another and another
and at each point in time, changing…I am not the same person I was a minute ago…
I’ve changed… on some level, in the last minute, I have changed… and I will continue
that process until I die… like that tree, from birth to death… my life is not static,
unchanging, but everchanging, every second is a moment of change…
when you look into the mirror… what do you see? do you see an static,
unchanging person? or do you see the processes that brought you here?

we are made up of changing moments, of a process that will go on from birth
to death and then beyond… when we die, we change again… our bodies,
loses cohesion… we begin to the process of decomposition…
in the everlasting battle between order and disorder, we begin the process to
disorder… if we are no longer alive, our bodies begin to disorder…
our bodies, our system, no longer has any energy to maintain its order…
we are a system to the end of our lives and beyond…

when you look at another person, what do you see?
do you see that static moment in time or do you see the
ever changing process is that is life and matter?

I Kropotkin, exists at this moment in time… and I exists, not
as a static unchanging being, but as matter that has changed
and evolved over time… for evolution is simply another word
for process…now the very word “process” and the very word, “evolve”
carry very different connotations… and yet, they mean the exact same thing…
the word, process, just doesn’t have the same emotional context as the word
“evolve”…

I am not the same person I was at birth and that I was at age, 5 or 10 or 20
or 30 or 40 or even 50… I am almost 59 and I have changed, the process that
has gone on in my life, the evolution of Kropotkin has gone on…
I think of myself as static and unchanging but that is simply wrong…
even if I don’t intellectually or emotionally changed (which I do every day)
but physically, at every moment, I am changing…I am continuing
the process of aging…with every passing moment, I age…and I will continue
to age until death…

when you think of life, when you think of matter… it is the process that
matters, not that momentary second that you contemplate life or that matter,
but the process is what matters…

so we are to engage with matter as a process and the next step
is to wonder how that everchanging matter engages with us…
so we are two everchanging processes…the object that we are engage
with and our everchanging matter that is us…

we are two moving processes that are engage with each other…
no wonder we have a hard time understanding the universe…
no wonder we have a hard time understanding matter and life…
for we are everchanging process and matter and life and the universe
is everychanging…two moving objects in the universe…

this is why Plato is wrong… there is not such thing as an eternal matter like
his eternal forms… because if it is matter, it is changing and if it is life, it is
changing…and we as perceiving matter, are every changing …

you might disagree and say, that refrigerator I see, it isn’t changing!!!
but it is changing… you just can’t see it…it is changing position because
it exists on planet earth and planet earth is rotating and moving through space…
it is changing position if nothing else…and that is the next change, we move
through space…we are ever in motion even if we don’t feel it…
for we are on matter that moves through space… the planet is matter
moving through space… and not only moving, but rotating and moving
around the sun… so we have three different types of motion…
one is the earth rotating, two is the earth revolving around the sun and
three is the entire solar system moving through space…

what seems solid melts into air when we actually think about it…

so what is solid, unchanging? is there anything we can use that
we know is unchanging and unchanging?

no, but this is the cause of our belief in god…
as a fixed, unchanging, unmoving object…

but even god changes… read the new testament
and read the old testament and they are two different
and separate gods… if you belief, actually believe that
that jesus is the son of god and understand that jesus proclaims a new message,
a new gospel… one that is different from the old testament…

there is a distinct and different message from the old testament to the new
testament…

and that change is a change in god…

so there is nothing in life that is not process and change…

we can build upon that as the new message going forward…

change and process is who we are…

so the question becomes simply this, are we going to blindly
go with the change or are we going to be the engine that drives change…
we can decide what change we want to engage with and become…

and that is the message… we change… but we can decide what change
we want and we can act upon that decision…the only solid in the universe
is change… and what direction is the change that will come, take…
that is our only purpose in life… making a choice about the change that will come…

change is here… whether you want it or not…so the question becomes…
what change do you want? how will you direct the process you can control?

Kropotkin

the modern basis of government is simply this…

“it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the
measure of right and wrong.”

Jeremy Bentham…

this the liberal basis of government…not based on
authority or based on revelation or based on eternal matters…
but on the greatest happiness of the greatest number…

but the question becomes what is the “greatest happiness”?

and how can we achieve happiness in the midst of an
everchanging universe?

for what made me happy when I was young is different,
far different then what makes me happy today…

so we have to connect the different aspects of our human existence
together… we have a everchanging universe along
with everchanging matter and even we are ever changing…

so what can connect all that?

we have certain biological needs which we cannot ignore…
we must eat and we must mate and we must breath air
and we must expel excess or used matter…these biological necessities
must be followed if we are to continue our existence…

we organize ourselves into some sort of government which
allows us to coexists…and whatever government type we choose,
it will change and adapt every single day…as we change every single day…

amid this constant change, we must pick some point where we will
make our stand…and begin our journey…

we must first act upon our biological necessities…
we must have some means upon which to get the necessities
we need to exist… like necessities like food and clean water and clean air…

this is the bottom line basis of government…providing us access
to the basic necessities like food…

now we must create in some fashion the necessities of the basics…
we cannot just kill the deer and eat it… because soon, there will be no
more deer to eat and we starve…

so one role the government plays is umpire…we need an umpire
to makes sure we play well with each other and we don’t destroy
the resources we collectively need to survive… think Easter island…
they individually destroyed the trees they needed to survive collectively…
without the tree’s, their civilization went to hell… so another aspect of
our existence is the resources we need to exist… we cannot exist without certain
resources like tree’s and animals and air and water…however we can exist
and did for millions of years without computers and engines and oil and machines…
we can do without the trappings of the modern technology and we can survive…
so they are not essential to our surviving…

but in our modern world of technology and machines and tools, we
have numbers… we have billions of people and with each new person,
the complexity of existence becomes ever more complicated…
this is the next understanding… with every new object and every new life,
existence becomes more and more complicated…life is simple with one or two
tools to work with… we had spears and our hands to gain our basic necessities
for millions of years…today, shear numbers dictate that we cannot gain our
basic necessities with just spears and our hands… because there are over 7 billion
human beings… with each human being, human existence becomes more complicated…
change… we return to our idea of change… with every single human being,
existence becomes more complicate and with that complication, come the
increase in government because with every single new human being, comes
a greater and greater need for an umpire to keep our society moving…

with every single human being comes the need to increase our number of tools and
our need to increase our resources and the increase in the sheer amount of food and water to
allow our human beings to survive…it takes more food and water to supple 7 billion
people then it does to supple 1 billion people…and that includes the resources
to house and clothe and educate and move those 7 billion people become more
complicated…

so we have such things as the political and the economic and social
to help us understand how we deal with human beings… and how with
the growing number of human beings changing, we must change how we
handle the political and economic and social…
we cannot use the same political and economic and social tools to deal
with 1 billion people to deal with 7 billion people… it simple won’t work…
we must change our systems to deal with the changing numbers…
to allow an economic system to have resources to be in the hands of a small number
of people, as capitalism does, makes sense when there are not that many people,
as in 1 billion people, but, but when there are 7 billion people to deal with, to feed,
to house, to clothe, to educate, to move, allowing resources to collect in the hands
of a small number of people no longer makes any sense…

if we allow resources to collect in the hands of a small number of hands, then
we prevent the large number of people access those resources…

the resources we have are limited…that is the next basic fact we must understand…
we have limited resources… and to give a small number of people the greater percentage
of resources makes no sense…to feed a large group of people from a pie, we need to make
the pie pieces smaller to feed a greater number of people… the more people, the smaller
the pieces of pie everyone gets… if two people have 75% of the pie, then to allow everyone
else a piece of the pie means everyone else gets a ever smaller piece of the pie…
maybe an small sliver piece of pie…the only way to give everyone a piece of pie…
the only way is to increase the amount of pie everyone gets is by limiting the amount
of pie anyone can get…or you have to increase the amount of pie that is available…

but how do you increase the amount of pie that is available? that is the question
for us to answer…that is the practical question we have… how to get enough
pie for everyone to have a piece…that question is easier to answer when you
only have 10 people to dinner instead of 100 people… the number of people
you have changes the answer of how to feed those people…

now one may answer the question of how do we feed the people pie, with the
answer of, we don’t give people pie, which is based on?

we decide by some method of not giving people the pie because of?
we make moral choices of not giving them pie because they are of a
certain color or a certain race or a certain religion or a certain sex?

maybe they don’t work hard enough? but how do we decide this?

upon what criteria do we decide that we don’t give people a piece of pie?

we have a family dinner and there are 10 people…
how do we decide how much pie each person gets?
by how much work they do? what if they are old or disable
and they can’t work… how do we justify not giving them pie?
by saying no pie for you because you didn’t work… even if they
can’t work even if they wanted to work… they cannot work…
that is something out of their hands… something they have no control over…
but the real question becomes, WHO decides how much pie we each get and why?

when we go over to over to someones house, the host decides, but the planet earth
has no host, we are all here equally and so how do we decide when we all have
equal right to be here? do we have one person decide, dictatorship, or do
we have everyone vote on who get a piece of the pie or do we elect someone
to decide for us?..one might say, but life is more complicated then this…
deciding who gets the piece of a mythical pie? but the fact is, life
isn’t more complicated then this… just the number of people having pie
has changed, not the eating of the pie itself… resources is resources and the
amount of resources is limited but the number of people using those resources changes…
so how do we decide how much pie each person is going to have… out of limited
amount of pie!!! and because everything changes everyday, the amount of pie
changes as well as the number of people who are going to eat that pie changes every day…

so this is the question facing us…practical matters such as the use of resources
and how we use those resources…

Kropotkin

I have argued against representive democracy as no longer being
effective… it no longer solves the problem it was created to solve…
it must be changed…and therein lies the crux of our modern problem…
how do we undergo the necessary changes we need to make, to make our
system work? how do we decide who gets a piece of the pie and how much
of the pie?..if the answer lies in the greatest number of people, then
we must get those greatest number of people the ability to make decisions…
we must remove representive democracy and replace it with direct democracy…
this is the only way to allow the greatest number of people to make the decisions
they need to make to allow them the access to resources they need to survive…
the answer to our modern question is freedom… the freedom to choose without
recourse to others to make decisions for us… we need to make our own choices
as to how we decide who eats the pie and how much… and the role of government
is to play referee… umpire in the decisions we make…
and an umpire/referee is neutral…doesn’t care who wins or loses,
an umpire is just there to make sure the game is played fairly between
the teams or persons…so the goal for government is to make it neutral
and the teams play an even game… this is the true meaning of justice…
equality between people or teams as they play the game…
with the government being an umpire/referee…

Kropotkin

“Man is born free and yet everywhere he is in chains”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau…

the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains…

Karl Marx…

these quotes bring up several points… first of all, freedom,
free for what? what is the point of being free?
and he is chained by? and by whom?

the conservative man will say, human beings are chained by
the government, the political…

the liberal man will say, human beings are chained by their economic situation…
the companies, the economic…

and who is right?

in this time and place, we are chained by the economic tyranny that exists,
not the political tyranny that did exists… the economic now dictates
the political…the conservative man has yet to catch up to the modern
situation… but the conservative man is always behind the liberal man…
why? because the conservative man looks back and the liberal man looks forward…

so what are we free for? why be free? what will you do with that freedom?

and who put the chains on human beings? and how do we be free of those chains?

we need to be free to become who we are and find our possibilities…

the chains? they are our education that teaches us only to be
workers and consumers… not human beings… we go to school to learn
a trade, to get a job, to have a career… not to become a thinking, free
human being…we are in chains when we have only one economic system
available to us, capitalism… and we are in chains when we have only one
political system available to us, representative democracy…

to have only one choice is to be in chains… freedom requires choices
and the more choices we have, the more free we are…

and what other chains do we have?

when we are ruled by superstition and greed and fear and anger, desire,
the lower level, the animal aspect of human beings…

when are we free? when we are governed by love, hope, honor,
charity, caring… these are our higher aspects of being human…

the choices we make decide if we are fully human or just an animal
playing at being human…

everything, everything is connected… you just haven’t made the connections yet…

Kropotkin…

we have a multi-ideal working within our environment and
within our minds…we have the public, the state/government
and we have society/culture which is the media/TV/movies/books
it is ART… and we have ourselves… we have these three things working
at all times… sometimes together, sometimes not…and this list
is by no means inclusive… there are other factors at work… we are not
a closed system, we are an open system, where matter (whatever what that matter is)
going from one system to another…

so we have a state/government… institutions like schools and the maintaining
the infrastructure with police and firemen and sanitation workers…

we have society/culture… as mentioned, the media and the arts… often
in conflict with the state/government…

and we have us… we exist within those above mentioned systems
and we exist within ourselves… as we think and exist and push for
whatever “our happiness” is…

each of these three things, state… society…ourselves…
act and interact with each other…they influence each other and
push each other…

let us look at the state for a minute… let us look at the prior administration…
the Obama years… we had a leader who whether you agreed with or not…
lead by example…there were no personal or professional scandals…

he set an example… and a very good example…he worked hard…
avoided drama, worked to make America better and he did leave America
better then when he was elected…

this example is the best means a president can show us the way…

where I work, in my store, we have perhaps 80 employees…
the managers are very lazy and don’t do much… even the front end
manager is one who doesn’t set much of an example…they all leave
early or stand around and talk personal matters while costumers are left
to fend for themselves because there isn’t enough help on the floor either
in checking or as day stock…

the managers set the tone of the store… they are lazy and try to get out of work
and they get paid much more then we do… so why should we bust our humps
to get things done when the management couldn’t care less?

and this is true of government… the leadership must set the example for the rest…
we have government only looking out for itself… making as much money as possible working
as little as possible… just like our managers

so that is one aspect of our live… we have management that only cares about itself,
from president on down… unlike the Obama years even when congress was only about
itself and couldn’t have cared less about the country…Obama was a good leader who
did set a good example…

so one aspect of today is this, we don’t have anyone setting a good example for our country…
we have Washington D.C that only cares about its money and its agenda which is to make
as much money as possible while working as little as possible…

now as a citizen of this country…if the leadership doesn’t care about me and
the country, why should I care? they get paid a whole lot of more money and
they clearly don’t give a shit…why should I? and why should you?

the next aspect is society/culture… what example of society/culture is showing us?
the Kardashians… enough said…people who are rich and powerful and do absolutely
nothing to improve either society or themselves outside of making themselves “beautiful”

is there some example within society/culture of someone who is active in
creating a better society/culture or trying to improve society at large?

we have a society/culture that is only about making money or being famous…
that is the goal of society/culture… anything else is not required…
the current society/culture is nihilistic… money/profit overwhelm
human values, human needs…ART is not about the creation of money,
but about reflecting who we are and what we were, what we are and what
we might be… ART is about the past, present and the future…
the current nihilism of society/culture is about making cash, nothing more…

and now we have ourselves… we exist in the midst of all these systems
that we both influence and are influenced by…if both the state/government
and society/culture is all about the money, then why shouldn’t we be?

the answer is simple, the state/government and society/culture is currently
about nihilism… the pursuit of money/profit over human values…
we are the last stand before nihilism takes over all our lives…

we are follow the path of the fall of Rome… we no longer have
values in which to believe in and we no longer have a energy/spirit…
we have lost our nerve…and pursue lower human values because to follow
higher human values takes energy and incentive and hope… we have none of those…

we are on the path to Rome because we no longer have the nerve to follow
our higher values…we simply follow the road of lower values of anger, lust,
greed, hate, because we have no leadership showing us the right path and
we have no incentive to follow the tougher, longer, more painful road of
the higher values…we are formed within our society, within our
institutions and within our values and we no longer have leadership in
society, in institutions or in our values…we are rudderless because
no one gives a dam… and so we pursue our “happiness” until death
with no thought to tomorrow… happy until the end… as the house is burning down
around our heads…we have our chains… who is strong enough to beak
their chains?

Kropotkin

the questions has been asked,

“Why did Rome fall”

“Why has man himself, while increasing his material knowledge, not
grown happier and better”?

two sides of the same coin…and what is your answer?

Kropotkin

when reading about the Enlightenment, the name that everyone points out
is Voltaire… but that is not the person that one must do battle with…no.
the person one must take into account in the enlightenment is Rousseau…
regardless of whether one is trying to understand the personal self or
the position of the personal self within society/state… in both cases
the person with whom one must engage with is Rousseau…
to discover who we are, personally, Rousseau leads the way
and in discovering who we are in society/state, once again
the path us lead by Rousseau…but the question Rousseau never
answers, but he does try is, how do we exist individually within the state?

for individually we are driven by the lower instincts,
of greed and anger and lust and hate…

but for society to succeed, we must be driven by the higher instincts,
of love, peace, hope, charity… how do we reconcile the two?

It is clear that we haven’t and that is the question for our time,
how do we reconcile the individual, the individual of Kierkegaard, Rousseau,
Nietzsche and Ibsen with the needs of the state/society?

is it a either/or… or do we have another solution?

the search for ourselves is a search for who we are,
not only individually but as a citizen of a state, a member
of many different systems… how do we reconcile who we are,
with the state/society?

that is a question that has befuddle many and will lead many astray…

Kropotkin

ok, we are now thinking about the individual and society…

let us take a smaller look at this topic via something we are all
familiar with… business…

as is known, I work in a very large corporation, one of the 5
largest grocery chains in America… I work as a checker…
I am an individual working within a large business, a society of sorts…

how do I exists as an individual within this corporation?

I am not suppose too… and in that shocking answer
lies certain truths…

we as a people, within the society, are allowed freedom of speech in our public
life, we have the first amendment, "congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion…OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH…

now this is given to our public life, but it is not, not given to our private life,
in other words, I cannot give my free speech in a business world as I will be fired…
now this is justified as a business being privately owned and thus freed speech
can be punished… and punished as insubordination…but this doesn’t apply
to our free speech in the public sector… why the difference?

the government does, does act in matters of private conduct between
people… for example, one cannot shout fire in a crowded theater but
think about it, a theater is a privately owned business, how can the
government interfere with a privately owned business on someone
shouting fire?.. or lets us say, I get into a fight with someone and
fist are used… this is a private dispute between two private individuals
and yet, the government can and does interfere within private dispute between
two individuals…How is that possible? this dispute is between two private individuals…
presumably on private land, what right does the government have to interfere?

and yet, yet, the same rights that we have as public individuals, no
longer exists as members of a business? why? because the business is
privately owned?..

I have heard that companies have fired people for trashing that business
on social media? and the justification given is that the person trashing the
business might, MIGHT, cost the company profits… and in fact, companies
have sued those who have publicly stated negative things about the
business… why in this instance, does the right to freedom of speech
no longer in effect? I would make a suggestion…
it is not about the idea of the public vs the private aspect
as is understood in the case of two individuals fighting, fighting on
private land… no, because we have seen the government acting upon
such matter of private acts on private land… recall the laws against
homosexuality which allowed the government to act in the case of
two private individuals having sex in the privacy of their own home
and the government being able to arrest them for such acts

so there is no such scruples in such matters of private actions and
yet, in matters of the individual within a corporation having such
freedom as speech and action, there is no governmental
allowance of action because the corporation is a privately owned
corporation… why does this matter unless, unless there is another
factor involved… and I suggest that there is another factor involved…

that of profit/money…the corporation is allowed freedom
that is not allowed in our public life because of the fact that
such freedom of speech interferes with the profit/making of money…
and that is the major difference between the two… public and
private allowance of freedom of speech… for what other reason
could there be?

the government can and does interfere with matters involving private
matters between private individuals on private ground…
but yet, somehow a corporation is exempt from that interference…

and the only logical reason is the profit/money to be made for the corporation…
we have yet another example of our age being a nihilistic one…
putting profits/money over the lives of people…
over the actions and abilities and values of people…

we don’t have free speech in the business world because it hurts
the bottom line of the business…and yet, we allow dissent
in the public world even at the cost of undermining “values”
of the public world…

the owing of a company or business does not exempt a business
from dissent or free speech by individuals within that company or business…

this is yet another example of the private life being different
then the public life and that difference is part of our personal
and community wide alienation… we have different private
and public freedoms such as freedom of speech that are not equally
allowed due to corporations being held to one standard and
the private individual being held to another standard and why?

the only answer can be the profit motive…

this is one, just one example of the conflict between the private
and the public ideal that helps create the conflict within ourselves
and within the society at large…part of the malaise in society
is due to this vast inequity between our public life and our
private/corporate/working life…

how does the individual exists within the state is also
how does the individual exists within private matters such
as workers within a company/business…

we must hold them to the same standard…
but why?

recall what justice is? justice is the act of equality between
people… in other words, justice is treating everyone equally
and if we treat people differently in a business/corporate setting
then in public setting, we are acting unjustly… we are not following
justice which is the treating of people equally regardless of the setting,
private or public…

f we accept one standard in one place, we must also practice that
standard in a different context…

so are you for freedom of speech in ALL areas of life or in certain
specific area’s and thus are you practicing justice or are you
engaging in being unjust?

Kropotkin

to think about this even further…

we know, as people have said here on ILP, that “taxes are theft”
and why is taxes theft? because taxes are property of the person or company…
and the government cannot, cannot interfere with the property of an individual
or company…this modern defense of property has been Locke and his line
has been followed ever since…

the notion that the government cannot interfere with private property is
one of the cornerstones of this country…so when the government has
made rules to protect the workers, things like OSHA… that is decried…
and why? because it is a “government overreach” the current administration,
IQ45 has cut back on such laws and organizations as OSHA…

but to suggest that it is an “government overreach” is to suggest something more
just a hatred of the intrusion of government…

why can’t the government makes laws taking away the property of
private business or tell business what they can or can’t do with private
property? because the private business or corporation owns the private
property and that lies outside the jurisdiction of the government…

but in the case of having the corporation having free speech
by its workers as being forbidden, why? why doesn’t the government
force the businesses or corporation to allow free speech within
that business or corporation?

the suggestion and it is a strong suggestion is that
the reason we don’t have free speech in business as mandated
by the government is that the workers are property
of the business/corporation and thus is outside of the
laws of the government…the only way business can
prevent free speech legally, is by having workers be
property and thus out of the reach of government…

if workers are not the property of the business/corporation
then, the government can, legally force businesses/corporations
to have free speech, just as we do in the public sphere…

if we accept the argument of business/corporations that
by having its workers have free speech would, in some fashion,
harm the business/corporations, then by that logic, we must also
ban having free speech in the public sphere because free public speech
too, will have a harmful effect on the public sphere, the country at large…

and the harm to business is what exactly? the cost of profits/money…
that is the first and only ideal of business, they proclaim that from
the highest rooftop… the business of business is to make profit/money…
and every decision business makes is to that end… so by not allowing
free speech within a business/corporation, you are protecting profits/money…

and that is the justification businesses/corporations use to prevent its
workers from having free speech within a business/corporation

so this once again, implies that workers are property within the business/
corporation… and as property, workers cannot disagree with a business/corporation…
this is the true meaning of insubordination… as property… workers cannot
disagree with a business or a corporation… but as individuals, as human beings,
as free agents, we can criticize a business/corporation… but not as property…

Kropotkin

as quoted before,

Man is born free and yet is everywhere in chains…

and how does this matter in our understanding of man/individual within society…

ok, we are born within a society with its own understanding of the universe…
we can call these, with no loss of understanding, as habits, prejudice, superstitions…
for they are not a systematic or logical understanding of our universe or our
place within the universe or what we are to do…
no, these are simple myths of what we are do to or what we are to be
in our journey in life…
examples of this are easy to find…keep your nose to the grindstone…
work hard and you will find success…your elders know best for you…
examples of this are easy to find… think of the rules you were taught as a child…
they are simple minded rules of behavior that will ensure one success in life…
but they are nothing more then habits, prejudice and superstitions…
the raising of one to believe in god is just that… a continuation of
long cherished habits, prejudice and superstition…
it is mindlessly taught without any understanding of what it means
to actually believe in god… what it really involves, what it really means…

these mindless rules of behavior that are taught are one means that
a child is to understand our individual place within a society…
depending on the habit taught, it can mean to be firmly within the
rules and boundary of what society demands…

but why should we be beholden to the habits, prejudice and superstitions
of a society?

as we grow into youth and then into adulthood, we either challenge
or we firmly become believers in those habits, prejudices and superstitions
of society…

the chains of habit, prejudices and superstitions are hard to break
and require a certain freedom of mind…

what creates the change required to break free of habits, prejudices and
superstition? as we travel through life, we discover that sometimes
those habits, prejudices and superstitions don’t answer the reality we see in front
of us or they don’t allow growth…
to make the point… we have these prejudices that if we work hard,
we shall be rewarded in life… but the fact is, no, quite often working
hard leads us nowhere and those who are lazy and worthless often
get rewarded far more then we do, even if we work much, much harder then
they do… how do we meet this challenge of finding out that the prejudice/
habits we were raised with, are wrong? how do we resolve this contradiction?
and it is a contradiction, make no mistake…
do we say, oh well, and go on, or are we forced to reevaluate those
habits, prejudice, superstitions? these chains that we have, are wrong,
and what is to be our response? and that is the point of the quote,
man is born free and yet is everywhere in chains… the chains
of habit and prejudice and superstitions…we are not born with them…
they are taught to us by our parents, our church, our society, our media…

we are at the point now, of understanding that the myths and habits and
prejudices and superstitions of our youthful training have failed us in
properly understanding our place in the universe, our role in society…
we are faced with a contradiction… and how do we resolve this contradiction?

here now, we can properly understand the conflict between the individualist,
Nietzsche and Ibsen and Kierkegaard and the calls for our heeding to the
habits, myths, prejudices and superstitions of our youth…

what is a good citizen? one who obeys the myths and habits installed in
childhood… who is a bad citizen? one who discovers for themselves,
one who proclaims… I alone, can decide for myself, what is my role and
place in society and in the universe…

a person who thinks for themselves is an enemy of society, for
they don’t follow the accepted myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions
of their society/culture…

the real battle of our life is simply this, do we blindly follow/accept
the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions that we were
taught as children or do we strike out on our own and discover for
ourselves, our own rules, our own mission statement, as it were…

the declaration of independence stated…

"we hold these truths 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 it is in this myth and habit and prejudice and superstition that
we discover we have the right to the pursuit of happiness…

but it is not in happiness that we find our truth… for searching for our happiness
has lead us into ruin on many an occasion… I have search for my happiness in
booze and sex and the buying of material goods…and in searching for
those myths and habits and prejudices and superstition of my youth…
this path is the path of being chained… those useless myths of my youth
are the chains I must be free of…

but how do we begin? the first step is becoming aware… always the path to
true understanding begins, by becoming aware… there is no other path
to understanding… the path after that widens and becomes many, but the
first step is becoming aware…

and here we see how the many diverse posts I have delivered in this
thread becomes clear… each step leads us to further understanding
of where we stand in our individual and collective understanding of who we
are and where we need to be…

we are both individual and a collective… we exists individually
and we exists collectively, within may diverse systems… the
exact relationship between our individual and our place within
society is always changing and evolving… what is right and proper
today, is wrong tomorrow because of the changing needs of both
the individual and within society/culture…

when we find our path outside of the myths and habits and prejudices
and superstitions of our youth, we discover our relationship to the society
and culture changes… and when the society/culture changes, that changes
our individual relationship with said society/culture… this
rapidly changing relationship is a process, which is another word
for evolution…this is why discovering who we are in respect to
society and culture is so hard to discover because it is an always changing
process…we change and society changes…sometimes we are in tune and
sometimes not…right now, we as individuals and collectively are not in tune
with society or with each other… that is part of, part of, our discord within society…
we are not in synch with each other or with society… we are alienated from
society and from each other…how to synch with each other and within society?

by first becoming aware of this discord and then by creating a
end path for us to follow… not the means, but an end…
but this ending is not a moral ending, for morals are means but
never an ending place… you can’t find an ending place for morality…
only a means, a path… this just another brick in the wall for understanding
who we are and who we need to become… it cannot be moral for there
is no destination in moral lessons, just an ongoing path… and this is the
failure of moral instruction… it doesn’t see it is a path that never ends…
onward and upward but no destination… so the path into the future must
not take morality as an ending… so what is the answer?
perhaps, perhaps there is no answer today… but as we break free of
our chains, we can see an answer tomorrow

Kropotkin