a new understanding of today, time and space.

in reading about the enlightenment, one is struck by the
interplay between the philosophes and society…
we see this interaction in ways we have not seen between
people and society before…
if you think about the Greeks or Romans thinkers,
you don’t see this separation between the thinkers and
their society… the philosophers of the Greek and Roman world
were solidly part of their world and their society… if the
philosophers were attacked, it was not a societal attack, it
was because for whatever reason, the philosopher fell on the wrong
side of the current ruler of that society, but it wasn’t a societal
attack on either side, just between the ruler and the philosopher…
in the middle ages, the philosophers were church members, quite often
priest and they existed firmly within the norms and beliefs of their society…
and if you reach say, Galileo he existed within society, but he ran afoul of
religious precepts in the church, not outside of the church, he fitted within
society, he was a university professor…

but beginning with Descartes, you have something different…
Descartes and Spinoza didn’t have a set place within society…
Descartes was independently wealthy and Spinoza rejected a couple
of university offers…and both were attacked by society at large…
in ways, you never seen before…both of them were independent of
society in ways we haven’t seen before in philosophers/thinkers…

both of their thoughts, help revolutionize university thought and help
create quite a bit of intellectual conflict within both the university and
within the society at large…this intellectual conflict hasn’t really been
seen before them…it engaged society at large, from the top to the bottom
of society…intellectual discussions that once only occupied leading intellectuals,
now took place in the streets and in the coffee houses and taverns all over Europe…

said another way, intellectual disputes were now democratize, instead of
being discussed in isolated intellectual circles, intellectual debates were
part of society at large… the intellectual debate were now part of the growth
of democracy…long before the democratic ideal reach the political sphere,
it reached the intellectual sphere… the common man engaged in
intellectual matters…this has never happened before…

and the whole of society was part of this increase intellectual debate…
where once only a small elite part of society was involved…

and this trend existed until the 20th century… when the balkanization
of idea’s occurred and they shattered into a million pieces…

today, you might hear of a discussion of events or personalities,
but not idea’s… we don’t engaged in idea’s like they did starting from
1650… the only public discussion of idea’s now involves in education…
and that is done in terms of money spent, not how to educate children,
but in how much it costs or how efficient it is…

what values should we teach children?
is that a discussion you have ever heard in a public space?
that was a common discussion since Rousseau wrote “Emile” until
before World War 1…

and the question of education revolves around one basic question…
are we trying to create workers or are we trying to create human beings?

anyway to return to my point…we have lost this much needed discussion
about the effect and point of idea’s and their influence in society…
what ideas are needed to improve what part of society and why?

and therein lies part of my discourse, I am engaging in a public discussion
of idea’s that society at large should be engaged in… I am playing my role
as a voice the public needs to engage in idea’s that the society and public
should be engaging in…

what other idea’s that society should be engaging in?

we are lacking in and in desperate need of a public engagement of
idea’s that shows us new paths to the discovery of who we are and what
are our possibilities?

Kropotkin

now one might say, we can’t have those intellectual debates because
they cause conflict… we can’t afford to have such a radical discourse
in this nation because it will cause conflict… I say bullshit…
we need to have open, public debate… I want conflict
from engaging in public discourse of idea’s…
I want people to engage in fisticuffs over intellectual idea’s…
we need that public engagement over intellectual idea’s…
we need conflict over those idea’s of who are we and
what are our possibilities and what values should we teach our
children… we need to have this discussion even if
it creates public conflict and fractures society…
anything is better then a discussion of should Kim divorce Kanye
and far more important…

for we have lost our perspective on what is important…
we value pennies over dollars because we don’t understand
what is important anymore and what is sheer crap…
and an open and engagement with idea’s can help us recapture
the values we should be engage with, not stupid and pointless
discussions of who Khloe is dating…
what value does that discussion have? none.

what is important in public life? what values should we be engage with?
what value does education have? and what values should we be teaching?

a public discussion is most needed and wanted and if the public
has been disturbed by such discussion, great, we need a conflicted
and disturbed public… public fighting over intellectual idea’s
is what America needs today… not this passive, we need to be
protected like sheep and the state is the only way we can be safe, crap…

what values should drive the state? I say freedom over security…
what say you? and what says the public? do they even care?

I want to disturb the public and create mayhem and conflict
and fighting in the streets, all over intellectual idea’s…

why? because that would mean someone cares about intellectual idea’s
and their importance to society…and until someone cares, we are a lost
and impotent society… doomed to failure…

Kropotkin

now one might say, that this intellectual conflict might cause
irreparable damage to America and cause its demise!!!

and I am ok with that… because we must actively begin to engage
in our lives, both intellectual and our emotional lives…

we exist in a passivity… silent non-engagement with our government
and our lives… if we do not begin to engage with who we are, let us
forfeit our freedoms and society/government… for we are not worth
saving… we are not worth the effort to save us…

salvation is a common theme in religion… today, we don’t need to be saved
religiously, we need to be save politically and philosophical…

engage in government… engage in your own life… engage in society…
or forfeit your freedom, forfeit your life… for all it matters because all
you are doing now is being a waste of resources and energy…

engage or end your life as being a waste of time, trouble, money and effort…

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
now one might say, that this intellectual conflict might cause
irreparable damage to America and cause its demise!!!

and I am ok with that… because we must actively begin to engage
in our lives, both intellectual and our emotional lives…

we exist in a passivity… silent non-engagement with our government
and our lives… if we do not begin to engage with who we are, let us
forfeit our freedoms and society/government… for we are not worth
saving… we are not worth the effort to save us…

salvation is a common theme in religion… today, we don’t need to be saved
religiously, we need to be save politically and philosophical…

engage in government… engage in your own life… engage in society…
or forfeit your freedom, forfeit your life… for all it matters because all
you are doing now is being a waste of resources and energy…

engage or end your life as being a waste of time, trouble, money and effort…

K: and some might say the above statement is “callus”… “insensitive”…
“not modern enough” but I say something different…

when one argues that I am being insensitive to the pain of parents, loved ones
of those who have commited suicide, we are talking about different things…
you are arguing about apples and I am discussing oranges…
we aren’t even talking about the same thing… you are discussing
the emotions and feelings of those who have lost loved ones…apples
I am talking about the importance of engaging in ones own life even to
the point of taking one’s life if one is not engaging in one’s own life…

you are talking about effects, symptoms… I am talking about causes…
in fact, if you want to carry my argument far enough, I offer a solution to
this question of suicide…whereas you talk about how suicide as a symptom
of something… but don’t talk about what is the cause of suicide…

people who are engaged in their lives don’t commite suicide…
people who feel helpless and unable to influence their lives,
they are the ones who commit suicide…people who feel great pain
and sorrow commit suicide… I have had friends commite suicide…
I have felt the pain, but, but, we are not talking about that because
it is apples…and I am engaged in oranges…

find engagement in your life… become aware in your life… act upon that
engagement even if it means trouble, both personally and professionally…
engage to the point of being a pain in the ass to everyone…

that is the point of my discussion… oranges, not apples…

Kropotkin

I am going to tie in a couple of separate idea’s here…

we have a notion of the chains that tie us down,
these chains are myths, habits, superstitions… that
we were taught from childhood and from sources like
the family, church, state, media…

we must free ourselves of our chains for they prevent
us from living an honest, authentic life because they
aren’t our idea’s, our opinions, our understanding of the universe…
the chains are someone’s else understanding, society or the family…
we have simple adapted these chains without any thought to the validity of
them…

so, we have IQ45 today making comments about the notion that…

“why do have people coming here from SHITHOLE countries”…
referring to Haiti, El Salvador and African countries…
“why don’t we have more people come from countries like Norway”

we won’t discuss the obvious racism of these comments…
but the fact is, the White House has defended these comments
(not denied BTW) but has defended these comments as
useful because they help him with his base…

so, first question is, does his base have these chains…
chains of habit, superstition, myth…
and why isn’t the base interested in becoming something more
in terms of breaking free of those chains of myths and habits and
superstition passed down from generation to generation…
myths and habits, superstition like “blacks are inherently inferior to whites”
and other obviously wrong idea’s… why don’t people break free of these chains?

Because to break free means one must come to terms with who you are,
and what is possible for human beings… to denigrate others is to
increase your own value in your own eyes…it is an act of
denying others to improve your own value… …

to deny others is to force them to a lower level then
yourself… to deny them is to deny the basic premiss of
democracy… “that all men are created equal… with
unalienable rights, that of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”

to deny them equality is to deny them justice, for justice is the
act of treating everyone equally regardless of who they are,
what their position is, what money they have… justice is blind
as they say and if justice is decided based on color, wealth,
creed, race… then justice is not blind… then justice is not just…
so to denigate others based on race, creed, color, sex is to deny
them justice, is to deny them equality and to deny them democratic
rights that others have because they are the wrong race, creed, color,
sex…to IQ45 point that why do we have people coming from
“shithole countries” instead of Norway… because they are not
finding justice and freedom and equality in those “shithole” countries…
you go where the opportunities lie and the opportunities don’t lie in “shithole”
countries…

why is his base not interested in justice and democracy and
other values that America has stood for for since its inception…

the chains that bind his base are nothing more then myths,
habits, superstition…

and IQ45 is bound by myths and lies and habit and superstition…

why would someone support such a person who is so bound
by these chains?

Kropotkin

that this time period, 2018, is the most anti-democratic
in over 200 years, cannot be denied…

we have such anti-democratic aspects as representative democracy,
which today is corrupted by money…we have large corporations that
are anti-democratic that have bought and sold democracy for their
own purposes…we have anti-democratic actions such as
trying to limit voting by minorities and students by trying to clear
voting rolls of people… democracy demands that anyone who is eligible
should be able to vote and that to my mind, means that anyone convicted
of a crime should be able to vote…voting should be extended to anyone
over 18. period…

to deny this is to be anti-democratic…for the history of
the last 500 years has been one of increasing rights and opportunities
from the few to some to many to all… that has been the history of the
political…and so any attempt to reduce the rights and privileges of
people regardless of reason is by its very attempt against the history of
the last 500 years, is anti-democratic…

for the corporation to become the dominant master of the economic and
the political is anti-democratic… and any support of the business world
is anti-democratic… for the business world engages in nihilism by
negating humans and their values in the pursuit of profits/money…

this pursuit of profits/money is anti-democratic because it is done for
the sole sake of making people wealthy, not the workers or the stockholders
but those who work in the corporation…those who can make millions…
that is by its very actions, anti-democratic… wealth must be distributed
equally and to all, not just to those who happened to be in charge…

for justice is just that, equal treatment of everyone regardless of
position or status, in the corporation or within the society at large…
democracy demands equal treatment, equal justice, equal response regardless
of position or status or wealth…

democracy is about justice and justice denied is anti-democratic…
equal treatment for all is what democracy and justice is all about…

equality demands equality both politically AND economically…
any attempt to treat people differently economically is anti-democratic…
justice=equality and for democracy to exist, it must exist equally, politically
and economically…

if we don’t fight for economical freedom from tyranny, we aren’t fighting
for democracy… we are engaging in being anti-democratic…

democracy is the act of applying freedom and justice for all regardless
of status and position and wealth… democracy is a all or nothing type
of proposition… if it isn’t being applied to all, it isn’t democracy and
it isn’t justice and it isn’t equality…

Kropotkin

I was watching TV yesterday and the utterly racist comments
of IQ45 was the topic… one congressman, a democrat,
keep repeating one phrase over and over and over again…
he keep saying, well in this great country of our…
you don’t make such comments in this great country of ours,
every two minutes, our great country

and yet he has left us with a problem…
that is, how are we a great country?

we have an complete idiot as president…
we are not billions but trillions in debt…
we have a massive inequality problem…
millions are one or two paychecks from being homeless…
there is no criteria that we can use that can show we are a great country…
from infant mortality to police violence against citizens to the number of homeless
to the cost of medical care, to the number of homicides in this country…
there are no facts we can use to show HOW we are a “great country”…

this lie and it is a lie, show the emptiness of the American promise…
if we have no facts to show anyone we are a great country, then how
do we justify claiming we are the greatest country on earth?

the truth demands that we put to rest this complete lie that
we are the greatest country on earth…

one might claim we are the greatest country on earth because we
are the “freest” people one earth, but once again, that is a lie…
for the countries in the west and places like Australia and New Zeeland,
have the same freedoms we have…you can’t tell me that someplace
like Canada has less freedom then we do… or that England is somehow
less free then the US… we have the same freedoms… that is the
criteria of being an western industrialize country… we have the same freedoms…

in terms of wealth, many different countries have a higher per capita
standard of wealth… in other words, many countries have a higher standard
of living and a higher standard of wealth per person… in the US,
we have a fairly low GINI standard which means we have a great
amount of wealth disparity in our country compared to other countries…
the GINI is one measure of a country overall standard of living…
and we fare poorly there…

so, how would you justify America being the greatest country on earth?

and what facts would you use to make your argument?

Kropotkin

I have commented on myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions as
being chains which tie us down because those myths, habits, prejudices
and superstitions are left over from our childhood training and those
chains prevent us from leading authentic lives because those myths,
and habits are someone else’s myths and someone else’s habit and someone
else prejudice and someone else’s superstition… they are chains upon
our idea’s, our thought, our beliefs, our feelings…

what other chains do we have?

that America is the greatest country on earth…
that we are the freest people on earth… that capitalism is the only economic
system of value… that we have a democracy… there is a god…there
is a heaven and hell and angels and the devil…

myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions… all of them…
how do we become free of these chains that tie us to the past…
that tie us to live an inauthentic life because they aren’t
real or true beliefs… those chains are simply holdovers from
our childhood and are best left behind in childhood with our beliefs
in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy…

modern myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions exist
today, just as they have always existed… and we must fight them to
become… we must engage with those myths and habits and prejudices
to become more human… to fight the lower level/animal side of the
human existence… to become who we are, we must leave behind
those myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions that
tie us down, that chain us to our childhood, that prevent us from
living our true lives… we are adults and it is time to leave
our childhood myths and habits behind… to be free, to be truly
free means we must break our chains, our myths and prejudices…
and to do so means we must become aware of those chains to our
childhood… the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions…

to ask, is America the greatest country on earth? is to engage in
one of the myths of our time…

a better question is to ask, if I want to become human, fully human…
what must I do? the path into the future lies first, in becoming
aware of our collective, social and personal myths and lies and habits and prejudices
and superstitions… the chains that tie one down into the society at large…
and after we become aware, then we must engage with those myths and habits
and decide, is that truly who I am, is that who I want to be… is that a place
that I want to exist in…questions one must ask if one is truly to be free of
the chains of habits and myths…

who are you? are you the collection of myths and habits and prejudices and
superstitions that society tells you or are you something free of, engage with
the search for the truth…

now this truth, this truth becomes the new myths and habits and prejudices
and superstition both personally and collectively… we are never free of our chains…
the best we can do is understand the chains exists and this is by becoming aware…
the battle to become human is to free ourselves of our chains…
and then build truer, more honest chains… chains that match the reality that
exists, not the chains of the past which reflect the understanding of reality back then…
we live in different times and so we need a different understanding of the universe…
and that becomes the new reality until the situation changes and we need a
another new understanding of reality and when that time comes and people are
still stuck in the old reality, they are chained by the myths and habits and prejudices
and superstition we created and that they need to update…

this is how it works… every generation creates a new understanding of the world
and that understanding is how the universe works until it doesn’t understand anymore…
and then we must change our understanding… and with each new understanding,
people get left behind, stuck in the old understandings, the old myths and the old
habits and the old prejudices and the old superstitions…we must change our theories
with the changing environment and if we don’t change our theories with the new changing
evolving environment, we become stuck in the old, past understanding of our environment…
those are chains because they don’t help us understand our new, current environment…
those chains are meant for the last understanding of the universe… they are not up to date…
and behind our current understanding of how the universe works and who we are…
those who get stuck in and caught by the chains of the past understandings of the universe
are dinosaurs and we all know what happened to the dinosaurs…

we do not understand our role in the universe with the hunter/gatherer method
of economics and the political, with their myths and habits and prejudices and
superstitions, but why not? why can’t we understand the universe with the idea’s and thoughts of the
the hunter/gatherer? because that environment/that time period, no longer exists…
we cannot go back… we can only go forward… into new myths and habits and
prejudices and superstitions that fit our ever changing environment and new environment…

we must adapt, not only physically, but with new idea’s and thoughts and technologies
that fit our new and changing environment…

that is why the chains of childhood must be broken… to fit into the new and changing
environment…

Kropotkin

it has been said that because of “frailties” of the senses,
we receive inperfect and inprecise information from our
senses which leads us to make faulty judgements/decisions…
but I suggest something else is at work…

recall earlier, I brought up the point of observational bias…
now let us connect these two points…

we are born, we, from various sources, learn many things…
these things we learn are both useful, the stove is hot, and many things
that are more along the lines of indoctrination… these are the myths,
habits, prejudices and superstitions we learn as children…
America is the greatest country on earth… there is a god…
capitalism is the greatest system ever and the only system…

now we learn these myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
and we see the world through them…these myths influence how we see
the world… if we are taught to only see hate in the world, that is all
we will look for and that is all we will find, we will not see anything else but hate…

this is the observational bias I refer to…the teachings of youth, these myths
and otherwise, prevent us from clearly seeing the world…it is not just
a failure of senses that prevent us from getting a clear understanding of the
world but our childhood indoctrination… the myths and habits and prejudices
and superstitions that we were taught… prevent us from getting a clear
picture of the world and thus prevents us from getting a clear and concise
plan of action going from the past to the future…our myths and habits and
prejudices and superstitions prevent us from making a clear plan of action going
into the future, because we are chained to a specific and wrong
idea of who we are and what are our possibilities…

to become free of our chains means to become free of the indoctrination
of myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions of our youth…
the training of our parents and schools and church and state…
all meant to indoctrinate us with a certain viewpoint meant to make
us “good” citizens and more importantly, “good” workers… for that is the
current function of education… to make people good workers and pliable
citizens…whether we become good human beings is not important and
not relevant to modern education and modern indoctrination… we
are meant to have a certain function and that is to be unquestioning
citizens and workers… “don’t rock the boat” is the modern
lesson we learn as children… go with the flow and do what you are told…
that is some of the chains we are taught in childhood…

and because we are so formed, we cannot truly see clearly, that is not
because of failure of our senses but a failure of our becoming free of the
chains of childhood… we cannot see clearly until we free ourselves of
our myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions of the indoctrination
of our childhood…

want to become fully human… break the chains of your indoctrination…
want to become a functional human being, break the chains…
want to be free… break the chains…

Kropotkin

now those who attack liberal idea’s, often call liberals,
“a mental illness” and yet these fools, never put forward
an opposing ideal… they are just saying no, without ever
saying yes…

the enlightenment ideal of toleration is one such “liberal” ideal…
but the full scope of this idea hasn’t really been fleshed out…
let us do so…

what is Justice? as I have defined it before, it is equality…
everyone is treated equally… regardless of position, wealth,
race, creed, color or sex… justice is blind and thus cannot see
who justice is judging… that is the point… being treated equally…

what is toleration? it is the idea that we treat equally, regardless
of position, wealth, race, creed, color and sex, people…
we don’t judge people based on accidental qualities like race or color…
and we certainly don’t judge people based on such things like
religion or nationality or other basis…

so we can connect toleration and justice…for to have justice,
one must have toleration for, equality for all people, all idea’s,
all colors, all creeds, all religions, all nationalities, all sexes…

so for the person who is against “liberal” idea’s is really against
justice for all, toleration for all, for they are the same thing…
equality for those who hold those beliefs…

justice and toleration is really about treating everyone exactly the same
regardless of who they are or what they are or what they believe in…

now another step in this idea of toleration is not only justice, but
democracy… for democracy to be a democracy, it must include
everyone regardless of race, creed, color… etc…
you cannot exclude people, for whatever reason, and still call
it a democracy…for democracy and justice and toleration are
all the same thing… equality for those who participate…
justice for those who exists regardless of …

to be intolerant is to hold that injustice and inequality and undemocratic
is the ideal that we follow…so to oppose “liberal” ideals is to be in favor
of injustice and inequality and being undemocratic…

so how say you?

Kropotkin

let us follow one such myth, habit, prejudice and superstition
from beginning to end…

God exists… that is one such habit that is taught from childhood…
but why this habit, this superstition? and how did it begin?

think of millions of years ago, when hominids like Homo sapiens and
Homo erectus lived on the earth…

think of the living conditions of those who lived in caves and in small groups,
eking out a precarious existence… for hominids, “life was solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short”…

and in such times, hominids would use anything, try anything to extend
existence…and that would include, hoping for a longer life, hoping
for food/game to appear… this hoping would after centuries,
would go from a hope to a god… and this god would take the place
of hoping for things to go right…

and after hundreds of thousand of years, this hoping, this idea of god,
was inplanted into the minds of human beings… almost like an instinct,
that became second nature to us after many generations of being taught
it… myth, habit, prejudice and superstition are all taught by generation
after generation after generation of human/hominids…
and after so long, it becomes part of us… but it doesn’t make it true…
just makes it ingrained in us…

and today, we still hold to this myth and habit and prejudice and superstition…
and why?

let us change gears for a moment…

we have in Europe, a clash of idea’s that has resulted in violence…
we have refuges from the middle east carrying their myths, habits,
prejudices and superstitions meeting European myths, habits, prejudices
and superstitions…but we know, know that Europe has the least
number of people who believe in the world…in Europe, the idea of
god has been dying… the prominent ideal is toleration…
but, we have those coming into Europe who don’t believe in
toleration… who still believe in outmoded and out of date ideals…
like god and heaven and hell…this clash of idea’s comes from
the believers who don’t practice toleration… they are intolerant…
they don’t believe in the liberal idea of toleration for all, even the
non-believers…the clash arises from a practice of intolerance from one side…

and from this intolerance, we see the violence and emotions of the modern age…
which stems from intolerance and that leads to injustice and inequality and
undemocratic practices… we can connect the “illiberal” idea of intolerance
with injustice and inequality and undemocratic ideals…

if you want peace and love and hope and charity in the world,
one must practice toleration which helps lead to justice and equality
and democratic practices…

the fight remains and will always remain to become fully human
and that road leads us to practice love, hope, charity, peace
for the one road to justice and equality and democracy is
via toleration… another words, liberal ideals are the path into the future…

Kropotkin

part of the problem today is that we have these notions that
are myths, habits, prejudice and superstitions and we think that
they are a accurate and complete understanding of the world…
but they ae myths and habits and prejudice and superstitions that
stand in place of our true understanding of the world…
we have these myths, habits and prejudices that we think, think
are the true representations of the world when in fact, they are not…
so we have to reach some true understanding of the world…
so how do we know? for example, someone may believe that
the moon is made up of green cheese… that is a myth or habit or
prejudice or superstition that a person believes… does that false
understanding really harm a person? Not really because how can you
turn this false idea of the moon being made of green cheese into action?
you can’t… you just have a false belief about reality… the belief is
different then the reality of the situation… think of beliefs as a guide,
a map of reality… and the map that you have is some representation of
the actual reality…is belief in capitalism actually capitalism?
is a map actually the terrain? no, it is a map of the ground…
now maps can be accurate or not accurate depending on how
close to reality they show what is actually on the ground…
if your map shows us a lake and there is no lake, then the map
you have is a very bad representation of reality… to be accurate,
the map must show us the lakes that exists and the rivers and the hills
and the roads… if your map doesn’t show us that, it is a very bad map
and won’t allow you to traverse the reality of the land… this idea
of a map is the same for our idea’s and the reality of the situation…
if your own personal map, which can be about love or hate or ideologies like
capitalism or communism or a career… is wrong, then you don’t have an
accurate map of reality…now let us return to our idea of myths and
habits and prejudices and superstitions… those myths and habits and
prejudices and superstitions you have, are they close to the reality of life
or are they totally different then reality? in other words, let us take a common
myth, the myth of rugged individualism… we have this myth that one man
created his universe… for example, an example of rugged individualism
is that Bill Gates built Microsoft all by himself… Microsoft exist because
he did all the work and he deserves all the money/profit from Microsoft because
he did build it himself… that is one myth… and a false myth…for Gates
himself will tell you, he had help from thousands to build Microsoft…

another myth is America is the greatest country on earth… and anyone who
actually investigates this can quickly discover that this is not true…
but and this is important… how we operate or act upon this myth decides or
determines how close to reality we actually are…if we act on the idea that
America is not the greatest country in the world, we are closer to the truth,
then those who operate on the thought that America is the greatest country in the world…
in other words, if we act as if we are the greatest country in the world and makes
decisions based on this, our map as it were, then we are not operating with real
or true facts… our vision of reality is wrong because
our map, that this is the greatest in the world, is wrong…
people go wrong when they act upon their map which is wrong…
in other words, if your map, your myths and habits are wrong,
then your actions are going to be wrong…

and we face this all the time… we have false information about the world,
that is it mean or cruel and if we act upon this at all times, we are acting
on false information and our actions are the wrong actions and create difficulties for us…

if the reality is different then our map of reality, we are lead wrong…
that is the danger of myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions…
that people mistake those myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
as the truth, the reality of a situation… whereas they are a map and a wrong map
of the truth and reality…and thus we are lead to make mistakes in actions because
we are acting upon a map that is wrong…

Kropotkin

so what does Pascal, Newton, Descartes, Plato, Marx, Aristotle,
Augustine, Einstein and the bible have in common?

ummmm, they do have something in common…

they, each of them have created a map… a map of reality…
some maps are scientific in nature and some are theological and
some are philosophical in nature… each map has a different starting point…
Einstein and Newton from a scientific starting point, Descartes and Plato
from a philosophical starting point and Pascal and Augustine from a theological
starting point… thus each one is different…

let us go for our maps again… I take a map and I use that map to
find my way… the starting point makes a huge difference…

a map that starts in Detroit is different from a map that starts from New York
which is different from a map that starts from L.A…and thus each
will end in a different place…and each map is a map of reality…
but because they start from different places will be different maps…

what if the map starts from a imaginary point… say, El Dorado, the myth
of the golden city that the Spanish followed for many, many miles…
El Dorado doesn’t exist and the Spanish were lead many miles away
from pretty much everything… in following this myth…

so if we start from the wrong place… we have a good chance of ending up
in the wrong place… that is the trouble with theological maps…
they start from the wrong premise and take us far away from reality…
their map insist that there is a god and heaven and hell and angels and
the devil… that is a map of their reality… but what if god doesn’t exists
and that means there is no heaven and no hell and no angels and no devil…
their map is completely wrong and following a map that is completely wrong
will lead one on the wrong path…

scientist have a different map…and their map of reality is closer to reality
then the theologian…scientist don’t need faith for their map to be right,
and by science, the map is self correcting… leading scientist toward a
destination… but that is the problem with science… it doesn’t have a
destination, just a method to keep one on track but on track toward what?

Philosophers have their map… a map of reality… and Descartes and Spinoza
and Plato and Kant and Hegel all have a different map of reality…
so who do you follow? the person or the map which seems to be closes to
reality for you…so for me, the person whose map seems to be closes to reality
for me is Hume and Nietzsche… but for you, it might be Kant and Descartes…
and for someone else it might be Plato and Husserl…you never know…
but that is the point… we each follow a philosopher because their map
seems to be the closes to reality that we can see…

as mentioned, some maps are tainted because they are corrupted by
myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions… these corruptions
make the map unreliable and not very trustworthy …would you follow
a map that seems to be unreliable? I wouldn’t… and you shouldn’t either…
this is the point of having myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
that they corrupt our personal map… and that corruption will lead us the wrong
way… but how do we find out what is the right destination?
ah, that is the trick isn’t it, finding out what is the right destination
and thus finding out what is the right map for us to use…

is my destination to be an righteous man? then a theological map is the
right one… is my destination to be a accurate man? then science seems
to have the right map…is my destination to be a wise man?
then philosophy or a philosophic map, would seem to be the right one…

the destination it seems help us understand which map to use…
are we creating an equal and just world? then Marx has the right map…
are we creating a democratic world? then the enlightenment ideals seem
to be the right map… and that is a very interesting thing about maps…
it can lead us individually or it can lead us collectively…
and the map can tell us our place in the world… both individually and
collectively…some maps tell us that we exist individually and collectively
and we can be both, individual and part of something… those maps are
very popular maps… because we can learn who we are and what is our
place in the universe, both individually and collectively… theological
maps are popular for this and the communism map is also popular for this…

so whose map do you follow and why?

Kropotkin

we seem to act as if we are done with the evolution
of society/government and us… as if there is no where
else to go because we have capitalism and representative democracy,
as our systems and that is it… we’re done… we have our political
system and we have our economic system and nothing else needs to be done…
we have reached the final place of history… that’s all folks…

and yet, we aren’t done… for us to adapt, we must change our
systems, both political and economic to adapt the changing conditions…
a system that is perfect at one time, becomes totally disastrous at a later date…

even our current political system has change dramatically since the days of
the founding fathers because of changes in demographics and population growth
and technology among other changes… the government must change and adapt
to changing conditions like any other system in order to adapt, to function
well…

if we came back in a hundred years, the government we will see, will be
dramatically different then the one we see today and it should change…
it should adapt to the changing conditions…

we must not think that we are at the end of the journey…
we are on a never ending path, a journey…one that will conclude
with an entirely different set of people… just not us…

understand that we are not only in the process of change, we are change…

Kropotkin

I have written about myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
that we have… these myths and so on, are programs written into us
by our families and church and media and state…we are programmed
from childhood to hold certain beliefs… America is the greatest country on earth…
with myths like this, we indoctrinate our youth to hold certain beliefs
that we want to passed down from generation to generation…

but what current myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
exist today?

for example, the fake news impression from IQ45…but other myths also
inhabit our world… for example, the myth that the landings on the moon.
were somehow faked…the reason for these fake landings are never really made
clear, but that is the point…

the rise of the conspiracy world is no less about myths and habits and prejudices
and superstition then in the past when people believed in spirits and angels and
god and heaven and hell… how is the believe in such myths and habits
any different then the conspiracy theory of the faked moon landing or in
the other urban myths of today…the Jews run the world type of myth…
or the secret cabal that runs the world, somehow or the illuminati that runs the world…
how are these modern myths any different then the age old myths of witches
and demons and angels and god, heaven and hell?

I for one, don’t see any difference between the long ago old myths and the new myths/
conspiracies of today… the fake news of today is no different then the fake news of
yesterday… it has just changed in the type of myths and habits and prejudices and
superstition we see today, it doesn’t change the hold that these myths and habits
have on people…

and the value that society has in the people having these myths is a rather interesting one…
if people are hung up on these fake news/myths, then they are not paying attention
to what is happening today…the real crimes of anti-democratic actions such as
inequality and injustice and intolerance are being committed…

fake news is perpetuated because it keeps people from seeing what is going on or
to get people to say, the hell with it, pox on both houses and I am just not going
to pay any attention of any kind…it allows people permission to just tune
out the news of the world and not pay attention…

I know people who hold these conspiracy theory’s and they are always
going on about the media is just fake news and the moon landing is fake
and about government conspiracies to take over the nation…
these people are no different then those who hold views about
angels and the devil and witches and demons… there is no difference in
the need to hold these myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions…
for that is what they are, these modern urban lies are myths
and habits and prejudices and superstitions…

we cannot grow as a people until we learn to live without these myths
and habits and prejudices and superstitions…

Kropotkin

what is the point of being a “Christian” if you don’t follow Christian ethics?

the original Christian thought of being Christian as a way of life…
it wasn’t meant and wasn’t thought of as an intellectual or theoretical
exercise, it was meant to be a complete and total way of life…
you didn’t just show how Christian you were by occasionally attending
church for one hour a week…no, you vowed to live your life in
accordance to the teachings of Christ…

it is the same for philosophy… Plato and Aristotle thought of philosophy
as a way of life, not as a theoretical devise to create philosophy but to live
philosophy… as a way of life…

this understanding is lost in today’s world…
why don’t use theories or ism’s as a way of life…
capitalism today is not a way of life, but a tool to
enslave millions of people, but it is not a way of life…
communism of stalin/lenin was used to enslave millions of lives,
but it was a false and failed understanding of Marx’s communism
that drove this version of communism… but it wasn’t meant
to be a way of life…

and that is the failure of today… we hold theoretical views,
though shall not lie… though shall not kill… but
we don’t practice what we preach, we don’t want to
have a way of life… we want easy answers to the question,
how shall we live our lives? certainly no one today, even suggests
that we turn believe into a way of life… if you are truly an
Christian, then make that a way of life…

be what you believe in…

become that person…

oh no, that is way too hard to even suggest…
most people would rather have simple, answers that require no
commitment… why work to be a Christian? it is easier to
just pretend… be a CINO…Christian in name only…

and you CINO who approve of IQ45 depriving the poor and working poor
of much needed aid and assistance… you hold your Christianity lightly
and in name only if you don’t work to improve the lot of the poor…
for didn’t Christ himself work to help and aid the poor and needy…

it is an easy thing to proclaim one Christianity if it means you don’t have to do
anything… a Cino would say, let the poor suffer because they brought it on themselves…
we, we work for everything we have and so should they…
it is easy to proclaim ones superiority when there is food on the table and a roof
over one’s head…it is easy to think the world is alright when you
know where your next meal is coming from…

Millionaire congressmen think the world has no problem because they
are millionaires and they have food on the table and a roof over their head…
it is easy to dismiss the poor and needy if you have no want…
if I am fine… the rest of the world can go to hell… I have mine…
the thoughts of Christians? no, the thought of CINO’s…

It is easy to be a Christian if one doesn’t actually have to practice Christianity…
if one doesn’t actually use Christianity as a way of life… just occasionally and
whenever it is convenient to be a Christian…that is the CINO way…
call yourself Christian when it suits you and when it is convenient…
but don’t use it as a way of life… just once a week for an hour a day…

Kropotkin

if as suggested that Christianity (and other religions) and Patriotism
are simply myths and habits and prejudice and superstition,
then what should we believe in?

remove such myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
from our belief system and what is left?

what is left?

Kropotkin

if we tell our life story, we certainly don’t
comment on the forces that impacted our lives…
I was born in 1959 in Minnesota,
move to a city outside of Chicago in 1963
moved in 1969 to Florida…

this short list of my first ten years doesn’t cover the forces that
shaped those years… schooling and the media, the state, events like
the assassination of JFK and Martin Luther King, plus the turbulent 60’s…
I remember watching Walter Cronkite and listening to how many American
soldiers dies that week in Vietnam… and not really understanding what that
meant…I remember my father coming home in the summer of 1968, with
blood on his white dress shirt… blood from protesters of the Democratic
national convention which was in Chicago that year…he was a newspaperman…

like a small ship on the sea, during a large storm… we are buffeted by
forces quite beyond our ability to manage and often beyond our ability to
understand… an corporate executive somewhere gets a hankering for
a house in Italy and to make his bonus, he must cut 100,000 jobs…
and then you are out of work…simple as that… he gets his bonus and you get…

how do we find certainty in such a world where if someone gets a hard on for
a house in Italy and thousands lose their job…

or congress to give massive tax cuts to their donors, cut people
off of Medicare or WIC programs… how do we find certainty in a world
like that?

perhaps the answer or the goal may not be certainty… we can never be certain
about anything… so why make certainty a goal, when it is not possible to obtain
any kind of certainty…work with the goals that are possible, so take out the search
for certainty as being a goal of philosophy, so what is left?

Kropotkin

what we are facing, our malaise, is simply this,
we have science on one side and religion on the other side, but
and this is important, neither one will answer our questions…
science can’t answer our question because we do not understand science…
modern technology which is based on science is incomprehensible to most
people… even such science as evolution which is pretty easy, is incomprehensible
to most people…we cannot use science to understand what life is and
what life is about… there is no why in science and so we can’t use science
to create some ends or goals to our life…

and religion, on the other side has been thoroughly destroyed…
the why that exists in religion no longer is applied by people…
the miracles of religions no longer resonate with people…
they no longer matter to people…

if we cannot find comfort in religion and
understanding in science, then what?

what is left?

Kropotkin

so on one side we have science and 99% of all people
who have no understanding of science, what it is or how it works…

and we have the religious, where in light of science and the enlightenment
ideals of toleration and freedom have reduce the religious to once
a week on Sunday and absolutely no religious thoughts during the rest
of the week… the vast majority of people in America are CINO’S,
Christians in name only…

so we have the medieval time period which was the religious
and then we have the reawaking, the Renaissance, from which build
into the age of science and then the age of the enlightenment…and for
400 years slowly we have gone from the religious age to a science age…

but as I have noted, few understand science… and we have seen the uses
of science and have noted the dangers… but dangers not from the science itself,
but how it is used… science is neutral, it isn’t good or bad… it just is…
but depending on how it is used, it can be good or evil…

and we have seen enough science being used for evil that we don’t
trust science but the danger is with the use of science, not the science itself…

and few trust the religious…if you actually trusted god, would
you need to kill others in his name? no, the ones who prattle on
about others being irreligious or blasphemous, those people are the
ones with weak faith… the noisy ones about faith are the ones who
lack faith… real faith that god is in charge and you are just along for
the ride…few, very few have real faith… and the same can be
said about science, few trust science, really trust science…

so, what about the rest of us? we cannot turn toward the religious,
but we don’t trust science mostly because we don’t understand it…
you can’t trust something you don’t understand…

so where is the third way? perhaps, perhaps that is what
existentialism is all about… finding that third way…
not the path of science and not the path of religion…
but a new path into the future… and we still are working
out that path…

Kropotkin