capitalism could be, rightly, called the creation of the middleman state…
food for thought…
Kropotkin
let us look at another idea that is no longer talked
about but drove action and conversation for
over a century… that idea of progress…
this idea of progress is no longer talked about…
how MAN is progressing from one point, ancient or
medieval to the modern viewpoint…progress is no longer
a goal to be achieved… in light of the 20th century and
the combination of science and technology, which by itself is neutral,
and that science and technology was used for “evil” once again,
we see the impact/influence of the two World Wars and the depression
and the Holocaust and the cold war and 9/11…
who talks of or about progress today?
and yet, this idea of progress drove actions and conversation
for over 150 years, from the start of the enlightenment to
the Second World War…you may call the dropping of the Atomic
bomb as the end of the age of progress…
so what does the modern age think of progress?
it doesn’t… our modern age is about the three prong
dance of the creators, the middleman and the public…
do you see where progress can fit into such a trio?
what can progress mean in this age of weapons of mass destruction?
the doomsday clock stands at 2 minutes before midnight…
progress can only mean we turn the clock back, literally…
if science and technology created this impasse, but recall that
science AND technology is neutral, that science and technology
created this impasse, what can free us from this impasse that
has lead to the doomsday clock being 2 minutes from midnight?
a rewriting of, a new evaluation of what progress actually means…
progress doesn’t have to be, in fact, it shouldn’t be about science or
technology…it needs to be about the progress we make in
non-material mastery of who we are and who we can become…
progress needs to be redefined as a new understanding
of our inner nature… progress is no longer about the external
world but the internal world… does that mean the spiritual world?
no, it has been often said, that MAN has a external, material nature
and an internal, spiritual nature…our slavish devotion to material
goods is in defiance to the inner, spiritual world… this is not true…
the devotion to the spiritual world is still devotion to something
outside of ourselves, to an external god or nature or to something
“higher” then we are…so what does progress have to do with this
“spiritual” world? Nothing as far as I can tell…
because the goal, the progress is preparing for one’s death and the
external passage into heaven, still outside of us…progress is not
about some external matter that lies outside of us…
this new understanding is no different then Socrates bringing
philosophy back to earth… from studying the heavens to matters
about the soul and who we are and knowing thyself…
and what does this have to do with the modern age?
what is progress in the modern age? New and improved toothpaste
and a shiny car seems to be the entire goal of progress in our modern age…
but what about us? can you or will you understand progress as the
rise or the gaining of wisdom within yourself?
progress needn’t be about the external world… it can be the progress
gained in discovery in who we are and what is our role within society…
how are we to act and how do we know what is the right thing to do?
are these things “MORAL”… I don’t believe so… they are essential
actions of, part of the nature of who we are… human nature is
understanding who we are and what is our goal or how do we measure
progress in the human soul…how do we become who we are…
ask yourself, if progress is not about our material progress, then
what is it really about?
Kropotkin
let us think about this word, progress…
what did progress mean to the ancient Greeks or Romans?
It didn’t mean anything, they didn’t have such a word…
and because their thought was not linear, not in a straight line,
but circular, that time and events and experiences occurred
again and again and again… repeated over time…
there was no such thing as progress…
let us think about the medieval man and for the next thousand years…
from say, 400 AD to roughly, 1400 AD, there was certainly no thought to or
understanding of progress… things remained the same for centuries…
for the vast majority of people… what little growth in technology, such
as in agriculture added people, but it was so slow as not to be a factor
in people’s lives…
our modern idea of progress began in the enlightenment… roughly around
1700 to 1750… and reached its culmination during the 19th century…
and was badly damaged from the events/experiences of the 20th century…
most of what we call progress, has occurred in the last 200 years…
from the new technology of the railroad to the newest smart phone…
a man born in the 1st century AD could still have identified with
a man born in 1750 because the mode of travel and the technology
and how they lived their lives was fairly similar…but a man born in
in 1749, Say, Goethe, would be hard pressed to identify with modern
man and all our science and technology… for over 2000 years,
progress as such, didn’t occur and that in the last 250 years, more
advances in “progress” occurred then in the prior 2000 years…
have we progressed “more” then ancient man? or have we progressed
more then the medieval man? or even the man of the enlightenment?
perhaps, but once again it depends on how you define “progress”…
are we wiser or smarter or have more knowledge then the previous
ages? more knowledge perhaps, but being wise has nothing to do
with knowledge, facts like the earth is 93 million miles from the sun…
there is no wisdom in that fact…
so how are we to live or what is our purpose or how do we
become who we are or how do we better know ourselves?
how are we to act and upon what basis are we to know how we are
to act?
questions that progress or science or technology cannot answer…
is modernity a solution to these questions of how we are to live?
and is modernity a solution to the question of how we are to act
and upon what basis are we to know how we are to act?
I will give to the age before our “modern” age one bonus point…
that is they had rules about how they are to act and upon what
basis how they knew how to act… but the problem becomes
their solutions are not our solutions…the rules, morals, laws
must change with the changing environment and changing
science and technology… the idea of progress changed
because our environment, our very world changed and the idea
of progress must change to match the ever changing world…
and this is why the idea of progress is what is was for the
ancient Greeks and different for the enlightenment and different
for us… times change and we must change our idea’s and ism’s and
ideologies with the changing times…
Kropotkin
as I laid down for a nap, as is my habit before work…
I was thinking about this idea of progress…
one argument against progress is this…
this idea of progress makes us or puts us outside
of nature… we become outside of or exempt from or
apart from nature and this is simply not true…
we are part of, as much as plants and trees and forest,
part of nature… we exist within and part of nature…
we cannot isolate who we are from the enviroment that
created us…and this idea of progess isolates us from
nature…progress is not an idea that put us into context with
nature, as one with nature, but outside of nature…
progress from our standpoint would be not to plant
hundreds of or thousands of or even millions of plants,
tree’s, grassland, but planting billions of acres of plants,
tree’s, grassland… we must reclaim our vast deserts into
green lands of tree’s and plants and grass and rivers and
waterfalls… we must return to nature to become who we are…
for we are of nature and that nature is tree’s and plants and grass…
from whence we came… we must understand progress in terms
of a different standard… as an understanding of where we stand in
regards to and as part of nature… just as we need to understand our
role in regards to society, we must understand our role in nature…
not nature as we human beings deem it to be, but as nature really is…
not as a park like Disneyland but as a park that is wild and free to be…
more like Yosemite park without the massively overbuilt valley…
in these terms, progress becomes something entirely different…
it is not longer about human beings, but about the nature that
we came from and are a part of… nature or the environment
becomes the source of progress, not man…
how do we return nature to the prominence that it needs to be…
by sacrificing our human needs for the needs of the planet…
and plant the shit out of our planet… we need to and we must
plant billions of tree’s and billions of plants and billions of acres
of grassland… recall that tree’s and plants use carbon dioxide and
so we reduce the creation of human carbon dioxide by increasing
the element that uses carbon dioxide and creates oxygen…
this is the new understanding of progress… as an equation…
to match one side of the equation with an aspect that
matches the other side… if we increase something, we must
create an equation that subtracts something… that is the new
vision of progress… an equation…which matches our actions
with actions that equalize our actions…
progress is to make things equal… and that equal is also another
vision of justice…so we have three things being the same,
progress, equality and justice…
Kropotkin
I was just daydreaming a bit ago and let myself go…
what if I were to become famous… I would go on TV and be
interviewed… but and this is the important part… I hate wearing suits…
I really, really, really hate wearing ties…
but to go on TV, one must wear a suit… but I thought why?
why is it important to wear a suit? especially on TV…
one might claim it is decorum, another might claim that it is a sign
of respect…another might claim that it is proper etiquette…another
might claim it is distracting not to wear a suit on TV…one might claim
that in the important times in life, one must wear a suit of distinction to
be taken seriously… as for me, I just want to be comfortable…blue jeans,
t-shirt, tennis shoes and I’m good to go…at present, I wear a polo shirt at
work, so I suppose I could wear a polo with my jeans… but why wear anything
fancier? does society’s right to decorum, trump my right to comfort?
and here we reach from another side, the debate between the individual
and society…
now I can imagine TV execs demanding that I wear a suit or not be on TV…
I would choose not to be on TV personally, but this little debate lays out
part of the question of what it means to exist within our current society…
the role of the individual within society, does that mean to dress as society
demands? be the role that society demands? if you want to be President,
you must wear a suit all the time… the role requires it… to be “presidental”
but what does that really mean? as far as I can tell, it means to match the
expectations of the voting public… expectations… and that is a good word here…
people have expectations of what certain roles should look like…
try to imagine a… doctor, who went into work wearing a t-shirt and blue
jeans and tennis shoes? that the doctor saw you in those clothes…
what would it tell or suggest to you? a doctor is suppose to wear a white,
clean coat… that is what is expected…otherwise doctors wear scrubs…
again, it is expectations… so roles have certain expectations like dress
and probably behavior expectations…here I am not referring to the
the fact that clothes worn by such professionals might get dirty with
bodily objects and needs to be able to be tossed easily… no, I am not
talking about that part… I am talking about the expectations we
have for certain roles…and part of that expectations is certainly dress
and manner for that role…are these expectations driven by the institution
like the hospital to create a “professional” appearance… or are the expectations
driven by the patients who need/want certain roles to have defined looks…
is it the institution psychology that drive the expectation game or does the
patient psychology that drives it? I am sure studies have been done on this
which leads us to another question, do we know without an study being done?
can we know or understand without somebody somewhere doing a study?
questions leading to more questions…
Kropotkin
Part of the trouble in playing the game game is , that the outer, dressed man, and the inner, habe to have some connective parcels to bring the two together.
This is the structurally manifested rule number one
Am I over dressed, under dressed for the occasion? And why is it so important?
Lets assume some one is famous, or on the verge of be coming one, and lets further suppose that same one sitting next to some late night host decked out in his best apparel.
Them some person shows up dressed in modern rags in stark contrast to the host and others. I would think a person who is already famous is presumed to know the rules of attire , and is naaong that presumption , knows them, and is licenced to be as extravagant and even outlandish as to appearance.
Been there and done that along the way through the myriad channels of upward climbing. However, on the flip side , if he is trying to negom the long and arduous climb and thinks may be wearing ill fitting or pit of style clothes in order to garner attention and use it to promote himself, well them its a different game , and he might think twice about showing up.
It will not work , because instead of elevating into a reasonably thought out appearance , it will dig into the instinctive feeling on the host’s part that it is meant to depreciate the show.
Bit instant fame bypasses this and the super famous neuvo rich can do whatever , out of superbly poised instinct, do dress however, case at hand: Lady Gaga.
She is a real lady, in parity with any English Duchess.
and what of so called, Rock chic, which for men is
a sports coat over a t-shirt with blue jeans and whatever type of shoes
the wearer wears… does this fit expectations of how a rock star dresses?
and what of Lady Gaga… who btw, I wouldn’t know if she introduced herself to me…
this brings us to another question… the expectations of men clothes versus
the expectation of women’s clothes… men wear limited style clothing, both
in color and in type of clothing… women wear a far greater, far different
clothing types… a women could and have worn both dresses and suits with or without
ties and sports coats, not in a man’s style but in a women’s style… men have a limited
amount of clothes they can wear socially… why? my wife tells me all the time how to
dress and what “works” and what doesn’t… both in regards to color and in regards to fabric…
whereas I don’t know AND I really, really don’t care… but what does this say about
expectations of people and gender in regards to, say clothing for example…
and we return to this question of expectations in regards to what is “appropriate”
style and fashion for people and what is “appropriate” for people in regards to sex,
career, lifestyle, behavior, language… and why? why is it “appropriate” for some
people to do something and not others? this is the expectations of roles we have
in society…if you have a certain “role” in society you cannot do something or you
are the only one who can do something… depending on the role you have…
I am old… and I am expected to engage in actions and behavior that the old
engage in… the type of actions and behavior that I engaged in as a youth, 40
years ago, is not “appropriate” for someone my age… why?
now granted I certainly cannot go out late at night and drink like I did…
my bedtime is 9:00 and I really can’t stay up past that anymore… so my
physical limitations of being old play a role in the actions and behavior I
can engage in… it is assumed that I have too much dignity and smarts to
engage in youthful behavior because I am old… I have too much sense…
expectations once again… we all have expectations that weigh us down
in some fashion…what it means to be a man… what it means to be a women…
what it means to be old… what it means to be professional…what is means
to be a child… what it means to be a part of society…what it means to
to be alive…we have expectations for all aspects of our lives…
is this a good thing or a bad thing? personally, I don’t know…
do I have expectations for other people… of course, for I am only human…
and that is the point…
Kropotkin
Peter ,on the road again o shall return to this interesting topic again as soon as I can take a.deep breath and sit down
no rush…
Kropotkin
Peter, upon re reading I realised that I should save You the trouble is trying to figure out my meaning.
Therefore a re affirmation of earlier relevance is needed here. I had a very hectic day and my script looked it.
So, with that said, what I meant was this:
The theme of the essay revolves around the question of why can’t a person dress the way he wants to, when invited to be on a show.
Most are invited.to shows of caliber, other then contestants game shows , which are predictably more lax, requireing certain dress codes , whereof they propose to begin the journey to fame.
They begin to know that outlandish and out of place attire will not be beneficial to their role of upward climbing, and the likelihood of such a person trying to present the best.picture of themselves as possible, may choose not to upstage the members of the show. It simply makes little sense for an upward bound regular guy to dress out of kilter, because in most shows, execs can immediately overcome the thought that the person’s demeanor , as basis for nudging their capacity. , whatthey really are interested in, is the substance of their talent or whatever they are on the show in the first place.
They are experts, that is why they are good at what they know best: : Show Business.
The excuses of age, disability, special circumstance do to a degree excuse them for their appearance, , but then what comes out is a focus on how and what those excuses mean in real terms.
So sure , one can dress for any part, which , at first can be managed by dress varience, but I can’t help to think it would work on an average person to their advantage to not adhere to some norm in attire.
The execs may be thinking that the guy is hiding some deficiency, which they are trying to cover over zealously.
Already famous people, can usually dress pretty much the way they want to, even dress up as Micky Mouse , or goofy,
Its time they cash in , on earned credit of allowance ,resulting in opinions of a sort of poetic licence of kinkiness.
That is the whole nine yards of what I meant to convey and I regret being off target.
Finally. at least goes to reason, that gestures determine somewhat the intentional use of a character role. But in the beginning it is unlikely that simply a wearing a costume will reveal the difference in whether the sought after role was intentionally developed or. there was no substational workup , that results merely in wearing clothes rather then a costume which has some intentional role in development .(of the character)
In again other words, yes, all the world is a stage and everybody acts. but professionals usually have a pretty good idea of where their role belongs between the average man, and the man who becomes famous for other reasons then to become famous for fame’s sake.
And the tie in here is that itshould become obvious to anyone with concerns with dress, that in show biz, they can tell if one dressed for a part, or merely put on a costume, these are concerns anyone should have in relation to acquire achievement-fame.
I am going to come back to meno at some point tomorrow…as
I try to understand this point…
the symbol of our age… it is Disneyland…
a pretend, safe, corporate place where “dreams” are
sold to people…go to Disneyland and every single aspect is
finely tuned to be non-threating and soft and warm and fuzzy…
it is made that way in return for cold hard cash… every aspect
is false, created, carefully planned to the very grass grown on the lawn
to the flowers of the train station…to the impossible clean road
that people walk on…in Disneyland there is no event, no experience that
is not preplanned and organized to the smallest detail…every aspect of Disneyland
is choreograph to the millisecond…and this experience of Disneyland lies at
the heart of what wealthy and powerful want to create… Disneyland is the
existential experience of what they want to turn America into…
if you want to see or understand the future, visit Disneyland and
know the goal of the upper class is to turn America into a safe,
sterile, homogenized version of Disneyland…from the fake experiences
to the massive price gouging… Disneyland holds our future as being the
idealize version of the tomorrow we face…travel our cities and
know if they could, they would turn those cities into Disneyland…
with fake experiences and fake thrills and phony promises of returning to
yesterday… a clean and sanitized version of yesterday that has no basis in fact…
Disneyland… a fake yesterday, a fake today and a fake tomorrow…
perfect for corporate America…
Kropotkin
here I try to tie up several different points into one
pretty little ball…
I am trying to understand our age in general… an overall
look at who we are and what is happening…
and I am reminded of the old Zen saying…
before Zen, the mountains are level and the sea is calm and
the river flows calmly…
during Zen, the mountains jump and the sea rages and the river
flows over its bank…
after Zen, the mountain is level and the sea is calm and
the river flows calmly…
we are at the point of during Zen… when everything is toss into the air
and everything is muddled and nothing makes sense…
but why? Why should things be so, so up in the air… everything is
so unsettled…so why?
I was watching some show on Scifi called Krypton… about the backstory
of Superman and his ancestors, grandfather and the like and then
the fact that this lead character is Superman’s grandfather…Seg…
and the basic premise about Superman’s home world is twofold,
first, that they believe that they are the only beings in the universe
and that belief is religious based and the second theme is that Krypton
is a class base society…it has caste, a warrior caste for example
and a science caste… by no means is this a new idea, but it did
click some idea’s in that a caste base system is on where you know,
absolutely know your place and role within society…
this is an idea lost in our “modern” society…Europe did have
a caste system in place for a thousand years… you knew your role…
the caste system could be thought of as a hierarchy based society…
defined roles played by every caste and person within that caste…
even today, England still has that with the Hierarchy top being
the Queen of England and every step below being rigidly decided…
Prince Charles and William and Kate and Harry all having their fixed
roles within that Hierarchy and English society flows down from that
fixed hierarchy…heaven help the person who tries to deviate from their
roles…
we too a lessor degree have a hierarchy… money and fame
and some official position like being the President gives America
a semblance of a hierarchy…but what of us? what of the over 320 million
of us who don’t have money or fame or an official position… what is to be our role
in the society… and thus we have “during Zen” because we are not sure anymore
of who we are and what is our role… and everything points to this…
for example, as discussed above, dress… the way we dress tells everyone
our role and what we think our role is…dress is one means to create
an hierarchy within society…status as in wealth is another means to
create an hierarchy within society…Keeping up with the Jones in not just
about material consumption but about our roles and our place within the
hierarchy…
the rise of megachurches is just another step in our confusion
about our role within society…the rise of megachurches is another
attempt to create an hierarchy within society… the medieval
attempt, of the closer to god one is, the higher up the hierarchy one is…
these attempts to create hierarchies within America are not isolated
attempts, but they are not coordinated attempts but given the situation
of our collective confusion as to who we are and what are we to do,
the attempts to create hierarchies are not surprising…
everything is confused, mixed up, nothing has solidity or is grounded…
the mountains are jumping, the sea is raging and the river has jumped
its bank…and all our attempts to settle the mountains, the sea and
the river, so far has failed… as it should fail… because we
are acting from instincts like fear and anger and hate in attempting to
overcome the unsettle world… you cannot overcome with hate or fear
or anger…those base emotions only bring about more hate and anger and
fear… and we see this every day in the news… attempts to create
an hierarchy based on fear and anger and hate will fail… because
you can’t have an hierarchy based on the lower, base emotions…
it doesn’t work… Look at Nazi Germany… it failed…
and the Soviet Union, it too failed… and then look at the creation
of America… another attempt to settle the world and have knowledge
of who we are and what we are supposed to do…
“in order to form a more perfect union”…
“we hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among these are Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
this language suggests that it is another attempt to understand our role in society
and what we are to do…
our age is one where we no longer understand what our roles are and what
we are suppose to do… who are we, when we don’t know or fail to understand
what our roles are to be… in society and within us…this pursuit of money/profit
has hidden from us… our real meaning and role within life and society…
we, we human beings, are so much more then lowly consumers and producers
of matter… but that role, the only role we are expected to play, fails to
to understand, explain, become all the possibilities that exist within
the human being… we have possibilities and potentials and they are
being wasted in some silly pursuit of wealth, of money and profits…
we, at some level, seem to understand this… and we are in the midst
of the mountains jumping and the seas raging and the river overflowing its bank…
all the themes of this thread come together here… who are we and what
are our possibilities? we cannot know if we only allow human possibilities
to be invested in the pursuit of money/profit…we cannot allow
hierarchies to limit us in our possibilities… we are more then our
role of consumer and producer and we are more then some false
attempt to create hierarchies… we are our possibilities…
and what are they? we shall not know until we
begin to challenge conventional notions of the form of our roles…
we cannot know until we challenge who we are and what are our
possibilities and just being a consumer/producer won’t allow us
the chance to discover who we are and what we are to do…
it is not enough to have the courage of your convictions,
you must have the courage for an attack upon your convictions…
Kropotkin
thinking about philosophy (and science for that matter)
and thinking that philosophy done right should not be safe or
comfortable or PC… philosophy done right should mean
that the mountains are shaking and the seas are raging
and the rivers have gone over their bank…
philosophy is not safe or PC… it is dangerous
and philosophy should rock your world… if done right…
to think that philosophers like Socrates, Spinoza,
Hume and Nietzsche is safe and comfortable is
doing a disservice to those philosophers…
to understand, to truly understand those philosophers
bring one to the edge of the abyss…
that is the problem with university philosophy teaching…
it makes dangerous philosophers like Spinoza and Nietzsche
seem like part of the status quo and as safe as a trip to
Disneyland… in fact, that is what the university teaching
wants you to think, that those philosophers are so safe
and unthreatening as to be like a reading version of Disneyland…
nothing dangerous, nothing out of hand, mild and socially acceptable
teaching of philosophy is all that is acceptable… universities
try to turn radical thought into Disneyland for the mind…
safe at every turn and nothing to worry about…
but that isn’t philosophy… reading and understanding
philosophy is the “during Zen” time… all is unsettled…
and it should be…it should be about the mountains becoming
loose and the sea’s raging…and that is philosophy done right…
but in America we want everything and I mean everything to be
as safe and sound as Disneyland… nothing risky or dangerous…
the greatest danger in Disneyland is tripping over the curb…
and if they could figure out how to remove that, they would…
and so would America… making those dangerous thinkers
as safe as Disneyland for the mind… too bad…
Kropotkin
as there is no possibility of being original, I am once again
not original… my thoughts have been geared toward a society
that is ill and that the individual within that society is ill also…
so, in mucking about the web AND I came across William James and
his concept of “soul sickness”… and once again, I am just following someone’s
else road…
we are, the modern world, soul sick and we don’t even know it…
most of America claim to be Christian but look at what they support
and it is clear they are not Christians…Jesus message was about love
and the way to heaven which means following his message…
the rich will have an easier time passing through an eye of a needle
then reaching heaven… that kind of thing… and practicing
the laws of god… thou shall not…and look at what the soul sick
Christians support… a lying, thieving, adulterer president…
and the soul sick Christian barely said a peep about the use of torture
in obtaining information to “protect” America…
and that is being soul sick when you no longer engage in values
that your profess… to be Christian is to value such things
as love and charity and hope before actions as in torture
and lying and stealing and adultery…
that is the soul sick America at work…we claim to support
such principles as justice, equality, honesty, love and yet,
and yet, we actually give approval to such actions as violence and hate
and anger and bigotry…it is the Christians that is driving
such actions as violence and hate and bigotry…
this is not a anti-Cristian diatribe… not at all, this is using them
as an example of the soul sickness that has griped America…
where the words spoken and the actions taken are diametrically
opposed… that has lead to our current soul sickness…
I am giving a diagnoses of America…
and the Christian is an excellent choice to uncover this soul sickness…
we are the sick man who doesn’t even know his is sick…
look, look around you… what do you see?
you see human beings whose souls are crushed by society
and the demands of capitalism…
you see American trying to escape their soul sickness with opioids
and other such drugs…what do opioids do? they quiet the soul to
prevent thinking or feeling… that is the crisis of our day… not
the opioids epidemic but why do we have an opioids crisis…
it is because of what the drugs do that is important…
you can escape even for an hour from your soul sickness
booze and drugs fill the void that is inside of us…
a void cause by the modern world and its
dehumanization of us all…
the real epidemic of our day which is not
drugs or booze but escaping our soul sickness…
because of the nihilistic assault on the bodies and souls
of us all, we try to escape into drugs and booze but also
such fantasies as in video games and movies and music
and the relentless voyeurism into the lives of celebrities
all of which comes from the sickness of our souls…
even at the lowest level of their being, people are beginning
to understand the futility and despair of their lives…
for such soul crushing ism’s and ideologies as capitalism
and Catholicism, in fact, in any ism or ideology today crushes
the soul…Americanism is one of the worst soul crushing
phenomenon of our day… for Americanism offers us a phony
bill of goods… believe in the American dream and you shall be
rewarded… it is no different then the false promise of
religion…believe and ye shall be rewarded…
this soul sickness has been an undercurrent in modern life since the beginning
of the industrial revolution… it is evident in Goethe’s Faust and in the writings
of Marx and Kierkegaard and Nietzsche… it is so entwined in 20th century writing,
that of the modern era, that it isn’t even commented upon… the soul sickness of
the modern era is so prevalent that it is part of the words, sentences and language
of the 20th century writers…
how do we escape this soul sickness that permeates every part of society,
and us, as to become part of our very essence…
this is the modern question… how do we escape our modern age and its
ever present soul sickness?
we cannot escape by drugs or booze or fantasy actions like video games…
those passive measures only help fuel this fog of soul sickness that surrounds
all of us…
passivity is not an answer to our soul sickness…
only action can offer us deliverance from our current crisis…
it is not the time for withdrawal into ourselves, that help
lead us into the medieval ages… the only path out is action…
and what action is right? find a cause… global warming,
gun control, global population growth, income inequality,
pollution and fight… fight for that cause… that is the solution
to our current, modern, crisis…it doesn’t even matter what
cause you pick… pick a cause… and become that cause…
that is how you fight soul sickness… you engage in some cause
that you believe in…hold fast to that cause no matter what the
obstacles… for therein lies your salvation… the cause…
not god, not Americanism, not some ism or ideology…
but a cause…not some pie in the sky ism or ideology…
but some real, tangible, touchable cause that can change
lives in some positive fashion… and become that cause…
you want to be free? find a cause…and create change…
and the change you will create will be in you and that is the
real effect of becoming a cause… you become the change…
you find the real you in the landscape of creating change
for others…search for some answers in creating change
for others and the answer you find is you…
Kropotkin
as I struggle with understanding…
I am struggling with who we are and how did we get here…
not necessarily with where do we go from here as I usually struggle with…
I am trying to understand modernity… what does it mean to be a “modern”
man in a “modern” world… and I do so by comparison with an earlier
age, the enlightenment…what does it mean to be modern?
and I believe it means this… you can’t go home again…
this is the entire point of modernism…you can’t go home again…
but don’t mistake home as being the place of residence, either past or present…
no, home here means something far greater…home means something…
it is not just a home, but it stands for something…home means safety and security
and comfort and for some of us, home means love…to share a home with the ones
we love…wife and daughter in my case, but every case is different…
but to be a modern man means, you can’t go home again…WTF does that mean?
we exist within other homes and we have existed in prior homes…
now don’t mistake home here to be a fixed, material place…
home is also where we hold our ism’s and ideologies and habits,
myths, prejudices and superstitions… because those habits and
myths and prejudices and superstitions also mean safety and security
and comfort…home is not just a physical place, but it is a mental
construct with idea’s and ism’s and myths that we have either once believed
in or do currently believe in…
and what does Modernity have to do with home?
my past is full of homes… my childhood home in Illinois… long gone,
decades ago… the house still exists, but it isn’t my home anymore…
I can’t return there anymore…the home I once knew, of family and of
habits and of ism’s and a dog named Troubles…all gone…for me anyway…
and that is modernism… the past no longer exists…one of the sad
parts of education nowadays is that they don’t teach history anymore…
modernity has no interest or understanding in history…
we live in the midst of long gone homes and of long gone
ism’s and ideologies and prejudices and superstitions…
you can’t go home again to ism’s that no longer exists…
to be modern is to exist without the ism’s and ideologies and habits
that nourished human beings for centuries… the ghost of ism’s
still exist today… of ideologies like Catholicism and religions like
capitalism and superstitions like god… they still exists…
but as ghosts in the modern age…
you can’t go home again… once you have lost the faith and devotion
that ism’s and ideologies must have, you cannot rekindle it again by
the false devotion you see in the false idols of our times…
the essence of our times is you can’t return to the ism’s and ideologies
that created safety and security and comfort that existed in our
homes of yesterday…we have to rewrite what it means to
be safe and secure and be comfortable in the new homes of
ism’s and ideologies that are struggling to be created today…
to be modern means to be without past…the past of ism’s and ideologies
that feed our forefathers…you can’t go home again… speaks the modern man…
a home that no longer exists…no matter how hard we try to recreate
the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions of yesterday…
what myths or habits or ism’s or ideology is possible in the
shadows of Auschwitz or Hiroshima or the two World Wars?
you can’t go home again… to the time before Auschwitz or Hiroshima
or the World Wars…to the beliefs and myths and ism’s that fueled
those “modern” events…
I am a modern man, who in good conscience, cannot accept ancient
fables and myths and habits like religion or god or ism’s like
Americanism…
I cannot go home again…
Kropotkin
upon reflection, I could have including, in fact, I should have
included the industrial revolution in line with Auschwitz and Hiroshima
and the World wars…for the industrial revolution laid the groundwork
for the “modern” world and the loss of the myths and habits and ism’s and
superstitions of the age before the industrial revolution…
who can believe in god or being saved or humanity or Americanism
after the events of the twentieth century? our faith in the ism’s of
the old regime cannot be revived into new forms… that is 'modernism"
we cannot go home again… Auschwitz cannot be answered in such a
pithy manner as, yes, you can go home again… the old faith will
work again if you just believe enough… clap your hands and perhaps
Peter Pan will fly again…
lies, lies, lies…lies of the modern age… belief is enough…
Hiroshima ended that false prophesy…
so what is the “Modern” man to do?
we cannot believe… and we cannot act… and
we cannot be saved…
so far our only response has been to be frozen in time with
our obeisance to myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
that were demolished by the industrial revolution and Hiroshima
and Auschwitz and the two World Wars…
to pray to god now is to pretend those events didn’t occur
and they don’t because we have become “Modern”…
and forgotten…and that is what being modern means…
to forget the past, pretend it never happened…to write
it out of the history books…
you can’t go home again…you can’t pray or have faith or
pay homage to the victims of 9/11 because they aren’t the
most important victims, just the latest… and the news
tells us the names of the latest and the latest and latest
after that…
you can’t go home again…what is possible after Auschwitz?
and after 9/11 and after Parkland and after…the next
list of new victims…
you can’t go home again…
Kropotkin
or to say it another way… William James, soul sickness is just
another way of saying, modern man…
Kropotkin
I have identified several historical events as
the possible creators of our modern “soul sickness”…
the industrial revolution, the two world wars, the Holocaust,
Hiroshima… and so to put these events into historical context…
the industrial revolution can be said to have started in 1750 in the UK…
and in different countries have later dates… say France after the
French Revolution and Germany after 1800… these dates are hardly
written in stone and is quite debated by experts in the field…
in the US, the industrial revolution was vastly expedited by the American
civil war from 1860 to 1865.
So, you have World War one from 1914 -1918
you have the depression from 1929 to 1938
you have the start of the German attacks on Jews in 1933
with the concentration camps opening up by 1938…
you have the dropping of the bomb in 1945…so within
one generation you have quite a bit of historical events…
and now look at an philosophical event called Existentialism…
we can point out the early thinkers who we have decided to
be precursors of existentialism… Kierkegaard…1813-1855
Dostoyevsky 1821-1881…Nietzsche…1844 - 1900…
notice that these thinkers were born after the beginning of the
industrial revolution… I don’t think that is a coincidence
and you have 20th century Spanish thinkers such as Miguel de Unamuno y jugo…
1864-1936 and Ortega y Gasset…1883-1955
and you have such thinkers as Martin Buber and Gabriel Marcel…
Buber 1878 - 1965 and Marcel 1889 -1973
once again notice the dates in reference to my rather limited list of events
in history…
and then you have such thinkers as Sartre 1905 - 1980… and Camus 1913-1960
these thinkers are existentialist…
but the question now comes, what exactly is existentialism:
it is a philosophy that holds the belief that philosophical thinking begins
with the human subject… not just the thinking subject but the acting,
feeling, living human individual…the predominant value of existentialist
though is thought to be freedom, it primary value is Authenticity…
but ummmm, authenticity… why should being authentic become a deal
in the midst of our modern history? I will offer up the suggestion that
historical events like the industrial revolution and the terrible events listed
such as the World Wars and the depression and the Holocaust and the dropping
of the bomb suddenly made this question of high priority…
what does being authentic have to do with such historical events as
the Holocaust and the World Wars? these modern events like the industrial
revolution has had an profound effect on the human creature…
if we are no longer authentic, it might be because of the industrial revolution…
because we are no longer in control of our lives and no longer able to be who we
are…we are devalued in the ever present search for profits and money…
the nihilist 20th century has turn human beings into inauthentic beings…
the pursuit of profits/money has devalued human beings and we responded
with world wars and a great depression and the Holocaust and then we
dropped the bomb…the devalution of man from the industrial revolution
can be connected to Auschwitz and Hiroshima…you can easily create
concentration camps if man is reduced to having no value…nihilism
is the step before Auschwitz and is the logical step before Auschwitz…
or said another way… when I go to work at my nihilistic company,
I have value in only so far as I create profits… no profits, no value…
that is the modern vision of how much value we put on human beings…
as for who I am… it doesn’t matter… my own personal value doesn’t matter
in any way, shape or form… it doesn’t matter if I am smart or mean or
funny or I love or have peace in my heart… human values are useless in our modern
world and thus we get Auschwitz and Hiroshima… and vast world wars…
Human values are negated in pursuit of profit/money…
thus we get something like Existentialism as a philosophy because
the modern world from its pursuit of profits have negated/devalued
who we are individually and collectively…and what is existentialism?
it values freedom…something we don’t have in the modern world
because freedom is a human value that has been negated by the pursuit of profit/money…
and the primary value of existentialism is being authentic
and we cannot be authentic if, if our values are denied, negated, dismissed
for we human being are not just physical creatures who exist in the physical
world where we are born and eat and shit and fuck and the other natural
human actions that come about because we are animals… coming from
the natural world of living and dying creatures with a past of a billion years
of life… we are human beings because we have values… values like
love and peace and hope and dreams and freedom and being authentic…
the modern world has negated the vital and most important aspect of
being human, our values…thus we have the historical events
like the World Wars and the Holocaust and the bomb occuring in
the 20th century… it is the 20th century that has completed the
mission of the industrial revolution in which human beings have been
devalued and denied and negated in the pursuit of profit/money…
we cannot be authentic if we don’t have values like love and hope
and values like freedom… the battle to be human is not about
our physical selves but about our values… and whether
we can exist if our values are negated and devalued…
for we have seen what happens if our values are denied…
we have seen the results in our history books and in the number
of dead from the negation of values in the 20th century…
the body count from the negation of values is in the hundreds of millions
in the 20th century… if we continue negating values, how many more
shall die in the 21st century?
Kropotkin
in thinking about it… why did existentialism fade out
by the 60’s? what happened?
I think and this is only speculation… but I think that
we became so involved in our lives that we forgot or
perhaps we just didn’t care anymore that our values
were negated… recall, the 1950’s was a materialistic
decade… keeping up with the jones was a major goal
of that decade…and look at the 60’s and 70’s…
we paid for our materialism with upheaval and discontent
and overall society unhappiness during the next two decades…
and the 80’s and the 90’s was about materialism again…
and we have overall discontentment and unhappiness today…
we pay for our materialism with “soul sickness”…
because materialism is denial of our values of love, peace,
happiness, freedom, hope, charity…
materialism is nihilism and every decade of materialism
begats years of upheaval and discontentment…“soul sickness”
you want happiness and contentment?
you must first begin with the source of your “soul sickness”
which is the pursuit of profits/money… trying to find
happiness in the materialism of our age is one path to failure…
we have more ways to fail then to succeed and pursuing materialism
is a way to fail…
a way to success is pursuing values like love, peace, hope, charity,
freedom…
negation of values is the modern method and a path to failure,
failure as a society and failure on an individual level…
the pursuit of profits/money is the negation of human values…
so is the fancy car and large screen TV and the house on the hill worth
the negation of values like love and hope and freedom and charity?
look into your soul and see if you are happy and the answer becomes quite
clear…
either materialism and the pursuit of profits/money
or the pursuit of values that makes life worth living…
you can have one or the other, but not both… choose…
Kropotkin
does this rejection of the materialism of our time mean
I reject communism? I don’t see communism as being the barer
of materialism even though it is perceived as such…
communism is about certain values opposed to the raw
nihilism of capitalism…
the value of communism is the value that we exist in a society
within a group of people… we are social creatures and can
only accomplish deeds within the society… I by myself cannot
survive alone, I must have a group of people who all play roles
in society, to allow my own personal survival…
and that is the lesson of communism… we can only succeed
together…
and the value of capitalism is the value of the individual…
we exist of ourselves and within that we must be born alone
and we learn life’s lessons alone and we work and play and die
alone… we, each of us, experience life differently
because we stand in a different place…our viewpoint
for events and experiences is different for each of us…
because of my deafness, I experience life differently then
you do and because of other individual factors, I also experience
life different then you do… my life is different then yours
so, I understand and process experiences differently then you do…
we exist and process experiences differently, individually…
so, we have an individual understanding of life
and we have a collective understanding of life…
we see life via our individual experiences and
we see life via our collective experiences
we understand both individually and collectively
We have two distinct and separate understandings of life
if we then think about it and understand it…
we then have two sides of the same coin…
and then we have one viewpoint which combines
the individual and the collective viewpoint…
everything is connected… we just have to
find the connection…and understand…
that is the political of the future…
we see that we can have an individual AND a collective
viewpoint that is combined into one viewpoint…
we see the future… and it is one viewpoint…
Kropotkin