a new understanding of today, time and space.

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

just as existentialism is a response to the events
and experiences of the 19th and 20th century…
philosophy is a response to historical events
and experiences…

for example, Descartes philosophy is a response to the rise
of the scientific method… he was defending the new scientific
method against the old method of authority… Aristotle
and the church…

so when we think of philosophy, we must think of it as
a response to historical events and experiences…

so what events and experiences are we responding to
when we engage in philosophy today?

We must answer the questions caused or created
by the industrial revolution and by the two World Wars
and the Holocaust/Auschwitz and Hiroshima…

we do those events tell us about who we are and what
we are suppose to do?

it is not enough to preach some abstract notion of who we are…
we must tell the truth about who we are and what is possible for us…

what do the events and experiences of your life tell you about
what you are and what is possible?

Kropotkin

so we have philosophy being a response to the events
and experiences of our lives, both individually and collectively…

so philosophy should be a creation that responds after the fact…
first we experience then we understand… is my formula…
and we use experience to guide our future selves as it responds
to future events and experiences…

but, recall that the enlightenment was a response to a certain
facet of our lives… we are born into this world that already
has as it guide myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions
and it teaches those myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
to babies and toddlers and children… we aren’t born with the myth
and superstition that there is a god, we are taught it by our parents,
by the church, by the state, by the media…from our very first days
of life, we are taught myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions…

but how do we reconcile this method of philosophy teaching
with the idea of philosophy being a reaction to events and
experiences of our lives? if we are taught the myths and habits
of our culture as philosophy, then how do we then use philosophy
to understand events and experiences? if we have an already created
philosophy meant to understand events and experiences, how does
an already created philosophy suppose to understand events and
experiences that lie outside of those myths and habit and prejudices
we have already been taught? for example, we have certain myths
and habits and prejudices and superstitions that I have dubbed
Americanism… which is the divine belief that America is the greatest
country on earth, which has no basis in fact or reality… this myth,
this habit, that we are taught from birth, then reaches the point
of events and experiences that tell us we are not in fact, the greatest
country on earth… how can we be the greatest country on earth,
when we condone torture? How can we be the greatest country on earth
when we pay teachers so little money, they must have more then one
job to survive? How can we be the greatest country on earth
when we have millions who are one or two paychecks away
from complete ruin? we face this reality, these truths
and we must either accept the myths, habits, prejudices
of our childhood and deny the charges that
our daily events and experiences tell us is happening right now,
here in America… or do we create a new philosophy which
moves to understand current events and current experiences
and deny our childhood myths and habits…
first we experience, then we understand
but if we follow the path of using our myths and habits
and prejudices and superstitions as our guide for life,
then we do things differently,… we understand then we experience…
in other words, we force the events and experiences to match
our current myths and habits and superstitions…
we must adapt our thinking to the events and experiences
not force the events and experiences to match our thinking…

many a politician forces the event and experiences to match
their thinking…IQ45 believes that illegal aliens are taking
over the US…his false thinking derived from the myths and habits
and prejudices and superstitions of his training from childhood,
he cannot conceive of any other way of thinking…
so when faced with a situation where the events and experiences
don’t match his thinking, his myths and habits and prejudices and
superstition, he denies the truth, the reality of that situation…
and forces it to match his myths, his habits, his prejudices
and his superstitions…ALL criminals are black or brown…
that is his myth, his prejudice…
or the one that is really, really obvious… when white males
commit terrorist actions, they are mentally unbalanced…
when black or brown people commit the same actions, they
are terrorist…he cannot conceive of a white person who
is a terrorist because it violates his preconceived training from
birth, the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
that he has… he is forcing events and experiences into
already conceived myths and habits and prejudices…

he doesn’t experience then he understand…

he understand then he experiences… and those experiences must match
his understanding of the world or he denies it…

he does not philosophize… he simply repeats the script taught to him…

and millions of people do the exact same thing…they don’t experience,
then understand… they understand…they follow the myths and habits
and prejudices and superstitions of childhood and they use that script
to explain current events and experiences…it is not philosophy that they
are doing… but reciting old formulas taught to them by their parents,
by their church, by the state, by the media… they haven’t learned
anything new… and any new events or experiences must be filed under
old myths and old habits and old prejudices and old superstitions…
as long as they follow the old scripts they were taught,
they cannot learn anything new…they are as trapped in the
past by their thinking and unable to adapt or change to match
the current environment… we call that type of person… a dinosaur…
and we know what happened to the dinosaurs…

Kropotkin

so, its 2:19 in the morning and I can’t sleep…

so I start to think because I don’t have anything better to do at 2:19
in the morning…

I am just thinking and I come across thinking about time…
on the kitchen table, where I am currently, I leave about papers
on subjects and notes I want to cover here… and I have one on
time, I haven’t gotten to… so I was thinking about time…and I
got around to thinking about Einstein and what was his thoughts
about time… and I thought, wait didn’t he write about space/time…
as one subject…not two, not space…then time, no, space/time…
as one subject… we say that the next galaxy, the nearest galaxy
to us is the Andromeda galaxy which is 2.5 million light years from us…

this galaxy is 2.5 million light years away… now what is 2.5 million
light years? is it a distance? or is it a measure of time? yes…

2.5 million light years is both a distance and time… space/time…

because 2.5 million light years is so inconceivable as both time
and distance, we have no real sense of just how far away the
Andromeda galaxy really is…if we could, we can’t, but if we could
travel at the speed of light, it would take us 2.5 million years
to reach the nearest galaxy…at vast distances, time and space
are truly the exact same thing…but what of more mundane
matters of time/space…he lives 5 minutes from here…
now if we can decide on the method of how to travel that 5 minutes
we can gauge the distance that “he” lives from us…in high school,
many, many years ago, I could run a mile in 5 minutes… so, we could
say that by running, those 5 minutes are the same as a mile…I don’t run
anymore, so I most likely mean driving…and we can still gauge
that those 5 minutes are most likely within a mile or two…depending
on how fast I drive…so we can convert our time given into miles…
space/time is not just out there, it is in here…among us…

we can understand space and time as the same thing…
and so we can convert time into space… and space is nothing
more then distance… I am 59 years old…is that convertible
into distance? I was born about 2000 miles from where I am now…
that is distance…we count a year as the length of time
it takes the earth to travel once around the sun… distance creates
or is time…I have traveled around the sun 59 times in my life…and within
a year, I have seen the sun rise 365 times, so we can take 365 times it by
59 years and come up with the number of time, I have seen the sun rise in my
life…as I don’t have a calculator on hand, I don’t know the number…

and what we are doing is understanding both time and distance…
as they are the same thing…we can do this with much smaller
distances… the TV is about 7 feet away from me… or about
3 seconds walking…now in regards to this, we tend to say
the distance rather then the time… the couch is 10 ft away from me…
but it is 4 seconds from me… the act of walking to the couch is
both distance and time… we just don’t think of it that way…
we tend to think about such smaller distances in terms
of distance and not in terms of time…but for the average
person, we could just as easily say, the couch is 4 seconds away
from me and we can very easily understand the distance the couch
is from me…it is a matter of preference that we use distance rather
then time, when speaking about such small matters… but we could just as
easily use time as well as distance…but what does this mean?

it means we use space and time as a description
in a rather arbitrary manner… we could just as easily
use time as well as space/distance to describe our relationship
with things… and that is what we use space/time to do…
we give a description of our relationship to something…
I am 59 years old… that is a relationship of mine to
the number of times the earth has traveled around the sun…
and the couch is 4 seconds away from me… another
relationship… by giving you either time or space/distance
I can describe all kinds of relationships I have with people, places,
and things in my life, past, present, future…my younger sister whose birthday
is April 7, today, is one year younger then me… I have created several different
descriptions in that one sentence…she has traveled around the sun 58 times…
distance creates time and time creates distance… we measure both the same
the sun is 93 million miles away from us…the light of the sun take 8 minutes
and 20 seconds to reach us… on average… depending on if we are slightly closer
to the sun or slightly further away…as we know the speed of light, we can convert
the distance of us to the sun either by time or by distance…

it is preference again… but what if… what if an alien race wasn’t
so casual about space/time as we are… we if they decided on using both
methods equally… they could then say, the couch is 4 seconds away and
leave it at that and it is clearly understood the distance of the couch from us…

so we have space… which at one time was thought to be a distinct and separate
matter from time… and time which was thought to be a distinct and separate
matter from time… two complete and different things… which then became
two sides of the same coin and now they are one and the same…

so as we grow, we tend to think of things as distinct and separate…
isolated and different from each other… but perhaps, perhaps
that is the wrong way to approach matters… we should begin, not
by seeing things as distinct and separate, but seeing things as one and
the same… all we have to do with understand the connection between
what looks like two distinct and separate things and soon, they will become
two sides of the same coin and then, if we evolve enough, not two things,
but one… and that is the sign of our growth and maturity as a person
and as a species… where we once saw two distinct and separate
matters, we now see one… we think love and hate are two distinct
and different matters, but we realize they are two sides of the same coin and then
we begin to understand they are the same thing…

so the real effort is not finding out what are the isolated
matters in our life, but in finding out the connections, the
relationships in our life… as space and time are the same thing,
and love and hate are the same thing… is space/time and love/hate
the same thing? Yes, you just have to find the connection between them…’

and soon we shall have the connections between different and distinct
matters and we shall see how things, every thing is the same…

we begin the trip of understanding not the differences between
things, people and places, but the sameness of things, people
and places…

and why does this matter?

because if we change the nature of how we see relationships,
we change everything, politics, science, philosophy, religion,
laws, it is not the differences that makes the universe knowable
but the sameness… and once we see that… and understand
that… and live that… everything will be different and then
the same…

and just an FYI: upon finding a calculator, I note that I have seen the sun rise roughly
21,535 times… as it is not exactly 59 years… but some days difference
for me…

Kropotkin

just wrote a long post and gone with the wind…
hate that shit…

anyway trying again…

as I alluded to in the above post… it is the connection that we must
seek, not the differences… when we see something we must connect
with it at some level…when we see something, do we see the
sameness or do we see the differences?

look at another human being… what do you see?

do you see the artificial, accidental properties of that person…

the artificial is our artificial understanding of the world…
do you see an American or an Russian or a Frenchmen when
you look at someone? that distinction is artificial… an
artificial line is drawn somewhere and be born on one side of that
line and you are a citizen of one city or of one state or of one country…
be born 5 ft away and you are a citizen of another city, state or country…
and that artificial line… stand at the border and see if you can see or touch
or kick that border… it is just a line on a map… nothing more…
it means nothing…and it changes, those artificial lines have changed
many, many times over history… what was once German land is now French
land and may once again become German land and what was once
Jewish land became Arab land and then became Jewish land once again
and may once again become Arab land…we have rewritten the artificial lines
of country and state and city often and we will do so in the future…

and yet people hate citizens of another country and all because of an artificial
line in the sand that they cannot see…

the accidental properties of birth also lead to hate… be born a women
and some will hate you and be born a man and some will hate you
and be born white and some will hate you and be born black
and some will hate you and be born brown and some will hate you
and why? because of some accidental property of being born…
something we have no control over… and that is why I call it accidental…
we cannot control it…

be born handicap and some will hate you…
be born short and some will hate you…
be born tall and some will hate you…

and what control do we have over being born?

it is accidental…and out of our control…

more to come…

Kropotkin

so we don’t look at human beings from their
accidental, artificial properties…
of birth and of artificial lines in the sand…

how should we see people?

I am going to a fancy event tonight… suit and tie event,
hate that shit… anyway, I can already tell you the first question
everyone asks, always… is what do you do? the last time
at one of these, I answered writer… and no one cared because
it was in Palo Alto and every other person is a writer in
Palo Alto…

so, when you see people, do you ask, what do you do?
is that how we define people? by our job?

we see people for what they do for a living…
such a small minded understanding of people…

let us back track…

instead of the differences in people…let us understand
what people have in common…

people are not defined by their accidental or artificial differences…

we are defined by our common nature… we, each of us, have biological needs…
look at a human and see that they need food and water and shelter and love
and hope and an education… we all need those things… all of us…

the real question becomes, what is next?
what should happen when our basic needs are meet?

look at any five people you know…what do they have in common?

do you see them by their differences or by the commonality?

are their basic needs being meet?

if so, now what? what do these 5 people have in common beyond
their basic needs? perhaps work or perhaps a club or perhaps drinking
or drugs or perhaps in the same class… if they are young, they
are struggling with things that the young struggle with… understanding
what is their place under the sun… what is their place in society and what
is their goal and needs in life… if the 5 is old, we have different concerns…
our struggles are different… we have health concerns and we are close
to retirement and our children are struggling and that affects us…
the concerns of the old and of the young is different… because their needs
are different…we know our place in society…we no longer struggle
with trying to enter society… we are concerned with our exit, both from
work and life…but we don’t have concerns with accidental or
artificial concerns… our questions on those matters have been answered
a long time ago…perhaps we might struggle with basic needs like
food or housing or medicine but that is a basic human struggle…

but what is next for the young and the old is different…
because we are at different stages in our life…the what next is different…
and that is based on time and biology… two aspects of existence
we cannot change… and they are not accidental or artificial…

so what happens after our basic biological needs are met?

and that is the question of philosophy…

Kropotkin

so there I was tonight, at this fund raising event in Palo Alto…
and I was at the table that my brother in law and sister in law
paid for… next to me sat down some woman… and of course,
she started talking to me… I hate that shit… I am of the “leave
me the hell alone” school of thought… anyway, she asked me
what my hobbies or what I did off work hours and I made the mistake
of telling her the truth… I told her that I study philosophy
and have for years and I am working my way through the
history of philosophy and right now, I am in the enlightenment
and in particular, David Hume… she didn’t seem to be too
scared…so I went on…after a bit, she commented on
IQ45 and his ongoing disaster and the problem with America
was income inequality and the loss of the middle class…
so far, nothing that out of the ordinary… except I found
out where she lived and trust me, the bathrooms in this
area are 2 million bucks… she was some high tech big wig…
I don’t know high tech or the players in it, so I didn’t know who she was…
and we have a lot of companies with some serious money around this area
that go unnoticed… anyway, I couldn’t have added anything to her
understanding of the economic issues facing us… and as we talked,
I pointed out that it was capitalism that has created the issues of
income inequality and the loss of the middle class… she made the argument
that I could have made, but she ran away from the logical conclusion that
the argument made, which is capitalism is the problem… she basically stopped
talking to me and spent the rest of the night talking to everyone else… no big
loss… just that she understood the problems but she wouldn’t have anything to
do with the cause of the problem which is the ism’s and ideology of capitalism…
that capitalism which gave her the multimillion dollar house she lived in…
so she wanted it both ways… she express an interest and understanding of the
underlining problems which plague America but had no interest in
dealing with the cause of the problems…

the solution for her wasn’t dealing with the cause of the problem,
it was going to charity events like the one we were at and giving
money to band aid the situation… but not deal with the cause of
the problem…just salve her conscience with a donation of money
…to ease her conscience… about her complicity in the cause of the
problem… which is capitalism…

before she stopped talking to me, I did say that one of the
reasons we were in the problems we were was because
of the industrial revolution and I tried to explain that…
I don’t think she understood that aspect… I tried to lay out
the damage of the industrial revolution, damage that was
not only environmental but emotional and psychological…
and that we haven’t come to terms with that damage…
she was a post-modern person who believed that the
industrial revolution is long gone and dead and not even
worth talking about…it has no bearing on the modern world…
and she is wrong…it is one of the major creators of the modern
world and we haven’t come to grips with that… and that is
the role of philosophy… to come to terms with values
and actions…

Kropotkin

when we look around, what do we see?

you might ask, what am I looking for?

and therein lies the answer… what exactly are you looking for…
if you are looking for the meaning of life or are you looking for god
or are you looking for nature or are you looking for human values like
anger or love or hope or charity? you have to get specific on what exactly
you are looking for to actually find it…

I am looking at human society… and what I see is 5 different
components…you have the economic, the political, the social
and the philosophical and the historical… now you could have broken that up into
about a 100 ways and still not enough ways to touch the possibilities
that exist in human society…

we have the political…you see that every day with a policeman
or when you IQ45 lie about how government actually works…

you have the economic… money and the institutions
like corporations that deal with money…

you have the social… and by that we mean, how do people interact
and what songs are on the radio and what movies we watch
and what is hot… mostly our social interactions…

and this historical means how our institutions and ism’s and religions
flow from past to present and then into the future…

and we have the philosophical…these are the ones who create
theories and try to understand the underlying principles
that we have and we live by… even if we don’t see them…

do these categories exist in isolation from each other?
no, of course not… they bleed into each other all the time…
the political and the social and the economic and the historical flow into and out
of each other all the time…as does the philosophic…

now, lets us think about someone like Marx… in which category
does he belong? well, if you think about it, he belongs in a couple
of different categories, the social, the historical, the political,
the philosophical, the economic and that is the beauty of Marx…

we tend to see each category as an isolated aspect, separated from each other
when in reality they ebb and flow into each other all the time…

Marx saw this and tried to account for each category in his theory…
remember he was making a response to what he saw in
the society around him…and his response had a historical context
and a political context and social context and a economic context
and a philosophical context…

but he still broke out the categories… believing that the economic
category was the basic underlying theory of humans movement through
time…it was the substructure of human society… that is his words, not mine…
I believed he laid to much emphasis on the economic but given his historical
times, it was to be expected…

but we must rightly understand the historical, the political,
the social, the economic and the philosophical…

but we must start with remembering our prior examples
of how we see good and evil being two separate and distinct
categories and if we look at good and evil long enough, we
begin to see that they are two sides of the same coin
and if we look even longer we will see that good and evil
are the same thing… depending on where you stand when
looking at good and evil… the viewpoint decides if something
is good or evil or both or neither…if I stand on a religious
viewpoint, then say Christianity, then what is good and evil becomes
clear… if I stand from an atheist standpoint, it becomes hard
to decide what is good or what is evil… if I stand in the
political standpoint, evil becomes what damages
the society and good is what improves the society…
so our understanding of good and evil lies upon what
viewpoint we take when looking at good and evil…

and we see that even what seems like two distinct and separate
idea’s become one…

and we now understand how we must approach our artificial
categories… for our understanding of the political and the economic
and the social and the historical and the philosophical begins
with our starting point… or our viewpoint…
once we begin to understand that the political and the economic
and the historical and the social and the philosophical are all artificial
categories and in reality, they can’t be separated into nice, neat,
categories… instead of 5 categories, we really have just one
category… the human being…and once we realize that even
the human being cannot be a single category, but is part of a larger
category we refer to as life… we can reduce everything into
one category… just like good and evil become one category…

and that is the goal… to understand not the bits and pieces of
human existence, but to understand human existence as a complete
whole… to call the human being not as a category like the political
or the historical, but to call the categories as being part of the human
existence… not separate categories, but one category… the human existence…

and the political and the historical and the social and the economic
and the philosophical as part of the human existence, not as separate
categories… but as one category…thus Marx exists for us as
a creator of a model of human society… and we can become creators
of another model of human society or another or another…
human society is not fixed but evolves and changes and adapts…
and our theories of humans must evolve and change and adapt
and in having fixed, set theories of humans, we cannot then
evolve or change or adapt… our theories of who we are must
change and adapt to the ongoing aspects of human existence which
we have falsely broken out as parts of human existence we call
the political and the social and the economic and the historical
and the philosophical…they are all part of the human experience
and they can be turned into one category of knowledge…
the knowledge of who we are and what is possible for us…

there is only one real, true category and that is life…
and any attempt by us to create isolated and separate
categories of life fails to properly understand
what is really happening…we, life and us…
are the same…and every theory we have is just
isolating and separating out smaller parts of life…

there is but one category and that is called life…

Kropotkin

let us look at modern society… our current and present situation…

we have massive income inequality… in which the top 1%, roughly 500 people
owning more wealth then half the world… combined…

we have war that has dragged on in Iraq and Afghanstan that has
lasted longer then any other war in American history and a war
that has drained not millions or billions but TRILLIONS of dollars
away from American taxpayers…

We as an society have engaged in decisions that is not only reckless but
dangerous…We spend more on military budget in one year then the next 12 countries
put together spend in one years… Our medical care system is wildly out of control…
the numbers are staggering… we spend more money on medical care then the next
10 countries put together… and that is after Obamacare has improved the system…
one medical emergency and a family is at serious risk of being force into
serious economic danger… with the risk of losing one’s home to bankruptcy
and all kinds of risk like being force to spends one’s retirement fund to avoid
these catastrophes…

and yet there seems to be no understanding or awareness of
the dangers we face because of our choices and decisions…

you might claim that these items are distinct and separate
with no connections but as I have stated over and over again,
there is no such thing as a distinct and separate elements…

the choices we have made lie along political and social and
economic basis…we have politically chosen to
perpetuate dangers to ourselves because of…

and that is just another brick in the wall…

why? why would we make choices that incur such risk as continuing
a war that so drain us that it creates a danger… don’t think so?
I would suggest that a study of Athenian history in regards to
it continuing a war that so drain Athens that it destroyed Athens…
and we follow that exact same path… those who don’t know history
are doomed to repeat it as we are repeating history in this regards…

why would we make such choices as to having massive welfare to the rich
by massive tax cuts to them and nothing to the 310 million other people?

this income inequality is a very real risk to America and we don’t even
see it… so tell me, what good does it do to have such a massive income
inequality? such income inequality doesn’t help anybody, but the 1%,
and it endangers the rest of us for reasons I shall make clear in a moment…

it is claimed that such income transfer from the middle class and the working poor
to the wealthy will somehow create jobs… a lie that has been disproven again
and again and again… look at the massive tax transfer of wealthy during the
Bush Jr. years and what was the result of that? were jobs created?
did the country have a massive boom in the economy? no and no and in fact,
the country at the end of the Bush Jr. years suffer such a meltdown that
was the worst economic crisis since the great depression… so welfare to
the rich didn’t help the economy and it almost cause the complete economic
meltdown of the American society…so what is your proof that
welfare for the rich actually works? it doesn’t and the evidence is quite
clear in recent economic history… in the fact, that after every national
tax cut, the jobs market didn’t rise because of the tax cuts… other facts played
a role, but not the tax cuts…

and yet people engage in such dangerous thinking… let us carry this even further…
what do the wealthy do with their tax cuts? do they invest in the economy as
claimed? no, that much is obvious because there is no economic growth
created by such a tax cut… the wealthy simply put their tax cuts into ’
overseas tax havens like Bermuda and Luxembourg…or they buy another house
which doesn’t aid or improve the economy…

what really happens with the wealth of those 1% is that they sit in banks
and overseas tax havens and in houses that do not move…
and that is the problem with this economically… for money
to have value it must move… money must act as a fertilizer
for it to have value… if money sits somewhere, it has no value,
no way to improve people’s lives…and the wealthy simply hang
on to their wealth which damages the rest of us…

but that is just one aspect of this… after the break, we shall
further look at this…

Kropotkin

If I may venture my 2 cents worth:

The world entering its techno phase is a more profound change then the industrial revolution. People , workers are morphing into commodities, the quantum short term gains are overturning reliable long ones, as people grasp at maximising and securing more and more, so as to be able to keep their stake.

This maximization is predicated on only keeping what one has, and the offspring need to understand this, but they rarely do, they waste, presuming there is no end to the maximized pleasures which is their life. They earned it, whether it be based on selfinduced hype, or by the impressive societal rewards which are always at hand.

Poor little rich girl Barbara Hutton of Woolworth fame, was devastated at the end when she found her coffers empty, not understanding her plight as a result of the most lavish spending spree, perhaps even exceeding that of poor beheaded Marie Antoniette of France.

They can’t be blamed for their short sightedness, it was a trap created long before this awful stage was created for them, its human nature in all its glory and defilement.

Face book czar has been blessed as well being in the right place (Harvard) and the right time, ( a politically undisturbed inheritance), whereas other venturers were not so lucky.

All this is nothing new, irrespective of the historical demarcation: its a genetic endowment, condoned by the Delivered Himself, who said: ’ They,(the rich) will be always with us’, & ’ the poor are the salt of the party’s

One revolution after another could not change human nature, but because the advent of quantum analysis of economic/political reality, panic abounds rather vainglorious ly.

ok, we have followed just one aspect of the economic… the massive
income inequality that exists in America today and the economic
danger it poses… but it also poses political and historical and social
danger to every single person in America…

the fact is as I said, that money value lies in being the medium of
the economic growth of America… America has only so much money…
and if that money is locked up in the hands of 500 people in such
things as overseas tax havens and in houses, then how can the rest
of us gain wealth? the very fact that so much money is tied up
and out of touch causes us danger… we have only so much money
we have access to and that money is the fertilizer that
creates wealth and jobs…so the more money ties up with
the wealthy, the less for us to grow America…

this is not only an economic issue but a political issue
and a social issue… socially it is an issue because
we as a country have made economics such a prioity
in our political and economic and social life…
anything that damages the economic damages
America at large and this is because of the choices
and decisions we have made…a country that is economic
trouble as we are, is a country that socially becomes
discontented and unhappy… we are an unhappy people,
we are a discontented people because we are not where
we want to be and that is because of the massive
income inequality due to the great amount of wealth that
is unavailable to us for us to achieve what we need to achieve
both personally and collectivly…

you want a stronger, more alive, a restored America?
then you want to end or lessen the income inequality that exists
in america and that takes political will…

but we face severe opposition because of people’s faith in
the ism of capitalism… in other words, we face ruin because
people cannot escape the myths and habits and prejudices
and superstitions of their youth…they believe in the myth
of capitalism to the point of damaging America with the possibility
of destroying America… but that is less important then keeping
and maintaining their myths and habits and prejudices and superstition
of capitalism… they would rather have America fail then disturb or
challenge their myths and habits of capitalism…

now some might claim, as they usually claim when their faith is challenged,
that I hate America…not at all, in fact, I appreciate and understand
America far more then these haters… I am holding firm to the
underlying values that makes America, America… which means this…

as a philosopher, I don’t work with facts unless they support or oppose
values… for it is values that philosophers work with…
what values are worth having and what values are not…
what values are worth living for and worth dying for?

if modern America is not holding values that truly are worth
living for, worth dying for, what is the point of being an American?

so, I attack the current political and economic and social
conditions that exist today in America in hopes of creating
a country that hold values that is worth our lives and
our support and is worth dying for… I am willing to dump
our current system of the political and economic… to create
a country that holds values that is worth living for and worth
dying for and today, in our America… we don’t hold values
that is worth living for and worth dying for…

our values, our current values are of the lower base of human
nature… we hold values of greed and anger and hate and
intolerance… those aren’t values worth living for or worth
dying for…those values of ignorance are values of IQ45 and
his followers… and I don’t and won’t support values that are
the base animal values… I support values of hope and justice
and love and tolerance because those are the values worth
living for and worth dying for…

and it is this understanding of values that I critique America today…and
I attack capitalism and attack the buying and selling of America and its
politicians and I attack the lower values that currently rule America today…

if we hold to the lower values of hate and fear and anger and lust and
greed and all the other lower values, this is not a America worth living
for, worth dying for…

we must hold our values to make a country great… it isn’t a country
that make values great, it is the values of the country that make it great…

so this is how we connect the political and the economic and the social
and the historical and the philosophical… by understanding the values
that a country hold in terms of… in regards to its political and economic
and social and historical and philosophical…instead of thinking about
our GDP, Gross domestic products… think of the values that we want
to create and then, and then think about our GDP… decide on our values
we wish to proclaim and act upon and then create our actions that
we need to achieve, to achieve those values…

values before actions… because the values decided upon should
create the actions we must take… the values determine the actions,
not the actions deciding the values as we have it now…

what values are important? justice is one such important value
and so with the value of justice in mind, we can create actions, laws
that accept and promote the value of justice… and what is justice?
equality before the law…equality is the value of justice…
so without equality, we cannot have justice and so we must act
and create laws that promote equality…by holding to the values,
we can create the laws and actions needed to hold to those values…

and that is the problem with America today, it acts without any regards
to the values those actions either uphold or deny…

we hold to actions that promote a phony and false and dangerous
course…

and example of this… the justification of torture in America…
we allow torture to, allegedly, protect us… to keep us safe…
so we have the value of security and it is the wrong value in this
time and place…we must hold to justice and equality and freedom
before safety and security… and thus we must deny and forbid
torture and those who promote torture… the act of torture
damages us far more then the protection and safety and security
we may or may not have by the act of torture… torture
has never been shown to or proven to protect us or make us
more secure or have an increase in the security of our daily lives…

but, but justice and equality and freedom do increase the safety
and security and does protect us far more then actions like torture…

the values of justice and equality and freedom protect us far
more then the values of security and safety…

the values should decide the actions… and the values
we should be answering to are justice and equality and freedom…
and the values we should be leery of are the values of
instincts and the values of the lower human values like
security and safety…and hate and anger and greed
and fear… and security and safety are all about fear and hate values,
the instinctual values… values we have in common with the animals…
and we must reject those lower values of the animals…

we must hold to and honor the human values we have… hope,
love, charity, peace, justice, equality…

so what values do you hold and why?

Kropotkin

Again I intrude, if my comments can be characterized as such: but if it is so, just pass on one word and will cease, but not decist.

Values are commensurate with money, explicitly so, here in this land of ultra capital.

How can the poor acquire more? I bet the Malaysian, the Phillippino, and other very much more impoverished, crave the internet images of the poorest of the poor here, in the U.S., and would give up every value imaginable to get the same.

The world is becoming smaller, more understood, and the old barriers, boundaries are breaking down. That is why the new world order, its getting harder to keep them out. They will nuke you to get to you, to what you have. The external barbarian is pushing too hard. That’s why all the cost expanded on defense.

Defense of the rich supposedly puts up an umbrella against the trickle down possibility of nuclear waste material. Could the average American, or even the poorest of the poor understand and produce a defense against a wholesale invasion of the least fortunate in this world?

What other political production could curtail the envy of the world, for it is that from our point of view. But is the very essence of existence be labeled envy and coveting your neighbor’s goods?

When Your child plays in the vermin infested mud puddle of far eastern playgrounds, when their only nourishment consists in good bits thrown away, and I’m talking half the population here, not indigenous and disabled social outcasts, would a head of State such as North Vietnam’s flutter at the thought a basic fear of recolonization, or ethnic subjugation? No. We’ve been fed the same lie too long, that our wonderful, hectic life of rushing to anxiety ridden lives is preferable to the impoverished quietude of the East, which is truly a prefabricated lie.

Is not a metaanalysis worth a look, preferable to a rush to judgement, on a system laboring to solve methodically, political/social/psychologically, wherein does not appear to be any post historical, post ideologically human solution?

K: and the revolution I proclaim is not the change human nature… I want to become who
we are and those values, the human nature is the values of love and hope and charity
and hope and peace… I am not interested in changing human nature… I am interested
in putting emphasis on a different set of human values… not on the instincts of
animals which are values like hate and anger and greed and lust…

but on human values above animal instinct… not to change human nature but
to evolve and grow and adapt values that make us better human beings…

I have no interest in changing human nature, to values of the animals…
simply to hold to the higher values of being human…

the next point is that human beings have been treated as commodities
for over a century… Marx commented on it in the 1850’s… the point is
to return human being back into human beings with value and not as
a means to an end, a commodity, but with a greater value then
the current modern value which is money/profits…

I can’t speak to the next age…as I will be long dead when it strikes…
I can only speak to the last age and the current age…and we must, if
we want to survive as a people, as a culture and as a species, we must
begin to value people over money and profits… if we don’t, we will end
this current system of ism and ideologies very badly… with wars
and depressions and resources being so scarce as to leading to wars…
see the third world as it begins to fall under the pressure of
having reduced or no resources in which to take care of their people…
water, food, shelter… all resources that the 3rd world don’t have
and causing severe political and social and economic upheaval
there… we the industrial world will be next and in fact,
we are starting to see the effects of the reduction of resources
in the discontentment of the people in the industrial world…
it will only get worse… unless, unless we hold to values that
make the acquisition of material goods as being dangerous…
as they are… capitalism with its necessity for the acquisition of
raw material to make into goods to be sold as the primary
goal of a society… whereas it is not nor should it be, the
primary goal of a society, a culture, or a species…

we have allowed our attachment to a failed ism like
capitalism to threaten our civilization and threaten our
society and threaten our species…

what values should we hold to and act upon is the question…

values that make human beings a commodity is a wrong
value and one that must be discarded in place of values
that put the primacy on not just humans, but on life itself…

we must, must if we are to survive change our values, not
our human nature, but the values that support our survival like
the values of love and peace and hope and charity and justice
and the maintaining of life…

it is not human nature I attack but the current values of hate
and greed and lust and anger… remove those values and
we become a stronger people, a stronger nation and have a
far better chance of keeping the human species alive and
growing…

Kropotkin

Yes . Only, how , how to do it, that is the trillion dollar question.

How can You change values without changing human nature?

Peter, I don’t expect an answer to this , because maybe there is none. Could I elicit some solutions, because I feel exactly the same, but as regards to what my mind feeds me, if seems all but hopeless.

allow me some time as I must go to the store for lunch and dinner…
back in a bit…

Kropotkin

K: ok, back from the store and my buffalo wings in the oven and my
hot peppers all ready to go in my sauce…

anyway, the point about values is they are not dependent upon human nature…
they are simply choices… we choose our values if we properly understand them…
to make this clear… you have heard of the man who when killing his wife claims
to be temporarily insane… he claimed that he was so enraged, so under the control
of his emotions that he had no choice… we see this all the time when we see
people out of control with anger and hate and greed and lust… they are
under the control of the lower, instinctual emotions… like animals,
they cannot do anything but the instinct whatever that instinct is, be
it anger or be it lust or be it hate, or be it greed…they cannot control
their lower instincts and thus become temporarily insane…

they didn’t choose their values… the lower, instinctual values of
hate and anger and greed and lust choose them, controlled them…

I am talking about values we choose regardless of our human nature…
we don’t become possessed by values to the point of not being able
to control ourselves when we choose peace or freedom or love or
justice… the higher emotions, the human values that give our
lives meaning…you have never heard anyone say, they were temporarily
insane when they marched for peace or marched for justice or they
promoted love as the primary value of human existence…

you don’t need to become depress or sad when thinking about making
choices that are about love or happiness or peace… the
values I am talking about our the values that we can choose as
human beings or as americans or as part of life…that is the point…
we can choose our values that we want to follow whereas
if we cannot choose our values, then we are under the control
of the values of hate and anger and fear… we are under the instincts
to the point of being insane… and we, I don’t choose that…
it doesn’t matter what our “human nature” is if we make choices
that promote life and love and peace and justice and equality…

the point is we have choices… we just need to make the right choice…
something I tell my daughter every single time she goes out for the night…
make the right choices… and as I hope she makes the right choices…
I hope you make the right choices and any who read this, to make the right
choices and the right choices are the choices that aren’t instinctual choices,
choices that control us… no, make the choices that we control like
love and life and peace and hope and justice…

Kropotkin