let us build this from ground up…
we are life… we are part of life that has existed for over
a billion years…and we have over the billion years evolved
into our current shape and form…genetically, we are related
to cows and dogs and apes and cats and fruit fly’s among other
life…we human beings must do animal things because we
have no choice… we must eat and we must sleep
and we must shit and we must all the things that
life has done for the last billion years because we
came from that life… and after human beings die, life
will go on in some fashion and some other life will take
our place… personally I’m betting on cats… but that is just me…
now, as stated, science deals with facts and philosophy deals
with values…facts such as I am 5 foot 8 and brown hair…
those facts don’t tell us anything about who I am… those facts just
describe me and those facts means I am one of about a billion people
who fit those facts… with each fact, we can narrow down the specific human
being… as I relay facts, with each fact you get closer and closer to
who I am…but once again those facts don’t tell you WHO I am…
am I a nice person or a mean person or a kind person or a smart person or
a “low IQ” person…what really turns me into a human is not facts like
I wear size 8 shoes but the values I accept as values worth following…
so when I mention I study philosophy, I get the question, what is the meaning
of life…and I am never quite sure how to answer that…until today, today I am
ready to answer that…it is not about human facts that I have two legs
and two arms and ten fingers… no, what makes me human are the values
I have… it is the values we have that gives life meaning…
Nietzsche questioned, often, values and made a rather big point
about how we must have a reevaluation of values…
and he also said…
it is not enough to have the courage of our beliefs,
we must have the courage for an attack upon our beliefs…
beliefs here means values… for an attack upon our values.…
I have laid out the idea that we are born into a society which
has myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions…
those myths and habits etc… are often values…
that have been passed down from generation to generation, blindly passed down…
it is believed that holding values that make god the central point of
being human is the “true” path…for example, the boy scout oath…
“On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to god and my country and to
obey the scout law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself
physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight”
the very first value offered is duty to god… and this oath is passed down
from generation to generation… I said it myself when I was a boy scout…
this myth, habit, prejudice and superstition is in line with what I am saying
about how we promote values often times without even thinking about it…
the question of philosophy is to answer the basic question…
what values should we hold and what values should we discard…
and why? why should we obey this value but not that value…
and it is in values that we find our meaning of life… for values
are what give our life meaning…not the instinctual “values” that
are passed down from generation of life to generation of life on down
to today…instinctual values like hate and greed and lust and anger…
values over which can take over us… recall our man who claimed
temporary insanity because he was struck with an anger so great
he couldn’t control it… a rage so great as to be uncontrollable…
that is instinctual because we cannot control it… just as animals
cannot control their instincts…and we cannot find the meaning of
life in values that we cannot even control…instinctual values cannot
be the meaning of life because we cannot control those instincts…
to have a meaning of life, we must have some control over it…
that eliminates god also… because we have no control over god…
and those believers think that is a good thing…but if we have no
control, then they become like instinctual values… values we react to
but they can cause temporary insanity because they takes us beyond
our control…
we see this all the time… the religious zealots who kill and torture
in the name of god… regardless of the god’s name… it doesn’t matter…
if you are so possessed by a religious feeling that you must act upon
it in without choice, you have an instinctual value problem…
so what myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions should we
hold? none… we should examine every single myth and habit
and prejudice and superstition to see if they hold values that aren’t
instinctual…because if we hold values that are instinctual,
they pose the risk of causing a person to go out of control they
cannot control themselves… they become temporarily insane…
we cannot hold to or commit to values that can cause us
to become temporarily insane…values that are instinctual…
this is another example of Nietzsche’s reevaluation of values… he wrote about…
to examine the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions we
were raised with and discover what values we still engage with, that
are instinctual values, values from childhood that we still hold onto
and values that can cause us to become temporarily insane…
and in daily living, we can see values that do cause people to become
temporarily insane… hate and anger and greed and lust are among the
values that we have seen cause this temporary insanity…
or said another way, did the man who bombed the café have hate in his
heart or love, which values was he following when he bombed the café
or shot up a musical festival or attacked a school?
this is just one brick in the wall…
we shall see others as we move along…
Kropotkin