a new understanding of today, time and space.

from Descartes, we see the image of man moving
from a man as being subject to god…to becoming
a machine… for Descartes does treat man as a machine…
and then Newton came along and the universe seemed to be a machine
and to be a “natural” part of the universe meant to follow the universe
which is a machine, so we must be machines…it is being a part of the
universe that is machine with man must being a machine…
and that was the understanding in the 17 and 18 century…
man as machine… then in the 19 century, people actually
understood what that meant and that understanding cause
a great deal of anguish…the Romantics of the 19 century
suddenly discovered what it was to actually be a machine…
they felt horror… and discussed this in books like
“Frankenstein” in which man can be created like a
machine…

the anguish of a writer like Kierkegaard can now be understood…
we are not machines… we are human beings and this means…

Nietzsche wrote about morality… what does morality look
like when it isn’t defined or created by god…
what does a man made morality look like?
what values are important when we no longer
have god to create values for us…
but Nietzsche wrote as a man living in the midst
of the industrial revolution…the devaluation
of man was the theme of the 19 and 20the century…
and Nietzsche wanted to save human beings from being
devalued because of the industrial revolution…
this is why he was so concerned with values…
what values are important in a modern world that
automatically devalues anything that is not values of the machine…

does a good man have value in our modern world that only values
time, as time is money… or so goes the saying… so we have
another formula… energy is matter… time is money…
we can say that matter is energy and money is time and still be correct…

and we discover that in our formula of time is money…
the values of a human being is not admitted…
for a human being is nether time or money and thus
is not in the equation…and thus devalued…

and after this devaluation of the human being comes the 20th century…
and its great wars and the Holocaust and the dropping of the atomic bombs…
think they are isolated and separate the two… this devaluation and the events
of the 20th century? this is why we must discover what is the value of the human
being…otherwise, we shall have more nihilism and despair and the alienation
that exists today… it is because we don’t have any value in the modern world
when we have the human values of love and peace and hope and charity and justice
and equality… those values don’t have any meaning in a world that has
accepted only the value of profits… which is our formula of time = money…

if you don’t have anguish about our modern times… you just
don’t understand what is at stake… you are alienated
and you don’t even know it… such a sad state of affairs…
when we human beings are devalued and denied and alienated
and we think it is the “modern” condition…and perfectly normal…

Kropotkin

one of the problems of the world is the fact that
the battle of the values that begin with the American
revolution and the French revolution and was still running
in the battles between workers and owners until the first world war,
is still going on… workers have been marginalized and denied
and devalued are still fighting the battles fought during
the years after the Napoleonic wars…a war that has lasted
for almost 200 years between workers and owners… a war
that still exist… even if owners have the upper hand, for now…

the drive for nationalism and Americanism and profits
are really attempts to get people to forget how they
have been denied and devalued and marginalized…
if you are proud of being an American doesn’t that trump
being a worker? why just be a worker when you can be an
American… an empty gesture to be sure…when the real fault
line exists in the economics of worker and producer and owner
and the pursuit of profits which is nihilism…

this is the real meaning of the drive for nationalism…
to get workers to forget they are nothing more then
commodities to be used and abandon when it is convenient…
to be a worker is to be a means to an end and that end is profits…
so the worker is disposable… and has been for almost
200 years… and we are still fighting that battle…

and until there is a finish to that battle, we shall not
achieve anything… until the war is won or lost by
the workers…

Kropotkin

if you want proof of the war between the owners
and the workers… you need not go any further then
the current war on public education…by denying education
to it workers, it is hoped that the workers will become
docile and willing to die for the pursuit of profits
for their masters……

education is seen as the enemy of the state because if one
becomes educated then you will come to see the inequality
and injustice of the modern state… being a slave to the
modern state means having no education… a return to the formula
of the middle ages… having an uneducated populace in which
the owners of the state can dictate the terms of who you are
and what is possible…the battle over education is part
and parcel of the war on the workers…

become educated and you become part of the revolution against
the owners and their devaluing of the human being into a commodity,
a means to the end… which is profits no matter what the cost to the
human being’s soul or his body…

Kropotkin

to become educated: what does that actually mean?

our idea of being educated is where one has a job skill…
something to make a living… a skill to have a career…
that is our modern definition of being educated…

but that is not being educated… that is being trained to
have a job skill…

to be educated is something more then just a job skill
its a means to become wise… a way to gain wisdom…
a method to follow that allows one to be able to
pursue an understanding of the world and an understanding
of who we are and what are our possibilities…

one of our basics failure (among many) is our failure
to educate… we make a basic, wrong assumption about
education… we teach education as a means to get a job
but not as a means to understand the truth or even
to look at our basic assumptions…

because of our failure to educate, we have uneducated people
who just have job skills but no wisdom or understanding…
and the corporations want this… because it is just another
means to teach us how to be workers… in school being on
time and showing up is very important… just like work…
the basic skill of following directions… very important…
in both work and school… not questioning authority,
very important in both…schooling today is just about training
children to become workers in our modern society…

and this has directly lead to the election of IQ45…
because a whole class of people have been “educated” to
have simple working skills and to obey… the values of this “education”
are negative values…this education is not just in schools but in the values
taught by society in the media and in beliefs in the culture…

this training, the education we receive are the myths, habits,
prejudices and superstitions that are passed down from generation
to generation… that is passed off as “education”… the schooling
we receive just passes on the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
of the prior generation… we are not to question them… that is part of
the training we get to obey…the training we get, the education we get
is connected to create a certain type of human being… the media reinforces
the educational system and the educational system reinforces the media
and the culture’s message reinforces both and both media and educational
system reinforces the cultural message… and the message is the same from
all… to become something and that something means to have a job or a
career and to become a good consumer… to be wealthy is the highest goal
achievable… not to be wise or to question, but to pursue money/profits…
this goal that is driven by the message of media and education we teach, reinforces
the corporate goal which is the pursuit of money/profits is the highest
and only goal worth achieving…

so this is the point of modern education… the pursuit of wealth is the objective
of life… and we have multiple sources of information that reinforces this message…
schooling, media, culture, government… all work very hard to make sure
this is the education, the message we get about who we are and what
are our possibilities… we are consumers and our only possibility is
to work to be able to consume… that is the myth and habit and
prejudice and superstition of modern education and modern life…

Kropotkin

I am at present reading “Fire and light” by James Macgregor Burns…
and I came across these paragraphs…

…“nothing can be more evident to us, than our existence,” Locke wrote, nothing
more beyond doubt, no foundation firmer for knowledge and action.

The implication of this for politics was staggering- it tore up deeply
rooted assumptions. Now the individual was, as historian Anthony Arblaster
wrote, more " ‘real’ or fundamental than human society" with “a higher moral value”
Society existed to serve man, not men society. the individual, not king or prelate,
was the central factor-the cause of society’s existence… to explain this, thinkers
as diverse and even opposed as Hobbes and Rousseau deployed the social contract,
a fiction that pictured society as an amalgam of individuals, created wholly by
their mutual consent.

But Hobbes and others had written that men were not by nature social
creatures, not like bees and ants, and they entered into the social contract
only reluctantly, to protect their supreme value -their lives- by escaping
nature’s anarchy, the Hobbesian war “of every man against every man”
In doing so, though they agreed to sacrifice only a portion of their
autonomy, as much as was necessary to secure their lives…"

these couple of paragraphs lead us to a couple of points…

first of all, man is by nature a social creature… perhaps not
like the ant or the bee, but nevertheless “MAN” is a social creature…
and I believe given the choice, human beings would agree to making
this so called “fictional” social contract, real…the benefits of society
is evident to all but the most ignorant…

the next point is this, is society an “amalgam of Individual”
isolated and solitary from everyone else? no, as I have clearly pointed
out, we exist in systems, many, many systems… and we are not and cannot be
be isolated and solitary in the midst of all these systems…

the third point is this, we “sacrifice a portion of our autonomy
as much a necessary to secure their lives”

but and this is important… we sacrifices our autonomy not just
to secure our lives… that is that limited vision of government
that only exists to ensure our security and safety… I reject this
notion that government only exists to ensure our security…
the government is an active participant in the creation of its
citizens…the government by its actions helps create its citizens…
the government is another system in which we belong to… and
we engage with and it engages with us…

how much engagement is an ongoing political and philosophical
problem that has been in question since Plato… what is the “proper”
role of the individual within the government…and what is the
“proper” role of the government in the lives of the individual?

Reagan famously said that, “the government is the problem”
the liberal believes that this engagement is more
of a partnership between government and the individual…

it is not just about the individual…it is about the relationship
between the individual and the government… and that
is the question…

Kropotkin

for me, people, individuals are like water…
and society is the container…so if the container is
square, then any water poured into the container
will take the shape of a square…the container
forces the water to take a certain shape because
of the shape of the container… that container is
society/government… and we are the water…
and the shape of society/government forces us
to take a certain shape…we are bound by the shape
of the containers that exist around us, like society,
like the government, schooling, culture…
they define the shape that is possible for us…

our mission is to discover that we are like water
and we can take whatever shape we want… we don’t have
to take the shape of the square, that is government,
we can take another shape…

I don’t necessarily want to be free of the containers as much
as I want to be a participant in the creation of the containers
that will shape the next generation… in the creation of
the society and culture and media and government and ideologies
that help shape the next generation… those containers
exists as part of the systems I write about and I want to be
co-creator of those systems and those containers…

Kropotkin

ok, let us try this…

we are born… think of us as water…
we are taught the biases and myths and habits, prejudices and ism’s and ideologies,
superstitions of that society, that culture… those biases and myths and ism’s
and habits and prejudices become the containers which hold us…we
are pored into those containers of myths and bias and habit and ism’s…
as water is pored into a cup…then that container becomes the limits
of our knowledge…so the reason we need to brake free of our biases
and myths and habits, as the enlightenment wants us to brake free,
is then we can create our own containers, we can become the creators
of our own thoughts and understandings and feelings about ourselves
and our world… we create the containers that contain us, not
society and not the culture…

to become who you are means you must break the ism’s and myths
and habits and bias and prejudices that are the container around you…
you must shatter that container around you…then pour the water that
is you into a new container of your own creation…

so we return to the Zen understanding…

before Zen, the mountains were stable, not moving,
the sea is quiet, calm, peaceful…
the river is in its banks, flowing downstream, softly…

this is us before we break the containers that hold the myths
and superstitions and habits and ism’s that society pour us into…

during Zen, the mountains are dancing and unstable…
the sea is restless and agitated, mercurial…
the river has overflowed it banks and rushing everywhere…

after Zen, the mountains have once again become stable, fixed,
stationary…
and the sea has become a calm mirror of the sky…
and the river has returned to its bank…and quietly flows down the banks.
peacefully and softly…

after Zen, we have broken the containers that we have been poured
into and now the water that is us, is back in containers of our own
making…we see things differently… our viewpoints have changed…
and we have grown into new people, not physically, but with new
viewpoints of who we are and what are our possibilities and with
new ism’s and ideologies… viewpoints we couldn’t have dreamed of before
our conversion…I have gone through this Zen moment… and it changes everything…
it is almost, ahhhh rebirth, almost…this Zen moment can take an instant
or it can take years to finally become…think of the caterpillar turning into
a butterfly… while the caterpillar is in its cocoon, that is during Zen …
and the before and after becomes clear…

Kropotkin

That’s what a philosopher is supposed to do to grow up and mature, psychologically and existentially.

Anybody else notice he uses a bunch of references out of Bruce Lee’s book?

This comment above was entirely contradicted and negated cause you first mentioned it was and I quote

So what I understand from this is that religion teaches you shut off any type of guilt you may have in you just by simply redeeming yourself yeah? You may have resolved your own metal landscape, yet not the prior situations right? Redemption is only the moral state of mind telling you what was right and wrong all along. Yet if religion can teach you to turn on and off like that you’re more an easily swayed human soul yourself. First off fooling yourself isn’t fooling reality and all of it’s actual proofs. I see it like this, that which you are really after and care most about, that which you wish you can really pay reverence towards, is in that same way dire straights mentally. Abusing dilemmas with interpretation of your own choice and quick to criticize those around for it. Listen learn to break away from both Religion and State it’s not healthy I can clearly see this.

K: I would change one word in your sentence and that word is philosopher…
I would change that word to “person”… that is what a person is suppose to do…

Kropotkin

K: oh, I am 59 years old… way to old be a rebel… I am simply charting a path…
if that path seems to be radical or being a “rebel”… that is you, not me…

Kropotkin

K: who exactly are you referring to, Dan or myself?

Kropotkin

K: I have read this several times and frankly, I don’t understand what you are trying to get at…
perhaps you could clarify this for me…

Kropotkin

I spent some time yesterday engage in a thought experiment…

ok, we have certain goals and destinations we human have valued…

being happy, finding wisdom, becoming one with god, gaining wealth,
having fame, among some goals humans have tried for…
and I suspect that those goals are the results of the containers
that we have around us, like ism’s and ideologies and myths
and habits and superstitions…so, my thought experiment was this,
can I go outside of my containers, that which I am bound by,
and think of other goals and destinations?

or is being human itself with its limitations, the container itself
and limits what our possible goals and destination might be?

I can only think of so many goals because as a human being, I
am limited to think of a limited number of goals… my human nature
itself limits what goals I can achieve… and think of…

what is the possible reaches of the human possibility? how far
can we reach being human? what is our farther reaches of what
is possible, of being human?

in other words, can we by our own actions, be able to fly?
or is it possible to achieve what we refer to as “superhuman”
ability? and the answer is yes… I think…

is it possible we can somehow teach ourselves to have superhuman
abilities like flying and moving matter and run super fast…
after some thought, I believe it is… but that means what must
happen is we must devote all our time and effort to this task…

but it is possible…so what other possiblities we might have for
the human being? to communcate with each other over vast distances
without any mechanical means like a radio or phone…this is possible…

the point is, what is our possibilities? what is possible for human beings
to achieve? we don’t know until we try… and that is really our next step…
to try to achieve what seems to be impossible… but then 200 years ago,
aircraft and cars and cell phones and microwaves and trips to the moon,
all seem to be impossible and yet today, they are so commonplace, we don’t even notice
it anymore…

so, dare the impossible … so today, reach to discover what is your possibilities…

Kropotkin

in thinking about this, I have an interesting point,
but lack time to really think this out, so I am going
to hit the high points and later when work is not so pressing,
I shall flesh this out into something coherent…

an idea of leadership, we have two types of leadership.
one type is called transformational leadership and the other
type is transactional leadership…

what I am thinking is this, perhaps, perhaps we can
remove the word leadership and say, we have two types
of actions and/or two types of behavior or two types of looking
at the world and drop the word leadership…

I think that people can fall into two different types of actions
or behavior… one is transactional and the other is transformational…

so we have to understand what is considered transactional and what
is transformational…

from my friends at wiki…

"Transactional leadership: is a style of leadership that focuses on supervision,
organization, and performance; transactional leadership is a style of leadership in which
leaders promote the compliance by followers through both rewards and punishment…
Unlike transformational leaders, those using the transactional approach are not looking
to change the future, they look to keep things the same. Leaders using transactional leadership
as a model pay attention to followers work in order to find faults and deviations…

This type of leadership is effective in crisis and emergency situations, as well
as for projects that need to be carried out in a specific way…"

Looking at this definition, it screams out people who follow the GOP
and their mind set…it is the GOP and those who believe in the same,
they follow this transactional approach to leadership and to people…

so let us remove the leadership aspect and approach it from a behavior
and as a model of action for people…for one person who act or behaves,
this is one model for people to behave… transactional behavior…
it isn’t about changes, it is about keeping things the same… and the
need to find fault in an attempt to maintain the status quo…sound like
republican actions and behavior to me…

again wiki:
“Transformational leadership, this is a style where a leader
works with subordinates to identify needed change, creating a vision to guide
the change through inspiration, executing the change in tandem with committed
members of a group. Transformational leadership serves to enhance the motivation,
morale and job performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms: these
include connecting the follower’s sense of identity and self to a project and to the
collective identity of the organization; being a role model for followers in order
to inspire them and to raise their interest in the project; challenging followers to
take greater ownership for their work, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses
of followers, allowing the leader to align followers with tasks that enhance their
performance.”

once again, remove the idea of leadership and take this as a standard or model
of action or behavior… and we see this is as a working definition of left wing,
liberal actions or behavior… the collective working together for a common goal
which is not given by the leader but decided within the group… that practically
is the formula of a liberal…to challenge and inspire… isn’t that what Obama did?
and isn’t that what MLK did? we see these not as leadership styles but
as individual and collective ideas as to how we are to operate in the world
and achieve our goals… not by rewards or punishments but by challenging
followers to achieve goals that make them better…if that isn’t liberal,
I don’t know what is…

conservative behavior is about transactional behavior and liberal behavior
is about transformational behavior…

transactional behavior is about maintaining the status quo
transformational behavior is about creating change…

that is in a nutshell the difference between conservative
and liberal…

transactional behavior is about the lower level instinctual
behavior… the lower level instincts like hate, anger,
violence, greed, envy,

transformational behavior is about the higher level thoughts…
love and peace and hope and justice and equality and charity…

Caesar is transactional and Jesus is transformational…

this is very interesting but I am running out of time
and must get going to get ready for work…

dammmmm

Kropotkin

to encourage change is transformational…
any attempt to better oneself or to better the environment around
one is transformational…

to maintain status quo is transactional…
to think in terms of rewards and punishment is transactional…

the biblical ten commandments are transactional…
thou shall not… or one will be punished…

heaven and hell are transactional…
to achieve them one must act in a correct manner…
that is pleasing to god…

so on which side to you fall on…
transactional or transformational…

Kropotkin

You had need to be the one to be clarifying such beliefs bud.

after a couple of ugly days of work, I’m baaaack…

when last seen, I was advocating a new understanding of
our actions, our way of doing things…

transactional vs transformational…

usually they are described as leadership styles but, but I believe they
can be used to understand a new way of thinking about our
beliefs and actions in regard to this transactional and transformational
thinking…

we exist in a multiple number of systems… from our own little personal
system to great, large almost unseen systems that connect us from ourselves
to distant galaxies…and the question is, what is our place in this large scheme
of things? our place, as it were is really different for everyone because
we each of us, exists in a different place in regards to each other and the
multitude of different systems we all exist in…

even in a small system like husband and wife… my wife and I exist
in different places in our system because we are in different places…
we have different viewpoints and even by virtue of being male and female,
we are in different places and with different viewpoints in regards to
how we see our little system…it is far easier to see one’s
place in a system if the system is small or not very complicated…

so, we must understand how our actions affect the various systems
we each belong to and our actions can be transactional or transformational…

and to understand our actions in regards to a system and transactional or
transformational actions or behavior… we must begin to understand
the system we exist in…take my own little personal relationship or
system with my wife… if we engage in transactional behavior with each
other, for example, we work at the basic level of needs satisfaction,
we focus on the lower levels of the needs hierarchy… we simple take
care of our lower level needs of food, water, shelter, clothing, education…
our relationship cannot grow or become something different if we all we
do is focus on established routines and procedures and our reward for
simple emphasizing settings of goals and the efficiency of our operation
and increase of productivity…in other words, if we act corporate in
our relationship with each other…we establish goals and try to maximize
efficiency… a relationship is far more then just trying to be efficient…
or reaching goals…you have to look at the system and then understand the
the actions or behavior needed… if we based our relationship on simple
meeting goals or established routines and the efficiency of those routines,
our marriage would have ended a long time ago… it would have died of boredom…
and complacency…a marriage is not just about the goals and efficiency of our
marriage, but about the motivation and sense of identity and our self worth
and taking ownership of who we are and what we are trying to achieve…
a marriage is more then the nuts and bolts of achieving some goal…
I have my strengths and she has her strengths and we are stronger together
then individually because her strengths are my weaknesses and my strengths are
her weaknesses…every single system has it goals and efficiency… but what
we are trying to do with a system is not just reach goals and become more efficient,
but to go beyond that… to create a vision of who we might be within
that system…we might make achieving greatness as a goal within a
system… but if the goal is simply to increase efficiency of established
routines and procedures and become more concerned with following the
existing rules… then we are just doing nothing more then just existing…
why not strive to become something more then just reaching some modest
goal or to become more efficient… why not become something more?
that is transformational thinking… what would it take to achieve something
more then just increasing efficiency and following procedures…
and it is not just about me, but about all of us…
it is not enough to reach some modest goal and call it a day…

part of the failure of America today has been its attempt to just
become more efficient and just following the rules and established
procedures… we must rise above these mundane goals and
strive to become something greater…

it is not enough to just achieve the goal of basic survival…
to only be concerned with reaching the basic goals of the lower level
of survival like eating and water and clothing and shelter…
we must strive to achieve something beyond just the basic
level of survival…there is more then enough money and resources
to achieve that basic level of having enough food and water and resources
for everyone on planet earth… but the vast extra money and resources
are going to the 1%… instead of going to all the people… remember, 500
people have the same wealth as half the planet, 3.5 billion people…
dream big and use that extra money that those 500 people have
and use that for the basic necessities of those 3.5 billion people…
we have the resources to take care of the planet and all its people…
we don’t because we are following some outdated and dangerous
ism’s and ideologies…all of this is connected…
transactional and transformational actions and behavior
and our current situation… if we understood
that we can change our current situation if we think beyond
the transactional thinking that is current in America today
and begin to think transformational and begin to think of how
we can change who we are and who we can become and create
the society we need, not the society we have… to become
the people we can be… only if we escape our thinking, will this
be possible…if we think within the box, we will simple continue
as is… if we think outside of the box and engage, we can become
something more…

so what will it be?

the past or the future?

Kropotkin