to return to the problem of the “modern” age…….
I see the “Modern” age as being different then the other ages,
not necessarily better or worse, just different……
the industrial age and the ensuing technological age
has created a different understanding of the universe then
prior ages… the ancient world and the medieval world had
different paradigms, different realities, different goals and agendas…
we see very essential matters like time differently…
a complaint of the Greeks and Romans was that when two
parties agreed to meet, that each party had a different sense
of what time they were going to meet and quite often
it led one party or another to wait a considerable time for
the other party to arrive… they didn’t have clocks as we
have them and so, meeting at 10:00 am as we would meet was
really not possible…the time they fixed was really just
rough guess… what does it mean to meet mid-morning?
we have clocks and so for us, it is easy to arrange a very
specific time to meet… for them, not quite so easy…
this one example is just one point how we differ from the
ancient and middle ages…………….
we are human but our individual circumstances
dictate how we see the universe and reality……
existing in the “modern” age determines that we see
reality and the universe differently then someone from
the ancient world or the medieval world……
just that fact alone, of when we exist, determines how
we interpret the world……………
the tools of man also determine how we understand the world……
for example, if the only tools you have is a hammer, then you
see the world as being one where a hammer pounding something
down is how you see the world… whereas if you have a nail or
a computer or a wheel makes how you see the world differently…
if we can only transport ourselves via a horse or a wagon changes
how we see the world as oppose to if we transport ourselves via
cars, trains, airplanes or spaceships……. the very means of
transportation changes how we see the world… the technological
aspects of the world changes how we see the world………
if I live in a house changes my perception of the world as does
my living in a cave or a yurt, changes my perception of the world…
we are still human beings but because of our different technologies
and means of living, we have different understandings of the universe
and reality…………… how we live changes how we understand…….
so as an American living in 2018 changes my understanding of the world then
a person living in a tribe in China understands the world……………
so when I speak of values, it is really speaking of values
that exists in modern America in 2018………
but, but values that have value in modern America 2018,
can have value in modern China because values do have
the ability to leap over technology and science and politics…
for example, we can speak of love as a universal value because
because it can exists independently of the external operations
of the world… in other words, love is not about technology or
time or the political or social or economic goings on in the world…
love isn’t about those things and can exist in or out of those things……
love is independent of external matters…….values are independent
of external matters like time or space or the political or economic
or social goings on in the world…………. we can have love in
any form of government or any form of social or economic system…
that is the value of “values” they exists independently of the external
world but they are influenced by the external world… how we think
of say, Justice, is impacted by the external events of our world, our reality…
thus, IQ45 attack upon basic human equality/justice changes our
perception of what justice/equality is……… values don’t exist completely
independently of our world
WAIT A MINUTE… WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE…… you said two
completely different things in the space of three paragraphs…
first values are independently of our reality and then
you said values are impacted by the world… you can’t have it both ways,
…………ah, a contradiction…I am not afraid of
contradictions because I believe the truth, any truth, is
found within a contradiction………
Kropotkin, you aren’t making any sense……… but I am making sense
if, if you aren’t married to or have your understanding of the world
written in stone………………… this is a Zen moment………
the questions and answers of the “Modern” age is found in the contradictions of
the “Modern” age……… and we are full of contradictions in our
current understanding of the universe, of our reality…………
Kropotkin