a new understanding of today, time and space.

How do we know ourselves?

We compare and contrast ourselves to other people, things,
places and animals…………

Think of yourself… Think of you as a lone, solitary creature
all alone in the universe. There is nothing else. How would you know
yourself if you are the only thing in the universe? How would
you understand yourself without something to compare or contrast
yourself with? To understand yourself as an being who communicates,
how would you know this without anyone else to communicate with?
You cannot know if you are smart or funny or wise or even tall without
something to compare yourself with. It is by other things, be it people,
things like chairs or walls or idea’s like freedom that we understand
who we are. You are not an isolated being. You are connected within
a entire universe around you. We humans seem to be big until
we compare ourselves with elephants or the universe itself. It is
this comparison that allows us to begin the process of understanding
who and what and why we are…….Even something like death must
be compared to something for it to be understood…

So you want to understand yourself? What would you compare yourself
to? If I compare myself with an ant, I look pretty dam good and if I
compare myself with Gandhi, not so good. So it is in comparison
that we see what values are the values worth having and worth
living for and dying for? So who should I compare myself with?
Should I compare myself with someone like Newton or Einstein
or perhaps Spinoza or Socrates or Gandhi or Martin Luther King?

Yes, I should compare myself with the higher, more accomplished
members of the human race. To compare myself with higher, more
accomplished members of the human race means I am comparing myself
to someone who has accomplished something or has raised themselves
to a “higher” level then I have reached…… I must to reach their level of
achievement or accomplishment, raise my energy level. To reach
someone lower in the achievement or accomplishment level, I just
need to be lazy and unmotivated. It is about the energy expended
that allows me to reach higher or no energy expended to reach lower.

I can also use society, the polis to compare and contrast myself
with, I can use the society at large to compare myself with.
For example, IQ45 and his followers, those who believe in intolerance
and bigotry and hatred and violence and greed, I can compare and
contrast myself with them and find myself in opposition to them
and their beliefs. Why? Because of the values I hold are not
intolerant or bigoted or full of hatred or violence or of greed.

“I hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”

The values I hold, that I can compare with others, are values which
are about toleration and non-violence and of love. for I can compare
those values against other people and see the value of those values…

Compare for example, Hitler’s value against the values of Jesus.

I find the values of Jesus to be of more societal value, whereas
the values of Hitler are destructive and lower the energy
put back into society. Look at Hitler Germany and look at the
result of Jesus. See the negative energy of Hitler and the
positive energy of Jesus. And I can compare and contrast those
values with values I have or want to hold or should hold.

It is this comparing and contrasting that allows us to
orientate ourselves in the world and the universe.

What does it mean to be human? I can simply compare
and contrast what it means to be a dog or a rock
or another person and I can begin to see what it means
to be human.

And the values we have, I can do the same thing with values.
Compare and contrast the values I have with the values of others
and see which values become important and which values become less
important. compare and contrast……. this is one way to become
who you are…

Kropotkin

In thinking about existentialism, one of the main idea’s behind
existentialism is this notion of bad faith, self deception.
We see this self deception all the time, both publicly
and privately and we see bad faith all the time both publicly
and privately. The idea of self deception is fairly obvious but
the notion of bad faith seems to require some description.

From wiki: “Bad faith is a philosophical concept utilized by existentialist
philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre to describe the
phenomenon in which human beings, under pressure from social forces,
adapt false values and disown their innate freedom, hence acting
inauthentically”

We see this phenomenon all the time. When in a group of people and
people go around the room to ask everyone, do you believe in god?
Most people will answer, yes, I believe in god, just to fit into the group
or to be part of the group. It takes courage to answer no in such a group
situation. We have adapted the belief in god to fit into a situation.
We act falsely if we don’t believe in god and say we do believe in god
to fit into some social situation.

This act of self deception occurs all the time. We see IQ45 proclaiming
himself “a great president” and that is an act of self deception.
We see IQ45 saying he knows more about the military then
actual military types like Generals and West Point grads.
He knows these things without any actual study of military
tactics or goals or procedures. That is another form of
self deception. Thinking we are something that we are not.
Thinking that I am brave or smart or courageous when I am not,
any of these things is an act of self deception.

We engage in self deception and bad faith all the time.
One, self deception is an attempt too either to make
oneself feel better about oneself or to hide something
from you own heart. Bad fait is an attempt to hide something
from others, to deceive others.

Self deception and bad faith are
attempts to deceive, either yourself or others.

So the question becomes, why is this understanding about
self deception and bad faith so important?

Why does it matter that we engage in self deception or in bad faith?

Kropotkin

Now in my last post, I asked, why, why does it matter that
we engage in self deception and/or bad faith?

It matters because the acts of self deceptions has, in part,
created the age of Nihilism that we live in today.

To engage in the self deception/bad faith of our modern lives is to engage
in and be part of the Nihilism that we see all around us.
Nihilism is the negation of human beings and their values.
To engage in self deception and/or bad faith is the negation of
human beings and their values. to engage in self deception is to
negate the true values or our true understanding of who we are.

I am a valuable member of society due to the fact that I exist,
as a human being, I have value. But if we engage in this self deception/
bad faith of capitalism, then we participate in the negation of human
beings and their values. Our bad faith in regards to ism’s such as
capitalism and democracy has the effect of negating who I am
and my values, as capitalism is only about one value and one value
only, profits/money… All other values are negated as being against
“capitalistic” values, being against the pursuit of profits/money.

It is this self deception/bad faith that allows capitalism to grow
and flourish in our modern age. We have been deceived and we
self deceive when we believe and act upon the ideal that
we have three inalienable rights, upon which is “life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness”.

It is this idea of the pursuit of happiness that leads us to engage
in and participate in self deception and bad faith. We should be
happy and so we engage in self deception as to why we are or more
likely, not happy. This idea of bad faith which is the act of deceiving
others is part of this notion of happiness. If we were really honest with
ourselves or with others, then we could admit the truth. Few of us, if
any, are truly happy. And part of the reason is the acts of self deception
and bad faith that we engage in.

Happiness, true happiness can only occur when we have come to an
understanding of who we truly are and then act appropriately.
If we want to be happy, we must become who we are.
this self deception and bad faith is also a result of
our failure to know thyself and to overcome and to become.
To engage in our knowing ourselves, as Socrates said,
we must engage in honesty and not self deception.
to engage in overcoming what are the childhood indoctrinations,
which are nothing more then an engagement with self deception and
bad faith. and to overcome those childhood bad faith also leads us
to becoming who we are and that is only possible when we no longer
engage in self deception and bad faith.

to overcome this age of Nihilism means we each, individually and collectively
must engage in honesty with ourselves and each other. We can no longer
afford our self deception and bad faith because to hold self deception and
bad faith as our models is to threaten the stability of our society, our system.

We Americans in engaging in our acts of self deception and bad faith has
endangered the foundations of our society. As dishonesty and lying always
endanger and threaten the foundations of any system, be it the family system
or be it the political system, or the economic system or the cultural system.

You want to “Make America Great” then we must begin with the ending
of the self deception and bad faith that so dominates our society
today. We must remove the president as the leader of the dishonest
and self deception and bad faith movement in America and the world.

His self deceptions/bad faith and our bad faith threaten our society and our very existence.

But it doesn’t begin there, it begins with us. Engage in an honest understanding
of who we are and what is possible and do so without any self deception or
bad faith. See yourself without any self deception or bad faith. Just know,
that such insight will bring about our moment of Zen where everything
is toss around, the mountains are dancing and mobile and the sea has the
waves crashing and violent and in an uproar and the river has overflowed it banks.
To engage in an honest understanding of oneself can bring about
great personal turmoil, but, but it is the only way to become who you are.

Kropotkin

A recitation of the 20th century would include the horrors
of the two World Wars and the Holocaust as given by one
name, Auschwitz. We have the Great Depression and the long
lasting cold war and we have Hiroshima……… and the question
must be asked, Where was god?

Now some might say, that the horrors of the 20th century occurred because
we didn’t listen to god, but I say unto you, the 20 century came about because
we did listen to god. Religion has always been about us vs them. You have
the believers and you have the non-believers. But isn’t Auschwitz a monument
of believers who acted against non-believers and wasn’t the two World Wars fought
between two rival factions of believers. It isn’t any one ism or ideology or
faith that created the schism that has consumed the 20th century.
It is the us vs them idea that has created the massive death toll of the last
century.

It is the faith inherent in the believers that cause all that death and all that
destruction. And the evil of our times, it is about us vs them. To tear children
away from their parents is evil by every standard and yet it is condoned because
the believers believe and victims are always easy to find when one is a believer.

Us vs them……………

all the evil in the world has come about because of the, us vs them, understanding
of the world. If you are not us, you are the enemy. You are object of hatred
and persecution and violence… why, because you are not us…………

So much hate and violence because people see only two possible
outcomes, us……. them……….those are the choices. what a small and
narrow way to see the world… If I am not us, I am outside of the pale.
if I am not us, I am suspected and demonized and terrorized… even if I look
like you and sound like you and behave like you, I am not part of us and thus
I am the enemy and treated with violence and hatred and anger.

The point of toleration is to eliminate this narrow viewpoint of, us vs them.

If I engage in toleration, I no longer see people in such narrow and violent
terms of, us vs them. I see people as people and people the world over
look like me and act like me and talk like me. We both want to love and be loved,
and we both want respect and honor and an opportunity, a chance to become
something and that is true the world over…….

but if I engage in the age old game of, us vs them, I summarily dismiss
you, I engage in violence against you and all because I have classified
you as being different, them. If I am tolerant, everybody becomes us.
There are no outsiders and no one to be violent against and no one to hate.
but some of us are really comfortable with our hate and anger and greed and lust
and to change would mean we would have to no longer see the world as, us vs them.

and change is hard and a whole lot of scary. but who is brave enough, courageous
enough to see beyond the old failed classification of, us vs them. Who is willing
to be human enough to accept all, to look beyond our minimal difference and
see the vast similarities that is the human race. How can I truly dismiss anyone
because they have the accidental trait of birth, color, race, speech, disability or
gender. Am I so wise as to proclaim myself the arbiter of what is right and normal
in human beings? NO, no I am not so beyond everyone else that I can proclaim
what is us and what is them.

Auschwitz and Hiroshima and the long cold war all demand an answer from us.
the question is simple, must we continue with our understanding of the world
as simply nothing more then, us vs them? Or, or do we engage in the process
of expanding our idea of a human being as to be everyone, not just, us vs them.

the truth of the matter is, we cannot as human being begin our process to
become something more until we begin to understand human beings as us.
there is not such thing as them. and once we learn this, we can become who we are.

us.

Kropotkin

I guess what I am asking for is a radical new understanding of
what it means to be human. We must see who we are with
new eyes and a new vision. The old vision, the old understanding
has failed. We see this with the immense problems that we face.
If the old understanding had succeeded, then we wouldn’t have
so many problems. It is the sheer number and extent of the problems,
that tells us that we must engage in a search for a new direction,
a new vision of what it means to be human. If you think, hay, its
all good because I am well off, then you are engaging in both
self deception and bad faith. Any true understanding of
our current situation cannot just be about how I am doing personally.
It must included the overall situation that humans find themselves in
and that overall situation as of right now, is bad and IQ45 policies
and welfare for the wealthy tax cuts is making a bad situation
worse, much, much worse.

this is why it is so important to not engage in self deception and
bad faith because it leads us to make choices based upon
our self deception and bad faith instead of where our choices
should be made, with an honest and open mind to where we are
and what needs to be done. Self deception and bad faith undermines
the search for the answers we need to find our path because
self deception and bad faith gives us a skewered
understanding of those issues we are facing.

Because we are engaging in self deception, we cannot really see the problems
and solutions that exist in any type of realistic manner. Our self deception
and bad faith doesn’t allow us to accurately understand, either the problems or
the solutions to those problems.

How can one or a collective solve a problem that they don’t properly understand?

You can’t. In America right now, our problems are so great and been created
by our system of economics and the political, that a tweak or simple tweaking
the system will not be enough. We must have a massive, radical overhaul of
the economic and political system if we are going to solve our massive problems
created by the nihilism which is the basis of our economic and political systems.

We cannot allow some fake understanding of '“traditions”, which is another form
of self deception, to prevent us from engaging in actions that are necessary
to ensure our safety as a state, nation and even species. The current
isms and ideologies have driven us into a corner and no amount
of tweaking will save us from this corner of nihilism and destruction that
faces us………

In other words, the classic definition of insanity is to do the same thing
over and over again and expecting different results. We are doing the
same thing over and over again, from electing the same corrupt politicians
to office hoping that this time, this time that they might actually do the
right thing, which is remove the money from politics but they can’t because
that is what drives politicians, their goal is the nihilism of money, to
doing something new by engaging in changing the system that has
created the massive problems we have right now. We cannot do the same
thing over and over again expecting different results. WE cannot expect
to tweak our way out of this mess. We must make radical changes if we
expect to survive into the next century.

Now one might say, Kropotkin, you are wrong…… but as usual,
those who claim I am wrong won’t or can’t provide us with any new
solutions to our problems/issues because they want to engage in
the same old solutions, the trying the exact same solutions that
haven’t worked in the past and that will not work. The doing the
exact same thing over and over and over again, all the while expecting
different results. That is insanity.

How do we begin? by engaging in the understanding of the self deceptions
and bad faith that drives us today. The quest for tomorrow will be different
once we have solve the problem of self deception and bad faith. How do we solve it?

By becoming honest with who we are and what is our current political, economic
and social situation we find ourselves in. Become aware and end the
self deceptions and bad faith that drives you.

Save the world, one soul at a time and the first soul to save is you………

Kropotkin

Bad faith: let us recall our prior definition of bad faith…

Bad faith is a philosophical concept utilized by existentialist
de Beauvoir and Sartre to describe the phenomenon in which human
being under pressure from social forces, adapt false values and disown
their innate freedom hence acting inauthentically.

This description revolves around the idea of “adapt false values”.
Now how would we understand this idea of “false values”?
What are the “false values” that we shouldn’t be adapting to avoid
being in “bad faith”?

As you might recall, I suggested that we are, all of us, are indoctrinated
with values, imposed upon us by the family, state, church, media,
culture…If one continues to hold these values without any examination
of their usefullness which is really just their ability to increase the
amount of energy in a system or improve the system in some fashion.
It is in a systems understanding that values have any use or value.

To hold a value indoctrinated into you without any examination of
that values use to one who has engaged in the process of knowing thyself means
if you have engaged in knowing thyself and if because of social forces, you
still hold to those values indocrtrinated into you even if you own values
have changed because of this process of knowing thyself, then you are
guilty of holding bad faith. The values we hold must, must be values we
have engaged with in our understanding in the process of knowing thyself,
overcoming and becoming who you are. An example of this might be the
young man who after engaging in his process of knowing thyself and discovers
himself to be holding values of love, peace, charity and his family has raised that
young man to follow the family business which is being a soldier, the military.
What if the young decides in his conflict of values between his personal values
of love and peace and the family values of war and violence, what if he decides
under social forces to hold “false values” of war and violence even though his
real values are of peace and love… that young man is engage in “bad faith”.
The false values in this case are the values of his family which is violence
and militaristic and not his personal values of love and peace. That is an example
of “false values” values held by others who with the use of social engagement
force one to adapt their values instead of a person engaging with their own
values. to hold any values that haven’t been “approved” of by the person during
their process of knowing thyself, is false values. Only values we act upon and
approve of are “true values”. I say I believe in god because the group or society
or the nation hold these values and I hold these values to gain their approval
is me practicing bad faith. Anytime I approve of values that are held by others
is me engaging in bad faith…… so in dating a women, and she asks,
do you believe in…… and I say yes to get her to bed or to gain her hand in
marriage is me engaging in bad faith. If I don’t believe in those values
and I still give my approval to gain something, that is acting in bad faith.

So this idea of bad faith is all around us… the Politician who says one thing
to get elected but act upon other values is acting in bad faith because
he is not engaged in his values, acting upon his values and he is not being honest
with what his real values are, that is bad faith. We see this all the time.
We see people saying and acting in a homophobic manner and yet engages
in homosexual activities is acting in bad faith.

We now see that we engage in bad faith with ourselves and others
all the time. Part of the challenge of becoming human is to overcome
our bad faith and become who we are by becoming the values we
believe in and engage with. Becoming who you are simply means you
are in synch with your values and you know your values and you act upon
and say those values without any interference from any social forces like
family, church, state, culture, media…………

But all of this is predicated upon one simple thing, that we engage in
the act of knowing thyself…… We must engage in the process of understanding
who we are and what are our real values are. That is the beginning of this process
of finally becoming who you are…….

Kropotkin

The justification of our beliefs can be as simple as
my family believes it, my god believes it, my country believes it,
my wife and/or children believe it… or we can turn to tradition
to justify any number of beliefs, the bible says so, Aristotle says so,
Newton says so, it has always been this way…

We can also use simple faith to justify a belief,
I believe in god… I don’t need evident or proof of any kind,
I simple believe… faith can be used to justify beliefs.

The use of this type of justification of authority or faith or because someone
else believes it, is really just another form of bad faith. This question of
bad faith haunts us… follows us into the days and nights that follow, but,
but what if you aren’t haunted by the daily acts of bad faith committed
by both yourself and others? If you are not bothered by bad faith,
why not? ask yourself, why not?

Kropotkin

This question of self deception surrounds every
aspect of our lives. We try to deceive ourselves about
every aspect of our lives. From birth to death.
We try to deceive ourselves with by our engagement or lack
therein of life. We try to deceive ourselves with our attempts to
hide from ourselves with such tactics as our materialism and our
refusal to publicly discuss such taboo matters as death, suicide,
sacrifice, the reason for our existence both individually and collectively.

We won’t embrace one of the major things that happen to all living things
and that is death. I will die. You will die. Simple as that and no amount
hiding as we so well hide, will change that fact. Why won’t we talk about it.
In part, we don’t talk about it because people get anxious about death.
I say good, a little anxiety won’t kill you… a little anxiety/death humor,
you gotta love it. Anyway, the fact still remains, why won’t you talk about death?

Does it make you uncomfortable, good, does it make your mate uncomfortable, good,
we should be talking about things that make us uncomfortable, anxious, because
we are uncomfortable with them and we should actually become comfortable with
talking about taboo subjects like death and the why of life. However we don’t
have to discuss these matters in terms of religion which is another taboo subject.

Death is a matter of fact topic because it will happen to each and everyone of us.
Denial is not a river in Egypt, you cannot deny your way out of dying. It will happen
as surely as puberty and old age. You cannot avoid it or escape it. One day the sun will
rise and I won’t be around to see it. As I am an atheist, I don’t have heaven or hell,
immortality or the sin of guilt to see me on my way. I die. the end.
I have no afterlife to comfort me and I see that as a good thing. Because
it helps me not take life for granted. We should be focused on this life, not
the next because there is no guarantee as to there being a next life but as long
as you’re alive, that there is a here and now. Death is a way of focusing one
on the moment, this very current moment. You are alive, reading this.
That counts for something, counts for something very important. You exists.
You have choices, options to act which is freedom. You can take off all your clothes
and run around the block for that is part of your options, part of your freedom.
As I can barely run anymore, I won’t be opting to run around the block naked,
beside the town’s police station is the next block over from where I live.
Once you are dead, you no longer have the naked option or any other option
available to you. You are dead… your options, your choices have ended.
To embrace death as Christians have is to embrace nihilism, for what is
nihilism? The negation of human beings and their values… and what is death?
a negation of human beings. Death is nihilism. and our modern age
embraces nihilism as its premier ideology. Our pursuit of profits/money
is nihilism as the pursuit of profits/money is a negation of human beings
and their values. Our public budgets are moral documents and it is
clear from our public documents that we embrace the concept of
our society being martial, being militaristic. A huge chunk of our federal
budget is devoted to defense and security. That is a an application of
our values to our public budget. We put money into that we value
and we don’t value old people or young people or health care or
nature or art or women or minorities… we put our values into our budget
and that budget supports our nihilistic values, our martial values,
our militaristic values. People claim this is a Christian nation and
yet we don’t support those values within our budget. We support
militaristic values which are anti-Christian, as least according to Jesus.
Jesus said to love one another and every aircraft carrier we build
goes against what Jesus said.

We have abandon Jesus with our actions, now let us finish the task
and abandon him with our words. We must engage in discussion about
death, not in terms of a religious context, but in the natural light
of the fact we are all going to die and what does that mean?

Occasionally, just occasionally, I wonder how I am going to die?
Will it be quick or slow and how? Am I going to be hit by a bus
or just die a natural death of old age. I am not anxious when I
think these things, I am just wondering. It is in the same vein of
when am I going to retire, at this point never, anyway, where will
we live, what will my life be like once I finally retire? Questions about
death fit into the same category as these questions and they don’t cause
anxiety or make me anxious… I am just thinking about the future.

I am 59 and death for me is far closer then age 30. I wonder, is
death just like falling asleep…

“To sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death
what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
must give us pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life”

I ask the question, what happens when I die… and I don’t feel anxiety
or fear in asking that question, I am just wondering.

Kropotkin

in wondering, I ask myself, given a choice between
death and immortality, what would I choose?

I would choose death………… and you?
what would you choose?

Kropotkin

I am sentence to death. We all are. This is a statement of fact.
I am “sentence” This is a fact, a biological, unescapable, inevitable
certainty fact of life that I am “sentence” to death. I will die.
so if I commit a crime and I am “sentence” to death, it becomes
a question of not if I will die, but a question of when. I should be
allowed to then, if “sentence” to die from a crime, to be able to
choose my own method of death. I can choose to partake in Hemlock
if I choose to, and why? I am “sentence”. So I can still have the choice
of method. I can leave this life with a sense of dignity. But one might argue,
a “sentence” of death by the state must involve no choice, it leaves up
to the state as to the method. If I commit suicide in prison and “escape”
the hangman noose, I am accuse of “escaping punishment” and yet the end
result is exactly the same. What does it matter if I kill myself or that I swing
at the end of the noose? How does that matter? It comes down to the
how and means, not the if, for I am already “sentence” to death.

so what does it matter if I choose to end my life on my own terms as in
death with some sort of dignity. I am still going to die. We are left with
the how and means. Personally, I have many years left of life but no matter
how many years that is, the end will be the same, no matter what I do.

Committing suicide is considered a crime and yet, yet I will still die.
How is the when, a crime? I am free and in my freedom, I can choose
to determine my when, my time to fulfill the “sentence” that all
humans are faced with. Christian morality has taken away my freedom
to exercise my freedom to “when” my sentence will be carried out.
Why should religion determine to when I decide to carry out my “sentence”?

For our laws are based upon religious constraints and not upon
the basis of our freedom. I am free to act but my actions need not
be a crime if I exercise my right to decide my “when”.

And this becomes the point… my actions to commit suicide is
considered a crime, but why? Religious concerns only.

My “sentence” will be fulfilled no matter what the state says or does,
the only question becomes “when”. And since when, does time become
a crime?

Kropotkin

How was your attitude toward life determined? By
childhood indoctrinations and how is your attitude
toward death determined? By cultural considerations,
which is to say, indoctrinations. The same forces that
create our attitude toward life, the same myths, prejudices,
isms, ideologies, habits, superstitions, biases that form your
childhood indoctrinations also create your attitude toward death.

And for most people in America, those biases are religous biases
and myths and so we think about and understand death by
those superstions, religous superstitions.

And how do we overcome our childhood indoctrinations?
By knowing thyself and by overcoming and by becoming who you are…
and the same is true about our childhood indoctrinations about death.
We must first know thyself and then we can overcome and then
we can become who we are by becoming those values we
have discover to be us, truly us. And the same for our values about
death… We must overcome our values, our understanding about death
and reevaluate what death means to us and what are its “values”.

We cannot allow, let our childhood indoctrinations decide what our
understanding of death is…………How do we overcome our values of death?

First of all, we expose our values and understandings into the light.
we speak about and wonder about such things that have been hidden for
far too long, life and death and what it all means?

Then we begin to wonder what death means to us, what values
do we have about death? How are we to face death?
That experience we shall all, one day, experience.

What does that mean to you?

What does death mean to our culture, our state, our systems?

What does death mean both individually and collectively?

Kropotkin

But Kropotkin, why are you being so morbid?
Why are you thinking of death? are you suicidal or have cancer?
Only “sick” people think of death.

I am 59 and have no illness of any kind and I don’t intend, at least not until
my facilities become impaired, to kill myself.

So why death? Because death is an experience all humans/living things must
go through. What are the only guarantee’s in life? Death and taxes. Old joke…

Anyway, how are we going to face death? With denial, treating it like a taboo?

Death must be faced as it is one of the fundamental experiences of life.
To live is to die.

And so how can we approach death? Possibly with the Kantian-Kropotkin
questions… What can we know? What should we do? What ought we hope for?
What values do we need? should we expend energy on it? I can’t remember the other
Kropotkin questions. Anyway, what can we know about death? not much. What
should we do (about death), what ought we hope for, about death?
What values should we approach death with? Should we expend energy on death?

We must approach death with the same questions we approach life with, for
death is an essential experience of life.

So what do we hope for, what ought we hope for in death?

For some, death is a second chance, in death we shall receive the
justice we should have gotten in life. “The meek shall inherit the earth”.

For some, heaven is a place where we eternally contemplate god, but this
goal shows how deeply Greek philosophy infiltrated the Christian religion
for this eternal contemplation is what the Greeks philosophers thought
was the goal of life.

For in the answer the question, what is the goal of life, lies the
answer to the question of how we approach death. Because the Christian
thinks/feels that this life is preparation for the next life. This life is a test
for the next life and that makes this life far less important. All eyes, all actions
are shaped for entry into the next life and not about this life. Thus the Christian
negates this life in favor of the next life. This Christian form of nihilism has
has shaped our understanding of life for the last 2000 years. For Christianity
has been carried into all 4 corners of the earth and thus has affected/infected
all the earth.

We have been infected with the Christian viewpoint that makes life
less important then death and the eternal contemplation of god, that
we cannot, at least in the west, escape that viewpoint. It is a part of
the childhood indoctrinations, the myths, habits, prejudices, biases,
superstitions that we must come to understand in our quest to know
ourselves and then we must overcome those indoctrinations
and then we can discover our true values and when we act
upon our true values, not our childhood indoctrinations, then
we have become who we are… not until then……

As I am an atheist, I have, at least I am aware of my childhood
indoctrinations, but I have become aware of them… but most
people due to their childhood indoctrinations, pay lip service to
Christians values which are an attempt to get to heaven, as heaven is the
goal, not life as lived…people offer up lip service but have no
real commitment to Christian values. People just say they are
Christians without any attempt to be Christians. Social forces
require people to proclaim allegiance to the Christian religion, but
few if any actually practice what they preach and this bad faith is, in
part, what is wrong with America. We practice bad faith as official policy.

to begin the philosophical process of becoming who we are, we
must first become aware and then we must overcome, then and only
then can we, as a people, as a country, become who we are…………

As death is tied up into religious attitude, we must engage
with death in a religious manner, at least at first…

Kropotkin

I have ask this question before but with a different focus,
today I ask, what is worth living for AND what is worth dying for?

And the dying for is the part I wonder about.

What values are worth dying for? For many, values worth dying
for are faith, country and love. I would gladly sacrifice myself if it
would save my family and that is love of family. Would I sacrifice myself
for country? For me, that become dicey because I believe that the notion
of country is an artificial one. The very concept of a “Nation” is a false
one because boundaries are simply lines in the sand waiting to be written
and rewritten with every passing tide. We don’t have fixed demarcations in
science or philosophy or between the boundaries between countries.
we pretend that the lines between countries are forever and they are not.
The boundaries between say, France and Germany has been
written and rewritten hundreds of times and I suspect they will
get rewritten a lot more times over the years to come.
So for me, national considerations are less important then
the natural affiliation humans have for each other and the
affiliation life has for life. When we see a human being,
we shouldn’t see a American or a black person or a Jew or
a disable person or a women or a tall person. We should just
see a human being, nothing more and nothing else. It is
upon that basis that we should form a more perfect union,
that we are human beings and we have inalienable rights
because we are human beings and that extends to all life…

We are part of the big picture we call life and all life has inalienable
rights because it is life. Life has the right to be itself. Life has the
right to engage in those things that evolution has sown into our soul
and our blood and our DNA. The lion that attacks the deer is simply
following its genetic code, its DNA and we should, despite our
feelings toward the cute deer, we should allow the lion to
follow its genetic coding. We too are coded and we too must
follow our genetic coding, but because we are human beings,
we can overcome our genetic coding and become who we are……

which is discovering which values are worth dying for?

and we come to the last notion I raised about values worth dying for
and that is faith. Now some believe that in the act of faith,
that faith is worth dying for… Some think that the values of faith,
of worshiping god is worth dying for… I do not… But why
is faith worthy dying for? What makes the faith one has in god
worth dying for?

I have asked the question and you must seek your own answer,
what makes faith worth dying for?

Kropotkin

In reading this morning, I came across this quote and I found
it interesting to say the least, talking about philosophy:

“The finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct”

Much of what passes for discourse in almost any format, including
this one, has the listing of bad reasons for what we believe in our gut,
for what we think (or as the case maybe not think, just feel)….

I can think of Kant for example for whom this is true. But what we
have called instinct here might also be those childhood indoctrinations
that we haven’t yet be able to overcome and make us who we are…
So we spend a whole lot of time defending our “instincts” or our
childhood indoctrinations with bad reasons/bad arguments.

“I believe liberals are destroying this country”

and a conservative may actually believe this but it is really
a reaction to instincts and our childhood indoctrinations, and
the conservatives defend their instincts with bad reasons/arguments.
But the arguments they use are not logical, rational or based on facts…
the argument presented by conservatives are emotional, instinctual
arguments not based on reality or facts…….

“God exists” is a statement but it is a faith based, emotional based
statement with no facts supporting it, but a whole lot of bad reasons
are induced to attempt to prove the existence of god.

God is defined as “that then which nothing greater can be thought” St. Anselm.

If the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exists in reality

Or the Descartes idea, that god’s existence is immediately inferable from a
“clear and distinct” idea of a supremely perfect being.

Many a bad reason or bad arguments have arisen from this dubious proposition
that because we can think it, it must exists…………

So what bad reasons do you use to justify your instincts?

Kropotkin

The “modern” problem is simple, we have mistaken our
“instincts” our childhood indoctrinations as reality and
they are just internal impressions we have of reality, not
reality itself. We have mistaken what we think is reality,
with what is reality… conservatives believes that
a man who is born evil, will remain evil his entire life.
Leopard can never change its spots and an “evil” person
can never… but the belief of the conservatives that men can
never change is simply wrong because we see people changing all
the time… We change daily as we go from birth to toddler to
child to pre-teen to teenagers to young adults and then adult
and then middle age to senior citizen… we are the epitome of
change in who we are as human beings. I maybe “evil” today,
but I might act with courage and honor tomorrow. For all
possibilities exists within each of us. It is simply a question about
which possibility do we choose to be today. But we begin to see
the question of our time is really one of believing that the “reality” in
our head is the reality that is “out” there. For us philosophers,
the question becomes how do we begin to see reality, us, clearly
without the baggage of our “instincts” and our childhood indoctrinations.
For “instincts” and our childhood indoctrinations are just that, baggage
which holds us hostage and not allow us to being able to see our world
clearly and fairly. Our “instincts” and childhood indoctrinations
are baggage which keeps us from seeing or understanding the world
as it is. Instead with “instincts” and indoctrinations, we see the world
as viewed by those “instincts” and indoctrinations. And then we find
bad reasons or hold bad faith to justify those “instincts” and/or indoctrinations.

the passage from birth to death is one of clearing away the baggage
of the ism’s and habits and indoctrinations and biases and myths
and prejudices that we are inundated with from birth. To clear our minds
of all that crap is the goal of philosophy and psychology… which is why
in some ways, they are the same discipline with just slightly different
emphasis. The goal of philosophy is not to clutter the mind with different
idea’s and thoughts, but to make sense of the idea’s and thoughts that we have.
It is not originality that we seek, but clarification of thought. We spend our time
reducing and making clear the thoughts that we have. We are doing away with
“instinct” and doing away with our childhood indoctrinations and making clear
in our minds what our thoughts really are.

Kropotkin

For the Greeks, the philosophical problem was being.

For the Medieval thinkers, the problem was metaphysics.

In the first half of modern philosophy, the problem was one of
knowledge, from Descartes to Kant…

And after Kant, the problem was systems, political, economic,
social and cultural.

and today we as we are still in the wake of the systems problems,
we have yet to discover what is the nature of our problems…

But perhaps the problem to be faced is the question of morality
or perhaps the question of becoming or maybe the question is
how do we not only philosophize but how do we then act upon
that philosophy. How do we turn philosophy into action?

Perhaps a return to ancient philosophy, both Greek and Roman philosophy
was how am I to live this philosophy I have chosen. Philosophy was not
a intellectual discourse but a way to live. You studied the Stoics because
you wanted to live your life by Stoic philosophy. You followed Plato
and then you live your life by the basis of what you learned from Plato.
It wasn’t just an intellectual activity. It was meant to be lived. The engagement
with philosophy wasn’t abstract but physical and immediate. You felt it because
you lived it.

Perhaps that is the question of our times?

Kropotkin

What is this?

The sun moved through the sky with its ongoing yellow glow…

Is this science, poetry, prose, philosophy, art, history, economics,
or perhaps something else.

or perhaps try this…

/

What is that?
is it science, literture, poetry, philosophy, art, math?

0

What is this? How would you classify this?
it could be science for science does use the 0 for many things
and it could be math for math uses the 0 for many things
or it could be art or philosophy or history?

How would we know?

by creating a story about the object in question.

a story or perhaps creating a category for the 0…

how would you understand 0 or /
or the sentence, the sun moved through the sky with its ongoing yellow glow.

How would you go about understanding those things.

Kropotkin

Dubiumology……

A rather strange word. What does it mean?

It is what philosophy should have been called.

The word Dubium means doubt in Latin.

Philosophy means the love of wisdom but
wisdom isn’t about love, the pursuit of wisdom is
really the pursuit of doubt. The Greeks believed that
the start of philosophy was in wonder. I disagree. What we
call philosophy is not about wonder or love but about doubt.

All science, all philosophy, all history, all social studies begin
in asking, I doubt that the “common sense” vision of our society is
right and I doubt the conventional wisdom. The philosopher
must stand in opposition to their times. The great philosophers
were prosecuted and attacked and censored not because they
working within the conventions of the time, no, oh no, they
were prosecuted because they were against the conventional wisdom
of the times………

Think of Socrates who was jail and executed and Aristotle who
fled Athens saying, “I will not Athenians to sin twice against
philosophy”. St. Thomas Aquinas who was censored by the church
for his writings. Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake in Rome
by the Roman Inquisition and Tommaso Campanella who was confined for
his heretical views in opposition to the authority of Aristotle and spent
27 years imprisoned in a castle and of course Spinoza who was
excommunicated from the nation of Israel for his views on god.
and a wide variety of philosophers have been attacked for
having opinions contrary to the society at large and this includes
everyone from Descartes to Nietzsche.

It is not from certainty that leads us to wisdom, for one with certainty
already think they have wisdom and knowledge even if they don’t.

Doubt, a philosophers friend.

Kropotkin

Religion and philosophy match each other in that
they deal with values. But they also match each other in
other ways. Both religion and philosophy has a problem.
You have two kinds of religion and two kinds of philosophy.

One kind of Religion is the easy comfortable, no risk religion
and one kind of Religion is the hard, dangerous, risk religion.
And the same goes for Philosophy.

But what does this mean? Most people believe in god but they
don’t live that belief. For most people, the belief in god
doesn’t entail any great effort, risk or challenge. For most people,
they are more passionate about fast food chains then they
are about god or are more challenged in their belief in their
favorite football team then in god. For most people, their belief in
god is simply a formula just spoken without commitment or any attempt
to actually understand or even live in their commitment to god.

I think mustard is the condiment of choice
I favor baseball over football
I prefer summer over winter
I believe in god
the weather is nice today.
I like The Who over the Rolling Stones.
I like Wendy’s burgers over Burger King

All of these statements have the exact same value to most people.
The belief in god ranks no higher then what is your favorite musical
band. The two statements, I believe in god and what is your favorite
musical band, have the same value and passion and commitment
and the same easy, comfortable, no risk belief in.

When most people say they believe in god, they could be talking
about anything they have a belief in… I prefer dogs over cats
and I believe in god is at the same level of passion and commitment.

And the same goes true for philosophy, I believe that Nietzsche is
correct about ancient Greek philosophy, much more so then
Heidegger. This statement is said with no more enthusiasm
then ordering a hamburger and with no more enthusiasm then
one says, I believe in god…

We have no engagement with either religion or with philosophy.
Religion and philosophy are simply idea’s, beliefs, simple mindless
recitations of formula’s that have no power or effect in our lives.

We hold both religion and philosophy as sterile words that
mean nothing in our lives. This is what Kierkegaard was fighting
against. Our engagement with religion and philosophy is just
skin deep and has the same intensity as one ordering fries in a
fast food place.

It seems to me that if we engage in either religion or philosophy,
we should have a deeper engagement with our subject matter
then just passively speaking about them. I prefer Locke over Hume.
I rather have curly fries over French fries. The discussion over curly
fries may get more intense and have much more passion and commitment
then any discussion about Sartre or Locke or Hume or more passion then
any discussion about the nature of god or why I believe in god.

If we are serious about either religion or philosophy, then
we must be ready to engage, I mean really engage with
religion or philosophy. The value of religion or philosophy
comes from the engagement we have with them. The engagement
I am talking about is not just reciting words that have no
resonance with us. I am talking about hold a religion or
philosophy and engaging with it with all your heart and head.
We must begin to engage with religion and philosophy
as a way of life. I hold certain philosophical beliefs
and I must engage with those beliefs as a way of life.
I belief in non violence. I must act in accordance
with my philosophical beliefs. I must not engage
with violence. Religion and philosophy are
ways of life. We not only hold these idea’s but we live them.
We act upon our philosophical and religion beliefs as
our guidelines in our actions. For most people,
they have beliefs and they have actions, but the
two shall never meet. We act and our beliefs are
separate from those actions. the two don’t impact each other,
the two, action and beliefs, don’t engage with each other,
the two don’t interact with each other… They are two distinct
and separate entities……. But they should engage with each other
and interact with each other and inform each other. But they
don’t… we hold actions as one complete and distinct entity
and we have beliefs as another completely different entity
and the two don’t engage with each other.

Religions and philosophy should be ways of life and instead they
are formulas we recite but have no engagement with.

Why won’t you engage with your beliefs as deeply as
you engage with your favorite food or you favorite sports team?

and engagement requires, demands your full and complete effort
to live your live as your beliefs demand you to live your life.

We are lacking in this engagement with religions and with our
philosophies. they are simple words to udder and they have
no connection to who we are… so either engage or
release those mindless formula’s that you hold.

to become who you are requires you to commit
and engage with your values regardless of the cost.

So what values are you willing to commit to and to
abide by and to live within and engage with?

Kropotkin

As I watch my fellow citizens, I don’t see the struggle of soul that
I went through for years, the wrestling with my soul to discover
who I was and what was my place in the universe and that I
engage with even today.

We take our schooling, jobs and our career and our families as some excuse to
escape our engagement with our souls. We don’t engage with those questions
that should drive our engagement with ourselves. The average person doesn’t
ask themselves if about who they are and what are their possibilities or
what is the meaning of life or what does it mean to be human?

The truth is the answer these questions drive our other actions.
for example, is being human about the capitalistic vision of life
where the point of life is the materialism that America is known for.

To answer this, we must understand what is really important.
We must engage with who we are to discover that
materialism as an ideology is a failure. It is unsustainable as
as a way of life. We cannot maintain our American way of life.
It is as simple as that… but that leaves us the question of what is the
next step and no one is thinking about that.
As we understand history, we humans simply move from
one situation to another without any thought as to the
consequences of one situation to the next. What is needed
is the human engagement with our future. In other words,
we must work toward our future as a choice. We must decide
what is our future path and then work toward that. The future is
no longer just an accident of random forces, but the future becomes
a choice. We decide what kind of future we want and we work toward it.
It is not an individual choice but an collective choice. We don’t need
to have an unanimous decision as to what our future is going to be,
we can move on with a majority decision. For that is the essence
of a democracy, decision are not unanimous, but majority based.
should we deemphasize our dependence on the GNP and the materialism
our society is based upon. Yes, but we should have a choice as to what
direction our society takes. The decision as to what direction takes ought
to be a bottom up decision, not a top down decision. And we can no
longer allow minorities like the 1% decide what our choices and decisions are.

We decide as we are the majority. Let us take our political system at its
word and begin to act upon it as a majority. In other words, if the majority
decide to allow guns and the NRA to dominate our lives, so be it, but if
the majority decides to remove guns and the NRA, then we must abide by it.

But who thinks this way? who thinks about the future that should be created, not
only individually but collectively, together. The answer lies not only in our
individual choice but in what we choose collectively as to what future we shall have.

And that is the point, we are linked and we cannot to continue thinking
individually, but we must begin to think in terms of our actions within
a society, within a collective. Will my action help or harm the society
I live in. That becomes the new norm of how we think about our actions.
It is not enough to engage individually, but we must begin to engage collectively,
as a society, together. How will my actions affect you and how will your actions
affect me. We begin to rewrite what it means to be a human being in
our modern society. We become responsible for each other as a choice,
not as it is now, whenever we think about it our responsibility. We must
hold human beings to a higher standard as we live in a society that is as complicated
as our society has become. It is not enough to be responsible for just me,
I am also responsible for my place in society and that means we all become
responsible for society and its actions. We cannot allow the state to speak
and act for us without holding the state and ourselves responsible.
If the state, as our nation has done, bombed innocent civilians,
then the state and us, must be held accountable. If the state takes
it upon itself to act in our name, then the state must held responsible
and we must be held responsible. The war in Iraq which has cost
millions of lives is our responsibility as we are the citizens in whose
name the war was fought for.

If we as private individual are accountable for our actions, then
the leaders of the state must be held accountable. The notion of
the modern world that we must engage with is responsibility.
Being held responsible for our actions individually and, AND collectively
is the modern understanding of our engagement with our society/state.

But who ask themselves these questions?

The modern tyranny of the economic has taken away
our modern rights and this must end. If we want to become
who we are, we must end this economic tyranny that exists.
but who thinks of such things?

do you struggle with your soul as to who you are and
what is your place within society? do you engage with
what our society is and what it ought to be? do you engage
with your soul?

Kropotkin