a new understanding of today, time and space.

in trying to understand our modernity, I was thinking about the
ism’s and ideologies that we have and then comparing/contrasting
our current ism’s and ideologies with ancient ism’s and ideologies…

for example, we have two prominent ism’s that are THE 20the century
ism’s, communism and capitalism………

but as I have previously laid out, both ism’s are less path to freedom and
more a path to our enslavement… by that think about capitalism…
I have laid out in great detail how capitalism is nihilism…I am not free
in a capitalistic society because I am simply a small and insignificant pawn
in capitalism…my role is simply to create more profit so that those who own
the means of production can get wealthier… I am means to greater wealth
and it is not my wealth that is increased… in my 40 plus years of working,
I have nothing to show for it outside of a body and soul that has been severely
damaged… because of the pain I suffer from working, I need pain pills
and sleeping pills to go to sleep… I am in pain every single day and that is the
result of my working for 40 years… my soul was crushed years ago…
and for what, I cannot retire… the various economic downturns have left
me with no money saved up…I cannot quit my job, I cannot afford it,
I cannot go anywhere else because no one will hire me, I am too old…
I am a victim of capitalism as are millions of people who suffer under it
damaging affects…and why? because it is said that somehow under
capitalism, the “hand of god” will benefit society… in 40 plus years, I
have yet to see how this “hand of god” of capitalism has benefited society…

but communism has the same problem of the individual being merely a
helpless pawn while communism with its historical dialectal materialism
that operates above us and controls us in a soulless relentless fashion…
we have no personal determination in either capitalism nor in communism…
we are simply ships that bob above the seas while the sea of capitalism and
communism try to sink us and with no care as to who we are or whither we
have consented or not… and I think that is the real problem, we have no
control or say over either capitalism or communism… an small example,
is my recent transfer to another store… I wasn’t asked, I wasn’t told about it,
I was simply transferred without any consent or approval by me… and that in
a nutshell is capitalism…actions taken about my life without any input
from me… and that is also communism… for we have no input
into the forces that dominate communism, the dialectal materialism…
where we are simply crushed under the wave of historical forces that
we have no say or control over……

and that is the failure of ism’s from Catholicism to Hinduism to Islam to
really any religion and to the ism’s of the economic and political…
we have no freedom and no say over our fate in ism’s and ideologies…

the Enlightenment and Kant basic point was that we needed to
become free of authorities that would tell us to do, like the bible
and god and Aristotle and the Church…… but what the enlightenment
never saw was that we cannot be free of the ism’s and ideologies
long enough to engage in what Kant called “Sapere Aude”…dare to know…
we cannot think for ourselves because we are trapped within ism’s
and ideologies that so completely dominated our lives……. we are
simply pawns to the final goal of these ism’s and ideologies…
pawns to god, pawns to capitalism, pawns to communism, pawns
to religion, pawns to the economic and pawns to the political…

so I would guess the real battle is to become who we are and
by doing so, hopefully… maybe, become free of these ism’s
and ideologies that have collectively crushed and destroyed
our bodies and souls…………

so the question becomes, how are we to be free of those ism’s and
ideologies that have trapped us within the complete control over
our lives… where we have no control and no say over our lives…

does the modern vision really mean to recapture our voice
and to recapture control over what it means to be human…

we are not, as religion and politics and economics and ism’s all say,
we are not disposable pieces that can be discarded, once our
role of enriching the system without any benefit to ourselves,
happens……

I am a human being and I demand that I am treated with respect
…and what gives me the right to make such a demand?

I am a human being and that is enough to demand to be treated
not as a ends to such means as in profits or a pawn in historical
dialectical materialism… I have value for myself, in myself,
and by myself…this is a radical call… I have value, not just
as a worker or as part of an ongoing struggle for the classless state…
as my call for an escape from ism’s and ideologies really is a call
for all… recall your Marx… he said,

“Workers of the world, unite”

but we are not just workers as seen by Marx, we are human beings…
we should unite but not as workers or as citizens or as mere pawns
in a capitalistic system or tools of god to create the final state
of heaven on earth… under Catholicism, we are just disposable
tools that simply act for god to bring about this end state… what
a sad commentary about the role of humans… we have no value
outside of bringing about Armageddon…

if you want to be free, truly free… you must become free of ism’s
and ideologies that tell you who you are and what is your role
in the specific ism or ideology…

but how are to achieve this state of being free of ism’s and ideologies
that so dominate our modern life?

the first step, as always, is to become aware of our current status
of simply being pawns or tools of the ism’s and ideologies that
currently exists… we have no other purpose in life except
to fulfil our role within the specific ism and ideology…

but I say unto you, no, a thousand times no…

I have value outside of and beyond the role of pawn
and tool of the dominant ism’s and ideologies of the 21st
century………

the modern goal of humanity is to become free, to escape the bonds
of slavery of the current ism’s and ideologies like capitalism and communism
and Catholicism and of any religious, social, economic or political system
that desires to crush me in the name of that ism or ideology…

the path to freedom is to become free of ism’s and ideologies…

but one may ask, without ism’s and ideologies, how are we to know
what our values are, how are we to know how to act or how are
we to know what is important in life?

or said another way, the Kantian/Kropotkin questions
of “what can we know” “what are our values” “what can we
hope for” “what should we do”… ism’s and ideologies
can answer those profound questions but ism’s and ideologies
answer those questions by enslaving us into those ism’s and ideologies…

we are no longer slaves to ism’s and ideologies that demand
to control us, leaving us without any say or control over our very
nature, over our lives………

the next revolution is to free ourselves from the dehumanizing
and nihilistic ism’s and ideologies that control our lives……

“Human beings of the world, unite, for you have nothing to lose but your chains”

Kropotkin

can you imagine a world without ism’s and ideologies?

I can… I can see a world where when someone is down
and out, we help them, not because of some ism or ideology
but because they are a human being… nothing more and nothing less…

we don’t need to act because some ism or ideology requires
us to act, we can simply act because we are a kind people…
and ism’s and ideologies quite often prevent us from simply
being people… we often act within an ism or ideology
instead of being people, being human………

if we free ourselves of ism’s and ideologies, we simply
act from being human… our action are simply actions
of us being human beings, not as democrats or
Catholics or Republicans or socialist or capitalists, but we
act because we are human beings…not as
members of some ism or ideology…

I can see a world where there is no ism’s or ideologies…
a world that is free of the crap and soul crushing
ism’s that demand your body and soul as a price of
doing business within that ism/ideology…

try to imagine a world without ism’s an ideologies…

government isn’t about helping some because of their
allegiance to the government and denying help to others
because of their allegiance to other ism’s and ideologies…

no, government helps all regardless of their allegiance,
their allegiance to any form of ism or ideology…
government simply helps people, helps human beings
simply because they are human beings, not because they
are Americans or white or male or religious…

“Government of the people, for the people, by the people”

that isn’t about ism’s or ideologies or some accidental
properties you were born with… no, you have value simply
because you are life…and life has value, be it human or dogs
or grass or birds or cows…… life is the value itself…
and life doesn’t require ism’s or ideologies to be judged…

life is the judgement itself…

adherence to ism’s and ideologies means we can negate
and deny value to humans or to life… ism’s and ideologies
are nihilistic because it allows us to negate in the name of that
ism or ideology and be negated in the name of that ism or ideology…

a ism that negates human beings like communism or capitalism
or Catholicism is not a ism that we can follow… for negation ism’s
are nihilism and we must, must discard ism’s and ideologies for
this very reason…we cannot accept or allow nihilistic ism’s or
ideologies to dominate our lives… and the only way to accomplish
this is to no longer accept ism’s or ideologies… or said another way,

we must negate the negation… and by doing so, we become free to
become who we are… we are not capitalist nor are we communist
nor are we Catholics or democrats or American’s… no, we
are human beings who happen to be capitalist or communist…

but if we no longer our ism or ideology, we simply become
human beings…and we can dream and pray and love
and enjoy who we are without recourse to any ism or ideology…

the dream then is to become human without any ism or ideology…

we have a goal, a destination… now all we need is to figure
out the steps we need to make this possible…

what will it take to remove the damaging and destructive
ism’s and ideologies in your life, in our lives?

Kropotkin

it is 2019 and we have millions if not billions of people
who are alienated and disconnected and isolated from not only
their peers, their countries, the current ism’s and ideologies…and yes,
even alienated from themselves…….

let us look at one aspect of this…

think of the theories that have been use over the last 500 years…
social, political, scientific, economic, biological…

an example of this is Copernicus “Heliocentric theory” where he
“moved” the sun to the center of the solar system and the earth revolved
around the sun…think of this theory…it is entirely removed from
any consideration of human beings… the sun and the earth do their thing
and it has nothing whatsover to do with humans…

now think of other scientific theories… think of Newton and gravity…
his theory of gravity has nothing to do with human beings… it is a theory
of objects that aren’t human beings…

think of evolution… it has nothing to do with human beings except to explain
how human beings are part of evolution and a dam small part I might add…

natural selection and random mutations are an interesting theory but they
don’t address human beings as much as they address life itself…

Now think of Einstein and the theory of relativity… once again, humans
beings are missing from the theory… we exist only to give examples of
how relativity works, not as part of the theory…

let us examine other theories, Freud for example…he talks about
the subconscious and unconscious mind… things that we are not aware of…
things we have no control over and yet, still dominate out lives…
we are driven by impulses and emotions, instincts that we cannot control…
and the entire point of freudian psychology was to uncover, unmask these
impulses and by doing so, we learn to understand and yes, perhaps even control…
but note that we are not in control of the subconscious or unconscious mind…

let us think about other theories… I have touched upon Marx’s theories
where economics is the substructure of human existence but not microeconomics,
no, Marx deals with the big picture, we individual human beings are small drops
of water in a vast ocean of history as it completes its drive to bring about a
“workers paradise”… note the term worker’s paradise, it is an overall, look
at who we are, but it doesn’t mean that the individiual worker will survive…
for in Marx’s vision of the future, individual workers are simply the tools through
which the inevitable march of history creates its worker or classless state…
and it is not only possible but inevitable that many workers along the way will
be sacrificed to the alter of historical inevitable… and thus if you get crushed
by history, hay, it had to happen and be glad you could play your role in
the bringing about of historical inevitability… but once again, you have no
control over, no say over your role in this mass historical theory that has no room
for individuals…

and I have quite often touched upon capitalism and how its “hand of god”
is quite willing to destroy individual human beings in the name of
progress… “progress” we have no say over and no control over…

by these theories, you get the theme which is we have many theories
of existence and they all seem to work in leave individual’s with
no say over and no control over their lives, their own existence…
and thus I would say if you have dozen’s of theories that are scientific,
economic, social and political that leave individuals without any say in
their lives or no control over their lives, then you can see why we have millions
of people who have become alienated, disconnected, isolated from society
or from each other or even alienated from themselves…… our theories
of human existence aren’t theories of our individual self, but theories of
all of us and leave us without any recourse or possibility to have any say over
or have any control over……. our vast theories exclude us individually…
and make us part of a mass movement or even without any hope to influence
the theories of us… economically, politically, socially, scientifically…

how can I engage with theories of who I am and what am I to be when
all those theories exclude me from having a part in those theories…

Kropotkin

But Kropotkin, it sound like you are saying abandon all ism’s and
ideologies… say it ain’t so, Joe?

But it is true… the next step along this journey is to eliminate ism’s
and ideologies along with our childhood indoctrinations of myths, prejudice,
habits and superstitions……… but Kropotkin, how are we to know what to do?

I say unto you, you already know what to do… the rules of life which are
basis of our knowing what to do, we already know… you just don’t know
you know them……… for example, we don’t need someone to tell us we
need to cooperate if we are to succeed… we know that already… this is
stuff we learned in Kindergarten………that is why we teach this to children…

the stuff you learned as a kid, stuff that is pre-ism is the stuff we need to know…
we learned to be nice to other children, not because of some ism or ideology,
but because the other kids are no different then you… and that is in part what
we learn with ism and ideologies… we learn that people are different because of
the different ism’s and ideologies they might hold… but biologically, we aren’t any
different… we have the same blood and the same bones and the same heart and lungs
and skin and senses… this is why we can have organ donors, our body parts are
interchangeable…if we were so different, we couldn’t have organ donors……

the same rules that I should live by are the same rules you should live by…
and for the same reasons, they don’t need an ism to validate these rules…

you are kind to people even if they don’t hold to your ism’s or ideologies…
no, you are kind because they are the same as you, human and we are kind to
animals and plants and tree’s not because they are human but because they
are life and we are a part of life too… we have similarities, not differences
with life……… the rules of being human are about kindness and love and peace…
the reason why we don’t encourage strife and violence is because as life,
strife and violence doesn’t allow us to achieve our goals… and our goals as
human beings are no different then our lives… we want to love and be loved
and to have the basic necessities to live as everyone else……. most people don’t
ask for more then they need… and by allowing some to have more via capitalism,
(an ism) we violate the basic principle that we treat people equally, with justice……
this is not an ism or an ideology to treat people equally, it is simply the price
of being human and of being life……. but because if we remove ism and ideology
from any consideration of how we treat people, then we come to the realization
that we must treat people equally, with justice…it is the ego of some that
allow them to think they must be treated better or that their children must be
treated better because they can afford it or that they have a title or a name or some
fame……. no, the path of justice which is equality doesn’t care who you are
or how much wealth you have, you get treated the same as everyone else…
because the treating of people better because they have a “name”
or some fame or some money is to bow down to some ism or ideology…

we already know how to treat people equally… but we don’t because we
think we might gain some benefit or some advantage by treating some
“better” then others… but that is false…the fundamental rule of
existence is to treat people just, which is equality…ism’s and ideologies
want unequal treatment of people for ideological reasons…

how are we suppose to live without any ism or ideology?

by treating people equally… and we cooperate and we share…
because those actions are not ism or ideological driven…

we can survive and I would suggest we would thrive in
a society or culture where we have eliminated ism’s and ideologies
and prejudice and habits and myths and superstitions……

because we would be existing based on our immediate needs and those
immediate needs of a human being are really quite small… and if we reduce
our “Needs” to a smaller rate then we will have enough to share with everyone,
no one goes without… unlike our current world where millions, indeed billions
go without every day but some few lucky ones because of an ism or ideology
gets to live far better lives then the vast majority of humanity…

remove ism’s and ideologies, and the world becomes a better place, indeed,
I would suspect it would become an utopia… perhaps, but a person can dream…
and that is another benefit of eliminating ism’s and ideologies, we begin to
dream of a tomorrow where we can achieve our dreams and our hopes
and our possibilities…

Kropotkin

think of the world today…

we have ism’s and ideologies up the wahoo… and then think about
history… the history of human beings is the history of the conflicts
between ism’s/ideologies……. for example, the Holocaust, that is
an ism brought into form and the result, the death of millions…

in fact, take any event we can think of historically, take the Peloponnesian
War… that was a war of ideology, the Athenian ism’s versus the Spartan
ism…take the on going conflict between Christian’s and Muslims that
has gone on for over a thousand years… two ism’s attacking and destroying
each other over what? different views of heaven? a differently name god?
if you think about it, it is tragedy of immense proportions… two religion
trying to end each other because they call their god a different name,
one is Allah and the other Yahweh… and for that people have died…

and each calling themselves the “One true religion”…

Think of the cultural wars of the last 40 years here in America…
that is nothing more then two ism’s fighting over values…a whole
lot of vitriol because two viewpoints can’t agree with each other…

and think of the wars that have killed millions over the years and fought
because of ism’s and ideology…… every war is a war of ism/ideology…
my beliefs are better then your beliefs and I am willing to fight you over
my “superior” beliefs…… what a sad excuse to kill another human being…

you might say, ism’s are the way we know the rules of the game and the
map we need to guide us into the future…

I say, ism’s have caused the deaths of millions and have caused untold amount
of suffering and damaged in the lives of countless human beings……

are we both right? No, for we can find out the rules of life without resorting
to ism’s/ideologies and we can discover our path through life without ism’s/ideologies…

but to do so, we have to actually think and study and understand what
life is and what is our purpose……… using an ism or ideology or prejudice or
myths or superstitions to understand life is an very lazy way to understand life…

using someone’s else cheat sheet as it were instead of finding it out yourself…

perhaps a familiar saying might give us a hand here…Sepere aude…
Dare to know… or dare to think for yourself…….
don’t rely on age old ism’s and ideologies as a base line to guide your life…
dare to think about your life as your life and use your values, your goals,
your vision…to find the path or journey you need to take, to become you…
to become who you are………

to engage in ism’s and ideologies is to engage with ism’s that have
been around for thousands of years… Christian values have been around
for 2000 years… that doesn’t mean that we should continue to engage with
Christian values just because they have been around a long time…
we should engage with the values that come about from our own
engagement with a reevaluation of values…if people would
actually engaged with a reevaluation of values, the “time-honored” values
that we know today, wouldn’t be here… they would have been long dead
and buried… because they don’t have the ability to adapt and change with
modernity… the question of modernity has completely changed what values
mean something and what values are worthless………values that worked in
the middle ages cannot work in our ever shifting engagement with the modern
values created by the circumstances of modernity, the result of the industrial
revolution and our alienation from society and each other and from ourselves…
and the nihilism that fill our lives so completely that we can’t even tell
just how nihilistic we have become because of ism’s/ideologies of capitalism
and communism and the false promises that are political, economic, social
and scientific… promises that are false because they offer us ism’s and ideologies
that cannot deliver their vaunted promises of reaching our ideals… and why can’t
they deliver their promises? Because our ism’s and ideologies are tainted
by the inherent nihilism that exists within each and every ism and ideology…

to free ourselves from today’s ism and ideology is to be free of the nihilism
that exists within capitalism and the nihilism that exists within communism
and the nihilism that exists within Catholicism and the nihilism that exists
within any religion… it is the nihilism within every ism and ideology
today that corrupts and taints our modern ism’s and ideologies……

Kropotkin

but Kropotkin, you have stated the search is for the values
we should be living by, not the ism’s we have but don’t
the ism’s we have create the values we have?

if we have values based upon the ism’s such as our
values should be capitalistic values, then those values
are corrupted, tainted by the ism’s nihilism, regardless of
the ism or ideology……… no matter what ism or ideology
we choose, the ism/ideology has tainted or corrupted its
values thus making it worthless for human beings to follow……

the only way to escape the inherent nihilism within ism’s and ideologies
is to not follow ism’s or ideologies…….

to follow ism’s and ideologies, be it religious or historical or political
or economic or social is to find oneself ensnared within that ism’s
nihilism……

we make life’s decisions based on situational ethics and given situations
can change and adapts, we too must have answers that change and adapt…
ism’s and ideologies are lacking in the possibility of changing and adapting
to the rapid changes that exists within our modern times……

to hold fast to an ism during a period of change is to hold fast to
something that cannot change and adapt to the changing conditions
that occur…….our ism’s and ideologies cannot change and adapt to
changing conditions but that doesn’t mean we are left hanging in the wind…

no, we can hold to values like justice and peace and charity and use those
values to adjust to changing conditions…we don’t need ism’s or ideologies
to hold values like love or justice or peace or charity…we replace ism’s
and ideologies with values like love and justice and it is those values
that is our map into the future and our guide as to what actions we should
or shouldn’t take…….we can use values as a guide into the future…
we can use values to form and understand the rules of life instead of
ism’s and ideologies…ism’s and ideologies are too rigid and inflexible
to allow us to adapt and change to our everchanging conditions…
but values are not rigid or inflexible, they are adaptable and changeable…
because sometimes you can use values to not accept someone or something,
but you can use values to decide not to love someone……. in other words,
we can make a choice as to what or where we use our values. We don’t have
to use our values at all times and in all places… we have a choice as to
when we love and a choice when we practice justice and when we practice
peace or charity and we have a choice as to who we love and who gets charity
and who gets peace……and sometimes we choose to love the wrong person
or we practice charity or justice on the wrong person………that is a risk,
but we mustn’t shy away from making choices because we might, might
make the wrong choice…… compare this making choices with the choices
one has with ism’s or ideologies… take capitalism for example, we cannot
choose to practice some parts of capitalism and not practice other parts,
capitalism as in communism and as Catholicism or any religion is not about
the choices… you cannot pick and choose which aspect of communism you
want to follow, it is an all or nothing type of thing… but following values
is a pick and choose type of thing, you have a choice that ism’s and
ideologies don’t have………

the question of the modern age is a simple one, it is a question of
how do we escape nihilism. that’s it…… and the escape from nihilism
means we must free ourselves from nihilistic ism’s and ideologies…

Kropotkin

as a liberal, I hold to certain values like justice and love and peace…
do I practice my values on a consistent basis? No, no I don’t and that
is my failure… in fact, we could rewrite history as being a failure
to follow our stated values……. we practice double standards and
lie and pretend about our values… that is to be human…
but I don’t want to be a lower value human, I want to raise
myself to be HUMAN, fully human and I want myself to both follow
my values and become my values… if I value justice, then
I must become justice and that is what we mean when we
say, becoming who we are… to not only voice our values, but
to live our values… our actions and our words match and show everyone
what our values are without us every saying what those values are…
we become justice and by acting justly, everyone can see our values…

becoming who we are means becoming our values and living those values
to the best of our abilities… and sometimes we fail, failure is
really the most common action of all humans, to fail is to be human…

it doesn’t mean we stop trying or we simply accept our failure, no,
it means we try to become who we are with resolution and hope and
continued effort… this is the only battle worth fighting in life,
the battle to raise ourselves to our values and become those values…
that is the real fight… to become ever more human…

Kropotkin

From my frame of mind, given the manner in which I understand nihilsm out in the world of actual human interactions, this makes no sense.

From my perspective, “isms”, whether deontological, ideological or theological, start with the assumption that there is a font – Reason, God, Nature – that we can turn to in order to make a distinction between “the right thing to do” and the “wrong thing to do”. That, in other words, we are obligated to anchor our moral and political values to that font.

Nihilism on the other hand starts with the assumption that such fonts are merely historical and cultural concoctions/collaborations. Systemic fabrications that any particular human community can make use of in order to create “rules of behavior” that propel [or compel] social, political and economic interactions.

As a moral nihilist myself, I have come to conclude that there is no essential or objective set of values. There is only a particular perspective embraced by any particular individual in any particular context. Here and now. And that the “best of all possible worlds” would seem to be one that revolves around some measure of democracy and the rule of law: moderation, negotiation and compromise.

Instead, there are the nihilists who own and operate the global economy. Many of them root “morality” in wealth and power. Or the narcissists and sociopaths who configure right and wrong into that which sustains what they construe to be in their own best interests.

For some though, when they link “isms” and nihilism, they are really talking more about means than ends. Clearly, down through the ages, there have been any number of “isms” – either God or No god – that, in embracing any particular Kingdom of Ends, were able to rationalize almost any means to sustain it.

ok, let us start with this… I believe we, you and me, understand
nihilism differently… we define nihilism differently…

my handy dandy dictionary says this:

Nihilism: the rejection of ALL religious and moral principles,
in the belief that life is meaningless…

Philosophy: extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the
world has a real existence.

Historical: the doctrine of an extreme Russian revolutionary party,
c. 1900 which found nothing to approve of in the established social
order…

I however reject these definitions as inadequate…because they
fail to accommodate the nihilism of the 20th and 21st century…

I believe that nihilism is the negation of human beings and their values…
this is what capitalism does best, negate human beings and their values…

to understand your “fonts” is to force one to see or understand
the world in a way that doesn’t allow one to adapt or change with
the changing conditions… you must engage with the world within the
set parameters of that set, “font” or ism…as I understand that you believe
there is no “set” “objective” values that allows one to engage with the world…
and you don’t need an “set” or “objective” value to engage with the world…
because there are no “set” or “objective” values in which to engage
with the world, in this I agree with you, but and this is important…
it doesn’t mean you can’t simply decide upon a value and go with it…
it doesn’t have to be a “set font” or a “objective” value…the values I have
promoted, values like love, peace, hope, charity, justice are values I promote
because I believe these are values which are of greater use to the society
and the individual to allow survival… negative values such as hate and anger
and greed are negative values and by their very usage damage, harm society
and the individual who uses them……

I promote positive values because I believe that they are of greater
value to the society and to the individual…

Let us take the values of IQ45… values of hate and greed and anger…
and what has these values led to? why more hate and anger and greed…
hate crimes are up by 30% and all driven by the promotion of these
destructive values lead by IQ45…

this promotion of destructive values has severally damage, hurt
our society in wide variety of ways… mistrust and anger and violence
has risen since the election of IQ45 and all because of his promotion of
negative values… if we want an more just society, if we want a “better”
society, if we want to live in a society worth living in, we must engage
with positive values, values that enhance and drive us toward our
“better angels” as Lincoln said…

you say, you can’t tell which values are values worth engaging in, but
I say, that you can tell by their effect on society and their effect upon
you… I can see that positive values are values which allow me to
become a “better” person… now you may disagree with me and say,
there is no way you can tell if you are “better” because of values, but
I say if you compare those who promote negative values of hate, anger,
greed, lust like IQ45 and Hitler and Stalin and capitalistic values,
and compare those who promote positive values of love and peace
and justice… you will see that those who promote positive values
allow human beings a better chance of survival and survival of the
species is really the name of the game… that is the end game of all
our actions whither we see it or not…and negative values damage
and hurts our chances of survival as a species…

I think that the only end goal we can realistically aim for is
the survival of the species and the positive values we promote
better allows the survival of the species………

Kropotkin

It appears that there is circular reasoning in the sense of De-differenting the object of identifiable nexus between the mode -function of the reasoning with its pre-representational value.

Such is present in St. Anselm’s circularity unto the rationalism of an either/or solution.

There is a necessity for minimilization ad-almost toward (forth) toward an absurdum, because it cries for understanding.

The sense of blending identities is the very mode of seeking not merely resembling ground, but identical, is another confusion brought on by rhetorical begging of the question.

The simple act of quoting paraphrase, would have cleared that issue. Simple syntactical usage mask logical conscription of underlying lack.

This is as true here, as Nietzsche’s use of dramatic contradiction parlance between Plato and Voltaire. It is built on what really can not be proven to exist, but has perpetually a function , therefore has an absolute requirement to be constructed.

Otherwise, the building of the edifice would have never built even a foundation. Apart from a goal-consisting in planning and design, it would never had taken off the ground, …

Trump is using this duplicity incurred, into a circularity of political manipulation, to subliminally degrade arguments as statements of fact, There by leading in a direction of further and further sub marginal divisibility, where past the infinitely imperceptibly different becomes an presumed ideal. Then appearances melt into reality.

I thank Meno for his contribution to this thread,
however his points are not my points, his message is not
my message, I cannot speak to Meno’s point as they are not
thoughts I engage with…

let us think about the 20th century… how was it nihilistic?

was the 20th century nihilistic because people no longer held
beliefs? no, not at all, in fact, people held on to their beliefs
so strongly that they fought two world wars defending their beliefs…

no, the lack of belief certainly wasn’t a problem during the 20th century nor
is it a problem in our 21st century…no, the reason the 20th century was
a nihilistic one was because the beliefs people/society held, negated and denied
human beings and their values… the values of capitalism and the values
of Nazism and the values of the soviet union were all the same in that
they negated and denied human beings and their values… they did it in a different
way with different values, but nevertheless, they negated human beings and their
values…thus the 3 main value systems of the 20th century were negative
values, a negation of human and their values…nihilism…

if a political or economic system devalues or dehumanizes people, it is
a nihilistic system…and that is the major political and economic systems
of the 20th century…and so far, the major political and economic and
social systems of the 21st century are also nihilistic… but people have, at last,
become aware of this negation of their being and their values… thus the anger
and resentement toward capitalism and representative democracy which no
longers represents us and our concerns… a representative democracy which
give no voice or control by the average person… a representative democracy
which no longer is “of the people, for the people, by the people”… which is
a negation of us and our values… the only people and values recognized by
our representative democracy is the value of money and those who have money…

it is no longer “government of the people, for the people, by the people”
we have a government “of the rich, for the rich, by the rich” and that kids is a
negation of our democracy, a negation of the values that made America
worth living in and worth dying for…and we individually are negated because
as the wealthy buy influenced and power, our person, our values become unimportant
to what the wealthy want and what they are paying for…and until we have a democracy
that is “of the people, for the people, by the people” we shall be continued to be negated
in our person and in our values… and that is nihilism………

and the same goes true for Nazism and communism as practice by Stalin which
was really just a pretext for a dictatorship and all dictatorships negate
and denies human beings and their values… that might be the defining
definition of a dictatorship…negation of human beings and their values…

Kropotkin

I thank Meno for his contribution to this thread,
however his points are not my points, his message is not
my message, I cannot speak to Meno’s point as they are not
thoughts I engage with…

let us think about the 20th century… how was it nihilistic?

was the 20th century nihilistic because people no longer held
beliefs? no, not at all, in fact, people held on to their beliefs
so strongly that they fought two world wars defending their beliefs…

no, the lack of belief certainly wasn’t a problem during the 20th century nor
is it a problem in our 21st century…no, the reason the 20th century was
a nihilistic one was because the beliefs people/society held, negated and denied
human beings and their values… the values of capitalism and the values
of Nazism and the values of the soviet union were all the same in that
they negated and denied human beings and their values… they did it in a different
way with different values, but nevertheless, they negated human beings and their
values…thus the 3 main value systems of the 20th century were negative
values, a negation of human and their values…nihilism…

if a political or economic system devalues or dehumanizes people, it is
a nihilistic system…and that is the major political and economic systems
of the 20th century…and so far, the major political and economic and
social systems of the 21st century are also nihilistic… but people have, at last,
become aware of this negation of their being and their values… thus the anger
and resentement toward capitalism and representative democracy which no
longers represents us and our concerns… a representative democracy which
give no voice or control by the average person… a representative democracy
which no longer is “of the people, for the people, by the people”… which is
a negation of us and our values… the only people and values recognized by
our representative democracy is the value of money and those who have money…

it is no longer “government of the people, for the people, by the people”
we have a government “of the rich, for the rich, by the rich” and that kids is a
negation of our democracy, a negation of the values that made America
worth living in and worth dying for…and we individually are negated because
as the wealthy buy influenced and power, our person, our values become unimportant
to what the wealthy want and what they are paying for…and until we have a democracy
that is “of the people, for the people, by the people” we shall be continued to be negated
in our person and in our values… and that is nihilism………

and the same goes true for Nazism and communism as practice by Stalin which
was really just a pretext for a dictatorship and all dictatorships negate
and denies human beings and their values… that might be the defining
definition of a dictatorship…negation of human beings and their values…

Kropotkin

wow, never done that before, multiple duplicate posts…sorry…

Kropotkin

if one were to ask me, what is one thing that is
the connection between all human beings, I would
answer… the basic connection between all human beings
is the need for the story, to tell a story and to hear a story…
for a story places us into context and we see what possibilities
exist in that story, possibilities in how we might act or feel or be in
that story… that is the value, strength of ART… it is the value
of creating context for human beings within a story…

a child is born… as all children are born… born into a historical context…
this child was born upper middle class, so the stories or the narrative
the child heard was a middle class narrative, the child’s parents were
liberals and so the stories the child heard were liberal narratives…
and as such, this child didn’t recieve much religious teachings,
and those religious teachings are just another set of stories…

the child was born in the midwest and so the stories were of the
middle part of the country…the stories of Lincoln and the stories
of the values of the founding fathers… these stories gives the child
some context, something to compare his life to… as the stories of
the founding fathers were offered as positive, lessons to be learned,
the child was made to believe that those stories were lessons for
the child to reach… but this is not just a story of a single child,
for every child born in every home receives stories… stories
of the values that the parents wishes to pass on to the child…
each story is a value based story and it point was to pass to the child
what values the child should have, be it bravery or honesty or courage……

that is the value of stories, it passes values from parents/society to the next
generation…what values do you want to pass to the next generation?
the stories we tell children are those values……

the child reaches a certain age, be it 12 or 22, but at some point, the child
becomes an adult and the stories that informed the child about values,
no longer reach the adult… the stories of our childhood no longer
have any value to us because we have grown up, we have moved
beyond those simple children stories… this growth creates a crisis
of sorts…because if our childhood values, our childhood stories are no
longer useful or beneficial, then what stories should we value, what stories
should we listen to?

We discover that our experiences, the things that happen to us and that
we do or make happen… are also stories… and then we listen to those
stories… experience itself creates a story… and because of experience,
the story, we now have a new way of understanding our reality… a new way
of understanding our context within the state, culturally, economically,
politically… experience creates context which allows us to place ourselves
within the boundaries of existence……

experiences replaces stories… but what about those who never made
the transition from stories to experiences? these people still believe the stories
even though experience has shown these stories to be false or not true or incomplete?

quite often what happens is the people don’t learn the lesson from experiences…
or learn the wrong lesson……. if I taunt a dog and get bit, I should have learned
the lesson that one doesn’t taunt a dog… but sometimes people, (oftentimes for ego reasons)
believe that the lesson learned is different then what should have been learned…
for example, if you taunt a dog and get bit, some might learn the lesson that dogs
are evil and deserve to be hunted out of existence…people learn different things
from the same experiences…….

one lesson learned is that from being a child is that possibilities are endless…
you can be anything you want to be… but soon experience teaches us that not to
be true… some have no skill in math and so becoming a teacher in math isn’t very likely…
we discover that doors open, possibilities exist and we only need to enter… to
discover what our possibilities are…but at the same time, we find doors closing…
by experience, I find that I have a fear of heights and so, becoming a pilot isn’t
a possibility, that door closes… from experience, we find that many of our childhood
dreams are no longer possible or no longer feasible or even desired…
doors close, possibilities end…as we grow older, doors once open… are no
longer opened… doors close…the possibilities that existed in youth, no longer
exists as we grow older…the stories that we can become anything we want
is simply no longer true… a child’s dream of playing baseball for a living
falls to the wayside because we know we aren’t good enough, experience
has taught us…another door closes…

and as we go from adult to middle age to old age, the possibilities
that once existed, no longer exists, door after door after door closes…
the possibilities that once seem endless, now seems to be limited…
and what of the stories we heard as children? They no longer exists
for they are seen for what they are, children’s stories…of benefit to
children, not to the rest of us………

the story of our lives, the narrative of growing older is the same for
everyone… from endless possibilities to door after door after door closing…

the story of our lives, of each individual’s life may differ in its
details but remains the same for all of us in it general details…

as we age, we find/discover what the words, pain, really means,
and what the word, loss, really means and what the word, despair,
really means… for we experience these words as we age…
we lose parents, children, brothers and sisters and we know loss…
and we know despair because we experience it and we know pain
because we experience it… from pain of our partners cheating
to our children stealing from us and other such stories of living…

and those days are filled with emotions… but over time, we find
the pain or the loss or the despair grows less, it might never disappear
but power to affect us grow less……

the story of existence for human beings is a story of powerful experiences
and lessons learned and of possibilities growing and then narrowing…

the story of existence is a story of the vast number of emotions we
experience as we travel through this life……

there is a flow to all our lives… a story to all our lives… stories
of possibilities and a stories of experiences and a stories of emotions
and each of us experience the same story from our own
viewpoints and so we can know what others are feelings when
they experience those lessons and possibilities and emotions…

so construct your life, not as isolated events, I was born, but as parts
of a story, a narrative about who you are…and how the narrative
of who you are changes as we age and experience… we have a story
to tell, but the story will change as we grow older and our stories should
change and adapt to meet the changing needs and experiences of our lives.

or think of it this way… we all exist within the river of life, of human experience
but within this river, because of our different locations, we might experience
the river differently, we are all drops of water within the river, and so
some might hit the rocks and some might be swallowed
by the fish and some might evaporate, but the river remains the same…
the individual droplets within the river have different experiences but they
still exists within the river…and that is the human story… we are just droplets
within a large river of life… and our experiences reflect the different possibilities
within that river…

what is your story?

Kropotkin

philosophy is just another story we tell about the human experience
as history is another story and politics and math and economics
are all stories about the human experience… your vision of history
is just another, different story and your vision of politics is another story…

we have many, different and diverse stories we tell about the
human experience…and amoung those many stories, how are we to tell
which story is the “right” one and which one is the “wrong” one? that is another story…

Kropotkin

and we exists as parts of, aspects of our story… but what if, what if
the story was only part of the puzzle?

we exists as pieces within a story, so how does one escape being a piece
of a story? how does one become separate, apart from the story one tells?

the dialectical requires us to evolve, to be part of evolution…

so, we are part of story… what is the next step? what is the evolution of
the human being after we are part of the story? we then stand
alone… outside of the story… but human existence is dependent
upon our standing together, we must cooperate or die… that is the human
experience, we exist together… how do we stand apart from what is the
basic, most fundemental aspect of human existence?

we have two aspects of human existence, the physical the body and we have
the inner part, the mental aspect of human existence… the physical aspect
of us must stand with and part of the human experience, part of the human
collective…

but mentally, mentally we can stand apart, different from others…
I can choose to see myself outside of the human collective
and I can exists outside of that human collective…
in my thoughts and in my story………

this a most difficult understanding of what it means to human,
we can be part of the human collective and we must be within
the human collective for we are social creatures born of millions
of years of evolution to be social and to be part of a collective…

and I can say yes to that because I benefit from being part of this
human collective, part of the human experience…

but my story doesn’t need to be written in terms of the human collective…
I can write my own story of who I am and it doesn’t need to be a part
of the human collective…we write stories of human beings…
I can write my own story as a human being, being part of the human collective…

my story is of my vision of what it means to be human…
it doesn’t have to match the collective story of what it means to
be human…but I write my individual story as a part
of the human collective……….

how do you see yourself? that is your story…
do you see yourself as the “ubermensch” then that
is part of your story which is apart from the human collective
story…

most people write their story as members of and part of the human collective…
I am a mother… or I am a businessman or I am a citizen or I am white…
each of these statements are parts of a story, but they are part
of someone who thinks of themselves as part of the human collective
and their stories are of themselves being part of the human collective…
being a ballplayer or being president or of making millions of dollars,
that are stories of individuals within the human collective,
being part of the human collective, as members of the human collective…

can you write your story, while still being part of the human collective,
can you write your story of you outside of the human collective?
can you vision yourself, mentally existing outside of the human collective?

few can and even fewer would want to…….

write your story and see how it connects to the human collective,
how it is part of the human collective story…….

Kropotkin

ok, given the construct that people must, must exists within
the human collective, as we are social creatures and must exist
together to survive, individual survival is impossible, as we must exist
within the collective to survive, what exactly does freedom mean?

we cannot be free of the construct of human society, of the human collective,
for that path lies death and more importantly, it is by the comparsion
and contrast we have with other humans that help us define who we are…
we cannot become who we are, alone, isolated from others…

we can only become humans with the help of the human collective…

so once again, what does freedom mean?

freedom to or is it freedom from? are we free to choose or
are we free to get away from something?

to survive, we must have the state, we must reside within the human
collective of schools and culture and streets and work and sports…

we are determined by evolution to exists within this human collective…

to break free is not possible, so what does freedom mean?

Our freedom lies within the choices we make within the factors
that we cannot escape, evolution (biological necessities) gravity, entropy,
the forces that created the universe are forces we cannot escape…

but we have choices and those choices is the freedom we have…

I can choose to be a mean person or a kind person or a loving person,
or a just person……

I cannot choose to be anything other then a person, but I can choose
what kind of person I will be…….

we can choose the values by which we can live with…

that is the freedom we have…

choosing values that give our life meaning… for meaning isn’t found
in those forces we have no control over, we can’t find meaning in
gravity or in evolution or in entropy… but we can find meaning in
the only real choice we have as human beings, in our values…

in fact, you can use the word… value and meaning… interchangeable

but what of nihilistic systems like capitalism and communism and any religion
that ends with an ism, such as Catholicism………

why choose a system that negates you and your values, your meaning?

why choose capitalism or communism? when all they do is negate your value?

so what is left? deny the deniers and what is left?

what is left to make a choice about? what choice can we freely make now?

Kropotkin

freedom has been the basis for which the right claims that it
needs its security… for without security, you cannot have freedom
or so the argument goes… but let us try this…

security to pursue the American dream…but what exactly is this dream?

a big house, two cars, a wife/husband, two kids and a dog named spot
and a cat named missy…

but think about that… isn’t the American dream a very conservative one…
it isn’t about actual freedom nor is it about a course of action to take,
it is about property and the ownership of property is a very conservative
position… as property owners, one is tied down to maintaining
and keeping said property… (We own property, so we know) but
this engagement with property ties one down to a conservative,
security understanding of the world… the point of laws according to
conservatives is to protect property… read your Locke and you see how
much time he spends defending property… laws aren’t about
freedom or about pursuing dreams or the big picture stuff
like what should I believe in or what should I do or what
should I hope for? Laws aren’t about the possibilities of life…
and property aren’t about those possibilities either…

the ownership of property is considered to be the goal,
the destination, but what lies on the other side of property ownership?
there is no equation with property…for example, an equation is
E=Mc2… you have two equal sides, but having property doesn’t leave
us with an equation… property is P… P = ? what could be on the
other side of the equation… it certainly isn’t happiness or freedom
or knowledge or a higher belief……… the need for property is
ego, greed… for several years, I didn’t have a place to stay…
I didn’t live in an apartment or a house… I lived in a small room
where I worked…I didn’t have a bed or any furniture or any way to
cook food or even a spoon… I just had a foam pad I laid down
and a sleeping bag…in this room, the door didn’t even lock…
I kept most of my books in storage which was really the only
property I owned and in fact, books are still the only property
I own…I don’t consider anything in our condo as mine outside
of the books……I am free in regards to property…
as everything I own could be boxed up in about 20 boxes…
my entire adult existence could be held by a small u-haul truck…

I don’t have security per se, I don’t own anything of value…
(all the property we own, is owned by my wife, its in her name,
I don’t even own a car, it is in her name, the last time I owned
a car was probably in the 1980’s)

security is not a factor for me and to pursue security within
the confines of property is conservative… I yearn for something
beside security, I dream of justice, which is equality and I yearn
for freedom to pursue my goal of, not knowledge, but my goal
of wisdom… and wisdom comes from the understanding
of who we are, who I am and what should I do, and what should I believe in,
and what values should we hold? my engagement with
values isn’t predicated upon security, but upon the freedom to think…

for you can take away my freedom, put me in jail and I can still
engage with values and the understanding of who we are…

my pursuit for wisdom isn’t predicated upon security…
and the pursuit of who we are isn’t predicated upon security,
so why engage in something that doesn’t help you become, who you are,

I have called into question one of the basic values of modern day America,
which is the pursuit of property because this pursuit of property
is about a value that doesn’t help us become who we are, and
property is about ego, look at what I own, almost a status symbol,
I can own… but the real question you should be asking yourself is this,
what values are my values? and what should I hope for,
and what should I do? The Kantian/Kropotkin questions
of existence, not what property I own…

the engagement of ourselves with ourselves should be the goal, the
objective of life, not the pursuit of property which doesn’t help
learn who we are and what is possible for us given
the restrictions we have upon us by biological and social
and natural determinism like gravity and evolution and other
forces we cannot control or have any say about…

Kropotkin

Join the club inhabited by most philosophically inhabited , Kropotkin.

See what a difference a comma can make? (My mistake)

it is not the noise I can make, but the silence
I can keep…….

went to dinner tonight and for ego and vanity, I babbled
about knowledge, things I know… useless babble that no
one at the table thought about or even cared… and yet, on
I went, babble about facts and knowledge that meant nothing…

it is not the noise I can make…I can babble about the population
of New York or the signs of France until I am blue in the face…
and it was my ego and my vanity that I was trying to build up…
and I couldn’t shut up to save my life…

I was trying to impress and awe people who didn’t give a shit
and it was all just noise meant to make my ego feel better…

I don’t need to babble about useless information for the betterment
of my ego, my vanity…

I need to work on the silence that I can keep…

I was looking for validation, for some acknowledge, of my
superior knowledge and it was all for ego… vanity…

It is not about the noise I can make… I may as well barked like a dog,
for all the good as my babbling was tonight, but it is the silence I need
to engage with…

Maybe I didn’t get enough acknowledgment as a child or maybe I just babble
and can’t help myself… either way, I didn’t engage in anything resembling
wisdom, I engaged in useless babble about facts and information
that any idiot over two can find on the internet…

it is the silence I can keep that I must work on…
and not engage in mindless babble of facts and knowledge that only
shows my ego at work…

I am sure this couple had a very good laugh at my expense on the way home
and I deserved it… for I tried for something I don’t need, validation for who I am…

Kropotkin