Now for many, the escape from some limitation or ism is to
escape into another ism or ideology… for example,
for many the escape from the force of evolution is to
escape into the ism of religion… but that is one escape
from one ism to another and it cannot achieve freedom…
for example, to escape evolution in which we are programmed
by evolution to have certain fairly fixed operating principles…
for example, evolution has programmed us to be social, have
certain needs and desires which all humans have, to have fairly
similar growth… which means we evolve as we age in roughly
the same way, my childhood indoctrinations are similar to yours
and we enter our teenage years with in the same way and
our adulthoods is roughly the same, we try to find and create
a family situation… home and hearth as it were…
and as we age, we face similar growth and changes……
the human existence is far more alike then it is dissimilar…
and that is caused by evolution… but how do we escape that
similarity caused by evolution? we escape into another ism,
religion… in which we are also “chained” to certain factors…
think of a religion at random, Buddhism for example,
one is reincarnated over and over and over again,
we have no choice or control over this, but to escape
reincarnation, we must become enlighten and that allows us
to escape the burden of reincarnation… or think of Christianity…
we are given only two choices… to accept god/jesus or to become
condemned for all time to exist in hell…… that really isn’t a choice, is it?
how do we escape this?
or take capitalism, we exists as pawns of large scale capitalistic forces,
the invisible hand of god as it were, and how do we escape that impersonal,
damaging force of capitalism? we can’t… at this moment, there is no alternative
ism that allows us to escape capitalism… but any escape into another ism is to
simple leave us in the exact same place as capitalism… we have not control
or say within capitalism and that is true of any alternative ism we might suggest…
including communism or any religious escape or any other social escape we might think
of……….
No, the answer cannot be just another ism or ideology like escaping
evolution force into a religious ideology/force………
so, what is next?
I have suggested that we might find meaning in overcoming personal challenges
such as my track suggestion which is finding meaning in turning to our challenge to
go from my best mile time of 4:58 to 4:50… we can find meaning here in
overcoming personal goals and destinations…
we can find meaning in gaining mastery over some aspect of our life…
such as learning a new language or to travel to new lands or to
study math or philosophy… personal goals/destination such as this
is one possibility to escape the ism’s and ideologies that control our lives…
and the personal goal/destination is certainly one possible method to
gain escape from the ism’s/ ideologies of our lives…
but let us group think… what other possible means of escape from
the ism’s and ideologies that we might turn to?
we could begin by understanding the dangers and damages that
conforming to ism’s and ideologies brings…
we cannot escape the natural forces of gravity or evolution…
but we can reject the conforming forces of social or economic
or political forces that dominate and control our life……
not by escaping into another ism or ideology but by rejecting
ism’s and ideologies…….
we simply learn to live without any ism’s and ideologies…
imaging life without isms or ideologies…
we simply exists to achieve our own personal goals of
improvement…we raise a family, not to benefit
society or some cultural goal, but to simply raise a family…
we reject ism’s and ideologies to something else…
which is to live without any ism’s or ideologies…
we cannot escape ism’s and ideologies by escaping
into other ism’s or ideologies…….
the next step of human evolution is to live life without
ism’s and ideologies…….
we respond to human needs of basic necessities by simply
working, not to some artificial goal of making money or
to gain status, but to simply allowing us to gain the necessities of life
without sacrificing ourselves to some ism or ideology as we do today…
I go to work simply to gain the essentials of living and my meaning, my
purpose in life is found by pursuing such personal goals as lowing
my mile time from 4:58 to 4:50 or some other personal goal…….
the meaning/purpose of life is found not in the acquisition or the ism
of materialism, but in my choice……… the possession of wealth or materialism
as practice today is a hinderance to the real goal of finding out what it means
to be human and to practice/achieve our own goals/destination…
what this means is that the burden of the question of what is important
falls to the hands of people…… no longer are you forced to reduce
your needs or desires or wants to the greater needs of the ism or ideology that
is in practiced right now…… you no longer become a tool of that ism or ideology
or a pawn to be sacrificed if necessary to the goal/destination of that ism or ideology…
in other words, we drop the unnecessary and soul crushing demands
of ism’s and ideologies… we simplify life… by removing
ism’s and ideologies and return to live life for the benefit of
individuals and society…….
so, we now see what this does… as we are, by evolution, social
creatures and we have no choice over this, but we can accept this
and take control over this by making our actions to be accountable
to be a benefit to society, to the polis which exists to, as the Greeks
understood it to be, the polishing stone of becoming human…
we do not become human independently, apart from other human
influence, we become human by our comparison and contrast to
other humans…it is in our interaction with other humans,
that we become humans and we must engage with other humans
to become fully human…and this is what the Greeks knew to be true…
and so any actions we take must be understood within the confines of
the benefit or gains to the society/polis that helped us become human…
so if I spend the day cleaning up the trash in a park, I directly benefit
society and by extension, myself……… for we cannot become without
the direct influence of society and so our actions, however personal,
must influence and improve society, so that we gain as individuals
from that………… if I make society better in some fashion, I make it
easier to become fully human because I need society to become fully
human…….but this can be done without, without any need or recourse
to any ism or ideology……. it can be freely done once we understand
that we cannot exist without society, we cannot become human without
society and the polis… social creatures that we are………
so I have a dual goal, one of personal nature and one of a society’s nature…
and if we benefit both, we gain as a single individual and as a society……
so by helping the old lady cross the street, we help the lady
and we benefit society… by cleaning up the neighborhood
park, we benefit personally because we have benefited society…
and all this is done without any recourse to any ism or ideology…
without any claim to god or some other ism or ideology like
capitalism or communism……
we simply see a need and we answer that need…
if people are homeless, we answer that need by helping
them get housing because if we in some fashion improve
or help society, we directly help ourselves…….
no ism or ideology necessary………
if people are starving, then we aid them however we must
and this means we must, must take the overall needs of society
into account and this means, we no longer allow individuals massive
wealth or to bow our needs to the ism of materialism… which is the
goal of achieve massive wealth to the destructive overall health of society……
to achieve personal wealth is to damage society… for to achieve
such massive wealth in the name of some impersonal ism such as
capitalism is to declare an ism to be of more importance then
our individual lives…… to make people the means instead of the goal…
to engage in the pursuit of such wealth is to engage in creating
income inequality which damages society… by putting the individual
above the needs of society… personal goals/destinations which put
the individual above the needs of society must be discouraged and stopped…
for it is only within the aid of society that we can achieve our human nature,
to become human, fully human… we must not engage in ism’s or ideologies
but engage in what is both best for us personally and what is best for society
at large… for we are connected directly in the society and if society
suffers, we suffer, and if society flourishes, we flourish… it is that direct…
but to accomplish such a goal, we must become aware of and have
a understanding of what it means to exist within a society, within
a polis…we can achieve nothing on our own, we cannot become human
without society, without the polis…… for we are forced to do so by
millions of years of evolution… we cannot escape that fact…
so let us work with that fact, that certainty of evolution…
we can find freedom within the choices allowed to us by the various
forces that dominate our lives… we must accept evolution and gravity
as a force in our lives because we have no choice, but we can change
the human forces such as capitalism and communism by negating that
which negates us personally…by working toward something positive,
by creating, to avoid nihilism that is capitalism and communism,
we discover our possibilities in the act of creation… this is the power
of ART…… another brick in the wall…too many people
only see one brick or maybe two, but the fact is, we are
captives of many different and diverse bricks like evolution
and gravity and capitalism and religion and other ism’s…
but we can escape the many and diverse bricks by
removing the chains of ism’s and ideologies……
living without any recourse to a ism or ideology…
it is difficult to envision oneself without any recourse to
an ism or an ideology, but that is the quest… to reevaluate
oneself without any recourse to ism’s or ideologies…
are you brave enough?
Kropotkin