a new understanding of today, time and space.

this idea of life being a competition between us and others or the environment
or a zero sum game is wrong…we are not in competition and the real
striving that happens is not about some false competition between
people or states or societies…

the real battle lies within us…I have said this before but it
bear repeating, life is a battle within us…

I ran track in high school, my best for the 440 was 59.3 or so,
the competition I had wasn’t with the other people to win the race,
but the competition was to improve my time and if I won the race,
in doing so, great but the competition isn’t winning the race, its
improving one’s time… the real battle is to improve ourselves, not
to win the race…we have a false mistaken thought about
the point of our existence…it isn’t about coming in first,
it is about bettering ourselves… that is the real battle…

one might say, but Kropotkin, we have staggering poverty
in all the lands… that is because we believe in and act
upon the notion of a zero sum game…there must be winners
and their must be losers… thus we accept that a few people
(it is accepted that 40 people in the world have more wealth then
3.5 billion people or half the world’s population)
the pie that exists that we take from is a fix and set pie,
but that isn’t true…it is a lie that market forces determine
supply and demand… note that during the current economic boom,
that income hasn’t increased to match the demand…
if you want people to join you, one incentive is to increase
pay… and this hasn’t happened…which tells us the income
isn’t tied to supply and demand…there has been small increase
in pay but nothing to match what supply and demand suggest should
be the increase and certainly the pay raises doesn’t even allow one to
remain even with inflation…

in other words, the game is rigged… and that must end if we are to
achieve what is possible for us…

and what is possible is tied to Maslow’s pyramid… if we can solve the issue
of ensuring people the lower levels of needs, food, clothing, shelter,
warmth, education and health care…(to name a few needs) then
we can also engage with the next level which is security/safety needs,
and that is the value of society/state… to ensure that the basic needs of
its citizens are met… to allow the individual to engage with their own
pursuit of the final goal which is self-actualization…

is the goal to allow people to monopolize wealth or is the goal to
ensure that everyone is taken care of? decide that and we decide
the type of society we have………do we have a zero sum society or
do we have a society that lies beyond the zero sum game?

the competition you speak of can be, society ensuring the well being of
its members and not the monetary value of individual members…

by doing so, we then allow members of that society to engage in
their own individual pursuit of self-fulfillment… to become
Kierkegaardian individuals…

in the pursuit of individual wealth, we cannot be engaged in
our pursuit of our own self-fulfillment because we are to focused
on the nihilism that is capitalism… where the pursuit is wealth
and the increase of material goods instead of an engagement with
our souls, our conscience, our individual betterment in terms of
our improvement of who we are… running a 59.0 440 instead
of a 59.3 440… the goal is our improvement, not to gain
material wealth…that is the real competition we face…
to strive for our higher principles of being human, not the lower
levels…the animal, instinctual level…to achieve peace and love
and hope and harmony and charity is the goal of human existence,
not to achieve the lower levels of human existence, greed, hate,
anger, lust,

and entire reorientation of what it means to be human…

not engage in competition for the goal of winning, but
the compete to improve oneself… to become a higher
human being…great wealth means one has engaged in
the wrong pursuit in life…instead of engaging in what is
best in being a human being, great wealth means you have
pursued the lower, instinctual level of being human…
you have engaged in greed and lust, instead of
peace and love and justice……

the battle is to be more human, not be less human, lower level
human of hate and greed and lust and anger……

a reevaluation of values would and must be in order for us, individually
and collectively…we must engage in what does it mean to be human
and what does that mean for us in asking ourselves one of the
existential questions of existence, “What am I to do?” is the pursuit of
wealth really the best engagement we can have with our existence?

I find it hard to believe that what it means to be human is to engage in
the pursuit of wealth and material goods? really… really?

the pursuit of wealth in fact disguises any attempt we face to discover
what it means to be human… a higher level human…

one might say, that the pursuit of the higher level human being, doesn’t lead
us anywhere… and the pursuit of wealth and material goods have gotten us
where exactly?

I can tell you where, with rampant pollution and overpopulation and global
warming and the loss of precious animals and resources that cannot be
replaced… we are despoiling the earth to feed our greed and lust
and that cannot possibly end well…

a reevaluation of values would suggest that our entire American value
system is based upon the lower, animal level of existence and not upon
the higher, human based level of existence… to make war, as America
has done for over 90% of its existence is an indication of our failed value
system…….

we try to force “American values” upon other people, values we don’t even
believe in anymore like voting rights, freedom, equality, democracy…….
in our hypocrisy, we think we are better then others, we are that
shining city on the hill… and reality says we failed that test
years ago when we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, when we tortured
people, when we passed the “patriot act”, when we curtailed freedoms
in order to be more “secure/safe”…

we are a failed society because of our hypocrisy, we are a failed
society because of our devotion to an economic system
that devalues and degrades human beings and their values…

we engage in nihilism and we don’t even see it……. practice
the pursuit of wealth and you too engage in nihilism…
the devaluation of human beings and their values…

“what are we to do?” is the practice of nihilism really the thing
we are going to practice in America today?

Kropotkin

and in my battle to get people to understand how
important it is to being this process of a reevaluation of
values… an understanding of the values you have and
and do those values really represent who you are…
so we must first understand what values you have
and secondly, what values are the values that best
respresent you…

and therein lies the first problem…most people are afraid of
engaging in an honest appraisal of who they are…the masses
for the most part don’t engage in such honest search for who they are…

so, some here believe themselves to be the ubermensch, the overman
of Nietsche… but that is based on a false understanding of
Nietzsche… the overcoming of N. lies in the overcoming of
the indoctrinations of our youth… overcoming the values we
were taught in childhood… to babble about the sheeple of
the masses is to miss the entire point of N… it isn’t about the masses,
the entire point of the overmensch is to overcome his/her indoctrinations
of values from childhood… to become who you are and that has nothing
to do with the masses, the sheeple or anyone else…

for Nietzsche, the entire battle was a battle of one, fought in the mind,
heart and soul of the individual, engaging in a true understanding of
what it means to be human… and that has nothing to do with anyone else…

recall who Nietzsche felt were the “higher” man!
people like Goethe… and the value of Goethe was in
the values he created for himself as example for others…

he was a self made man but we associate that self made with wealth…
but that is not what N. meant by self made… Goethe was an artist who
created himself, who he was and what his values were… and that, that
is what N. means when he proclaims it necessary to “become who you are”

Goethe stood above others in his own understanding of who he was…
that self understanding was his ticket to his being an Ubermensch……
it wasn’t about anybody else…… if you want to understand what N.
meant by ubermensh… understand who Goethe was and what kind of
man he was… that is what is meant by becoming who you are…

it has nothing to do with the masses or being above anybody else…

so you want to become the ubermensch…… begin by a reevaluation of
who you are and what values you hold and what values you should
hold to bring into line the values you hold and the person you are…

our values must match our words and our actions……

if you proclaim peace and then act violently, your words don’t match
your actions and you are not, not an overman…if you practice
hypocrisy, you are not the ubermensch…. your words and your actions
and your values… they will all match up……….

IQ45 is an example of a person whose words, values and action
are all separate and don’t match up… and that is why he is subhuman…
animal like really…

he only values money

his words only preach the lower values of human beings, hate, anger, lust, greed,
thus his words don’t match his true/real values…

and his actions are racist, sexist, anti-human, misogynistic, anti-life…
and they don’t match his values or his words

to be human, truly human… the words, the actions and the values
all need to be in concert, together, of one mind…

and to be an ubermensh… one needs to engage in a union of
values, words and actions……… overcoming requires overcoming something,
the overcoming is the engagement of a reevaluation of values to discover
what values are really your values…and how to become your values…
a human being and their values and the words and the actions must
become one and the same…

if I see an action of a person who has overcome, by that action I can see
their values and the words they speak will confirm the values of a person
who has overcome, become who they are…

so, you want to be an ubermensch…. begin by overcoming the values
you were indoctrinated with and find the values that are truly you…

and that is what it is meant to be an ubermensch……

Kropotkin

a change of pace today… or is it?

I have stated before that when we are born, we are born into a family,
society, state that has certain values it expresses and those values
are indoctrinated into us as babies…but values aren’t the only thing
indoctrinated into us as babies/children…roles are indoctinated into
us…what do you want to be when you grow up… and we see the role models
all around us…firemen, policemen, president, baseball player… and so
we see these as our role models to be when we grow up…

I myself, wanted to be a baseball player when I grew up and I practiced
being a ball player for hours upon end…I would throw the ball, usuall a tennis
ball against the walls of the house and catch it…as I wasn’t allowed to do this in
the house, I spent hours alone, out in the yard throwing the ball against the walls
of the house…I must of broken a hundred windows throwing the ball against the house…

and I am sure you have your own stories of you practicing to become some role
in your future life…and that is what we are practicing, to be some role of some
sort within society…

as we grow older, the possibilities of the roles we can play become larger…
from president to teacher to athlete to news anchor to scientist to soldier to
pilot…… the number of possible roles grew in proportion to our age…

the number of possibilities we have for playing roles is large…
but the roles to be played must fit into certain parameters…
society must approve of the roles one is to play…you don’t see roles
where people sit around and think about things… you don’t see as a
role model, philosophy… scientist perhaps, but not philosophy…

the role models that society permits are roles that “contribute” to society"

and that is a very important notion to understand… the role models that
society praises are role models that in some fashion contribute to society…
and philosophers are not valued because it is felt that the contribution
of philosophers is minimal at best

… Philosophy is a genteel means to poverty…
or so says the t-shirt…

but is our lives really about the roles we play?

when ask, “what do I do” my answer clearly states my role,
I am a checker… but that role is the least important role I play in
my life… I am a husband and father and son and brother…
I am a philosopher… each of these personal roles are far more
important to me then the role of checker…

but I play other roles, citizen, consumer, producer, part
of a target audience, member of a society……

and my role as citizen is clearly laid out for me, if nothing else,
I must, must support my country regardless of what it does…

but, but I cannot in good conscience support a country that
engages in torture, a country that has concentration camps for
children, a country that practices anti-life policies of IQ45…
and a country that in its moral document of the budget, makes
war a higher priority then peace, and makes injustice a higher priority
then justice……

my individual conscience is in conflict with my duties of being
a citizen of the state…I must make a choice… and here lies
the individual of Kierkegaard and Ipsen who claimed that
untruth lies with the masses… I am but one man who must make
a choice between my conscience and my country……

and how do I resolve this conflict?

any actions I take will be met by swift and dire punishment from the state…
any calls I make for an ethical treatment of human beings receives
rival calls of being a traitor and unpatriotic and unamerican…….

so what choice should I make? should I risk the malice of my fellow citizens
or should follow my conscience and denounce my country as having abandoning
the values that make America the shining city on the hill?

where does my individual priority lie? with the state and being a citizen or
with being a human being with an obligation to other human beings regardless
of their being brown or from Mexico or being gay or immigrants to this country?

silence is an abdication of one choice… but for many,
cowardice rules the day and they simply follow the path of least resistance
and they stay quiet……. fearful of choosing between their conscience
and the state………dammed either way they think and so silence
becomes the rule of life…

but choice is all we have as human beings… fail to choose and there
is no point in being human…… fail to choose, so why do you exists?

if you don’t make a choice, you have no reason for living as a human being
choice is the marker of being human…

“What am I to do?” “What should I believe in?” What values should I hold?"
“What should I hope for?” “On what should I spend my energy on?”

all these questions demands one to make a choice…

so who is this Kierkegaardian being I have spoken of?

they are someone who has realized that choice is the essence of being human…

so, what do you choose? your individual conscience or playing the role of citizen?

Kropotkin

now some might claim that I am making life much too
difficult…but life should be hard…making life choices
should be hard and difficult…

being born isn’t a path into easiness… no, no, a million times no…

our very existence should cause difficulty and unease as to what it
means to be human and what our choices need to be as a human being…

and I place being human above minor, petty roles that come with
nationality or religion or sexual identity…

am to act as a human being in a situation or should I
act as a man or an American or citizen or father?

when faced with a situation, what role should I play in making a choice, a decision?

most roles we as we understand roles are artificial roles, being an American is
an artificial role because being an American is a role based on boundaries
that are artificially drawn… the line between America and Canada is a false,
artificial line that only exists in treaties and books…… stand in between Canada
and America, say in Montana and tell me which land is America and which
land is Canadian? the line separating countries are artificial and thus making
the line between an American and Canadian rather blurry…

and the lines dividing a protestant and a catholic are just as blurry…
religious lines are no different then the artificial line dividing countries…
and the line between Catholic and Hindu or Buddhist are just as artificial
as any line dividing France from Germany………

and sexual lines are no different… men loving men, men loving women,
women loving women, women loving men, trans loving men or trans loving
women, it doesn’t matter… for the only word that common to any of those
statements is loving… for the thing that matters is love, not who loves whom,
but that love is happening…and so it doesn’t matter who is doing the loving
as long as loving is happening…

we get hung up on who is doing the loving instead of the word loving…
we miss the important aspect of loving……

we must engage in the process of making choices…
being human means making hard choices…
society has tried to take the making of choices out of our hands…
but it cannot… we are forced by being human to make choices……

the modern version of being human means allowing society/state to make
our choices and that cannot succeed because choice, making a choice
is an individual matter and because the state/society is making choices for us,
we are left with alienation and disconnect because the choices being made
isn’t being made by us… but the choices are being made by politicians
and bureaucrats that aren’t accountable to us and without our direct
approval…………

part of our alienation is because of choices being made without any input or
say from us………. to be human, fully human requires that we make our own
choices about the things that matters to us……….

one might say, but we can’t have 7 billion people making choices for themselves…

why not? to be human is to make choices… otherwise we are just animals……

Kropotkin

and we have reached the Kierkegaardian portion of the
program…

I am reading, or I should more correctly say, I am rereading
Kierkegaard… at one point in time, I read anything by K.
I could get my hands on, of course that was 30 years and I
don’t recall much of it now…….

we know historically that K. was one of the precursors of
existentialism…but what did K. bring to the table that
allowed him to become one of the key fathers of existentialism?

His entire premise was around the basic idea of choice…
what kind of choices are we going to make?

For K. the only real choice was to be a Christian…
but the vapid, tasteless, lifeless modern choice of Christianity was
not to his liking, not at all…

the modern person says he is a Christian with all the passion of
saying, he likes beans and with all the intensity of someone announcing
they like beans… when all you did was simply to ape your parents and
simply continued their bland version of Christianity……
with no though or understanding of what it meant to be Christian…

to K. that was not real faith, real belief in Christianity because
the modern church striped faith of all its passion and fervor and intensity…

you can choose god with all the intensity of picking out some apples
at the store… red apples sound good, no, green apples seem to be
bobby’s favorite this week, maybe I’ll buy bobby some green apples
so he will have something healthy to eat… and that is the same passion
we use to choose Christianity and god……… the biblical anguish and passion
and fire of Job or Abraham is missing……

and that is what K. is fighting… making the choice of Christianity
to actually mean something… to become a real choice… not just
to become Christian because it is what everyone else is just as indifferently
doing… and that is the lesson of K.

to create choices with some passion and fire about the choices
we make…

we are temporary, finite beings… we exists for only a while and then
we are gone… there is not a decision that we make that goes with us
beyond death…every moment has the same impact as every other moment…
but we can create meaning and importance in moments by our choices…

the Japanese tea ceremony is an excellent example of infusing a moment
with meaning and purpose…and an example of how we can infuse our own
moments with meaning and purpose… by infusing our choices with intensity
and fire and excitement and fury……. the choices we make need to become
something more then a simple choice between red apples and green apples…

that is the message of K… making our choices with fire and passion and
intensity……

too often, much too often we simply follow the path of least resistance
and we take the path right before us… and that is how we wind up
miserable and unhappy and alienated and disconnected from society
and ourselves…… because we didn’t make our life choices with
fire and intensity…for the most part, our life choices are made
by simple fallowing the path, the course already laid out before us…

we become Christian because it was the path before us and we
cheer America on because it was the path laid out before us
and we vote Democratic because it was the path laid out before
us and we work our crummy 9 to 5 job because it was the
path laid out before us… and we made these choice, or should
I say more correctly, we simply took the next step without
any understanding or feeling about it… we began our jobs
in corporate America without understanding what it
means to sell your soul to the devil……

our life choices are made with no more passion then
picking out apples…and with no more consideration…
we might buy red apples because that is what our mother
bought… and for no other reason…….

the argument might be made that we cannot value or
have the time to engage with our every decision because
we must make so many decisions every single day…
but most decisions we make are trivial decisions…
what is for lunch? what channel shall I watch?
which baseball game am I watching? and most of the time,
we sleepwalk through those decisions too… but the important
decisions, the really meaningful decisions,
we barely engage in the really big decisions…

“What am I to do?” “what values should I hold?” “What should I believe in?”

we don’t give these life’s meaning and purpose questions any more thought then
we give to choosing a apple in the store……

K. didn’t say this, but I will, begin to give our choices all the passion
and intensity of every choice being the most important choice in life…

but Kropotkin, we can’t… we have hundreds of choices a day… and that is where
we begin… instead of making hundreds of choices, make two but make those two
choices with passion and intensity and fire… stop making quantity choices
and begin to make quality choices… make one decision a day, but make that
decision a powerful one, make that one choice a meaningful and purposeful choice

and approach all your decisions/choices with meaning and passion and fire
and purpose…

Kropotkin

so, what does it mean to choose?

and with what criteria do we choose something?

what standard would you use to decide/choose something?

How are choices made?

Kropotkin

we have literally hundreds of choices we can make every single
day… which cat food to buy? what TV show should I watch tonight?
What book should I read right now? Right now I am reading
Soren Kierkegaard book, “Stages on life’s way” but why choose that
book? why not choose his “Concluding unscientific postscript” or
perhaps “fear and trembling” or “Sickness unto death”
or perhaps I should be reading Nietzsche, perhaps his “Ecce Homo”…

my choices, my possibilities are endless in regards to what I can read
or watch on TV or to eat… why should I choose this over that?

and as part of our choices, we can choose to be kind or fair or just or
we can choose to hate or to fear or to lust or to have anger…

what kind of person do we want to be?

that too is a choice… How do I want to be remembered
by history? although frankly, I seriously doubt history will
remember or note I even existed…

so, my choices are choices made by me in silence with
anonymity guaranteed from history…

so why should I choose to be good… why should I choose to
reach for the higher levels of human beings, instead of lowering
myself to the lower levels of instinct and animals?

5 minutes after I’m dead, no one will remember me and it might
not even take that long, so why should I should want to choose to
be human, the higher level of being human, to love and to hold peace
and justice and charity and hope as part of the human condition?

it won’t and doesn’t matter if anybody else notices my status
of my being a higher human, I notice… and my choice defines me,
my choice gives me my understanding of who I am… even if absolutely
no else notices or cares, I must live with my choices and I must die with
my choices…

I choose to engage with the higher level of being human because
it is a hard, hard taskmaster with no guarantee of success…
it is like Icarus… I must fly as close to the sun as I can get…
because it is a task that is hard…

to overcome… is equally as hard to achieve…
success and failure isn’t about money or fame
or power or influence or time spent on TV…

to take the path of least resistance is human but it isn’t
a path to becoming who you are or overcoming the
childhood indoctrinations or knowing who you are…

the three stages of being human…

the process of “know thyself”
the process of “overcoming”
and the process of “becoming who you are”

with the understanding of what values are really your values
choose your values, don’t let society choose your values,
don’t let your parents choose your values, don’t let the media
choose your values, don’t let the church choose your values………….

make the choice of becoming who you are…
but once again, how do we choose?
and what criteria do we use to choose?

Kropotkin

let us try a different tack……

let us state, He is an American.

now, what choices are supposed to be available for an American?
and how do these choices suppose, supposed to making an American
a “superior” possibility?

the one choice that is available for an American is to vote…
but, we have the GOP trying and succeeding to voter suppression…
we have massive gerrymandering that makes voting unimportant…
we have admitted GOP attempts to influence the census to
change voting to favor them…we have massive GOP attempts
to misdirect voters into failing to vote or to vote on the wrong days,
we have the collective attempts between Russia and the GOP to
change and influence people via social media…

and in the midst of all this voter fraud and intimidation,
what are the choices to vote does one have when there are massive
voter fraud schemes against the average American voter?

so, what other “choices” do we have as Americans?

We are supposedly the greatest country on earth and yet,
we have massive income inequality in which 40 people owe
as much wealth as 3.5 billion human beings……

income inequality isn’t a sign of greatness, having people who
must work 3 jobs to survive isn’t a sign of greatness,
Walmart paying people such low wages that they must go on
government programs like WIC and EBT… at work, in my very
large grocery chain, we have workers who are so poorly paid,
that they must use EBT, food stamps, to survive……
please feel free to describe how that is American greatness?

the base of Maslow hierarchy, is the basic level of human needs,
food, clean water, warmth, shelter, clothing… how is denying
that basic level of human needs, a sign of greatness?
as a liberal, I have included education and health care as part
of the basic needs of all human beings… as the politicians
like to point out, all American’s have access to health care,
but what access means is, you have access if you can pay for it…

a few years ago, I was force to have part of my colon removed,
over a 4 month period, I spent a total of a month in the hospital,
at a week at a time, the total cost of the entire procedure was
roughly 360,000 including a one week stay that cost over 120,000 dollars…
I could have spent a week in Hawaii in the most luxurious hotel
eating in 4 star restaurants every night and still have spent less money
then that one week in a hospital…

I had insurance for this, but insurance only pays 80% and thus our portion was
20% of the total, so our portion of the bill was 72,000 dollars…
can you afford to shell out 72,000 dollars for medical costs?

how is that cost, which every year bankrupts millions of Americans,
part of American greatness? Part of American’s choice?

What other choices do we specifically have as American’s?

well in many states, the choice of having an abortion is dropping.
several states are down to just a couple of providers for abortions…
that choice, that distinctly American value of choice, how is that
found in regards to the choice for an abortion? if we limit or end
the choice of abortion, then how does choice become an
American value?

if one argues, by ending choice, ending abortion, we save the lives of
the unborn, we are pro-life… but pro-life ends at birth, we see this
everyday, when we reduce aid to mothers and their children…
that moral document called the Budget, every year we reduce our
assistance to families and children and senior citizens…
we cannot call ourselves pro-choice if we prevent families
from feeding their children… if we prevent families from
engaging in the basic function of the family which is to
meet the needs of children, to meet the basic needs of human beings
in regards to Maslow’s hierarchy… if we fail to help families
feed or clothe or shelter or educate or to give proper health care,
then we are not pro-life… we are only pro-life as long as the possibility
exists for the unborn, but not for the born… once born, you are on your own…
and that is not pro-life……

so the GOP is actively engage in reducing the choices of American’s…
in health care, in education, in feeding families, in voter rights,
in clean water… so how does being an American suggest that
we somehow have greater choices when we clearly don’t have
the choices we had 10 or even 5 years ago?

I am old, I have seen how America increased the choices in voting
and in health care and education during the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s,
but the war of the GOP has been on reducing those choices, the cultural
wars of the last 50 years has been also a war on American’s choices…
at every step, reducing the choices American’s have…

how does that suggest or imply that being an American
as being part of the greatest country on earth?

we have made choice as one of the highest attributes of being American
and yet, we have spent the last 50 years reducing the average American’s choices…

is the greatness of America really reduced to how many cereals are on the supermarket
shelf or how many different types of cars we can buy?

and even then, at the GOP likes to say, we have access to, but that just
means we can have access to if we can pay for it… so we have our beloved
access to the many diverse and different material goods offered by American
capitalist… if we can afford it………

so, the vaunted distinct American greatness of choice is really just a lie…
because greatness has never been about or found with one’s choice of a material
object… in other words, we don’t think of greatness in terms of buying something…
Lincoln wasn’t great because he could buy something like a new carriage…or a
new couch…or as IQ45 suggested, when George Washington could buy a new
airplane…….greatness is a function of how values are put to use…

and values cannot be bought or sold or traded…

Lincoln was great because of the values he held and
all great human beings are great, not because of what they
could buy or sell, but in terms of the values they held
and practiced…

we value Gandhi and MLK or Jesus, not because of what they could
buy or sell but because of the values that they preached and practiced…

and America greatness is not a function of buying or selling anything,
but of the values that we American’s preached and practiced…

and that is why America’s greatness is no longer… because
we only preach and practice the buying and selling of material
goods… values like honesty and justice and hope and peace are
not only devalued but actively discouraged… values which is what
makes greatness, true greatness possible, are denied, devalued…
which means America practices, with great vengeance, nihilism…

any time people and their values are denied, devalued…
that is nihilism… and that is the true legacy of the modern
GOP… it preaches and practices nihilism…

in the last election, the GOP made their slogan,
MAGA, Make America great again……

instead the GOP is preaching and practicing nihilism
and greatness can never come from nihilism……

so the vaunted choices of American’s is a lie…
the real value of America is the only
choice left to American’s…

nihilism…

Kropotkin

the question becomes this: it is not a question of what I know,
but a question of, what am I to do?

but perhaps, perhaps the question runs deeper then that…
perhaps it becomes a question of the values we use when
we act upon the question, “what am I to do?”

I can do something, say, get married… the act of marriage
is a good action… but the real heart of the matter lies
within the values I have used to engage in marriage…
am I marrying because I love the other person, or
am I marrying the other person because of perceived
value gained by marrying that person. Let us say, I marry
because the other person family has wealth and power…
I married because of the value to me that the other family
has money, power, prestige…love is, at best, a secondary
consideration to marriage given the wealth gained by marrying
into this family…so, what values are exposed when I marry for
possible money and power vs marriage with love? to marry because
of the wealth of the family brings us different values then to marry
because of love…

when we commit an action, regardless of the action, what values
presuppose that action? when we act, what values underline
that action? when we make a choice, what values underline that choice?
If I were to help an old women cross the street, what values underline
my helping a old women crossing the street? quite often, the values prompting
an action are vain, selfish, “modern” values. I helped that old woman cross the
street to confirm my vain belief that I am a “good” person…Or perhaps
I helped that old women cross the street to impress someone, a girl perhaps…

another example of vanity is the drive, the action of becoming a
manager in a store, or becoming an corporate executive…

the vanity of thinking I am the only one who can “lead” the store or
the corporation…

think of how many actions you have done because of vanity?

of course one doesn’t think this way. We always think our motives for
actions taken or not taken, we think our motives are far purer then they actually
are. Rare are the times when we acknowledge our “true” motives for actions taken,
even to ourselves. to take an extreme example, very extreme, if I were to rape
a woman, I would find excuses to free myself of any culpability of such an action…
my motives for such an heinous act would be to blame the victim, she was asking
for it, I couldn’t help my self, she was wearing clothes that forced me to rape her…
anything, any excuse to absolve myself from my horrible action of rape…

my motives must be pure in my eyes… thus I blame any other party available to
absolve myself from crimes committed… I have committed actions that are
by any standards, horrible actions, but to preserve my vanity, my ego, I must
find blame everywhere else besides the one place where blame resides, me…

thus we can now see evil in action… an evil person wouldn’t care if their
motive are pure or not, they simply act regardless of any pretense of
motives… a true psychopath wouldn’t even acknowledge that their actions
were horrible or wrong… a true psychopath like IQ45 isn’t even aware
that his actions are a violation of human standards of decency…
and IQ45 followers also are so caught up in their own personal attempts
to sanitize their motives for hatred and anger and greed and lust,
that they can’t see the idea that actions like concentration camps are
wrong or why concentration camps are inherently evil……

the followers of IQ45 must maintain the fiction that their motives
are pure, authentic, unclouded… to be able to maintain that fiction,
they engage in wild and implausible thoughts that the other, in this
case, immigrants, are subhuman, not normal, rapist and killers…
by this fiction, followers of IQ45 can maintain the fiction that
they are patriots and exemplary American’s………

these “patriots” are convinced that their actions are purely in defense
of “America” but their evil actions really exists because they are
unable or unwilling to examine their own motives as to why they
want to dehumanize other human beings…

for to dehumanize, to negate other human beings and their values
is nihilism…………followers of IQ45 are practicing nihilism…
the negation of human beings and their values…

any practice of negation or dehumanizing human beings occur,
that is nihilism… thus we have seen large scale nihilism occur over
the last 120 years… World War One is a large scale
practice of dehumanization and negation of human beings and their values,
capitalism is another example, the concentration camps of the Nazi’s is
another example of the negation and dehumanization of human beings
and their values, World War 2 is another example of the negation
and devaluing of human beings and their values…the entire cold war
is one long act in the dehumanization and devaluing human beings…

communism vs capitalism is simply two “opposing”
ism’s that devalue and dehumanize human beings and their values…

it really falls down the fact that the leadership of the two
“opposing” ism’s are at war because the ism’s and ideologies
of both devalue and deny human beings and their values…
there is no difference between the two ism’s which suggest that
they are at war due to their competition to export their brand
of nihilism under their leadership… their motives are once again
pure, at least to themselves, but their real motives are grounded
in envy, hate, lust, power, but to mask their motives, even to themselves,
they hide behind such lofty words as patriotism and nationalism and
dialectical materialism… but their motives, hidden even from themselves
is about the lower, base instincts of human behavior…
the lower values which drives the negation and devaluation
of human beings and their values…
and not the higher level of human behavior, the level of
love, peace, charity, justice, values which uphold and supports
the affirmation of human beings and their values………

the will to an ism is to be able to negate and deny
human beings and their values… this ism allows one to deny
and negate under the aegis of the ism/ideology…

we take actions and we may or may not create values in support
of that action, but we certainly create motives that to us anyway,
are pure and honorable……….

so look to your motives for an action… do those motives hide
and distort your values or do your motives explain
and uphold your values?

questions we must ask ourselves.

Kropotkin

let me tell you a story:

once upon a time, there was a man……

but as with any story, it really doesn’t begin once you are a man,
it really begins, individually, once you are born…

a man is born… into a certain set of assumptions, and ism’s
and ideologies, prejudices and superstitions… to name a few
things this man, this child was born into…to believe in a certain god… this god was
name Elohim or perhaps it was Johovah or perhaps it Allah… it is so hard to
keep track of the one god’s name when he had so many different and diverse
names… anyway, this family indoctrinated this child into their family religion…
and they indoctrinated this child into the state ism for political understanding
and they indoctrinated this child into an economic understanding…
they indoctrinated this child/man into a political ideology called
Unum hominem democractiam…and the economic ideology was
called Unum hominem capitalismus…

the family believed very fervently in these state religion/political ideology/
economic ideology…and so they taught this young child/man all about
these political and economic wonders that so dominated the world…

the young man grew up as young men do, and he was a feverent
believer in this political and economic belief systems…

we might ask ourselves, why did the man believe so strongly in these
systems? because no other system was taught to him… it was all he
knew… and when all you know is one thing, you believe fervorently
in that one thing…for not to believe in the only system offered to you,
is nihilism…

as this fine young man grew into adulthood, he soon became aware of
small failures in the systems he was taught, both in the economic
and in the political system, these small gliches shouldn’t have happened
if, if the system was a good as everyone had said it was…

if the economic system was as good as everyone said it was,
why was there people starving on the streets and why were there
children being homeless on the streets…

he asked the wise elders and they said, these people who were
starving and homeless… it is their own fault they are in poverty…
they don’t work hard enough to support their families…

the young man thought about it…… how is it possible that all these
people, millions of people didn’t work hard enough… I have seen them
working, they seem to work very hard… they suffer from having the lowest
jobs in their society and by doing so, they are paid very low wages……

it seemed to the young man, that the problem laid with the wages offered
to these people, not that they worked hard…

when he asked the elders about this, to a person, they denied this
was true… each one swore, swore upon their very gods, that the reason
people were homeless was because they were lazy, good for nothing bums…
they starved because they were far too lazy to work…

but the young man had seen these so called lazy people work very hard,
very hard for pennies… while these elders seem to have no wants…

he asked all the wise people he knew and they said, the elders were special
people who because they were special, they were privileged and had no wants…

this young one asked, so these elders worked hard for their money? why, yes,
all the wise people said… but when this young man sought to confirm the
fact that the village elders were hard workers, he found out that every single one
of them had in fact inherited their wealth…

they were wealthy from birth… they didn’t have to work… but this young man
was confused… these people had wealth handed to them, and yet, millions of
people were not handed wealth and suffered from it…how was this fair?

and so he asked the wise people, how was it fair that some inherited wealth
and other go without and all from being born into the right family or wrong family?

Life isn’t fair… that is what he was told… so, if life isn’t fair, then
perhaps those homeless people were handed an unfair sentence of suffering
in the streets because they weren’t born into wealth… it had nothing to do
with the amount of work they did, they simply weren’t born into the right
families? “oh, no, they didn’t work hard enough was the answer about the
homeless in the street”… but you said, life was unfair… how is it fair not
to be born into the right family? and the final answer came as final answers
always come, you are too young to understand… you are too naïve… childish…
you are unable to comprehend the complexities of civilization…….
so said the elders to this young man……….

but this young man understood…….

so the young man being determined to understand why, relentlessly
began a search into why this society lacked charity and compassion for
the people and children living in the streets……

as the years passed, the young man became as young men do,
an adult…… so this man was told he must contribute to society,
he must get a job, he must pay for his own way…….

but why? I am searching for understanding of why society
cares so little for the disadvantaged living in that society…

and the young man was berated about how he owed society for
his excellent childhood… owed society… but society apparently
doesn’t own anything to these homeless people or to any disadvantaged
people living in that society…individuals owed to society but
society didn’t owe to people… how exactly did that work, he wonder?

and so he began to ask people…of why we owe to society but society doesn’t owe to us…
and a few, ok, none wanted to answer his question…….

why won’t people engage in some understanding of the society they live in?

why do we owe to society but society doesn’t owe to us?
a simple enough question, but one no one wants to answer……

so to understand your story… ask yourself, why do we owe society
but society doesn’t owe us?

thus ends some of the young man’s questions…for now

Kropotkin

one fine day, our young hero was drafted to serve…

In the martial society such as he lived in, this was a high, great
honor… to serve with honor… to exhibit great patriotism was the highlight
on any man’s life…to bravely defend one’s society… there was
no higher call to duty…but, but if the young man had a duty to
the state/society, then what was the duty the state offered that young man?

What were the obligations the state had to that young man?

if we return to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we see that
the lower level of needs, the physical needs are not guaranteed
by the state… the budget which is a moral document can change
the number of and amount derived from civil programs to feed
and house and clothe the less fortunate within that society…

in other words, the state might, if convenient, might guarantee
the physical needs of the disadvantaged or might not, depending
upon the state/government desire to do so……

conservatives read the manifesto of the government to mean
that only safety/security is guaranteed by the state/government…

of course that is a selective reading of the governmental manifesto…

Wait, wait, what governmental manifesto are you talking about?

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence,
promote the general welfare, and security the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity, to ordain and establish the Constitution for the United
States of America”…

The constitution is quite clear, “to promote the general welfare”
and “insure domestic tranquility”…………

both of these points say to us, we must in order to promote the general
welfare and insure domestic tranquility, we must ensure the health and
general welfare of the citizens of the United States…

and the only possible means of doing so, is to ensure that the
needs of the citizens are met… that the physical needs of
the people, food, water, warmth, shelter, education and health
care of the people are met…and we also must engage in
the next level of needs of the people, security and safety…
and we do so, with the military and police and the national guard
and firemen… so it is clear that we have engaged in meetings
the needs of the people in regards to the level of safety and security…

we must now engage in meeting the people lower needs, the physical needs,
with government actions… not when the government see’s fit, but
at all times, with all available resources, with all available attention…

in fact, the government first duty is to ensure that the needs of the people
are met, especially in regards to the lowest level, the physical needs of the people…

now that are some foolish people who claim that by meeting the needs of the people,
we are somehow creating entitlements generations… these conservatives point to
so called “welfare Queen’s” as evidence to this………it is well known that
people see what they want to see… if you want to see “welfare queen’s” then
that is what you will see, if you want to see something else, then that something
else is what you will see……

we have an obligation as defined by the constitution, to engage in promoting
the “general welfare” and to “ensure domestic Tranquility” and we do so by
engaging in meeting the needs, the physical needs of the people… regardless
of our personal ism’s, ideologies, prejudice, superstitions and biases……

it is not enough to engage in personal achievements and personal goals,
we must engage in promoting the “general welfare” and “ensuring domestic Tranquility”
but we don’t have to do so by personally manning the food kitchens… although that
would be nice, no, we have government and government acts in our behalf to
engage in programs and daily events that would take up too much of our time…
thus we have government to deal with policing the state and picking up
our garbage and teaching our children and fixing the roads and
taking care of our sewage…… that is the role of government to tend to
tasks that individually would prove to be impossible, but collectively
we can manage to accomplish…………

and we engage in this collective action, with the hallmark of
civilization, taxes…we cannot have civilization without taxes…

and taxes are another obligation we have to society, and society/state
in return takes care of, manages the tasks listed above in our name…
if government fails in it task to take care of the “people’s business” then
we have an mandate, an obligation to remove that government and replace
it with a government that engages in the people’s business,

“WE THE PEOPLE in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the
common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure
the blessings of liberty”………

The constitution itself commands us to promote the general welfare,
and by that we must ensure that the people have their physical needs met,
that we ensure the higher need of security/safety are met…
but and this is important to note, as we move higher through the
hierarchy of needs, the less the government has to engage in…

the government cannot engage in promoting the higher levels of needs,
love/belonging, esteem, and the highest level of Self-actualization…
for those needs are personal goals, needs and can only be met individually…

but the government can make sure the conditions are suitable to people to
reach their higher level goals… by guaranteeing the lower levels needs of
people are being met, we can help them engage in their own struggle to
reach their higher level of goals……. or to put it another way, a man cannot
climb to the roof of his house without being sure, absolutely sure the house
is built strong enough to allow him to climb to the roof…the government
can ensure that the foundation of civilization is strong enough to allow
people the certainty that they can attempt to climb to the top of their
abilities…to reach their higher level of being human………

that is the real goal of government… to provide a base strong enough
for people to allow people the ability to reach their own personal goal…

if we have an obligation to the state, then the state has
an obligation to us… and we must have the dialog as to
what exactly is our obligation to the state/society
and what exactly is the state/society obligation to us?

and we must spell this out in specific terms and cases…

we must know where we stand in regards to the state/society
and the state/society must know exactly where we stand in regards
to it.

Kropotkin

all that constitutional bullshit is rhetoric too vague to pin down. for example, what does ‘promote the general welfare’ amount to? should i have one TV, two TVs or three TVs?

imma tell you what needs to go down in order for this thing to work. as long as you have three branches of a government that is not also in control of economy, those three branches will forever be corrupted by the plotting of the free market. when those knuckleheads wrote all that ambiguous shit up, they were under the impression that man was inherently good/fair and that they ought to give this big idea put forth in smith’s ‘wealth of nations’ a try now that they finally broke free of the european monarchies. but when they designed the government they had no idea the invisible hand would be just that, invisible, and that there would be nothing to prevent the nefarious manipulation of these three branches of government by the free market monster three hundred years later.

marx knew all this shit though. you can’t have a division of ‘state’ and ‘business’ without the latter corrupting the executive, legislative and judicial branches. our constitution was a document that was obscure enough to distract the people from this fact.

we have all kinds of relationships… I have an ongoing
engagement/relationship with my wife and my daughter,
I have different roles in each relationship, but they are
relationships… I have an ongoing relationship with
those at my job… I have a different relationship with them
then I have with my wife and my daughter… I have a different
relationship with the manager then I do with the supervisors
and a different relationship with my fellow employee’s…with
each person I have a different relationship…a different interaction with
each… based upon my role and based upon their role… a boss/manager
has a different interaction/relationship with an employee then with
a fellow manager…

to a great extent, our roles determine our relationships…
different roles demand different relationships…

but we each have a relationship with the state/society…
and depending upon our role, we might have an active, ongoing
relationship or a very passive relationship…for some, basically paying taxes
and that is the extent of their relationship with the state/society…

and some believe that we have a relationship with the metaphysical,
we might name those metaphysical relationship, god or some higher
power…

I don’t believe in god or jesus or mohammed or allah or any sort
of metaphysical power…… so I don’t have a relationship with
the metaphysical, again, metaphysical means beyond the physical…

I engage with the physical, that which can be seen, heard,
tasted, touched or smelled………

but, I am engaged in a relationship with idea’s…….
what does it mean to be human? What am I to do?
What should I hope for? What should my values be?

idea’s exists somewhere between the metaphysical
and the physical… I cannot see or hear or touch or smell
or taste the values I adhere to… but they aren’t metaphysical
values… they don’t exists “beyond the physical”
as metaphysical values……

the value of justice exists as a real world value with real
world applications… I can turn that value into a physical
value… by my applying values into concrete situations…

if I treat two people unequally, I am not treating those
people… justly… for justice is the application of
equal treatment to people regardless of who they are,
regardless of their race, creed, sexual orientation, or color…….

I can apply values physically… I can apply a value like
love physically…thus values, despite their existing
as abstract idea’s, can be used physically within the
relationships I have or will create…….

in my relationship with my wife, I apply the value of love
and with my daughter, I also use the value of love, but
a different types of love…

we apply values to our relationships… I value honesty
and so I apply that value to my relationships…
I use it at work with my co-workers but less so with
management… because management is consumed
with the nihilism of the pursuit of profit… where
I am negated and devalued……. I cannot use the value
of love or honesty when I am being negated, both physically
and in values…….

who I am and my values are negated by such a nihilistic ism
as capitalism and so I am not predisposed to engage with love with
those who would negate me………

I react to my being negated with rival hate and anger and
other such petty, negative lower level of human engagement…

the nihilism that society/state engages with, damages my relationship
with the state/society and those who are charged with maintaining
the capitalistic state in business and corporations……

am I alone? no, million too are disconnected, alienated from
the state/society…how do we recover that relationship
between the state/society and myself when we have
this alienation problem between myself and the state?

perhaps by clearly defining the roles we have, between the
state/society and myself………

we need to define and clarify the role, the relationship between
individuals and the state…….what is my obligation to the state/society
and what is the obligation the state/society has to me………

we may be able to solve the relationship problem we have
between the state/society and the individuals within that society/state
by clearly understanding what is expected from each…….

perhaps… perhaps…

Kropotkin

K: not only do we have relationships with people and idea’s but
we have a very clear relationship with the past…

for who we are today, both individually and collectively,
are the result of the past and the interactions of
both people and ism’s and ideologies…
this interaction, this relationship that those in the past had
with each other dominant even today…for example,
the event called the “American Civil War” is an relationship
that still influences us today…over 150 years later…

and we also have one more relationship that should be high on
anybody’s understanding of relationships… and that is our relationship
with the future…what we do, how we do it, how long we do it,
who we do it with, and why, we interact with others, influences the
future…the past and the present interacting, creates the future…

whither you have one or two or three TV’S, depends on what influence
you wish to leave into the future…by conserving resources, we
profoundly influence the future as does laying waste to what
resources we have today influence the future…

our actions today influence what kind of future our children have…
we have a relationship with the future and we help determine
that future by our actions today…

my wife and I have a goal, which is to leave our daughter the condo
we live in and that goal is going to impact her life… that goal will
influence her life… perhaps we can leave the condo to her, perhaps
not, it all depends on events that occur today and events that will occur
tomorrow… we have a relationship with the present, today and perhaps that
relationship will change in the future, which means our present goals
and possibilities might also change…

all of life is a series of relationships, some permanent like family and
some not so permanent, TV’S and couches and cars……

I believe that values are a permanent relationship……
values like love and justice and hope and peace…
I believe that these values being permanent, (but the
meaning of justice, hope, love and peace… change
over time… what was justice to the Greeks, what is treated
equally in relationships, has changed from the Greeks to our time…
(the value of human life has changed, recall that the Greeks had
and valued slavery… slaves… and that is not justice, not being
treated equally, but today, at least in the west, we don’t condone
slavery except in terms of capitalism… but that is another story)

when Plato asked, what is justice? he answer was and will be different
from our answer and why? because we live in a different time, a different
place with a different environment and different values……….

But the word justice still exists because we can have a relationship with
justice, but as every relationship is different from person to person and
society to society, we exists in a different place in regards to the concept
of justice…

we can exist within different ism’s and ideologies differently…
in other words, we can exists within an ism of capitalism if, if
we can have another formula of success which is not the accumulation
of wealth, but the advancement of who we are and what is possible for us…

Kropotkin

Kierkegaard lays out three ways of life:

one possible form is long out of date but is of interest to
us…living life “aesthetically”…

what exactly does this mean? living life as an art project?

perhaps, but it could also mean trying to find the beauty in our
everyday life……. the “modern” world has dismissed or banned
aesthetics from our life but why? because it doesn’t create profit
unless it is sold and we cannot sell the aesthetic or the beauty
that exists or is created in our lives…….

to live aesthetically means to seek out and behave
with beauty in mind………

we don’t do this… we are literal creatures, we modern human beings,
the modern pursuit of profits and money has overwhelmed our engagement
of a search for beauty in our lives…

when walking in a forest, (and who does that in this modern age)
when walking in a forest, do you seek out beautiful scenes…
do you look for the momentary beauty of the sunlight poking
it way through the leaves on the tree’s?

do you notice the grace of the flowing river as it glides past
the towering tree’s?

if you seek or find beauty in your life, you are an
aesthetic…

and that is one possible response to the question,
“what am I to do?” or perhaps the answer to question
of finding beauty might lie in the question,
“what am I to hope for?”

who seeks out beauty in this modern age, an age that can only
buy or sell merchandise, not to seek beauty…….

do you read a book and cry over the beauty of it?

I have…

do you see a picture and fall in love?

is you heart moved when exposed to beauty?

Your heart, not your dick or cunt, but your heart?

to seek out beauty, one must practice stillness
and quiet… and who in this modern age, knows
what stillness and quiet are?

it is said, that life is wasted on the young…….

as it beauty, for the young don’t have the patients to
seek out and explore what it means to have or to hold or to
see beauty…….

we seek out form, not function…

for our pursuit of beauty isn’t about function…
it is about the form beauty takes…
and that form is all around us… if we only had eyes to see
and ears to hear and touch to feel…

for beauty isn’t in the eye of the beholder…
it lies everywhere, you just need eyes to see
and there it is…….

to live life aesthetically, one needs to forsake the modern world
of production and consumerism… all one needs is the stillness
of the heart and eyes to see, ears to hear…

and in regards to Maslow hierarchy of needs, where does the
aesthetic reside?

why, the top and final platform of human existence…
in self-actualization………when we engage in our lives
as a work of art, life creating beauty in its existence…

my life as a work of art, as a work of beauty…

that is the aesthetic… seeking beauty as well as
finding the beautiful in our everyday actions and
our everyday existence…

so, did you live an aesthetic life today?

did you seek or find beauty today?

or did you live a modern life, rushing from place to place
without noticing anything in your life?

seeking beauty means you must stop, pause, reflect…
for those moments when beauty reveals itself to you…

did you see any beauty today?

Kropotkin

the last post spoke of one of the possibilities in our live
which is to live aesthetically, living life with the goal, the
pursuit of beauty being the point… seeing beauty, finding beauty,
living beautifully…

today we ask about another possibility: that is living life
ethically…and how do we define ethics?

Ethics are a system of moral principles and a branch
of philosophy which defines what is good for individuals and
society…

a major question in ethics is this, can we live ethically without
a fear of consequences? In other words, right now we live ethically
because we have a fear of being punished, either by the state or by
god or both………

but can we live ethically without any fear of punishment?

IQ45 has publicly stated he could shoot someone on fifth Ave
and his followers couldn’t care less… in other words, his
actions won’t be punished by his followers…
and as the justice department has declared that a sitting
president cannot, cannot be charged with any crime, essentially
the president of the United States cannot be punished for
any action he might take… think about this, he is above the law
and cannot be held accountable for his actions, any actions…

is he still acting ethically?

but a secondary question might be this, is his actions taken for
the good of America? One might take the actions of IQ45 and account them
as lawless and a danger to America…….

recall the definition of ethics" Ethic are a system of moral principles
and a branch of philosophy which defines what is good
for individuals and society…….

can we honestly be able to state that IQ45 shooting someone on
fifth ave constitutes a moral principle that is good for individuals
and/or society?

I don’t see any possible way we can twist his actions of shooting someone
to be good for an individual or society…

outside of a “look ma, I’m above the law” sort of thing,
there is no way I can spin shooting someone on fifth ave as
being good for either an individual or a society……

ethics is supposed to be a rule of law, a system,
and within that system, must be a consequence for actions taken or
as the case may be, not taken…….

justice is when rule of law is practiced equally and without
favoritism to someone because of race, creed, color, wealth,
or sexual orientation…….justice is a rule of law, a system that
is equally and fairly administrated……

so the practice of ethics is somehow connected to justice…

when ethics is practice fairly and equally, that is justice…

now we reach the tricky part, making an brilliant observation
as to what constitute being “good” for an individual and society?

we know that from an understanding of systems, that anything
that disorders a system, creates disorganization, chaos, entropy is
by definition, bad for a system……

so good for an individual and systems is actions that allow a system to
be organized, efficient, effective……. so order within a system is
good and disorder within a system is bad……

under that understanding of systems, we can say with reasonable
assurance that IQ45 shooting someone on fifth ave would create
disorder and chaos within our system…because order can only be
maintain if, if all parts of the system function as they are supposed to…
if some parts of the system has gone rogue, that puts the system in danger of
collapse… and what is a rogue? an dishonest or unprincipled man…

that seems to clearly define our president… a dishonest and unprincipled man…

and dishonest and unprincipled actions put our system in danger because
systems, any system cannot function properly if part of that system isn’t
acting within the normal guidelines of that system………

so we return to our original question…

how do we live an ethical life and is an ethical life
even worth the effort?

Kropotkin

an ethical life is one that increases order into a system
and an unethical life is one that increases disorder, chaos into a system…

under that definition, do we need the fear of consequences to motivate
us?

the problem lies with system thinking is that people don’t even think or
realize that they exist within a system… we have a political system,
an economic system, a family system, an educational system,
every aspect of our life belongs to one system or another and
within several dozen systems all at the same time…

we can have one system demanding that we must increase
efficiency within one system and by doing so, we increase
inefficiency in another system…an example of this is
the economic system in its demands for profits/money
and this single minded pursuit by business creates
disorder and chaos within the family system for example…

families as with all systems must be maintained… and if
we are always attending to economic business, then how
can we maintain our family system?

this conflict between systems is the basis of conflicts
and disorder within the world… at some point,
one must decide which system you are going to focus
on…devote your time, effort, energy upon…

when people say, we must find balance between our
work life and our personal life… what they are really saying
is we must find balance between two competing systems,
work/business and family/personal……

so given our knowledge about systems, which values better
improve the efficiency of and the increases the order of a given
system?

values that increase the order within a system is values we want,
and values that increase disorder within a system must be discouraged…

so what values increases order within a system? positive values like
love, peace, charity, hope…

and then clearly values that creates disorder and chaos within
a system are negative values like hate, anger, lust, greed, violence…

we can work with values to improve any given system…

and then act of ethics means to improve our social, political, economic
system with an understanding of what it means to be human
and by acting ethically, we increase order and avoid disorder/entropy

we can see how by acting ethically, with principles that increase the value
of people by values of love, peace, hope, justice, charity, we improve
and better maintain the human system we live in, the family system is
made stronger by love and peace and justice and the political system
is made stronger by love and peace and justice and the economic
system is made stronger by those positive values of love and peace……

values are directly tied up into acting ethically…
and acting ethically increases the amount of order, structure,
harmony of any given political, economic, social and family systems…

symmetry is a sign of an orderly system and orderly systems is
the goal of what any system attempts to achieve…….

the greater disorder and chaos and disorganization a system
has, the greater chance a system will fail

so to act ethically is to increase order and symmetry
and pattern into our many diverse systems…

by acting ethically, we improve our lives by improving the systems
we live in…….

how is that not in our best interest?

counter argument:

we live in an too organized world where our personal nature is being
ground out in favor of cookie cutter individualism… the move toward
globalism is an attempt to create a monolithic system which tells us
the answers to our Kantian/Kropotkin questions, “what am I to do?”
“what should I believe in?” “what values should I hold?” “What should I
spend my energy on?” We live in a world that treats us as impersonal
numbers…I am not Kropotkin… I am 9444266…and that is how
the big corporation I work in see’s me… I am measured, timed, devalued,
told what to say, where to stand, how to act and if I fail to do as I am told,
I am charged with the greatest crime in the modern world, insubordination…

counter/counter argument:

I understand as well as anyone the dangers of the modern world and it
fixation on profits… but that is the answer, if we devalue the search for
profits, we devalue the organization principle upon which our modern is
based on, the search for profits……… if we prevent the notion that
globalism is about profits, then we can use globalization to increase order
and stability in the world…

globalization can become a tool to increase order and stability in the world
without, without becoming a threat to who we are as individuals……

remove profits from globalization and globalization becomes a force
to improve the various systems we live in and that is after all the point
of life… to work toward greater order and stability and away from
disorder and chaos and entropy…

Kropotkin

and we reach the third sphere of Kierkegaard which is the
religious… and I stand on less firm ground because I
am not religious… I have spent most of my adult life thinking
that people who were religious were deluded or insane or
were so simple as to not grasp the complexity of modern life
and need the simple/religious to get through life…

well, I have soften my stance in my old age…
(old age turns even the most radical among us, into moderates)

I can see why people could turn to the religious as a possible response to
life, just as I can see why people would turn to the aesthetic as another
possible response to life and just as I can see the ethical as another response
to the myriad sides of life…

As I have grown older, I can now see why people might turn to the religious…
when I was young, I was certain… for the young, the world is black and white,
good vs evil, up and down… I am unable to see the world in such stark terms
anymore… the world is shades of gray and of different degrees…

I doubt my every thought and every action these days…
I am uncertain about everything in my life…so, I cannot
discount the religious life, just as I cannot discount the
aesthetic or the ethical life that one may choose…

the religious life means to devote one’s life to the religous
proposition that god is everything and we are merely
pawns in the great game of life… pawns of god…

as one who is incapable of “bending the knee” I cannot
in good conscience bow down to god…

in the religious, one must, must give oneself entirely to god
and obey all precepts of god, just as Abraham was willing to sacrifice
his son, Isaac, because it was the command of god…

in the book of Job, Job was tortured in an attempt to get him to
forsake the lord and he passed the test and was rewarded…
but what sort of god tortures a person, just to see if they pass
a test? that is not a god of love or a god of peace or a god who
honors the highest level of human behavior………

that is, in part, why I cannot honor god…for if god existed
and he brought about such evil, evil as torture and suffering
and old age and death, why should we honor and obey such a god?

if man, man brought about such things as torture and suffering, then
man can redeem man by abolishing such barbaric actions……

we cannot change or create change in god, but we can create
change in human beings and that is why I believe in human beings…
because of the choice we have in what kind of human beings we can be…

if we are the children of god, we have no choice, no options outside
of heaven or hell… and one choice is no choice at all……

but if we are the children of man, we can choose as to what kind
of people we are to be… we have the choice of rising to the higher
level of human behavior and the higher level of being human…
or we can sink to the lower level of animal behavior, of anger
and hate and greed and lust………

we can rise or we can fall…or, or we can fall into the middle
which is we human beings are, a combination of the higher level
of human being and the lower level of human nature……

I cannot attribute to divine power the lower level of human
existence, the animal side of human nature…for what father,
and I am a father, wants their children to remain in the lower
level of instincts and animal nature?

I cannot in good conscience “bend the knee” to god……
for it is far easier for me to hold to man as being the
architect of human suffering then to hold to some divine power…

and if human beings have a choice between good and evil, then
we are just as likely to choose good as we are to choose evil,
all we need are reasons to choose good over evil…
and so we can point to a system understanding of
nature and we can see that by acting “good” we
improve and advance the cause of our various systems
that we have as human beings………

by being “good”, we increase the cohesion and dependability
and permanence of any system we are part of…

and by being “bad” we destabilize and disorganize
and create chaos within any given system…….

the battle we fight outside of us, is the battle against
entropy…we fight against randomness and disorder in systems…
and we engage in the battle for order and stability and predictability…
all boring terms I agree… but necessary for us to provide the necessary
grounds we need to engage in our own personal battle to become more
human… a stable and order society allows us to become human, all too
human………

we need a stable and ordered society for us to have the ability to
become who we are… in a disordered society, we cannot grow
to become who we are because we are too busy just trying to hold serve…

if we are too busy trying to gain the basic necessities of life,
to be animals in attempting to find food, water, shelter
warmth, clothing, and then all we are animals…
but to engage in the higher level of engagement with
what it means to be human, means we are already supplied with
the basics of life along with other physical needs as an education
and health care…

this fulfilling of the lower needs allows us to work on becoming
more human, fulfill the higher levels of human nature…….

I reject the religious because it takes us away from our task, our
real task of becoming human,

but as I have said, I have mellowed in my old age…
and I no longer completely reject the religious in human
existence…

but what is the religious?

I have no fucking idea…

and so I cannot comment on K. vision of the third
level of human existence, the religious…

Kropotkin

So Kierkegaard saw three possibilities for human existence,
the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious…

these three ways of existence, of possibilities are K. way
of understanding what is possible for human beings…

in reality, we are a combination of all three and in other ways,
we are none of these possibilities…

are there are other possibilities as example of being human?

yes, look at the night sky and count the stars…

and as many stars as you can count, lies the possibilities
for human engagement, for human possibilities of the ways
and means for human beings to engage in the world…

and how do we decide between all these choices?

for some, we decide by the values we choose…

the values determine what possibilites exists for us…

so, what is possible for you?

your values decide your possibilities…

Kropotkin

it is not enough to have the courage of our convictions,
we must have the courage for an attack upon our convictions…

Nietzsche…

LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP…

SEND HER BACK, SEND HER BACK, SEND HER BACK…….

we must have the courage for an attack upon our conviction…

so, when they shout… SEND HER BACK, SEND HER BACK, SEND HER BACK…

where is the courage for an attack upon their convictions?

LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP…

they don’t even have the courage of their convictions…

for racism and sexism and homophobic remarks don’t reveal
one’s convictions… they reveal one’s prejudice and one’s bias
and one’s indoctrinations… and they are not convictions…

they are the lower instincts of the human being, the animal part
of the human being…for racism and sexism and homophobia
are not convictions… they are the lower levels of bias and prejudice…
where hate and anger and greed and lust resides…

LOCK HER UP, SEND HER BACK, LOCK HER UP, SEND HER BACK…

they reveal nothing more then ignorance of what it means to be human…
and an inability to become more human because if all you hold true is
bias and prejudice and sexism… you aren’t human…you are animal…

you have sunk to the lowest depths of what it means to be human if
all you can shout is…

LOCK HER UP, SEND HER BACK, LOCK HER UP, SEND HER BACK……

if all your focus is upon the lowest instincts of being human…

so far, you have failed in the basic level of being human…

because being human is compassion and being human is love
and being human is peace and being human is justice
and being human is charity and being human is choice……

if all you can shout is…

LOCK HER UP, SEND HER BACK, LOCK HER UP, SEND HER BACK…

that is childlike… and so simple as to insult an 8 year old child…

to shout…

LOCK HER UP, SEND HER BACK, LOCK HER UP, SEND HER BACK…

it isn’t intelligent, it isn’t Christian, it isn’t Buddhist,
it isn’t religious, it isn’t American, it is the highest level of being an animal,
the lowest level of being human…….

it isn’t even on level of having convictions… convictions at least have
some adult level of understanding, but to shout one’s prejudice
and superstitions isn’t adult…

the real problem I have isn’t the ignorance of these people, but
the silence that has followed…when listening to criticism of
these ignorant people, one only hears crickets…….

that bothers me more then actual fear and ignorance…

Kropotkin