the great achievement of Socrates is simple, to engage in
an understanding of who we are… know thyself…
this is the beginning of all wisdom, all philosophy,
all attempts to understand the world…
one must know thyself to become who you are…
self deception and the delusions we hold about ourselves is
the modern problem…
and the modern world makes it easy to wallow in our self deceptions…
it is easy to hold to the indoctrinations of childhood… we can simple
hold fast to the ism’s and ideologies of our childhood that say man/human beings
is evil or greedy… for what is the very basis of capitalism? it is the ideology
that proclaims that the very greed of man/human beings is the basis of
all society… recall Gordon Gekko who made greed the center piece of
American society…
but have you ever wondered if this is in fact, true?
have you ever tried to understand human beings through the lens
of greed? basic greed as the key to life fails to describe the myriad
of human behaviors in life… We cannot base any part of human actions
upon greed… ok, let us try the family unit as based upon greed…
does the family unit work by basing all behavior within the family
upon greed? no, in fact, the basic mode of the family unit isn’t greed,
but the basis of the family is love… that is the driver of the family unit,
not greed… and how do use greed to explain the basic drives
of human behavior? for example, it has been said, the philosophy
began because of wonder… that isn’t greed…and let us take the
family teachings of Jesus… I don’t recall any mention of greed and its
primacy in human behavior in the bible… no, I have read of love as
a primary motivator in both god and human beings in the bible, but not greed…
so the theory of capitalism that greed is the primary motivator of human behavior
is simply wrong and we have ample examples of this… look into your own life…
now is greed a factor among many, yes, but it is only one among many…
to apply just one factor to this complex thing we call life, to simplify life,
is to reduce life to one motivation is simply ludicrous…
but we can hold to our self deception and denial by holding unto one thought
such as greed as the primary motivator in life…
or to use existentialist language, by holding unto greed as the primary
motivator, we are acting in bad faith, trying to hide behind the use of
greed to escape any inquiry into who we really are…
if we simply accept greed as being the primary motivation of human behavior
we can escape this call of Socrates to “know thyself”……
if who we are is already implanted via the childhood indoctrinations,
then we don’t need to spend any time investigating who we are,
we don’t need to begin the very important project of learning
who we are, of “Knowing thyself”… we have been indoctrinated
into thinking that we human beings are as the ism’s and ideologies
portray us as being, greedy or fearful or compliant…
recall, I have already stated that the greatest crime of the modern era
is to be insubordinate, to question our authorities… that is the great crime
of the bible, Adam and eve great crime was insubordination to god…
and for that, they got tossed out of Eden…
and all our childhood indoctrinations are meant to train us, to teach us
to obey any and all authorities…recall your childhood indoctrinations,
the greatest punishment was reserved for insubordination, for questioning
authority………
but the only path to Socrates axiom, know thyself, is by questioning oneself
and the questioning of authorities…
to engage in the obedience demanded by society/state is to conform
to the demands of the society/state………
we work, we travel to Disneyland, we own cars and TV’s and couches,
we consume and we produce, we are “good” citizens and good Americans
and we conform to the norms of our society by not questioning, by not
committing insubordination…we are docile and passive and most importantly,
we conform…….but we don’t engage in any attempt to understand who we are,
at no point do we engage in Socrates dictum, to know thyself…
because self examination might prove to mean we aren’t what society
demands us to be…and society demands we are compliant, docile, and never questioning…
to engage in a self examination, of some attempt to discover who we are is a
radical, revolutionary, subversive attack upon the society/state…
to know thyself is to commit insurrection upon society…
to know thyself is a crime…… because we might find we are in opposition to
the ism’s and ideologies of our time… we might, might become anarchist,
and by anarchist, I mean to stand in opposition to the prevailing wisdom,
the prevailing assumptions of the society/state…
and an anarchist will attempt to stand against the prevailing wisdom of
the age… an anarchist in the true sense of the word… fighting for
the right of human beings to become who they are… and all of this
is only possible when we begin the very difficult task of knowing thyself…
in today’s black and white world, you are either for or you are against
the modern world and its ism’s and ideologies…
the very demand of society/state to the compliance of the society/state
also means we cannot be half way between the two… either you are
for the state or you are committing the greatest crime in the world,
and that crime is insubordination…….
we have self deceptions and delusions about ourselves which
prevent us from gaining an understanding of who we really are,
our self deceptions prevent us from beginning the project of
knowing thyself……. which is the beginning of the understanding
of who we are and how we become who we are…
and it all begins with the simply call of Socrates… know thyself…
can you know yourself without any self deception or delusions
about yourself?
Kropotkin