if as the conservative believe, that the modern search is for security,
then that rejects the search for our possibilities… we must have freedom
to seek our possibilities, not security……….if given a choice, between
freedom or security… always take the choice of freedom……. that
allows us to seek our possibilities… which requires freedom, not security…
Kropotkin
the Greeks understood the value of inquiry… which is the
basis of the words philosophy, history, sociology and other
such means of exploring what it takes to be human…
if we take the route of security/certainty/ dogma…we are then
deter from the inquiry it takes to discover what it means to
be human…the goal is not to find certainty or security from inquiry,
the goal is overcome our childhood indoctrinations and to know thyself…
if we hold to security or to certainty, we can never know who we are,
or what is possible for us…….we must risk and that is scary for many…
which is why many won’t risk, take a chance on knowing oneself, because
what if we find we aren’t what our self image demands us to be…
the enemy to inquiry is self delusion and self deception…the holding onto
values even if they don’t apply to us is because of the self deception we human
practice………if we practice certainty instead of inquiry, we fail to
understand who we are…… the existentialist denounced those who
engaged in self deception because it prevents an honest inquiry into who
we really are…who I really am…my self deception prevents me from
discovering who I really am…
by self deception, we hold onto beliefs and fantasies about ourselves that
are better to be destroyed because they hold us in chains and deny
any possibilities for us………
if I am certain, I am not engaged in finding my possibilities…I am content
with those already given certainties…and I do not engage with me,
the real me, the me that hides from my eyes and the me that pretends to be there…
we are victims of the ism’s and ideologies and habits and prejudice and
biases from our childhood that prevents us from becoming who we are…
bring who you are into the light and expose the truth…
for it is light that brings us into truth…
shine a light into who you are… and learn to become that
which you are… know thyself… and overcome those
childhood indoctrinations…….by learning which values are the values
that you are, that you truly are…………
Kropotkin
and I say unto you…
run away from valuations of certainty and faith…
nationalism, bigotry, patriotism, religious, dogmatism,
sectarianism…… are all paths to ignorance and injustice…
the world only has two types of people…
those who open their minds and those who close their minds…….
which one are you?
Kropotkin
philosophers have only two possibilities……
one, philosophy is to teach something
two, philosophy is to awaken someone…
so, do you read philosophy to learn something
or do you read philosophy to awaken yourself?
Kropotkin
these days i don’t have a plan in advance when i set out on a philosophical adventure, probably because the vast majority of my reading no longer involves books. i no longer have any idea where i’ll end up when i’m reading online. just earlier i was reading about the ‘kripkenstein paradox’ and trippin’ out on the ‘quus/plus’ distinction in rule-following, and the next thing i know i’m reading about ‘grue and bleen’ in ‘the new riddle of induction’.
now this isn’t necessarily a good thing, because having this kind of online freedom of movement, as opposed to being restricted to a book, often results in an information overload; these kinds of subject matters are extensive and require you to either have a magnificent IQ (which i don’t have), or enough time to delve fully into the matter and take the time to learn it, if you don’t have a magnificent IQ.
and then it happens. it always happens. one part of me says ‘there’s something to this or else these philosophical geniuses wouldn’t be going on about it’, and the other part of me says ‘you aren’t a genius and it’ll take you too long to figure all this shit out. besides, what difference would any of this make in your life, dude?’
but here’s the thing. that last question is rather suspicious, is it not? could it be that i’m making an excuse, post-hoc, in assuring myself that it’s not important only after i recognize how difficult it would be for me to learn the shit? i mean, how can i be sure ‘it would make no difference in my life’ until i know what the fuck it means?
see what just happened there, pete? let this be a testament to many a philosopher… especially the dumber ones who think they’ve got it all figured out. more often than not, the philostopher stops where he finds the limits of his understanding, and not only declares himself finished, but also that those things which he takes no query of, don’t matter anyway. this is a remarkable vanity.
And yet what some call vanity on a personal note, turns out to conflate with social vanity of the kind Schopenhauer considered it, and hard as he try Nietzsche could not completely overcome.
A little bit over the line prides them into suspicious askence.
Like he who laughs lasts
Actually, my point is that what seems “evident” to objectivists in regard to such things as religion, morality and poitics, is this: that how they view any particular context is how it can only be viewed if others wish to be thought of as rational…as “one of us”. The folks who are always right about God and ethics and political issues.
My point, instead, is that these value judgments are more the embodiment of how I have come to construe “I” in my three signature threads.
And, thus, that my own understanding of moral nihilism resolves around the assumption that there is No God. And, consequently, there is no transcending font for mere mortals to establish that, say, Trump’s immigration policy is necessarily right or necessarily wrong.
In fact, in a court of law, the evidence revolves around what can in fact be shown to be true. And in regard to a very particular context in which someone’s behavior is deemed to in fact be either legal or illegal. The laws themselves however will invariably revolve around sets of behiviors that some deem moral [and worthy of reward] and others deem immoral [and worthy of punishment].
Had Jeffrey Epstein not committed suicide – or been murdered? – his trial would have revolved around the laws it is said that he broke. He either broke them or he did not. But a verdict of guilty would not have established that his behavior is necessarily immoral. That is the point raised by moral nihilists. That, in a No God world, things like individual proclivities relating to human sexuality are largely existential contraptions rooted historically, culturally and experientially in particular contexts understood by individuals in particular ways.
And that is why, sans God, narcissists and sociopaths, which Epstein might well have been, are able to rationalize any behaviors given the assumption that in a No God world, morality revolves solely around sustaining their own particular wants and needs. Which, in my view, are basically existential contraptions.
Well, if that is actually how you have come to understand a discussion of human justice, then what is left for me to say? After all, could not those you share exactly the opposite of your own moral and political values, basically make the same argument?
Until and unless someone is willing to take those “noble sounding” words and situate them out in the world of actual conflicting goods, I see no point in continuing on.
I read stuff like this…
…and my mind glazes over. What on earth does any of that mean in regard to an actual context in which conflicting value judgments precipitate conflicting behaviors.
Instead, I make the assumption that when the objectivists confront folks like me, they often stay up in the clouds of abstraction. Only when folks like you do battle with folks like Wendy do the arguments come down to earth. But: only in assuming that the specific points raised [about Trump or anything else] are not just political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein but reflect the essential oblgation of all rational and virtuous people.
What this suggests to me is that those who place the emphasis on “we” [historically, liberals and socialists] are convinced that they are being more reasonable and virtuous that those who place the emphasis on “I” [conservatives and capitalists].
But then I always come back to this: In what particular context out in what particular world based on what particular set of assumptions about human interactions?
Moral and political advocates will either go there and address the components of my own moral and political philosophy – dasein, conflicting goods, political economy – or they won’t.
Indeed, the irony here of course is that I share many of your own political prejudices. But, again, my own understanding of that is now more or less embodied in the points I raised in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382
We just think about these things differently. And I would certainly not argue here that your way of thinking is less reasonable than mine. Instead, in being down my own wretched “hole”, I have come to conclude that, re the is/ought world, there does not appear to way in which to determine this at all.
And, yes, the whole point for many in coming to a conclusion about God and religion and morality and political issues is in the coming to a conclusion itself. As you note, your way of thinking “works” for you.
My only suggestion is that it works for the objectivist because the whole point is to think oneself into believing that the right conclusions can in fact be derived here. Why? Because they have in fact already come to embody them themselves.
And, thus, that this is largely a reflection of human psychology embedded in the points that I noted on these threads:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
This works here for you:
It just doesn’t work for me. Or not anymore. These “general description” “intellectual contraptions” are precisely the sort of philosophy I wish to steer the discipline away from. At least in regard to the is/ought world.
Sure, establish certain technical parameters, define your terms, try to give as precise a meaning to the words in your argument as you can.
Then bring all of that out into the world of actual human interactions in conflict.
You see that? He said it again. ‘what on earth’.
eyelid twitch
damn you, biggs. damn you to hell.
My apologies to Peter, of course, but I have already addressed this elsewhere:
[b]"Sorry, no can do.
Long ago, as zinnat13 correctly pointed out, I became hopelessly – rather pathetically – addicted to and reliant upon what he called ‘groots’.
There are certain expressions and arguments that I feel more or less obligated to include in every post. It has now become the very embodiment of the existential contraption I will call, say, dasein?
Unless of course I’m wrong."[/b]
What on earth is a ‘groots’?
Google doesn’t even know what a groots is, so where did zinnat get the word? Is this some kind of Indian neologism?
zinnat introduced them [to me] on the Fallacy Of Subjectivity thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190059&p=2605013&hilit=zinnat+groot#p2605013
From wiki:
“Since his film premiere and animated series debut, Groot has become a pop culture icon, with his repeated line ‘I am Groot’ becoming an Internet meme.”
And folks at ILP can quite readily point to my own repeated lines on this thread and on so many others. It’s just common knowledge here. I’ve been thumped with that accusation over and over and over again. And it ain’t wrong.
But, uh, maybe we should take this to another thread?
Edit:
Actually, it goes back to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190236&p=2602174&hilit=groot#p2602174
Oh that groot. Yeah I knew who groot was and saw the movies, but I couldn’t make the connection between the iambiguous glossary of words and phrases and the character.
from prior post: I think I have a solution…
you may be able to see the problem…
I have been accused of not bringing my solutions to the ground…
I am weaving theories in the air and not being aware of the
I am not engaging in a particular context, a particular set of
conflicting goods…in other words, say gun control or abortion,
what are my “solutions” given the current reality of modern day America?
It is suggested that I bring this “general description” assessment of “values”
down to earth and explain how my “values” is worked out in the “real” world…
the problem as I see it isn’t about “working” out my values in the real world…
the problem is discovering what my values are…
for example, if I act without any recourse to my values, my actions are
mindless, “ad hoc” (ad hoc means “for this”, “for this situation” it is used
to describe something that has been formed or used for a specical and immediate
purpose without prior planning… ad hoc means temporary, improvised, makeshift)
and we cannot hold ourselves to such actions as gun control or abortions using
ad hoc thinking… we must engage in such thinking with something more permanent,
something that is useful today and tomorrow…
in thinking about abortions or gun control, I must base my actions about
such matters based upon the values I hold… if I call myself “pro-life”
and hold that all life is sacred, then my actions in regards to abortions
becomes quite clear…if I instead belief in a woman’s right to choose,
then my actions become also quite clear…the actions we take
are dictated by the values we hold…….
the values you accept dictates the actions you take…
it is really that simple……
it isn’t enough to engage in some discussion about what to do about
gun control or abortion, we must hold to some values before we can even
hold a discussion about any actions we are to engage in…
to take the discussion of values out of the clouds must mean we first
engage in the discussion about our values and then and only then can
we discuss the conflicting goods of abortion or gun control…
to act without any understanding of values is to act “ad hoc”
makeshift and improvised with no thought to time, past, present or
future…… whereas values give us some manner to act past, present
and future…it is by values that we can begin to discuss those actions
we are to take on the ground…… some understanding of values
means that sometimes a meeting of the minds on specific actions
like abortion or gun control, cannot be achieved… if you are inflexible
and dam and determined that abortion is flouting god’s laws, then
there is really no room for engagement between two opposing viewpoints…
there can be no agreement between opposing and conflicting viewpoints…
in my long life, I have seen two sides dig in on the question of values
and no possibility of rapprochement or reconciliation existed…it happens…
is this the case in modern America today? the two sides of the left and right
have dug in and have different values about such idea’s as abortion and
gun control and education and voter rights and with such digging in, no
possibility of reconciliation exists… now what?
that is the true question of our modern age………
we have dug in about our values and there doesn’t seem to
be any middle ground……… now what?
and from this comes the rather silly idea of breaking America apart into
different countries or breaking a state like California apart…that isn’t
the answer, but what is the answer?
I can’t say… all I can say is we must engage in an understanding
of our values before we can engage in any actions…
the truth is really simple in this regards…
the values you accept dictate the actions you take…….
that is the only thing I know for sure…….I cannot speak to the rest…
the conflicting goods or conflicting values that exists in America
cannot be solved by violence or separating the country…
we must engage in some dialogue between the two sides…
more then likely it will be the left that brings about the peace because
the left is about dialogue, consensus building, tolerance…
so it would seem to me, that any solution must come from the left…
but and this is important, it cannot come from the left forsaking their values
any more then it can come from the right forsaking their values…
to abandoned our values is to abandoned what makes us human
as I have engaged in an understanding of what it means to be human
and the negative and positive discussion of what it means to be human
cannot be dismissed…are we to rise above to become more human,
or are we to lower ourselves to become human/animal?
that is the basic distinction between the left and the right…
do we rise to become human, more human or do we lower ourselves
to become more instinctual, more animal?
our engagement with values is one way we can rise to become human,
all too human…… we cannot become too engaged with actions until
we have worked out our values for “the values you accept, dictate
the actions you take”
so before we begin discussions between the left and right and before
we decide on any actions, we must be clear about what our values are…
we must be, within ourselves, clear about what values are we to engage with
and what those values mean?
so as in any journey, we must begin within ourselves………
so, what the values that are going to drive your actions?
so, ask yourself, in regards to say, gun control, what actions should I take?
and the answer comes from the values we choose…
but then one might ask, why those values and not another?
values are simply another way of asking ourselves what is important?
I value justice, I value freedom…I accept those values as values worth
holding on to…and one might again ask, why those values and not other values?
because I think that human beings do better with those values instead of
the security values… but Kropotkin, why?
and that is how we go down the rabbit hole… doubting every single
choice and decision we make… it is kinda like the dog chasing its tail…
yes, we could doubt ourselves until the cows come home, but at some point,
you think to yourselve, I am comfortable with certain values…and I will stick
with them… but Kropotkin, that isn’t very philosophical?
No, no it isn’t…but it is human…the world isn’t black and white,
or right or wrong or good or evil… it is various shades of gray…
and the choices we make need to reflect that gray in our lives…
sometimes, we have to just pick an area and run… it may not
be logical or rational or philosophical, but it is, what it is…
we humans live in that messy gray area where sometimes logic
and rational thought and philosophical thought isn’t going to
solve our questions…
love for example… it is messy and exists in that gray area
where logic and rational thought and philosophical thought
isn’t going to help one to understand love…
and yet, love maybe one of the most important aspects of being human…
and yet we cannot define it, we cannot measure it, we cannot
time it or weigh it or number it… it just is………and to
measure it or weigh it or be scientific about love isn’t going to
help one find out what love is or solve our questions about love…
you just have to go through it… leap as it were into love……
you cannot be logical or rational or philosophical about love……
and you can’t be logical or rational or philosophical about certain parts
of our human lives…….
but Kropotkin, you have punted on some of the most important questions
of being human… no, no I haven’t…I simply accept that for us human beings,
sometimes logic and rational thought and philosophical thought isn’t enough
to solve our very messy questions of existence… sometimes the answer to
existence is found within that existence… simply by being, we find answers
we weren’t looking for…
but Kropotkin, you don’t make any sense… perhaps, perhaps… perhaps
I will make sense once you reach a certain point in your life, perhaps not…
sometimes, there are no answers to our questions…… that isn’t logical or rational
or philosophical but it is true………
Kropotkin
as I alluded to earlier, perhaps some of our questions of existence is
answered during existence and can only be answered during our existence……
we cannot define love or rationally explain love or weigh love
or time love… but we can experience love… I have loved
the same woman for over 25 years and I believe she has loved
me for 25 years… but we cannot logically or rationally explain
our love or why it has lasted for such a long time… it is…
and that has to be enough for us…our being in love is its own
explanation…we might suggest that existence is its own
explanation… we exist and we can’t explain it any further…perhaps…
so where does that leave us?
with an understanding that some parts of our lives, some aspects are
beyond analysis, beyond understanding, beyond any possible explanation…
and only in existence with those parts, those questions like love,
can we begin to offer up a vague solution or a vague answers…
but how can we know what questions are outside of our range of understanding
and what questions are within range? all we can do is push all questions until
we decide what questions can only be answered by experience itself……
or what questions we can answer logically, rationally, philosophically…
in other words, all questions are on the table until shown to be otherwise,
to be unable to answer logically, rationally, philosophically puts those
questions off the table… for the moment… perhaps later we might
be able to answer these questions without having to experience them…
What is life?
Is that a question we can answer logically, rationally,
philosophically? perhaps the best way to answer the question of “what is life”
is to experience life, to engage in life as best as we can…….to live, to love,
to challenge, to experience is the only way we can “know” life or to explain life…
as we each experience life differently, this is why we explain life differently?
as we love differently, that is why we explain love differently?
as our experiences in life is different, our questions are different…
perhaps that is why IMP and I understand the questions of life
differently…perhaps that is why we answer the question of life
differently?
because my experience with love is different then some people,
that is why I see or understand love differently………
in one sense, all answers about life is right and in another sense,
all answers about life is wrong…….because our experiences are different,
our answers are bound to be different… but that doesn’t make them wrong,
just different… and in that difference we must apply the value of tolerance
because we cannot outright say, he is wrong about love or he is wrong about life
because life and love offers us different experiences and thus we understand love
and life differently… I cannot tell you for sure if that difference is wrong,
I can only say it is different… and thus we must be tolerant of others
in their explanation of life or of love… we cannot in all honesty, say that
if they love someone, anyone, that is wrong…we cannot justify intolerance
in who people fall in love with… again, consensual and above 18…for rather
obvious reasons…….but I cannot use my experience in life or in love to
judge another persons experience in life or in love…my experience is
my experience and their experience is their experience……
this is why the “liberal” viewpoint of tolerance and forgiveness is better
suited for people…because we cannot honestly say one way is better then
another in regards to love… and we cannot honestly say one life choice
is better then another in isolation…but and this is important, we don’t live
in isolation… we exists with each other…… and we cannot be so tolerant
that we allow others to murder or to harm another, verbally or physically…
that isn’t right either………….
in other words, we travel a line that often gets twisted and misshapen…
what is right and wrong often gets twisted in our desire to reach our
goal of happiness… if we better understood what really makes us
happy, a lot of the world’s misery would go away… but that is a post
for another day………….
Kropotkin
Second that notion.
I do not see am other option for man kind , with the wrong side of the double edged of sword of Damocles hanging over us, with increasing certainty.
M: Second that notion.
I do not see am other option for man kind , with the wrong side of the double edged of sword of Damocles hanging over us, with increasing certainty."
K: the real question is the one unspoken question, what is the “real”
relationship between the “individual” and “society”?
Kierkegaard and Ibsen thought about the one, the “individual” whereas Marx
and Hegel thought about the many, the society/group…
but we haven’t resolved that question and therein lies much of
society/state problems…… when I wrote about our search for
our individual happiness, how we search for love, that search
is an individual search… but we are social creatures… we,
by evolution, exists as social creatures, we must, must reside
within a group or society… we cannot physically, mentally, emotionally,
exist by ourselves……. and within that framework, we must search for
our individual happiness… so within that framework, society’s system,
we search for love… and if our love disrupts or decreases the system’s
energy, we must deny that love…so for instance, adults loving children,
pederasty damages society and so must be banned upon that grounds…
so the real question is the relationship between the individual and society…
and so our modern quest to understand the relationship between the one and
society goes on…….
Kropotkin
No, my point is less about examining particular solutions in particular contexts, and more about examining the extent to which any proposed solutions are embedded in the lives that we live. More so than in the abstract arguments embedded in “general descriptions” of human interactions.
And here it only makes sense to bring the arguments themselves down out of the clouds.
Instead, in my view, this is where you stay:
So, back again I then go to this: How on earth does this “general description” “world of words” assessment deal with the points I raise in my signature threads?
From my frame of mind, we discover our values in and through the actual trajectory of our lives. Those on both sides of the gun control and abortion debates can make your argument above.
But, then, as well, if they have become objectivists as a result of the same existential trajectory, they insist that all rational people must be either pro-life or pro-choice. Pro-citizens or pro-government.
They can’t accept that their own value judgments are existential contraptions rooted in dasein. That their own values are derived from a world of contingency, chance and change. A world where values are always subject to reconfiguration given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge.
Instead, they stick to a frame of mind like this one:
Once again, in my view, there is nothing different between a liberal objectivist noting this and a conservative objectivist noting it in turn. It’s just that it is their understanding of values that leads all truly rational men and women to choose to act as they do “down on the ground”.
In other words, doesn’t this basically describe the moral objectivists on both sides?
Now what? Well, in my view, the “best of all possible worlds” still revolves around “moderation, negotiation and compromise” given a political format embodied in “democracy and the rule of law”.
Only, unlike the objectivists, I am still down in my “hole” even here — “fractured and fragmented” given the manner in which I have come to understand “I” at the intersection of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
But that’s where folks like you and Wendy don’t want to be. Or, rather, so it seems to me. You are able to connect the dots between value formation, value judgments and political actions such that you feel considerably more at one with the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”.
Trust me: I’ve been there myself. With God and with No God. I know how comforting and consoling it is to feel “grounded” in a sense that, even if politically the other side prevails, we know that we are on the right side morally.
Nothing could be less simple in my view. Why? Because it involves taking all of the factors at play here – genetic, memetic, historical, cultural, interpersonal, individual – and thinking that if only we truly do understand the creation of our own values we can come to act them out “morally”.
Which, given the points raised in my signature threads, is not at all the way things play out in the real world.
Instead, from my frame of mind, the enormous complexities at play in the real world is the last thing the liberal and conservative objectivists are interested in examining.
Instead we get stuff like this:
More or less the manner in which many conservatives would assess the situation. Only it’s the liberals and their values fucking everything up.
Again, the only time these “general descriptions” give way to actual discussions of policy relating to particular contexts involving particular conflicting goods, is when the objectivists trade political prejudices. Then each side accuses the other of being woefully obtuse when it comes to understanding the true nature of “values”.
This part:
And Kropotkin tells them why. Then Wendy tells them why, instead, her own values must prevail.
No, that is where [b]I[/b] am now. Down in my “hole” “fractured and fragmented”. I might champion “moderation, negotiation and compromise” as the best of all possible worlds, but I am still no less imploded, no less splintered in my reaction to issues like abortion and gun control.
What I am unable to do [anymore] is to think myself into viewing all of this as you do:
You say that…
But that’s not how you sound when you are castigating IQ45 for building his wall, or for backing the NRA or for pandering to the pro-life folks.
Here it is more the stuff of the “one of us” vs. “one of them” folks. And that is precisely what I no longer have access to myself.
But then up you go:
In other words, as I see it, thinking yourself into a frame of mind that provides whatever it takes to sustain at least some measure of comfort and consolation when you look out at a world bursting at the seams with very, very real human pain and suffering.
I get that part. I really do. I’m just not able to accomplish it myself anymore.
I don’t mean to ignore you Iam, but I have other fish to fry today……
what if, what if life is a test…
and what if the various moralities we see, are test…
for example,
A. the ancient Mayans where thousands were slaughter to
fullfill some religious concept
B. where it was socially acceptable for older men to have
“relationships” with younger men… pederasty was socially acceptable…
and expected…
C. where incest was acceptable as in the Pharaohs practice
incest and the house of Hasburgs was inflicted with genetic
disease after so many generations of inbreeding…
D. where one was stoically like the Romans…
E. or the religious like the bible, the old testament…
for example the story of Abraham and his attempted sacrifice of
his son Issac…that was a test of Abraham’s faith…
we are tested in so many different ways in this life……
how does our current morality test us? does our current morality
even ask us much to do? Not really… the bar in our society is
really, really low… we don’t even have to obey the 10 commandments…
ask IQ45 who has broken most of them and probably all of them……
and yet he is the American standard of morality as the president is
ground zero for American morality and has been for generations…
to test faith, upon what do we require from people?
we require nothing more from people outside of the two great crimes of our modern age…
stealing and insubordination……… taking what isn’t yours
and disobeying the authorities………
how do we test this theory?
name me our great “American moralities”?
Kropotkin
when challenged to what their morality was, most people
would simply say, “I do whatever the law is”
thus exposes the great problem…that morality is
simply the law… and morality isn’t the law…
the law at one point or another has allowed incest
and slavery and Jim Crow laws and prevented interracial marriages
and treated women as property first by their fathers, then if death took
the father, her brothers then at marriage her husband…and
legally one could only vote if you held property and was a white male…
to take the law as morality is false because the law is simply
a listing of the bigotry and biases and prejudices of an age…
but is the law a simply listing of the bigotry and prejudice of an
age or does the law have some eternal properties that can be held
true throughout time?
it is said, that the law of god is eternal and yet, the laws of man has
made exceptions to every part of the 10 commandments…
thou shall not kill… unless one is fighting for one’s country…
thou shall not kill… unless one is a policeman “protecting” his life…
thou shall not kill…unless in Florida and “stand your ground” law allows
one to kill…….
thou shall not kill…unless one has temporary insanity…
the great number of exceptions to “thou shall not kill” seems to suggest
that god’s law really doesn’t mean much…
and sticking with the great American “morality”… there are far fewer
exceptions to “thou shall not steal” then there are to “thou shall not kill”
where we hold stealing to be of greater offense then then killing…
the law reacts with far greater power in offences of stealing then it
does in killing…in other words, a man who murders has
a far greater chance of escaping punishment then does a man who
is caught stealing…and a wealthy man who does either, murder or steals
is far more likely to escape punishment then a man of color or a poor man,
because the law takes notice of one’s wealth and skin color and punishes
accordingly…in other words, the law punishes selectively depending
upon one wealth or title or skin color………and selective punishment
depending upon one’s status has little or nothing to do with “morality”…
for morality has nothing to do with one’s wealth or skin color or title…
but morality has everything to do with one’s actions regardless of one’s
situation in life… morality isn’t about the color of one’s skin nor does
it have anything to do with wealth nor does it have anything to do with
one’s status or title…………but the law does engage with such superficial
matters and thus the law pretends to be about morality and the law isn’t
about the law nor is it about morality… it is simply a tool that uses
the societies prejudices and biases and bigotry as its standard…….
so we have at the bottom, the law…
then the next level is morality…
do we have another level above morality?
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……
a question for us “moderns”
Kropotkin