we have two distinct and separate issues facing us…
first we have the human condition, the human drama that
is our lives. Where we face questions of existence that
every single human being must face of birth, life and death…
the inherent questions of “what am I to do?” “What should I
believe in?” “what should I hope for?”…
and we have the second issue of the interaction between the single
human being and society/state…
the questions of the personal, private interaction we have in
our quest to answer the Kantian questions of “who am I?” etc, etc…
which is played over our lifetime in what we do and what we believe in…
and the second aspect of our relationship with the society/state…
and oftentimes the question of society/state requires us to diminish, if not
outright deny our own personal answers to the Kantian questions…
“what am I to do?” gets coopted by the society/state in its desire to survive…
my own personal answers to the questions of “what am I to believe in” gets
answered by the society/state…
society/state denies my own answers to who I am by the state passing
laws, fixation on morality, clinging to prejudices/myths/superstitions/habits…
in other words, if my own personal answer is to love someone of my own sex,
the society/state denies me that option because my own answers are
antithetical to society/state own myths, prejudice/superstitions, habits…
who gets the final say? in a nutshell that has been the question of
this ongoing battle between the individual and the society/state…
so we have multiple things going on which oftentimes makes it hard
to understand what exactly is going on………
in terms of the question of rationalism vs irrationalism, then
these questions become even more difficult……
now notice that it is the rationalist that don’t have a problem with
same sex marriage or abortions or other questions of morality…
it is the irrationalist that have a problem with their prejudice and
superstitions and habits that doesn’t allow them to accept gay marriage
or abortions or other questions of morality……
this is the quite clear contrast between rationalism and irrationalism,
between Jerusalem and Athens…
for the irrationalist, the sky is always falling because someone is not
obeying the laws of god, someone is defying god and that will bring
upon the people, widespread and complete disaster to the whole society…
this call to irrationalism, to engage with Jerusalem as a ways or means of
engaging in life…this often becomes a life and death matter for those who
follow Jerusalem because they see others as somehow destroying their way of life…
for denying their possibility for entering the kingdom of god…as if that is the
only thing that matters… no one on planet earth is as important as their
reaching heaven… a rather nihilistic viewpoint… deny others their
values because it might interfere with your own pursuit of certain values,
which might get you into heaven…not only nihilistic but selfish and petty…
if I could, I would demand that god takes me to hell if, if he would
allow everyone else the chance to go heaven…and I will expand upon that
later…
and we have the second brick in the wall which is our own actions and
interactions we have with society… it is not only between oneself
and oneself that we must engage with, but we engage with our self
and society/state as well…
how do I fit into society/the state?
and how do I fit within the state/society in regards to this question
of rationalism and irrationalism?
there are times when we must, must engage with the state
directly and straight up… which means we follow the rules,
we practice “state” morality even if it clashes with our own
standards of living…in short, we become “good citizens”
and their are times when we must, must engage with
direct opposition and direct civil disobedience to the society/state…
today, right here and right now, is a time of direct opposition to
the state/society… the value being promoted by the state lead
by IQ45 are in direct violation of values I consider to be important…
where I believe that justice and freedom are the most important values
one could have within a society, IQ45 and his deluded followers have
values that are antithetical to what I consider to be the values that
I want the society/the state to follow…
my problems with democracy have been often stated, but my answers
isn’t less democracy like IQ45, but my answers is more democracy and more direct
democracy… less of the representative democracy and more direct
involvement by the people…which is in direct conflict with IQ45
and his followers…
for me, the one of the answers to the human condition is
for us human beings to have greater involvement with our lives
and to have a greater involvement with the society/state……
it is this engagement with the society/state that helps define who
we are… recall the Greeks… they thought that the only way for
human beings to develop into better human beings was by the influence,
impact of the polis, the city…to the Greeks, the path to becoming
human, fully human was by living in the polis and by becoming
rational… but as Nietzsche noted, they also had a place for
irrationalism that we haven’t found a place for…
we can account for rationalism and we can account for
irrationalism but we cannot, as yet, engage with both
of them on a equal basis… the entire 20th century was
an engagement, a battle between rationalism and irrationalism…
recall that the age of enlightenment, the 17 and 18 century,
were ages of science, rationalism, of measurement and curiosity…
whereas the 19th century was an age of romanticism, where
the emotions/feelings were all important…
and the 20th century? that was an age that tried to somehow unite
these two modes of life… and the 20th century was an extremely
violent age that tried to pay homage to both rationalism and irrationalism…
we have World War one and two, the atomic bomb, the Holocaust,
the cold war, dramatic advances in science and technology,
the 60’s with all its upheaval and protest…so, can we somehow
separate the last 119 years into some separation between rationalism
and irrationalism? no, no we cannot…the last 119 years have been
a very uneasy mix of rationalism and irrationalism… with IQ45 being
the latest episode of irrationalism, not the absolutely last, for nothing
is ever the absolutely last, life goes on… but IQ45 is about irrationalism
and is against anything rational or scientific or logical…and it is
our duty as Americans and as human beings to bring back the equation
which dominates our lives… we must have balance between rationalism
and irrationalism… the equation must be equal between rationalism and
irrationalism…we can write out this equation a couple of different ways…
rationalism = irrationalism
but we can write out this…
rationalism + irrationalism = being fully human…
so we are left with several issues, one of which is the
relationship between the individual and society/state…
and no one answer will suffice because the relationship between
the individual and society/state is always changing and adapting…
depending upon the environment and situation and conditions
on the ground…at times, we must be good citizens and other
times we must oppose the society/state… it depends upon what
is happening in any given situation……
there is no fix answer to the question of when we must be
good citizens and when we must oppose the society/state…
my own inclination as a philosopher and as a human being,
is to stand in opposition to the society/state…
I feel to be a good human being requires me to be a “gadfly”
to the society/state……
and all the great philosophers stood in opposition to the current,
prevailing tides of the time……. and as I must stand in opposition
to the current, prevailing tides of our times…
Kropotkin