a new understanding of today, time and space.

I don’t strive to become a better American or a better
philosopher or a better Christian or a better worker…

I strive to become a better human being…
that is my goal…I try to engage with my higher, more
human values of love and peace and honesty
and hope and charity and toleration…

and my understanding of who I am revolves around my
understanding of the values which drive my life…

the values I am striving to become, not just values
I study as a theoretical possibility but values I engage with
on a regular basis with other human beings…….
while I am at work, while I am at home, while I am shopping
and eating out and watching movies… the higher, more positive
values are the values worth engaging in because those are the
values that make one more human……

and that is my ultimate goal… to become more human…

to travel that path from animal to animal/human to being fully human…

to go from operating on instincts to a combination of instincts and reason,
to becoming fully human by operating, by being reason…not instincts…

Kropotkin

so earlier, we laid out the Kantian/Kropotkin questions of
human existence… “What am I do?” “What should I believe in?”
“What should I hope for?” “What values should I hold?” “What should
I spend my energy on?”……….

How does my new understanding impact such fundamental questions
that we human face from the minute we are born?

“What am I to do?” and the answer is, become human…
we have gone from animal, no different then cats or dogs
or bears, to animal/human, where we still are animal in form
and needs but human in our attempting to overcome our instincts
of the animals… we cannot overcome our form or needs, but we can
overcome our instincts and we can become our values… something
that animals cannot do…

“What can I hope for?” I can hope for the courage to overcome
my animal instincts that can control me… where I let anger
and fear and hatred and greed and lust dictate my thoughts
and actions…I have no control when I allow those negative
values to dictate my thoughts and actions…….

but I am in control when I answer to the higher values of human
existence… love, peace, charity, justice, hope…….

when I make a choice to become my values of peace and hope
and justice, I make a choice to become human and follow my
human values…not the animal side of me, but my human side…

“What should my values be?” I have laid out that argument…
we should become our higher, positive values, not only for our own
sake but for the sake of the human race and for the sake of the living…

I am not attempting to become a better American, a more patriotic American,
nor am I attempting to become a better philosopher or a better worker or
a better citizen, no, no and a thousand times no…

I am attempting to, with values of the higher nature, to become a
better human being…….to hold my self to the highest standard possible…
as with any journey, my journey to become the best possible human being
has its ups and it downs…but I keep striving and engaging with that which
is best within me… the higher values of existence of love and hope and
charity and justice and peace and all those higher values of being…

but I don’t make my journey in isolation or engaging in the renunciation of
the body…I embrace who I am and I take my journey in the midst of
the polis as did the Greeks… they searched for their higher being in
the midst and chaos of the city as do I…….we cannot become who we
are in isolation, apart from everyone… no, the path to becoming human
lies squarely in existing with our fellow human beings… for we learn best
from talking to and engaging with our fellow human beings…

I can learn best how to become a better human by being engaged
with my fellow human beings in the city…

as we engage with our fellow travelers, we can compare and contrast
our words, actions, needs and goals with others… and that comparing
and contrasting is how we learn to become better human beings…

that is why the whole isolation of the monastery, the ascetism that
dominated the middle ages didn’t create better human beings…

the lessons to be learned are best learned from our engagement
in the city, with the people of the city…while working, while
studying, while screwing, while eating… you cannot replace that
engagement with others by isolating oneself and engaging in dialogue
with oneself…….

the Kantian/Kropotkin question becomes, “How do I best become human?”

by our examination of who we are and what is possible for us…

to know thyself and to become aware……

to discover what values I have are simply values that were indoctrinated into
me or are they really my values…

to have an reevaluation of values whereby I examine my values to
see if they are really my values…or someone’s else values indoctrinated into me…

to overcome any indoctrinated values and seek those values which
are really are me… to become who I am…

the path to become human is a long one… we have, as human beings, engaged
in this path for over a million years, we cannot expect to become human, to
overcome our animal side overnight…the journey, the road map we need to
take in our journey is clear, but do we have the courage to embark on a journey
that will leave many tormented by what is and what could be…

by asking the Kantian/Kropotkin questions, we can see where we are
and where we can hope to be…“upon what should I spend my energy on?”
another Kantian/Kropotkin question and that question is answered by
the understanding that the goal is to become human…

in the days and weeks and months and years, began to ask yourself,
have I become more human? have I begun to escape that which makes
me animal…my animal side is the negative, attributes of being human
the being under control of our additions is being animal,
the being unable to control our words or actions is being animal…
to engage with anger, hatred, lust, greed as a solution to our problems
is animal.

the road is from animal to animal/human to becoming fully human…

when do you start to make that journey?

Kropotkin

But Kropotkin, are you insisting upon reason above faith?

Faith, we live in faith every single day… I have faith that I
will wake up in the morning, I have faith that my wife will
return safe and sound after her job…I have faith that I will
remain in “sound mind and body” until the work is done…
I have faith that the dumbest man alive won’t blow up the
planet while being president…

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are create equal"

I hold this statement as a statement of faith…

faith, no more then reason, are expression of being human…

animals do not have faith, nor do animals have reason…

faith is a tool, just like any other tool, faith keeps us from blowing our
brains out when all looks dark and dismal…I have faith that tomorrow
the sun will shine and the birds will sing…but to me, and perhaps only
to me, does faith look a whole lot like hope… I believe one can use
faith and hope interchangeably…and hope is one of the higher aspirations
of man…

so, there is room for hope/faith in our understanding of what it means to be
human…….

when all looks lost, hope/faith is what allows us to continue despite
overwhelming odds… when a human being loses hope/faith, life loses
all meaning…we might be fine physically and mentally and psychologically,
but once one lose hope/faith, we have lost…game over…regardless of
what else happens, once one loses faith… it is the end…

so we must make room for hope/faith in our understanding of what
it means to be human…the power of hope/faith to get us up every
morning cannot, cannot be underestimated…

maybe, just maybe, today is the day that its turn around and
and my life gets better…I can only hope…

no, we cannot so easily dismiss hope/faith in the modern scheme of things………….

so, I am not saying, either we accept reason or we accept hope/faith…
there is no middle ground between the two… there is always some middle
ground between any two antagonistic or opposing viewpoints or idea’s…
we just have to search for them…in fact, we might even pursue the idea
that hope/faith and reason, are just two equal and opposing idea’s but upon
reflection, faith and reason are two sides of the same coin and upon further
reflection, hope/faith and reason are the same thing… if we look at it
hard enough……

so, is hope/faith and reason simply the same thing?

Kropotkin

that we use reason to gain universal and necessary judgements
about the universe… like Kant…

I don’t think we need to attempt to discover universal truths/judgements
when I am not sure that there are universal truths/judgments…

but that doesn’t dismiss reason as a another tool in the toolbox…

we simply have to become aware of the uses and abuses of reason…

we cannot say, it is either reason or faith we must follow…

reason has its place just as hope/faith has its place…

we just can’t depend upon reason to work out universal truths
and judgments like Kant’s moral/categorical imperative…

but I can use reason to work out what is my best course of action
in understanding what it means to be human… I can use reason
as a tool to create understanding…just as I use hope/faith as a tool
to get up in the morning to work my crappy job… I hope it is a better day
at work today… I know rationally that it is going to suck at work, but
with hope/faith, I can muster enough hope/faith to think, perhaps,
maybe, today will be different. It will be better today…
and I am forever disappointed… but perhaps, perhaps tomorrow
will be better, I hope/have faith…

reason tells me that work will suck, yesterday, today and tomorrow…
I cannot escape the nightmare that is work, at least not until
I retire, which at this point, is the same day I die…….

I can use reason on a small scale way or means of understanding my
role or place in the universe… I may not be able to make such
large scale pronouncements that Kant or Hegel or Spinoza made, but
I can use reason to make small scale understanding of what it means to
be human……and what it takes to go from animal to animal/human to
human… fully human…and reason is the tool I use to make
that judgement……

so, reason isn’t oppose to faith, reason is simply another tool, just
as faith is a tool…

Kropotkin

to expect the universal truths to come from either
reason… Athens or universal truths to come from religion, Jerusalem…
is to first ask, is there such a thing as universal truths?

I have stated before, I don’t accept the idea that there is such
a thing as a “universal truth” that is a judgement of some nature…
for example, a universal truth is “because Adam sinned, all human kind
is cursed with the original sin” that sort of “universal” truth, it isn’t
very plausible or likely…… it is simply a justification to sin without
consequences……

“all men are evil” is another example of a universal truth, that is simply
wrong based on just us looking at the people around us…

universal truths are very hard to disprove…… an example of this seems to
be a slam dunk… “all human beings die” and yet, I am not sure this is true
because we haven’t been able to and won’t be able to examine everyone
who has ever been born… there might be a case, a human being that has
lived for centuries… I cannot know either way… I must remain
agnostic to the idea of universal truths and judgments because I simple
don’t have the information necessary to make such a judgement…

I must reserve my judgment until I have all the facts and in
the case of universal truths/judgement, we can never have all
the facts, so we must reserve our judgements in the cases of
universal/judgements…

but then Kropotkin, you cannot proclaim yourself to be an atheist because
you don’t have all the fact within your possession…

I have reason, which on a small scale can offer up answers to
many of the vexing questions of human existence…

I see no prove of a god…I cannot imagine a situation where
it becomes necessary to imagine up a god… I cannot imagine up
any necessary reason for god… I have no evidence for god’s existence,
I have no reason for god’s existence…now can I expand that into some
universal truth/judgements? I don’t think so… for everyone has their
reasons to believe or disbelieve in some universal truths/judgements…

but locally, within my field of vision, I cannot justify the use of or the need for
god, nor can I find any evidence for such a being…….

hence, I call myself an atheist because I am not trying to reach some
universal reason about such matters, I am simply stating my local truth…
there is no god… I can’t speak for you, but for me, there is no god
and there is no proof of such a being…I reasoned that out…
whereas someone else might reason out otherwise… that is the nature
of reason… it is a locally applied use of a tool we humans have…

Kropotkin

I am a philosopher…

I am supposed to seek the truth…

but I don’t…

I commit blasphemy in the philosophical circles by not
seeking the truth at all cost…

What truth? Whose truth?

I cannot say…

is my truth more “real” then your truth?

I cannot say…

is my truth, more true, then your truth?

I cannot say……

I cannot even say what the word “truth” means…

for I don’t know……

I cannot even say what reality we are trying to describe…

for I don’t know…

I cannot say what the word “understanding” means…

for I don’t know…

for I am ignorant of such matters…

I cannot tell you what is real or true or even understand such things…

I can only ask questions about what they mean…

I have been misinformed about such things… from childhood…

my childhood indoctrinations from the state and society and church and media…

they lied as to what is real and what is true and what is understanding…

the purpose of those indoctrinations weren’t to inform or allow understanding…

no, those indoctrinations were meant to get me to obey…nothing more…

to be a “good” citizen, to be a “good” Christian, to be a “good” Patriot…

and by “good” that means only one thing… to obey, to follow the rules…

what is the great crime of modern society?

Insubordination…….

to prevent the crimes that bedevil societies…

defiance, dissension, rebellion, revolt, revolution, noncompliance…

these criminal acts, all of them……

and what do these criminal acts have to do with “TRUTH”?

For the question becomes, who decides what is the “TRUTH”?

Society, the state demands to be the only arbiter of what is the “TRUTH”…

If I as an individual decide the “TRUTH” for myself, I am a criminal…

for I dare to subvert the power of the state by declaring the truth is

outside of the control, the domination of the state…

but I cannot tell you what is the “TRUTH”…

but to search for the truth outside of the state’s indoctrinations

is to commit the cardinal sin of insubordination………….

I am a heretic because I don’t subscribe to the state’s indoctrinations…

and so I am labeled, radical, liberal, socialist, communist, anarchist,

and why?

because I seek the “TRUTH” outside of the state’s sanction indoctrinations…

and what are the state sanction indoctrinations?

Money, Patriotism, profits, martial, materialism, religious, obedience…

all the phony idols, we American’s bow down and pray to……

I oppose each and every one of these sacred tenets of America…

instead of praying to the state’s indoctrinations…

I seek values worth living for, worth dying for…

values like love, peace, hope, justice, charity…

Un-American values because there is no profits in those values…

and profits are the real religion in America today…

all bow down and pray to the holy ghost of profits…

bow down and pray to Mammon… our real heavenly father…

I shall not bend the knee to such false and nihilistic values…

and what is the “TRUTH”?

Kropotkin

“Whoever is not of faith is sin”

St. Paul, Romans 14:23

and I am not of faith, so I am in sin……

and whomever is not of faith, of the indoctrinations
of the state, is sin……

the articles of faith in America…

Money, Patriotism, profits, martial, materialism, religious, obedience……

and I am not of faith, so I am… sin……

“Whomever disowns me before others, I will disown before my father in heaven”

Never a more patriotic belief was ever held……

For the father in heaven in America is Mammon, profits…

and for my sin, I am disowned before the father in heaven,

I am a poor man… disowned before the heavenly father…

and what is my great crime of insubordination?

I reject the values of America as being nihilistic…

nihilistic: devaluing and dehumanizing humans and their values……

do you hold faith in the indoctrinations of the state?

are you in obedience?

are you a good citizen or a good patriot or a good American?

then you are not… sin…….

but verily I say unto you… I would rather sin then
live in false and phony values that are nihilistic…

and what is the “TRUTH”?

Kropotkin

I seek to understand…

is knowledge and virtue… synonymous?

Socrates certainly thought so…

can one who has knowledge, because of knowledge
be virtuous?

or do the two have nothing in common?

what is knowledge?

Philosophy spent over 200 years trying to understand that
question… From Descartes to Hegel……

but has philosophy put in that amount of effort into
understanding Virtue?

why not?

in America, virtue is holding those values of
patriotism, profits, martial, materialism, money, religious, obedience…

and what of knowledge in America?

does American have any knowledge?

hence the dissociation of virtue and knowledge in America…

have we proven or disproven Socrates?

Kropotkin

today, we see people with knowledge of the bible commit
acts that are not virtuous…

they claim to be Christians and with knowledge of
the bible and god…

and yet, they cheered when America created its concentration camps
and cheered when the poor and the needy are denied the basic necessities
of life and the virtuous ones of the church cheered when a evil man
(evil according to the very bible which provides them with their knowledge)
become president…….

clearly knowledge hasn’t provided them with virtue (according to the bible)

and human’s of reason, failed to protest when these human’s of virtue
created these concentration camps and failed to protest when
the basic necessities were taken away from the poor and needy…

knowledge failed to lead those people to virtue……

to protest acts which are nihilistic and devalues human beings
is honorable and virtuous…

but those acts of protest against the devaluation of human beings,
these acts of knowledge conflict with the values of America…

to be a good American, to be a patriot, to be a good citizen,
means we cannot, cannot object to, to express disagreement with
the stated values of America, the values of materialism and of profits
and of money and martial values and patriotism and religion and obedience…

to state disagreement with the values of America means to be called
a radical, communist, socialist, anarchist, terrorist lover, liberal…….

I have knowledge… I am old… but does that make me virtuous?

You have knowledge… does that make you virtuous?

I have values and you have values……

but what is our values based upon?

are your values based upon the indoctrinations of the state,
the church, the media, the culture?

I cannot say… and because of your failure to
have an reevaluation of values, you cannot know…

“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

is your life “unexamined”?

Kropotkin

Love it or leave it…

the standard response to a criticism of America the great…

one must accept without any mental reservation to “love”
America…

to hold in faith, the American values of materialism
and patriotism and profits and being martial and of money…
oh, the faith in money must be complete and absolute…
or one is told to “love it or leave it”……

the negation of human values is the basic requirement of being an American…

if I don’t accept this nihilism?

I am a bad American, un-American, traitor, anarchist, terrorist lover,
communist, socialist, un-patriotic…….

I must without any reservations about its values, love it or leave it…

I must have faith in the gospel of America or I am not going to heaven…

“he who is not in faith, is sin”

the faith of America requires, no, demands the complete
and absolute acceptance of the values of America…

there is no middle ground, no deviation from the accepted
creed of American values…

if I so deviate, even an inch, from the “values” of America,
I am suspect, I am in heresy, I am sin……

the separation of church and state in America isn’t really needed
as a clause in the constitution because it is inherent within the
basic voice of America demanding that one must “love it or leave it”,
as faith in the American values that all good patriots must have…
or they are traitors to the values of America……

Love it or leave it……

the last recourse of those who hide behind patriotism
and being a good citizen to commit and encourage
nihilism… nihilism that is inherent in the American values
of profits, money, materialism, being martial, patriotism
and religious obedience to the gospel of America…

love it or leave it…

so says those who hold to the faith of American values which cannot,
cannot be denied or opposed to because opposition to the values of America
is heresy…….and one must leave the country if one has committed heresy to
those values……

the religion of patriotism is the religion of America……

and religion demands the removal of any who deny the faith…

the religion of profits demands the removal of any who deny the faith…

and the religion of patriotism and profits is the exact same religion
in America…….

love it or leave it……

Kropotkin

a quick note and off to work…

I was wondering why I wasn’t getting any type of feedback
about what I was writing about… it seemed to me that I
was writing about important and interesting things…
but I just wasn’t sure because the only voice I could hear was
mine…

so I e-mailed a friend who is a regular around here to ask him…
why wasn’t I getting any type of feedback even though this stuff
seemed to be very important…

He wrote back… he said I “make my fellow American’s uncomfortable”

I thought about it and thought, good… philosophy should make one
uncomfortable… you should read philosophy and get nervous and wound up…

if philosophy make you feel all warm and cuddly, you aren’t doing philosophy…

philosophy done right should make you feel uncomfortable… your basic views
are being challenged and that should make you uneasy…

my friend also suggested that because people seemed to be uneasy, that
I was on the right path… after thinking about it, he is right…

because I am right in the middle of the storm, I can’t tell how big the storm
is, but until someone tells me differently, I am going to assume that by your
silence, I am still on the right path…to the truth………

and I thank my old friend for his guidance… after all these years and
he is still steering me straight… thank you…

Kropotkin

and I thank my old friend for his guidance… after all these years and
he is still steering me straight… thank you…

What are the chances of getting his email address? Guidance? Couldn’t we all use a little guidance? Forgive me, but you don’t write in the style of a man who is rightly guided. Is there a destination? The truth is where you are. Your friend ( the man you see as some kind of guide) should know that. Where on Earth is he seeking to guide you? Beware of men who seek to guide you away from yourself. What you seek is where you are. Tad flowery, but not something your friend can argue with!

If you want feedback, Kropotkin. Some people think the actions of Donald Trump are misguided.

Others think he is 2-1 up on Obama Sin Laden. He only played judge jury and executioner to one.

Donald can sleep well.

Do you think, when he rests his head - all things being connected - he thinks, my actions, my whims, my desires, my orders, led to 59 people being crushed to death. Do you think that he thinks the people on the plane were shot down as a direct consequence of his actions?
Or do you think he thinks… Go on my son, 2-1! Al Bagdahdi - Oh solo mio - hear what I did Melania? Take the piss out of me at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
Don’t be afraid children. It’s a phase we’re going through.

I got your e-mail… no worries…
its all good…

Kant once wrote:

“Reason aspires avidly to universal and necessary truths”

and yet I don’t believe in universal and necessary truths…

I have yet to see one single universal and/or necessary truth…

but I do hold onto reason, within reason, of course ; )

I hold to moderation but sometimes, sometimes…
we must hold to excessive values like love and justice
and hope and honesty……

I don’ believe in moderation in some values… but moderation
in actions……

it sounds like a contradiction and perhaps it is, but it doesn’t make it
less true…

some values that can survive excessive valuation are love, justice,
hope and sometimes even honesty……

I don’t think one can go wrong if we are immoderate in love or in justice
or in hope or in honesty or in charity…

or said another way, you can’t love moderately… or have a moderate justice
or only hope half way… love and justice and hope require, no, demand
a complete usage…with love or justice or hope… its all or nothing…
you can’t go halfway with love or with justice or with hope…

is love a universal truth?.. no, its a universal need…
is justice a universal truth? no, its a universal need…
and the same goes for hope… its a universal need…

without hope, who would get up in the morning?

certainly not me…without love, who would get up in
the morning? not me… and without justice?
hence the appeal of a second life, of heaven and hell
and angels and demons…are these also universal truths?

no, wanting a fair and just life is a universal need… not a truth…

we have to be careful to distinguish between our needs and our truths…

there is no such things as a universal truth, but there is such a thing
as universal needs… among them, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…
even the founding fathers mistook the needs of life, liberty and happiness
as truths…they are only needs…

but reason can sort out between our needs and our truths…

reason can give us reasons for waking up in the morning…

reason can give us hope and perhaps even justice……

but we can never reason our way into love…….

reason can solve our individual questions…

but reason can not get us to some universal and necessary truths…

for the fact is, universal and necessary truths are really nothing more
then wishful thinking……

but the universe is made up of small, individual truths that we hold
collectively…

the democratic party is not a party with universal truths…
neither is the Republican party

the fact is, as a democratic, I hold small personal truths/needs
and millions of others hold very similar truths/needs and combined
we make up the democratic party…….

that is the nature of parties such as the GOP or the dem’s….

it isn’t about universal truths but about who will meet our needs…

and within churches, its not about the universal truths, but
who will meet our needs?

what needs do you have? and that will tell you if you are liberal or
conservative or moderate or anarchist or authoritarian…

your needs dictate your truths…

that is why there is no universal and necessary truth…

Kropotkin

and in line with the prior post, that there is no, no “universal
and necessary truth”……

I offer up the question that Kant asks,

“What ought I to do”?

In Kant, this is a moral, ethical question…
what should I do morally, ethically in regards
to the questions of both existence and actions…

whereas, I have extended the question, “What ought I to do”
into a general question about what we faced with the questions
of existence, “what ought I to do?”… as a overall, general question
about life itself, not just the moral question of Kant…the ethics of Kant…

I see Kant’s question of ethics, morality as being a part of the question of life,
as being inside the question of life…morals, ethics are a part of human
existence, not the whole of human existence… an important part to be sure,
but just a part…

we have a lasting question/problem from Kant which is
this idea of “Autonomous ethics”…

this is Kant’s famous idea of “acting in accordance with one’s moral
duty rather then one’s desires”

the Autonomy ethics in western philosophy, both in ethics/morality and
political philosophy…

“The state or condition of self-governance or leading one’s life according to
reason, values, or desires that are “authentically” one’s own”…

this suggest? that moral requirements present themselves as being
“unconditionally necessary”… the act of demanding “Autonomous”
ethics has disconnected people from the “old style” ethics, which was
tied up in religious precepts “thou shall not kill” type of precepts…

so the question becomes, do we base our ethical judgements upon
A: religious precepts, thou shall not kill… or do we base
ethical questions upon…
B: Autonomous ethics… In accordance to one’s moral duty rather
then one’s desire… but that is Kantian language…Autonomous
ethics is really : Autonomy: "in Western ethics and political philosophy,
the state or condition of self-governance, or leading one’s life according to
reasons, values, or desires that are “authentically one’s own”

so we have two distinct possibilities: one to obey the moral precepts
of some authority… be it god or some other authority like the state…
or two, to leads one own life according to one’s own reason, values or desires.

do we obey the law, be it gods or the state if the law itself is deemed to
be “morally” wrong… in other words, should we obey the law if the law
accepts such morally repulsive ideas as the Jim Crow laws or slavery
or the denigration or dehumanization of a class of individuals such
as minorities or Jews or people of color or the handicap……

should we obey laws that violate our own “morals in regards to
our own reason’s, values, or desires?”

we have a duty to obey, according to Kant, but we cannot obey if
it violates our own morals…

politically, democracy is founded upon the principle of “Autonomous ethics”
which is to say, we lead one’s own life according to reasons, values, or desires
that are authentically own’s own…

we choose our representatives who act in own name to create laws that
fulfill our own reasons, values or desires…

but that is theory, and we know in reality, that our elected representatives
don’t act in our name to create laws that fulfill our reasons, values or desires…

should we then obey the laws even if, even if they are not our “Authentic values”
but someone else’s? Big pharma for example, buys politicians and then writes
laws and creates laws for the benefit of big pharma and not the citizens of
this country…should we obey the law? the violation of our moral precepts
by this engagement that no longer embraces our reason, values or desires…
do we no longer have the “duty” to obey laws if our own personal
reasons, values or desires or our “authentic” selves is violated?

as we have a long way to go in this post, and I am meeting
the wife to go to the latest Star wars movie, I shall leave you with
one specific thought that will be touched on later…

Do we have character traits?..

Kropotkin

I left you with a question…

do we have character traits?

what a strange question……

but not so strange when we consider the word ethics…

the word ethics derive from the Greek and means, “related to one’s
character, or moral nature”……

ethics is found in one’s character, not in outside actions or right or wrong,
but in one’s character or moral nature…

and who among us demand we have a high moral character?

who even ask for us to consider right or wrong?

all I hear are crickets… because people are seeking things outside
of our character, our moral nature…

the pursuit of fame, money, titles, promotions, wealth…
these things have nothing to do with one’s character or moral
nature……they have nothing to do with ethics as defined by the word ethics…

the question becomes, do we practice our “ethics” with the prevailing
historical precepts of religion? “thou shall not kill” “thou shall not steal”

or do we understand our actions in terms of our own personal autonomy?

the state or condition of self-governance, or leading one’s life according to
reason, values or desires that are (and here is the key word) authentically
one’s own…

as the very idea of a political system that is authentic, is one political system and
one political system only, democracy…the state or condition of self-governance
or leading’s one life according to reason, values or desires that are authentic to
one’s own…the other political systems don’t engage in a system that is allows one
to lead one life according to reason, values or desires that are authentic to
one’s own life…

(the very fact that we have very limited autonomy today doesn’t destroy
the argument that democracy is the only form of government that is in line
with the concept of leading one’s own life according to reason, values or desires
that are authentic to own’s own life… if we ban certain things because
of religion, then we no longer have autonomy in those area’s… if we ban
abortion because of religious precepts, then we no longer have any
autonomy in this regard… I have severe back pain, I could really use
pain pills like Vicodin but because of the so called opioid crisis, where
people become addicted to them, I am forbidden to have these pills
even I am in so much pain that sometimes I can’t function because
I might, MIGHT, become addicted… I no longer have any medical autonomy
in this area…my medical needs are dictated to me by others who don’t
suffer the severe pain that I suffer… I don’t have any autonomy…
but its for your own good, one might say, and you know this how?)

that there is “no universal law of nature that defines morals”
is clear…….

so we can use rationality, Athens or we can use faith, Jerusalem……

do we have a state or condition of self-governance, or leading one’s life
according to reason’s, values, or desires that are authentically one’s own
that is living rationally, Athens…

or do we live life using precepts that are handing down by the
authorities, be it the state or be it religion, or be it a single person?

now the question becomes, is there a third path? somewhere in between
these two opposing idea’s?

it is often said that we are seeking something… some people seek
happiness and some seek knowledge and some seek contentment and
some seek materialistic objects like cars and houses and money
and some seek pleasure, some of it moderated pleasure(seek only pleasure but
not any pain and if we overindulge in our pleasures, we might be in pain, so
we should have only moderate pleasure to avoid pain) and some seek pleasure
at all costs…that there are so many possibilities shouldn’t surprise you…
think of the drives that motivate you to act…

and that is part of the equation of motivation… our needs…
we have needs, biological needs in the form of food, water, education,
shelter, health care, and yes, sex…think of our needs in terms of
Maslow’s pyramid… with the needs of a human being driving our
behavior… the lowest level is our physical needs, the next level is
our need for safety/security, the next level is our need for love/belonging,
the next level is our need for esteem… each level is a need, just like our need
for food and water and sex… the last level is the self-actualization level…
where we have passed beyond our needs and we reach the level of
reaching our full potential… where we find our possibilities and we
engage in reaching and fulfilling our possibilities… that is the last level
of the pyramid…until we find the next level…

so how much of our behavior, our actions is in line with achieving
our needs? I would suggest that ethics, our character, lies outside
of our needs…for example, my need for happiness is different
then my character, my moral nature……regardless of my own personal
needs of food, love, esteem or safety… I can still be a moral person,
my character can still be moral…

the question becomes, “to do the right thing”…

must I know what the right thing is before I can actually “do the right thing”
or can I do the right thing without even knowing what the word “right”
means here?

it has been said, especially in ancient philosophy that we must engage
in the “good life”… and then the ancients described the “good life” as
being virtuous… which they also equated with knowledge… to hold
knowledge is to be virtuous… knowledge and virtue were considered to
be the same thing especially by Socrates…if one committed an “evil”
act, it was because that person was ignorant or lacked knowledge of
the right thing to do… good and evil were questions of knowledge…
and to have knowledge was to be virtuous…

next post will go on…

Kropotkin

I limit the length of post to ensure that I can post them…

you don’t often hear the word “virtues” very often…

virtue: behavior showing high moral standards, paragons of virtue

quality of considered morally good or desirable in a person,
“Patience is a virtue” is one example of this…

but how do we get virtues? by what means do we get virtues?

how do we teach morals or virtue as education?

schools don’t teach virtue or morals… schools are only exist
to teach job skills, to create workers, which as nothing to do with
virtue…

one might argue that religion is meant to teach virtues/morals…

but one looks at the hypocrisy of the modern day Christians and we can
see religion no longer teaches virtues or morals…if the words and actions no
longer match, then it is no longer virtue or moral… to be, to have virtue or morals,
the words and the actions must match in a person…

religion is just another failed ism or ideology that litters the modern
day landscape… other failures are communism, democracy, capitalism,
monarchy, dictatorships, autocracies, libertarianism, conservatism, fascism,
and nationalism…to list a few failures…

why have these ism’s or ideologies fail?

because they weren’t tied to some idea or vision of virtue, of moral character…

they operated outside of any consideration of being ethical…

and what is the meaning of the word ethics? The word “ethics” is
'“related to one’s character or moral nature”

to exist within capitalism or communism or democracy isn’t about one’s
character or moral nature, it is about some ism attempting to achieve
something outside of one’s character or moral nature…

the existential question of our modern age, “what am I to do”
has nothing to do with our character or our moral nature
and that is the problem……

we no longer search for virtues but we search for
money, titles, fame, materialism and when we are unable to
fulfill our desires for money or promotions or materialism or
fame, then what is left? we feel the universe is empty or devoid, so
we turn to drugs, sex, TV or false or phony attempts to fill that void
that we were unable to fulfill with our search for money/titles/fame/
promotions/ materialism…

we need to return to a search for values or to ethics…
but without, WITHOUT a return to religious values……
that was the search that Nietzsche engaged with…

god is dead and we have killed him… simple words that
people still don’t understand after a 100 years of thinking about…

we cannot connect ethics, or moral behavior to a religion or god because
we have gone beyond the need for a god or a religion……
we have, like children outgrowing the need for Santa Clause or
the Easter Bunny, we have outgrown the need for god or religion…

that is why the call to return to the religion of our forefathers
is so hollow and insincere… a return to the shallow hypocrisy of
the modern day religion isn’t very appealing to many…

we cannot, cannot find virtue in the midst of the hypocrisy of religion…

let us take an example of modern day morals…

as the movie says, Greed is good…greed is a central, modern day
call to action… but can we base an understanding of who we are based
solely on greed and the Kantian question of “what ought I to do”?

is greed a question of ethics, again, ethics is related to our
character, our moral nature… is being greedy ethical?

no, greed isn’t based upon some autonomous state or condition of self-governance,
or leading one’s life according to reason, values or desires that are “authentically”
one’s life…

done for now:

Kropotkin

let us look a little deeper in this idea of an Autonomous existence…

as noted before, Autonomous ethics…

“the state or condition of self-governance, or leading one’s life
according to reasons, values, or desires that are one’s
authentically one’s own”

as I have noted before, we have been indoctrinated as children…
we are indoctrinated with the values, morality, ism’s, ideologies,
of the state, church, family, media, culture…

to put this into context… we are indoctrinated with idea’s
associated with patriotism, nationalism, race, religion, sexuality…

we are indoctrinated with the notion that for example, America is
the greatest country on earth… to the notion that only white people
are human, we are indoctrinated that there is a god, we are indoctrinated
with all sorts of beliefs about who we are and what is nation and what is
real and what we ought to believe in and what are we to do and what is
worth living for and what is worth dying for……

all indoctrinations, among others, that we are indoctrinated
with as children…

if we still hold those indoctrinations as adults, then I don’t see
how we can be autonomous individuals… because we don’t hold
these beliefs as authentic beliefs, because they aren’t authentic beliefs
if we have been indoctrinated with them………if we hold onto values that
we were indoctrinated with, then they aren’t our values, they are someone else’s
values and we simple hold them…

to have an authentic life, one must hold values that are truly one’s own…
not the values that have been indoctrinated into us, but as we have reasoned
them out…

this is the basis of Socrates saying, the unexamined life isn’t worth living…

because if we don’t examine our lives for those hidden indoctrinations of
our childhood, then we hold onto values, judgement that aren’t our
authentic values or judgements, they are the societies values and judgements…

if we hold values or judgements that isn’t our own Authentic values or
judgements, then we cannot, cannot have or hold any autonomous
reasons, values or desires that our authentically one’s own…

we are not autonomous people if we hold reasons, values or desires
that isn’t our own… but reasons, values or desires that have been
indoctrinated into us………

if we don’t examine our values, our indoctrinated ism’s and ideologies,
then we are not, we are not autonomous people…

if we do not hold an examination, a reevaluation of values, then
we are simply holding values that were indoctrinated into us…
how are we to claim we are autonomous people without
any sort of self-examination?

to know thyself is the basis of being autonomous beings…

if our judgements and values and idea’s are indoctrinated into us,
then we are nothing more then robots holding idea’s and values and judgements
of those who indoctrinated us…

this is the point of existentialism… to become authentic people by
a reevaluation of values… to hold values that are values, judgements that
we, as people believe in, not just values or believes or judgments that were
indoctrinated into us…

so are you an autonomous person?, an autonomous being?

Kropotkin

I have heard, as everyone in the west has heard,
the story of Adam and Eve and the fall of man…

They ate the forbidden fruit of knowledge and was cast out
of Eden…

and to every person born thereafter, was cursed by the “Original”
sin………

and as I have stated, the “Original” sin was the gaining of Knowledge…

this fall of man is a story that has been one of the central stories of western
civilization, for over 2000 years, this story has been one of the focal points of
how we see human beings… as fallen…

but I see a different picture…

I reject the notion that we were once in “paradise” and lost it because
of some “original” sin…

follow the course of history, both individual and collective…

individually, we are born in ignorance, the society then fills that
“Tabula rasa” with information that I have likened to “habit, superstitions,
prejudice, ism’s and ideologies”… for example, we teach children to
believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny…and that “knowledge” has
some value but it doesn’t last very long in a child’s life… at some point,
that knowledge of there being a Santa Clause or an Easter Bunny is dropped…
the child has “real” or “True” information about the universe and realizes that
there is no such thing as Santa Clause or an Easter Bunny…

that becomes a step into growing up… but one could argue that
the lost of the old knowledge is a loss of paradise, we have fallen, so to speak…

but the reality is that we are really becoming… at every step we learn to shed
our childhood habits, superstitions, prejudices, ism’s, bigotries… and at every step
we are becoming more adult like… where we learn new habits, superstitions, prejudices,
isms and ideologies and of course, bigotries…

or we can think about it this way… in the beginning was animal, we were animals…
and over a million years plus, we learned to go from animal to animal/human…

we left the paradise of being simple animals to become complicated animal/humans…
this is the true story of human existence… there was no fall and there has never been
a fall… we have simple grown from being animal to animal/human and slowly
we grow to become human, fully human…

the individual growth of human beings match the growth of the human race…

so I don’t believe in nor accept the idea of a fall or of sin……

I do believe in the growth of human beings from animal to animal/human
and I accept the growth of children from infants to toddlers to children to
teens to young adults to adults to middle age to senior citizens to old age…

at my age, of being a senior citizen, I no longer hold the same beliefs
I held when I was a teenager or young adult or even middle age…

some might say I have fallen or an in sin, but I am simple growing into
something else… and this growth will continue until I die… a simple
movement from birth to death, from animal, of being an infant,
to animal/human of being middle age and hopefully of growing into
an human being by old age……

collectively and individually, we travel the same path… we grow
from birth to death and we grow from animal to becoming human…

becoming a human being isn’t about my physical appearance but about
my understanding of what it means to be human… as I grow less
dependent upon instinct and grow more into a thinking, reasoning being,
I become more human… animals are instinctual creatures, animal/human
are slightly less instinctual and fully human is even less so instinctual…….

to become human, fully human we must grow into something but
we also leave behind… we leave behind not only instinct, but
we leave behind our need for the negative instincts, hate and anger
and lust and fear and greed…

to grow into becoming human requires us to overcome our negative
instincts and become our positive instincts of love and justice
and hope and charity… among the other positive instincts we must engage
with if we are to ever become human, fully human……

what have you done to overcome your negative instincts or what
have you done to become more human?

Kropotkin

the question of Athens vs Jerusalem, of reason vs revelation…

reason vs the voice of authority, which is revelation of the truth…

we still fight this battle when we listen and obey the voice of
authority…for the greatest crime is the crime of disobedience,
of insubordination to the voice of authority…

that was the crime for which Adam and Eve were convicted upon,
the crime that lead to original sin…

it wasn’t gaining of knowledge that was the crime, but of disobeying
god that was the crime of sin……

and the biggest question in many people’s life is the question of salvation…

how am I to be saved? and the answer according to revelation/authority
is to obey… to obey god, to obey authority, to obey the state, if the
question is how to be saved, the answer lies in obedience………

reason, the quest to understand by the light of one’s own reason oftentimes
requires, no, demands, that we listen to the answers provided by reason…
and so we engage in disobedience… the greatest crime of a human being…

salvation is tied up into obedience or disobedience… so the question of
salvation, of how am I to be saved, for me, is irrelevant, unimportant,
unnecessary…… I don’t need to be saved, I don’t need salvation…

to be saved for what? to have salvation requires something to be saved from,
what am I being saved from? Original sin? I don’t believe in original sin…
to be saved from being a human being, well to be honest, I am not a human being,
at least not yet, I am still in the animal/human stage of development…

I strive to become human, not to be saved…

perhaps that is why the religious means so little to me…
the original and most important question of religion revolves
around salvation and being saved……

I am not a fallen man… I am a being attempting to become something
more then what I am…I am attempting to discover my possibilities
and then fulfill those possibilities…what does salvation or being saved
have to do with finding or becoming my full possibilities?

I seek knowledge but more importantly then knowledge, I need
to know what to do with that knowledge…… the fact is, some knowledge
is just not that important… the fact that the earth is 93 million miles from
the Sun is interesting but frankly, that knowledge doesn’t move the needle
in any way, shape or form… the knowledge that I am mortal… now that
moves the needle… death is coming for me… but I then release that
death comes for life… and in fact, to say, death comes for, is rather a lie…

for death is inherent within life… to be alive, to be born is to die at some point…

the one lies within the other…I can no more escape death then I can change my
appearance to a shark or to a dog……… death is simply an unavoidable fact……
and no amount of talk is going to change that…no amount of knowledge is going
to change that and no amount of faith is going to change that fact of my
coming death…to live is to die…simple statement of fact……

that is another reason why religion doesn’t appeal to me… why should I attempt
to have a “second” life or be “immortal”…I have never understood the need to escape
death even by the metaphysical means of religion…

to even wonder about what lies after death takes me aware from my primary
concern… the here and now leading to what I might become…
going from animal/human to becoming fully human…

to be honest, I resent any attempt to take me away from what I see as
my first and primary mission of being, which is to work my way to the
next stage of existence… to find and fulfill my possibilities and to
become fully human…….

anything that takes me away from that, I resent … especially
work or the family when it is time to do the mundane tasks of day to day living…
taking out the garbage or to make the bed or to do laundry (which is what
I am doing right now) I hate that shit because it takes me away from
working out my questions of existence…

but I cannot commit the crime of disobedience… to disobey is to
be without a wife………so this question of the greatest crime of
being human which is disobedience… becomes front and center
in our existence… obedience to the state, obedience to the family,
obedience to the voice of authority… regardless if the authority
is god, the state, a policeman, a judge or society………

and the question becomes… am I willing to pay the price of
disobedience to those of authority and am I willing to be punished
for the crime of disobedience? I was, once a long time ago…
now at my advance age, not so much…it isn’t fear as much
as comfort… am I willing to sacrifice my bodily comfort, for
which I admit I have a fondness for, for the greater question
of obedience… is obeying the state to preserve my own personal
comfort, part of being saved? does my salvation require me to
hold to my principles even if it means quite a personal sacrifice?

or is my being saved, my salvation require obedience to the voice
of authority?

I don’t know…perhaps if I hold to my original stated goal of
becoming… of traveling from animal, to animal/human, to becoming
fully human should take precedence over my own personal salvation or
perhaps, perhaps my being saved, my salvation comes from my
journey of becoming, from animal to animal/human to being human…
perhaps that is how we are to be saved? perhaps our salvation comes
from finding our possibilities and then fulfilling those possibilities…

quite often the journey requires us to simply start walking in some
direction and hope that direction can lead us to some answers…

perhaps… perhaps…

Kropotkin

Existence is questions,
not answers…

so what is your question?

Kropotkin