hang in there… spitballing right now…
we have a couple of different theories to combine, somehow,
first we have the previously mentioned chaos and entropy
and we also have self organization…
I believe that we can connect these two idea’s…
the act of self organization is well known in biology and chemistry
and physics and other disciplines…
definition of self organization is:
“self organization, also called, (in the social sciences) spontaneous order…
is the process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions
between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous
when sufficient energy is available, not needing control by any external agent”
so, we have social systems that have entropy… for example, we
can list churches, systems like the Catholic church having lost
energy… going from order to disorder…losing energy…
Now as Nietzsche noted, this loss of energy has lead to a situation,
best remarked by the notion, “GOD IS DEAD” and what does this mean?
the energy that we used to put into religion which was a means of
organization, a means of understanding “who we are” and “what we are
supposed to do” “what we are to hope for”
in other words, the Kantian questions… what does it mean to the
questions of Kant if there is no organizing principle like religion?
the religious question is a question of morality… ethics…
how are we suppose to act in regards to our fellow human beings?
and if we act “properly” then we get a ticket to heaven, but what if
there is no heaven, then what? what becomes the criteria for our
interactions with our fellow human beings if there is not god?
and this was the question that Nietzsche tried to work out…
what is ethics, morality if there is no outside organizing
principle like religion or the church?
Here lies these question of self organization… under what principles
do we self organize under, in regards to ethics or morality?
that is where we have been, as human beings, over the last 120 years…
if we do not organize with religious principles, then what principles
do we organize with?
and the answers offered so far have been nationalism or other such
anti… ism’s like anti-Semitism or anti- humanism or anti-…whatever…
in other words, the answers have been the rise of the prejudices
and superstitions and biases and habits and indoctrinations
of family, state, church, media…
the attempt to self organize has been done with the prejudices
and superstitions of people…not with any sort of rational,
logical attempt…… the philosophies of the 20th century like logical
positivism and phenomenology and ordinary language philosophy
and Neo pragmatism have all been attempts to create a self
organizing system for society within philosophy itself…
but the attempts failed because philosophy itself has
withdrawn from the concerns of the average person…
Philosophy has reduced its own area of expertise into
small, narrow fields of specializations… with few ever
reaching beyond their own field of specialization…
so the question still exists, under what guiding principle do
we self organize if we have removed the guiding principles
of religion that has served as an societal organization pattern
for centuries?
Liberalism and conservativism has been offered up as
possible means of self organization within society…
the basic idea of liberalism has come from the
historical period called the “Enlightenment”
and conservativism has been basically “anti-Enlightenment”
the liberal ideals of tolerance and the sovereignty of reason,
and the use of knowledge as a guide and progress and fraternity
and the political ideas of constitutional government and the
separation of church and state are all ideas from the Enlightenment…
think of them as self organizing principles………
under what principles shall we self organize under?
that is the modern question……
if we remove the religious question from the mix and
Nietzsche did remove it, “GOD is still dead”
then what shall be our organizing principles?
so said another way, upon what principles shall we
expend energy upon? that is entire question of
what it means to engage in organizing principles,
the use of energy in our engagement with our
chosen organizing principles…
as human beings, as any system goes from order to disorder,
going from being to becoming, to the basic fundamental
process of the universe, which is entropy, how do we
engage in such a way as to maintain order in our chosen
organizing principles… instead of disorder, we must choose
and practice putting energy into any chosen system if that
system is to remain in order, being…
so, ask yourself, what organizing principles shall we
organize under?
how shall we self organize?
each of us is an individual atom… how do we
as individual atoms, become organized enough to
grow into something bigger then just an individual atom?
we know that as individual atoms, we cannot survive…
think of Hobbes and his state of nature: ……“the life of
man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”…
so we must engage with or have some sort of organized
society which engages in our mutual protection…
the conservative argues that we need less organization,
less energy and that excess energy is put into
our own personal enrichment, but the liberal
who understands that we cannot succeed by our
own efforts knows and understand that we
must join together or die separately…to steal a phrase…
so we need to see society as a means of self organization
and a means of using energy to promote our general
welfare…
Kropotkin
