a new understanding of today, time and space.

K: I agree with you in that life is meaningless and yet, I believe we can
create meaning and purpose… not with any god or religion or money…

but with a new understanding of what it means to be human…

I believe in holding values even, EVEN if those values don’t seem to
have some sort of absolute value… when lost in a forest… and I have been,
sometimes the best plan is simple start walking in a fix direction…
sometimes, you might have a vague clue as to the road or a path,
and so you aim toward that road or path… you don’t know for sure,
but you think, you think it is out there… and so you walk…

that is life…right there… you start walking even if the path you are aiming for
isn’t clear or obvious…I don’t need certainty… I can get by with uncertainty…
because as human beings, we are surrounded by uncertainty…
we can measure our lives by the amount of uncertainty we have…

I say embrace the uncertainty…

my journey isn’t about being “out there” my journey is inside of me…
who I become… who I am… what road will I take…

I believe that Campbells myths of the journey, is just that a myth…
we don’t need to go out and fight dragons or seek the holy grail…

we can journey by an exploration of who we are… the inner journey is
far more important to me, then the outer journey of title, wealth,
power, fame… those are unimportant to me… and a hindrance to
my own journey of becoming…

the battles I fight are battles within me, not outside of me…

for me… the battle you fight is the wrong battle…
personally I would fight and battle the “fractured” inside of me…
and go from there…again, personally, I wouldn’t fight the
“objectivists” ….they have their own battle to fight…
an inner battle………but I am no you and you are not me…

so we fight our own battles…be sure the battle you fight is
the battle you should be fighting…not the battle you think
you ought to be fighting…

Kropotkin

like the Pagan of the years from Jesus to Augustine,
in their search for something to believe in, they
traded their freedom for security…

just as the conservative does today… trading a uncertain
freedom for an even less certain security…

when we rely on “acts” of security like depending upon
surveillance and the police state to keep us “safe”, we fail
to see the damage we do to our souls…

to be human is to engage with freedom, not security…

and those who promote security/safety over freedom
trade away the best of being human for the worst of being human…

the journey from Roman to Christian had its toll upon
the soul of man…a toll we are still paying…

a tax that still holds human beings to security over freedom…

to put heaven above one’s freedom is deny the strength of
being human… which is to change and adapt and become…

the search for heaven is the search for not only certainly but
a search for determination…to follow the laws, is to
accept that we can only travel as far as the laws allow…
which is to say, nowhere…

think of what it means to be Christian or to be Hindu or
to be Buddhist…you are bound to a certain fate…
your choices is limited to one or none…

obey the law of god or be in hell… one choice…

whereas freedom doesn’t set any set course of action…

whereas to be free, one only has to change or adapt
according to the will of the one… change by reason is best,
because to be free to answer to reason, means I control
the change and what change that happens…

to be a Christian means to change only to the demand of god…
there is no choice…and I trade in my freedom for an
uncertain future… that might not exist…I have
one possibility and one possibility only…to obey the laws of god…

but to have freedom over security means I am the author
and creator of change…

and what does this have to do with what I have been talking about?

everything… it is just another brick in the wall…

Kropotkin

Again, from my frame of mind, this is just another “general description intellectual contraption”.

In other words, I would imagine that folks all along the moral and political spectrum could [with the best of intentions] post an assessment like this.

But, then, in having taken the “search for meaning” seriously and conscientiously, the arguments I raise in my signature threads don’t go away. At least not for me.

For whatever reason [rooted in dasein] your “I” seems less fractured and fragmented than mine does here. And [rooted in dasein] it has come to settle down more decisively on the left/liberal end of the political continuum.

Basically, we just don’t see the existential juncture that intertwines identity, value judgments and political economy in the same way.

K: and the interesting questions comes, who is right and who is wrong?

and I would maintain that we are both right and we are both wrong……

as there is no center to the universe, there is no center to the
human being, no place where we can stand and say, this is absolutely
true, now and forever… we cannot find a location to being human…

why? Because we are always in the midst of becoming…

I am at this very second growing old… which is to say, I am engaged
in entropy… my body is going from order to disorder… and when I
am disordered enough, I die…

but I can engage with, I can embrace the disorder and loss of information that
is involved in my getting old, entropy hard at work…

we stand at different places, we have different viewpoints,
but I cannot state as you cannot state, who is right or who is wrong…
I would, in fact suggest that the words, concept of right and wrong don’t
even apply to what we are talking about………

what you would say as fact is fact given your viewpoint, your age,
your education, your background… in other words,
we are as much a victim of our age as the young are victims
of their age…

experience has taught me lessons… lessons that the young
cannot possible know until they are old, like me…

and because I am old, I no longer remember the lessons
of being young…

we are in different places in our thinking because we are at
different places in our ages and experiences…nothing more…

Kropotkin

the main task of the Christian, therefore, was not to
deal with science, politics, the worldly life: his task was to
prepare for citizenship in the city of god…heaven……

this was the voice of Augustine………

and what does Kropotkin want?

for people to retreat into themselves and understand
who they are and what it takes to become who they are…

and then, and then to return to the earth…

it is not enough to retreat into oneself and hide…
unlike the Romans who retreated into themselves
and hid for a thousand years…

the entire point of going from being to becoming is to
understand what is next…

it is not enough to engage in finding one values if one doesn’t
then act upon those values… but the first thing is to
understand who we are… what does it mean to be human?

and once we achieve that, then and only then can we
return to the world and find our selves in our actions…

in other words, we must know who we are before we
can act…

to withdraw is only the first step… to return is the second step…

and in our return, we can then understand what it is we need to do,
what we need to do to become who we are… individually and
collectively…for it about us individually and collectively…

take the exact same step as the Cristian and seek some
answers and when one has answers, those answers don’t lead
to heaven or leaving the world of the living, but the answers must
lead us to actions and the land of the living…

silence and contemplation are only the first steps…

becoming is the second step…

don’t make the same mistakes which sank the Roman empire…

retreat, to never come back…

retreat in preparation to come back with the answers to
the questions that plagues one mind…

what are we to do? what should we hope for?
what can we know? what values should we have?
upon what should we spend our energy on?
what does it mean to be human?

the average Roman was engaged in escaping accountability and
responsibility… that is why the city of Roman times after 400 AD,
depopulated… everyone was trying to escape instead of
trying to stop the fall of Rome…Christians escaped into their
religion and the wealthy escaped to their country estates
and the rest did what they could to avoid accountability
and responsibility…

I see the exact same pattern going on today…… everyone
is trying to get off the hook, everyone is trying to
avoid accountability and responsibility for who they
are and avoiding accountability for their actions………

blame the world, blame the parents, blame society,
blame the economy, blame the liberals, blame
the conservatives…wake up, wake up from
your sleepwalking…

Kropotkin

a slightly different path today…
not an individual one, but a collective one…

I was born an American…I have not live in any other
country… I was indoctrinated in the myths, prejudices,
superstitions, biases, habits of America at the end of the 1950’s.

Growing up, I was told being an American meant something…
you stood for something… your values are the highest values
of anyone… past and present……

me and millions of other baby boomers were given the sanitized
version of what America is…what it was and what it stood for…

it was recited to me, as part of my heritage, that all men are created
equal… and yet at the exact same time, black Americans were fighting to
be treated equally, to be allowed to vote equally, to be allowed to marry
equally, to be allowed to sit in diners and restaurants equally, to be educated
equally………

we had a line, a demarcation line between the words and dreams we used
and the reality at the time……. our words did not match our reality……

we said, all men are created equal… and yet, men, black men were not
treated equal and we did not treat women equal and we did not
treat sexual orientation equal and we did not treat religious affiliations
equal………

this gap between the reality and the words was unspoken
and unnoticed………

every civilization has a gap between its dream, its words
and its reality…

the high sounding words of America clashed with the reality
on the ground in America…….

if the difference is to great… we get events like the 1960’s…

our mighty words clashed with the reality on the ground
and the young revolted against this hypocrisy…

we, baby boomers have had many opportunities to revolt
against the hypocrisy of the last 40 years and yet we,
failed to do so… that is to our eternal shame……

today, we have a MAGA revolt… attempting to return
America to its previous greatness… and the failure lies
not in thinking to return America to its greatness, but
in thinking that bigotry and intolerance and greed and lust
is/was America’s greatness…as if America was its lower,
negative values……. it wasn’t…

the ideal of America as being “a city upon the hill” meaning
that America is a beacon of hope throughout the world,
has been lost… because that “beacon of hope”,
lies in our vision……

JFK spoke of that “city on the hill” on January 9, 1961…

……“today the eyes of all people are truly upon us-and our governments,
in every branch, at every level, national, state, and local, but be as a city
upon the hill- constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust
and their great responsibilities.”

and “their great responsibilities”……

we ask to be rewarded by our actions and our beliefs without
any corresponding awareness of our “great responsibilities”…

we are divorced… words and actions no longer match…
we ask for great rewards without any responsibilities…

name me a person who itemizes what it means to be an American…

tell me that person’s name who has judge what a human being is…

in our great pursuit of the empty goal of titles and wealth and power
and fame, we have forgotten what it means to be human and we
have forgotten what it means to be an American… we have no such
ideal guiding us as to what our “trust and responsibilities” are today…

there is no such mission statement as to what it means to be
an American or what it means to be a human being today…

we are rudderless because we have no map, no guide to aim us to
become better Americans or better human beings……

even the last slogan, “if they go low, we go high” leaves us
without any knowledge of what going high means in practical
terms…what is our standard going to be if we “go high”…

it is an empty promise because it doesn’t have any sort of
practical information as to our final goal… or what it
means to be an American or to be human…

we have to spell out in in no uncertain terms what it means to
be an American and what it means to be human…

and I want that accounting to be the high end of our
possibilities, the positive nature of what it means to
be an American or a human being……
not the low end… so to go low means we are/practice
injustice or intolerance or anger or hate or lust or greed…

I want any accounting of what it means to be human, to be on the
high end of what it means to be an American or to be an human being…

so, I want that accounting to be about love and justice and peace
and charity and honor and hope… you say, it is impossible for
us to reach those lofty goals… I say unto you, we must make
our goals to soar into the sky… to be much higher then we think is possible…

we must reach for the sun… and if we burn up, I have no problem with that…
to fail to reach a lofty goal is worth the effort… to succeed to reach a lowly
and mundane goal is worthless and insignificant…

it is only by aiming for the stars, can we claim to be human beings…

to be an human being, we must reach for justice, we must reach for love
and we must reach for peace and hope and charity…… set the bar extremely
high for us to reach becoming human, fully human…

to be an American, we must set the bar high, extremely high…
to reclaim our prior vision of being the “city on the hill”, we must
reclaim our moral high ground by being just and being love
and being hope and being peace and being charity…

to find out who we are, we must set the bar at the highest level
we can and then reach for the stars…

injustice will not be tolerated… intolerance will not be tolerated…
denying hope will not be tolerated…denying peace will not be tolerated……
torture and lying and being petty and denying people their fair share is no longer
to be tolerated…

we either reach for the stars in our word, in our actions, in our behavior
or we set aside our leadership of the world… and let others take over…

either we become better or we simply stop pretending that we have any moral
high ground left………

if they go low, we go high, but let us demonstrate what it means to
go high, let us enumerate what it means to go high, let us record
what it means to go high… let us hold ourselves to standards that bring
us to being better Americans and hold ourselves to standards that bring
us to being better human beings…

let us rise up and not down……… which means we have to have some
understanding of what it means to be human…

Kropotkin

I have been criticized by some because I don’t offer up
answers… or I don’t take my idea and bring them down to
earth… but you have mistaken me for another……

I am not offering up any answers… I am asking questions…

my agenda, such is it were, is about getting the reader
to engage in the questions I ask…… I have no illusions that
I am the sole provider of all answers needed… I am not…

the challenge I provide is simply a challenge for readers to engage
in some understanding of who they are, in light
of the Kantian questions……

are you engaged in becoming?

if not, why not?

are you engaged in exploring your possibilities?

if not, why not?

if you are not engaged in knowing thyself,
why not?

Socrates said, an unexamined life is not worth living,
are you examining your life?
if not, why not?

personally, I don’t care if you are or not… and I don’t care
about the answers you give because the fact is, I won’t ever
hear them…

are you engaged in lying to yourself about knowing thyself, or
lying about examining your life, or are you lying to yourself about
exploring your possibilities, I won’t ever know, but you will know…….

never underestimate the human capacity for lying to oneself…

and there are a large number of reasons that people lie to themselves…

fear, shame, horror, doubt, dishonesty, anxiety, panic, revulsion, ego,
faintheartedness… these are some of the reasons people lie to
themselves…

if you cannot be honest with yourself, you certainly can’t be honest with anyone else…

so instead of challenging me, heal thyself first…….

and people will assume I am talking about someone else, but I am
talking about anyone who is willing to begin the process of becoming…
honest with themselves…

life is a process… we see this every single day…

what process are you engaging with today?

be honest…with yourself at least…

Kropotkin

As I have noted from time to time above on this thread, one of the benefits [and psychological consolations] of being a moral and political objectivist is that even when your own idealism is stomped on by “the system”, you can still take comfort in knowing that at least you are right and they are wrong.

For example:

nytimes.com/2020/04/08/opin … e=Homepage

‘Bernie Sanders has ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, which is a tragedy, because he was right about virtually everything. He was right from the very beginning, when he advocated a total overhaul of the American health care system in the 1970s. He remains right now, as a pandemic stresses the meager resources of millions of citizens to their breaking point, and possibly to their death. He was right when he seemed to be the only alarmist in a political climate of complacency. He is right now that he’s the only politician unsurprised to see drug companies profiteering from a lethal plague with Congress’s help. In politics, as in life, being right isn’t necessarily rewarded. But at least there’s some dignity in it.’

This was precisely my own frame of mind when Nixon defeated McGovern.

And this is precisely the frame of mind I no longer have access to “here and now”.

‘A member of Congress for nearly 30 years, Mr. Sanders has been bitingly frank about the way that money strangles American democracy. Rich individuals with a vested interest in defanging egalitarian politics donate to campaigns, PACs, universities and think tanks in hopes of purchasing lawmakers’ loyalties and rigging the legislative process in their favor. These oligarchs — the Koch brothers, the Mercers and Michael Bloomberg, among others — exert control over our politics that far exceeds the one vote accorded to each citizen.’

Here there are facts able to demonstrate the extent to which objectively this is true. But where are facts able to establish that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to think about them as Sanders does? And that’s before we get to the “show me the money” nihilists who own and operate this political economy. For them morality revolves almost entirely [and cynically] around “me, myself and I”.

And where is the philosophical argument [in a No God world] that irrefutably/necessarily rebuts that?

Also, it’s before we get to the components of my own nihilistic morality: dasein, conflicting goods and political power.

It’s not that I take any pride or pleasure in viewing the world around me as I do. It’s that “here and now” – philosophically or otherwise – it still seems to be the most reasonable way in which to think about and deconstruct the human condition.

K: for me the most important part of your post, is the very last paragraph…

for you it is “still seems to be the most reasonable way in which to think about
and deconstruct the human condition”

You believe that your “method” is the best way to deconstruct the human condition.
and within what you believe and hold to be true, you are right, for you…

as for me, I dislike the very notion of “deconstructing”…it is nothing more then
a snapshot of that very moment… for we are ever changing, ever evolving,
even if we don’t feel it or see it…my body is going from a state of order to
disorder…even if I don’t see it or hear it or feel it… when my body reaches
a certain level of disorder, I die… simple as that…deconstruction takes a person,
place, thing and reduces it to its basic, simple elements… but that deconstruction
doesn’t take into account the processes of human existence…

just as we humans are changing every single second, our society, the state,
our various systems are also changing…different rates of changes for each different
system…but all of them going from order to disorder unless, unless we increase
their energy level, which stops the entropic, order to disorder, process…

I don’t usually think in terms of “method”. I think in terms of entropy
and systems and energy and being to becoming…….

and that seems to me to be the “most reasonable” method of thinking
of the human condition… but once again, it comes down to what each of us thinks,
feels, wishes for… my existential situation is different then your existential situation…
neither one is bad or good or any other “Moral” judgement, we might make about
the human condition/ existential situations we face in our existence…

it simple is…

the question for me is being… what are we?
to becoming… what am I to do?

I am engaged in the process of human existence which means I
believe that human existence isn’t a static, immovable object…

I believe the human condition is one of motion, processes, action…

to deconstruct is to miss the motion of human existence,

the existential aspect of human existence is movement,
action, process… going from being to becoming…

I am trying to catch the part between, between being
and becoming… I don’t focus on being and I don’t focus
on becoming, I try to catch that part in between the two…

and I am failing miserably… but I wouldn’t expect anything less…

we, each of us, approach the matter of understanding differently,
there is no right or wrong, good or evil… it is simply, for us,
a question of process… given our past, our experiences, our
education, our present age, our place, we understand
and answer, even to the very difference of what questions we ask,
is inherited within who we are…

I am Kropotkin… with a past and experiences and of a certain age,
and because of these and other factors, education for example,
I approach questions and answers differently then you do…

my indoctrinations of childhood were different then your
childhood indoctrinations and my experiences of overcoming
those indoctrinations were different then your experience…

at best, at best, all I can do is argue for a certain viewpoint…
one that seems to me to be a viewpoint that allows us to
increase our energy into various systems…… and given my
understanding of systems, I see that as being the highest value…

but you, given your past, present and possible future, might disagree with me…

and that is certainly your right to disagree with me… in fact, I would
worry if someone actually agreed with me

so, continue on… it isn’t our specific points that matter, that we engage
with the in-between being and becoming that matters…

Kropotkin

now the next part or aspect of my understanding lies
in the concept of needs and desires……

for example, we act from our needs and desires…
motion is from either needing or desire…
I say, I need food, and I actually need food,

wanting food isn’t a desire, a choice, I must have
food or I will die…

but I might say, I need a couch… needing a couch isn’t really a need,
it is a choice…I need a couch really means, I desire a couch…
it is a choice… I don’t need a couch to survive… it is a choice

much of our actions come from this need or desire…

but we have confused need and desire…

one might say, I need sex… but the fact is, you desire sex…
it is a choice and thus is optional…you won’t die if you don’t get sex…

most everything single thing a human does is based on either
need or desire…in fact, need or desire drives everything we do…

but we can’t tell the difference between a need and a desire…

hence, therein lies the problem, perhaps the major problem of
humanity…our inability to see the difference between need
and desire…

earlier in our existence, up to perhaps the first world war…
we could see the difference between need and desire…

see this difference between need and desire in the
document of the “declaration of independence”

“we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are
created equal”

is that a need or is that a desire?

“that they are endowed by their creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”

life is certainly a need…no choice… but liberty and the pursuit of
happiness? these are certainly not, not needs, for we can live without
liberty or the pursuit of happiness…so, this idea that we “need”
liberty or the pursuit of happiness is false… they are desires…
nothing more…we can continue existence without liberty or without
happiness… we have a choice…but we have no choice in our need
for life…

for that need is hardwire into us by evolution… we cannot escape
our need for continued existence, life…

so where does that leave the other two desires, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness?

I would argue that liberty or as we moderns might say, freedom,
is a necessary part of process of becoming…to go from
being to becoming requires freedom…we have choice in
who we become… we have no choice in the operation of
entropy which takes us from order to disorder……

we can fight entropy, that is a need, again hardwire into us
by evolution…existence requires energy… that is a basic
component of existence, energy…and to become “who I am”
requires energy… I must devote resources to becoming “who I am”…

and becoming is about us fulfilling our possibilities……
the stage of self-actualization is a choice, not a need……

the stage of bodily needs, the lowest level of Maslow
pyramid, is the primary need of human beings… we must
have food, water, shelter, education, health care to survive…

we have a need for love, but it isn’t a bodily need, but we
have a need for esteem and safety/security and love, but those “needs”
are emotional, psychological needs… which to a human being is
as important as any bodily need…

to reach my full potential as a human being, I must have love,
I must have esteem, I must have safety/security…

to achieve my self-actualization level, I must fulfill my lower needs,
be it bodily or psychological…

so, the Buddha is wrong… we can have desires as long as we
can tell the difference between our desires and our needs…

I desire information, that is a desire, not a need, but
much of what I do is driven by my desire for information…

and I must have love, that is a basic psychological need of human
needs… that is not just a desire… but a emotional need which
is just as necessary as any need for food or water or shelter…

the goal is to become self-actualized… which means I attempt
to fulfill my possibilities, to fulfill my potential as a human being…

desires and needs are engaged with to reach my final goal of
self-actualization… I desire to become self-actualized…
which is a worthy goal and a worthy destination…

so needs and desires are just steps along the way to reach what
we really should be reaching which is to become self-actualized……

so, we can desire and we can have needs as long as we put them into
context as steps to the final/ultimate goal of self-actualization…

I don’t need to negate or extinguish my needs or my desires…
I can use them as steps to the real goal…

as long as I can tell the difference between my needs
and my desires, I should be ok… but I have to
keep myself in check or perhaps better said,
I must keep aware of my needs and what are my desires…

these ongoing battle between needs and desires, has lasted
the entire human existence… what do I need as oppose to
what do I desire? individually as well as collectively, we must
become aware of the difference between our needs and our
desires…do we really need to invade Iraq? or do we really need
to have troops in countries like Afghanistan?

no, we don’t need it at all, but we desire it… to
maintain our desire for power and wealth and
fame… but to survive, to survive as a need, do
we need troops in Iraq or Afghanistan?

NO, no we do not…

this need to excise power is really desire and ego,
not a bodily need like food or water or shelter…

we can better understand more of what we do if, if we
can better keep track of our actions in terms of ego/desire
and needs……

war is ego/desire… we don’t need to invade others to allow us to
physically survive… we do so from ego/desire…

peace is a choice and done so from need… we need peace to
be able to achieve our goals of self-actualization, both individually
and collectively…

can we survive without peace? as we can see from history, take the
Greek Peloponnesian war for example, that war so weakened
Athens that it fell… war continued is an recipe for disaster for
any city/state/nation… because it weakens a country to the point
where the country/state/city can no longer function…

if we want to achieve our needs, not ego/desire of war, but
our needs for bodily and emotional needs, we must make choices
of peace… not war……

the goal becomes self-actualization, not to achieve “life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness”…

and this new goal forces us to reevaluate what it means to be human,
forces us to reevaluate what it means to be an American…

we are and we must become…….

we have needs and we have desires……

let us reevaluate what both mean…given our goals…

Kropotkin

I have given the term “nihilism” a definition…

the negation of human beings and their values…

but let us continue this thought in slightly different form…

Aesthetic values such as beauty, love, form, content, harmony,
to name a few aesthetic values………

do these values have any “value” or purpose or meaning in our modern world?

I would say no… the modern world isn’t interested in beauty or love or harmony
or form… by negating these values, the values of aesthetics, of beauty of love
of harmony, we negate human beings…

our lives seem empty and barren because we have negated aesthetical
matters like love and beauty and harmony…

when we are reduced to life without any aesthetical value, then
we need to replace those lost values with something…

thus we rush into conspicuous consumption… to replace our lost
aesthetical values…that is why modern life, modern society
dislikes aesthetical values…… because by living life aesthetical,
we live with those values… in other words, instead of seeking
material goods, we seek aesthetical values… which isn’t about
money or the commerce of America… the GDP…

the search for beauty or harmony or love isn’t about the materialism,
the accumulation of wealth that America is so fond of…

beauty is its own reward… harmony is its own reward…
love is its own reward……… we don’t need to spend tons
of money to discover love or beauty or form or content or harmony…
the aesthetic values… aren’t found by using wealth…
they are found by a search and a creation of…

that is why we don’t have any use for aesthetics…

that is why society is so against beauty or harmony or
love… you can have those without wealth or spending money…

aesthetic values are values whose qualities pleases us and satisfies us…

but you can’t make any money off of aesthetic values which is why modern
society is against and opposes aesthetic values……

the goal is to be rich, not to find beauty…

and that philosophy negates the best of who we are as human beings…

we find ourselves best when we seek aesthetic values like beauty
and love and harmony and form……

I am at my best as a human being when I am seeking aesthetic values like
beauty… love…harmony…

and that has nothing to do with the accumulation of wealth, the accumulation
of titles or the number of summer homes we have…or the promotions we might
receive…………

we should be seeking aesthetic values instead of seeking the accumulation
of wealth or the accumulation of power…

when I am seeking aesthetic values, are we engaging in needs or are we
engaging in desires?

I would say, I could live without beauty or form or harmony…
but my life would be meager and insubstantial…barren and unproductive…
sparse and sterile………any one of these definitions would be enough to
give you an idea of how our society, by excluding aesthetics values, is found
wanting…….

is life worth living without aesthetics values?

values like beauty and form and content and harmony give our life meaning
and purpose…

we have forgotten that…….

but it is not too late to engage in the proper study of life by engaging
in a study of the aesthetics values…

Kropotkin

Here and now, I believe that “I” – mine, yours, theirs – is constructed/fabricated historically, culturally and experientially out in a particular world. Through our indoctrination as children and as the embodiment of uniquely personal experiences, relationships and access to ideas as adults.

Then it becomes a matter of distinguishing those parts embedded in the either/or world – the parts applicable to all of us – and the parts embedded far more subjectively/subjunctively in the particular moral and political prejudices that we come acquire given the manner in which our lives can be very, very, very different.

For example…

There are the biological and demographic and empirical facts embedded in the coronavirus pandemic. The stuff that doesn’t change no matter what your moral and political prejudices are. But those moral and political prejudices – red state? blue state? liberal? conservative? – have a profound impact on how to one reacts to the pandemic in terms of establishing rewards and punishments for particular behaviors.

All I do is to point that out and then to suggest that in a world of conflicting goods, philosophers seem unable to reconcile these differences. Let alone able to resolve it all as philosopher-kings by providing the world with the most rational and virtuous behaviors of all.

So, given that assumption, I suggest further that the “best of all possible worlds” would be for the liberals and the conservatives to forge a reaction to the pandemic that revolves around “moderation, negotiation and compromise”.

Which of course any number of objectivists will scoff at.

Instead, in my view, your assessment of all this stays up in the clouds that I construe to be “general description intellectual constrptions”.

To wit:

Okay, so make this point to the conservatives here at ILP. See how they react to it. Then, in regard to the covid-19 calamity, see how far you are both willing to go when it comes to coming up with one or another “for all practical purposes” rendition of the “best of all possible worlds” right here and right now.

What moderating, negotiating and compromising are you willing to consider?

Whereas my own “I” here is still no less “fractured and fragmented” given the arguments I make in my signature threads. In this thread in particular: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

From my frame of mind, to suggest that “it isn’t our specific points that matter” is to miss my point entirely. Out in the world where actual sets of behavior are chosen those points are often all that matter. And it is the behaviors that we choose that precipitate actual consequences.

But how are those specific points rooted or not rooted in the manner in which I construe “I” here as the embodiment of dasein?

IAM, I am not ignoring you, I just have other fish to fry at
this moment…

Arche: foundational…

the Greeks used the word Arche at first, as “beginning”, “origin”, or
“source of action” later the Greeks expanded its meaning to include
“first principle”, or “element” and by extension, it may mean,
“first place, power”, " a method of government" “empire, realm”,
or “command”……

that is the basic search of human beings…to discover or find out
what is our “beginning” or “first principle”…what is foundational
about being human…

many different and diverse answers have been offered…

love, life, hope, death, the pursuit of happiness, justice,
pain, avoidance of pain, drinking, sex, pursuit of money,
money, fame, wealth, power, material goods, knowledge,
god, the search for god, rock and roll, violence,
murder, crime, hate, fear, greed, lust… all have been offered
up as possible answers to the question of what is foundational
about being human……and so many more answers have been offered up…
to make a list of all the possible answers to what is foundational about
human beings could take up dozens if not hundreds of pages…….

one might suggest needs… that we human have needs is what is
foundational about humans…

one of the best answers yet…

but even this answers doesn’t cover what is foundational about human beings…

for we could include art, beauty, aesthetics, symmetry, form, function……

and for some, we could include knowledge like history, science, philosophy,
social science, economics…

and for some the foundational aspect of being human lies in
ism’s and ideology like capitalism and communism and Catholicism
or Buddhism or any other ism or ideology……

and for some, the foundational aspect of being human lies in
the superstitions, biases, prejudices and habits of human
beings…

the problem lies in the fact that all these answers could be
foundational aspects of human existence and, and none of
them could be………

we just don’t have a sense of what is the foundational
aspect of being human…

and perhaps the answer lies here… we don’t have a sense
of the foundational aspect of being human because there isn’t one.…

perhaps, perhaps no matter how hard we search or how long we search,
we can never find a foundational basis of what it means to be human…

and perhaps that is both our greatest strength and our greatest
weakness…

as our strength, it allows us to be adaptable to changing
environments and situations…

as our weakness, it doesn’t allow us to find a home… it is hard
to be human and not have a set, solid place to affirm our
humanness…some foundational aspect of being human that
grounds us…… we might not have that…

in some ways that is what is lacking in the “modern” era…
we lack some foundational aspect of being human that allows
us to become grounded… to have a solid sense of who we are,
individually and collectively…to have a foundational understanding
of what it means to be human… we are lacking that……

to understand it slightly differently… human beings need to
have a sense of who they are and where they came from…
we need a home for our understanding of what it means to be human…

human beings need, need to feel at home… and when we don’t feel
at home with either ourselves, our family, our society, our state,
we feel alienated, disconnected, apart, separate from both ourselves
and the source of our discontentment…be it society, or state or
ourselves…

if there is a flaw in Maslow, it is here… his failure to include
our innate and sometimes fatal need for home………

perhaps, perhaps that is our foundational piece of existence that
we must, must attend to… home……. for without a sense of home,
who are we, exactly?

I can’t say……

but perhaps not, perhaps there is another foundational aspect that
defines us as human beings…….

once again, perhaps not…

and that is why we feel so lost in this modern age?

we don’t have a foundational aspect of who we are,
we don’t have a home for what it means to be human…

we cannot become human unless we know what being human means……

what is the fundamental, foundational viewpoint of human existence?

what does it mean to be human?

what is the home, the foundational aspect of being human?

is it love or is it hate or is it hope or is it god or is it life or is it………

I don’t know and you don’t know and that is the problem…

we don’t know… and we are lost without that knowledge…

so what is the foundational, fundamental property of being human?

Kropotkin

so we might adjust our previous question to this,
what is the foundational, fundamental question,
of the state? which is to say, what is the foundational
question of government, what is the primary question
of human existence in regards to how we order ourselves?

for politics is a question of, how do we order ourselves?

do we have rule of one, or a few or many or all?

and how do we pay for this rule, be it one, a few, many or all?

how do we organize ourselves?

and is organizing ourselves really that important?

the only way to answer this question is by understanding what it
means to be human………

in other words, we cannot, cannot create a functional, working
government unless we know what is foundational about human beings…

that is why government/ isms about government fail… because they
haven’t yet understood what it means to be human… they haven’t
found the foundational/Arche point of being human.

and if, as I have speculated, perhaps we don’t have a foundational
aspect of being human, in which case, we can never have a
government that will succeed because a successful government
can only work if there is an understanding of what it means to be
human…….

what is the fundamental, foundational point of human existence?

this is the question that needs answering… not how much in taxes do
we pay or what is proper defense budget, but what is the fundamental,
foundational point of human existence?

and we can build a government, build a society, build place for
human beings to exist within if we know what it means to be human…

as I cannot personally confirm to anyone, including myself, that there
is a fundamental, foundational meaning of being human, I cannot
consider myself as being at home in the universe…

and this is in fact true…… I am alienated from, disconnected from
society and the state because I don’t feel at home within the society
or the state…………

every single day, every day, I ask myself, is this all there is in life?
is there anything else in existence beside what I see or hear?

and the answer so far, so far, is I can’t see anything that lies outside
of the nonsense that is existence today…

I search for some fundamental, foundational viewpoint of what it
means to be human… what is the center of human existence?

and the best answer I have come up with is… home……

an answer I wouldn’t have given 20 or even 10 years ago…

is home the right answer? I don’t know… I might never know…

it might be the right answer for me, but not for thee…

so, we seek two different types of answers, one, what is the
fundamental, foundational understanding of what it means to
be human, individually, and the second, what does it mean to
be human, collectively………

and perhaps the conflict between individual human and society, lies
in the fact that our individual answer isn’t our collective answer…

and that the two answers, individually and collectively are two
distinct and separate answers…

and so the two aspects of human existence, individually
and collectively, clash, conflict with each other…

I don’t now because I don’t know the answer to the question,
what it means to be human?

either individually or collectively…….

I wish I had an answer, but I don’t……

as usual, I only have questions, no answers…

Kropotkin

existence is not an answer…

it is a question…

treat it as such…

Kropotkin

we have the question: what is the good life?

the ancient Greeks such as Plato and Aristotle thought the good life
was the contemplation of the good, of wisdom…

they didn’t take the good life to mean action or physical engagement with
something…no, their entire end product was about the contemplation
of the good or god or knowledge… but the key word here is
contemplation…the end all, be all of ancient Greece was
in contemplation…

the medieval times, what was their idea of the “good life?”

once again, it involved in contemplation… look at the idea of heaven…
what exactly do we do in heaven? we simply contemplate the greatness of god…
that is all that ever happens in heaven… we simply contemplate god… nothing more…

we spend eternity contemplating god… doesn’t sound that appealing to me…

what is the idea of the “good life” according to the say, Descartes?

it is very hard to tell actually… read Descartes and you have him
separating the mind from matter and then what?

the question of philosophers for 200 years, from Descartes to Kant,
was this question of knowledge… what is knowledge? how far does it
extend? what can we know?

and I am sure that they are nice questions but, to be frank, who give a fuck?

what can I/we know? I for one, certainly don’t care…

the questions about the extent of knowledge doesn’t tell me
what is the “good life”…

what kind of life should I be attempting to create?

what is the goal of life, if not the goal of having a “good life”.

modern/capitalistic life has made the “good life” something out of
the “Great Gatsby”… parties and big houses and wine, women and song
and free sex… (and sex is never, ever free… it has a cost…you just might
not pay for that sex that night, but there will come a cost to that sex)

anyway…do we have any other attempts to define the “good life”?

living the “good life” in modern society is a guide to conspicuous consumption…

to spend everything you earn in some attempt to show your wealth…

as if wealth were the key factor in determining, what is the “good life?”

but if we remove the acquisition of wealth from any determination to
what is the good life, then what is left?

ask yourself, what am I killing myself for 40 years for?

what is the point? what will I gain by it?

retirement?

the ability to retire once my health has gone to shit and I can’t afford
much… this idea of retirement is bogus and a sham……

you want retirement to mean something? have us retire at 50 when we
can still do things and still enjoy what life has to offer…

you retire at 65, and if you are lucky, you live till 75 and those
last few years, you exists in bad health, so you work for 40+ to get
a few short years to enjoy them… not a very solid ratio…
working for decades to get a few years of rest……

is that really what we want? to work decades and then have a
few short years of rest?

I don’t see that being the “good life”…

so engage in the question, what is the good life?
and what does it mean to me?

Kropotkin

IAM: Okay, so make this point to the conservatives here at ILP. See how they react to it. Then, in regard to the covid-19 calamity, see how far you are both willing to go when it comes to coming up with one or another “for all practical purposes” rendition of the “best of all possible worlds” right here and right now.

What moderating, negotiating and compromising are you willing to consider?

Whereas my own “I” here is still no less “fractured and fragmented” given the arguments I make in my signature threads. In this thread in particular: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

From my frame of mind, to suggest that “it isn’t our specific points that matter” is to miss my point entirely. Out in the world where actual sets of behavior are chosen those points are often all that matter. And it is the behaviors that we choose that precipitate actual consequences.

But how are those specific points rooted or not rooted in the manner in which I construe “I” here as the embodiment of dasein?
[/quote]
K: I made a response yesterday and lost the whole thing… I am trying again…

after some thought, I think we are actually saying the same thing, just with
very different language and different agendas…

I believe that we are, as human beings, are victims of our past indoctrinations
as children… we are trained to see things with certain viewpoints, which
we have so classified as liberal, conservative, moderate, or whatever…

I was indoctrinated with certain beliefs, prejudices, biases, superstitions,
habits… and indoctrinated by the family, the state, the church, the society,
education… those factors, family, state, church, society, education, media,
created the framework of my beliefs, my knowledge, my hopes and dreams…

the question becomes this, how much of my indoctrinations can I
reject? so I can become aware of what " I " hold to be true…

we can own our beliefs and values and information at the cost of
rejecting or rewriting or moderating prior beliefs, values and information
indoctrinated into us by the family, state, education, church, society, media…

why do I hold “liberal” value? was I taught liberal values as a child?
yes. but my values, beliefs, information has been informed by
my experiences and my reevaluation of values… all that really means
is this, I simply took the indoctrinated values of childhood and
tried to see if they were my values, beliefs and knowledge or where
they simply values, beliefs and information that was indoctrinated
into me as a child…

did my experiences and adult education create new values, new
beliefs and new information? yes, and I compared my new
values, my new beliefs and new information with the old values,
the old beliefs and old information… with the experiences I now have…

and the old indoctrinations simply didn’t match up, they didn’t
match with the things I saw on the ground as I experienced them…

for example, god… I spent 40 years searching for god…never found him…
and then one sunny day, I realized that I didn’t need god to have a
“good life”… I was complete without god… there was no “value”
to having god in my life… I didn’t need him or the unnecessary
complications that came with a belief in god…….no heaven or hell
or angels or sin or guilt… was needed…

and I was a happier human being without all the unnecessary
garbage that goes with a belief in god……

it simplified my life…

and so I worked out other indoctrinations of my childhood…
and compared them to my experiences as an adult…

I lost many of the beliefs, values, prejudices, superstitions of
my childhood…… and I was a happier human being because I
was existing with values and beliefs that I held, not values or
beliefs that were given to me, but values and beliefs that I
found to be useful for my adult years… I am engaged in
another reevaluation of values because I am now a senior citizen…
I am old… Are the values and beliefs that sustained me during my
adult years, very useful now that I am old?

I have seen no reason to change my values or beliefs, as of now,
but that of course is subject to change given the ever changing
environment we live in…

as of now, I am engaged with making my values and beliefs
and beliefs to guide my actions and behavior………

I hold freedom to be of the highest value…so my actions
and behavior is geared toward allowing the greatest amount
of freedom that people can have and still be responsible…

you might say, well Kropotkin, bring that down to earth!

but I can’t for the simple reason, the action is your action,
not my action… I simply accept your choice for that action…

Now I might disagree with that action, and I will state so…

so, for example, one might approve of the concentration camps
for children that IQ45 set up… I have publicly disagreed with that…
and I hold that to be wrong for reasons, I have stated…

but upon what grounds might I disagree with you?

as I have stated, I hold freedom to be of the highest value…
so, I disagree with concentration camps for children upon
the value of freedom…and the value that Children shouldn’t
be punished for anything a parent does… as the concentration
camps punish children for the actions of their parents…

there is no possible justification for that… there are no values or
beliefs that can allow that, concentrations camps, to be justified…

how do we work that out? by agreeing upon what values, what beliefs
we shall engage under…

the values, the beliefs dictate the actions…so, if I am a Christian,
then the Christian values should, should, dictate my actions…
but plenty of those who approve of concentration camps are Christians,
and their Christian values shouldn’t support concentrations camps for
children and yet, they do support concentrations camps for children…

and that is my engagement with people… I am attempting to
get their values and beliefs to match their actions…
and most people don’t even have values or beliefs for
stuff like capital punishment… so, I am attempting to get
people to think about their values and beliefs… and then,
and only then, should they engage in actions in support of their
values and beliefs……

the values and beliefs must come before actions……

so, I don’t care about what actions they should or shouldn’t take…

I care about what the values and beliefs are that allow actions to
happen…

values and beliefs… that is my engagement…

Kropotkin

Yes, well put. But even more to the point, given that this is being discussed on the philosophy board in a philosophy forum, how, using the tools of philosophy can this be taken into account in regard to the existential juncture that is identity and value judgments?

Given a particular context.

I also focus in on political economy here because whatever moral conclusions one comes to as an individual, ultimately what counts in any particular context is who has the actual power to enforce a particular set of behaviors. Re either might makes right, right makes might or democracy and the rule of law.

My own situation was basically the other way around:

“I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative…I was then drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam, I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking…”

But: reconfigured from one objectivist frame of mind to another.

Only later…

“I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding ‘rival goods’. Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.”

As with you, these changes were reflected in a particular set of experiences, relationships and access to ideas. Only in whatever way in which I am different from you, I have come to the conclusion [no less an existential contraption] that in regard to moral and political values, “I” the philosopher/ethicist is not able to “match up” the self with either the optimal behaviors or the only rational/virtuous behaviors.

And then the most troubling conclusion of all: that, in confronting the nihilists who embody the belief that “in the absense of God all things are permitted”, there is no argument [philosophical or otherwise] that effectively countermands any behaviors they choose to act that out.

Or, rather, no argument that I have come upon. Meaning of course that this argument may well exist.

This doesn’t work for me. Why? Because No God means no afterlife. “I” tumbles over into the abyss that is oblivion/nothingness. And, as well, from my frame mind, No God means no objective morality. I have thought myself into believing that in the absense of God my own particular “I” will ever remain “fractured and fragmented”. Why? For all the reasons I raise in my signature threads.

Exactly. No one really knows what new experiences, new relationships or access to new information, knowledge and ideas in a world bursting at the seams with contingency chance and change will bring about for “I”.

Some here will ride out the covid-19 pandemic with little or no ramifications for “I”, but others may well find themselves reconfiguring into someone they never thought they could/would be. Like “I” did before and after Vietnam. Before and after reading Irrational Man.

But then this part:

I see your point. And, as a political prejudice, mine is more or less in sync with it. Only here I see my own self as “for all practical purposes” considerably more drawn and quartered. And there are still conservatives [some considerably sophisticated] acting out their own rendition of “I”, who are able to come up with their own set of assumptions about the “human condition” in regard to immigration polices.

So it still comes down to whether you are willing to join them in moderating your own values and then through negotiation and compromise come up with an actual policy [able to be enforced] in which you win on this point but lose on that one.

And either way there are going to be the jagged edges of rewards and punishments strewn up and down the actual playing field.

And then, for me, there are still the behaviors of the psychopaths, the sociopaths, the narcissists and any and all others who have come to embody one or another rendition of “Antisocial Personality Disorder”.

No God? Then no philosophical argument that makes them go away. And no argument that demonstrates why necessarily/inherently what they do is necessarily/inherently immoral.

IMP: Not ignoring you… fish, you know…

As we sit home, well not me, I have my shitty job in the supermarket…
but the rest of you sit home and wait for some
clarity as to what is the future…

I suggest this…think about your life at the moment before all
this shit started… you were working or going to school,
and school as I have mentioned before, is simply a place to
train workers… so our existence is focused on work and
the other great American pastime, shopping…you work so you
can shop…and because you shop, you must work…

now is that really all the possibilities or potential,
we can see out of life…working and shopping?

as a thought experiment, try this……

take away your focus on work and shopping…

spend your time and energy on something else…

what is that something for you?

what would you rather do then work or shop?

I would rather read and think and write…

and that is what I spend my off work hours doing…

I am engaged, far more then in working or shopping, I am
engaged in my pursuit of what it means to be human……

the questions of existence are what haunt my days…

not the bogus act of working and shopping, but in the
questions that face us as human beings…

who do I write for?

myself… I don’t write for anyone else…

will I find what I am looking for?

doubt it…

but that leaves the question of, what am I looking for?

and that is the point of the questions I ask…

they are meant to narrow down the area of study…

and my method…my method is simple really…

I read a book or an article or wiki or the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy… and I use that information
as something to gauge or compare to my information or
experiences with…

I will take the information I read about, say the Buddha and compare
it to what I know and understand…

I take the tried and true method of comparing and contrasting
my information with other information…

but that requires some honesty about what I know and understand……

I am not an expert on much and so when I read some information
about things I don’t know much about, I take that into consideration…

I cannot compare and contrast if I don’t have the information or enough
information to rightly compare and contrast…….I must hold my ego in check
because I have the human tendency to think I know more then I really do…

I am a research kinda guy… when I read something I don’t know much
about, I research it… even if the material is beyond my own
knowledge, I still engage with it… I am not afraid to
tackle information I don’t have the education for……

I give you this information because this drives me far more then
work or shopping ever has…

I see and read everything in terms of information I might use to
gain some insight into what it means to be human…….

I put this information out there with the hope that it gives
some people a place to begin their own investigation into
what drives them… and hopefully the questions of existence
which drives me, will also drive them……

but I am not holding my breath…

Kropotkin

ok, now I am ready for a reply to you Iam……

instead of a point to point reply, I shall write what is happening
right now in that tiny thing called, Kropotkin’s mind……

as I read your last post, I find myself not really caring about
specific actions or specific political actions… as you so request…
to take my information and compromise or adjust my beliefs
with other to make some political action…

how would I adjust or modify my beliefs to work with
others who hold different beliefs as in the abortion issue
or capital punishment?

and right there I run into problems because from where I sit,
most people simply ad hoc their beliefs and their actions…

in other words, people simply make up their actions based upon
the mood of the day… kinda like IQ45… two days ago, he had
“total” authority to reopen the country and yesterday, the Governors
had the power… he bases his thoughts and actions based upon the
needs of the moment and thus he makes shit up… or said differently,
his thoughts and actions are ad hoc…he thoughts and actions are meant
to achieve today’s needs, with no thought to tomorrow or the next day…

and that is my objection…I don’t think we should make up shit everyday
to account for what is happening… we shouldn’t live “ad hoc”…

our thoughts, actions, beliefs should have value or hold true,
from past to present and into tomorrow…….

so for example, I do hold that there is no god… as oppose to you,
I hold this belief from past to present into tomorrow…
and this belief does hold true for me in time…
thus when presented with a possibility… my eventual
death… which will turn from possibility to reality at some point…

I hold my belief in there no god from past to present
and into the possibility of my death… I don’t suddenly change
my mind about there being a god because I am faced with death…
it suddenly become a need for me to need god when faced with my
death?..

if I hold true to my beliefs, then I hold true to the belief that
there is not a god… I don’t suddenly decide there is a god
because it is convenient and helpful because I am about to die…
I don’t “ad hoc” a belief in god because I am faced with death…

If I truly hold to a belief in there not being a god, then I cannot,
when it is useful to suddenly become a believer because I
am faced with death…then my current belief is simply
also one of convenience…I hold to their being no god because
it is convenient… beliefs are held and discarded when it is useful
or not useful…

if that were true, then beliefs are the toilet paper of our minds…
discarded once they serve their purpose… a rather grim
understanding of our beliefs…

if beliefs are so easily retained or discarded, then they have no value…

they cannot serve as a guide to life if they are so disposable……

I think that beliefs are useful because they do last the test
of time and they do carry over from past to present to future…

but and this is important, we shouldn’t hold onto beliefs
regardless of the evidence at hand…

we certainly must adapt our beliefs to match the events
on the ground… but we can’t be so flexible as to discard
our beliefs at the first head wind of trouble…

and I belief that is a hard line to manage… holding beliefs
so they mean something from past to future and still
have beliefs that are adaptable given circumstances…

our actions should be determined by our beliefs
and our values…from past to present to future…
and yet, sometimes, given events, we must
change or even discard our beliefs depending on
the events on the ground…

I oppose “ad hoc” solutions to questions of political
or economic nature… and yet, sometimes
one must change or discard beliefs to
match the problems on the ground…

now this probable doesn’t make sense to most people
but it does make sense to me…

we cannot “ad hoc” every single problem we are face with…
but we cannot become so fixed in our answers that we are unable to
adapt to problems……

Kropotkin