a new understanding of today, time and space.

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

and why do we “Ad hoc” important matters like
who we are and what does it mean to be human?

we have no sense of who we are because we have
no firm, set values we can refer to and have
be our basis for our beliefs and actions…

if I hold to equality as my set, firm value then every belief
and action thereafter I refer back to equality as being my
lode star to what I should believe in and what my actions should be…

Kropotkin, what should we do about climate change?
I then refer back to my basic belief in equality as the basis
of action… if I can’t use equality as a point of reference,
then I shift to my next point of reference, be it love or peace or…

or, or I could just defer to science and take my cues from science as to
what needs to be our course of action… the point is, I work from
my values to some course of action based upon my values…
I no longer “ad hoc” action… if at all possible, I begin with
my values as being the starting place for any actions I might
take…

so later today, I go to work… what values shall I be engaged with?

as my corporation only values profits, that is the value I shall be dealing
with…love, peace, equality, justice, are all irrelevant to the corporate
world…they don’t matter because the only value the business world
cares about is money/profits……

the failure of present day democracy is that it has been co opted by
the wealthy and powerful to their own benefit… democracy, a political
system designed to hold as its lode star, equality, and equality has
been destroyed by the wealthy and corporations………

want a return to democracy, then we must, must destroy the influence
that the rich and corporations have on the workings of democracy…

and that influence is money…money, not equality has become the
defining influence upon our political structure……….

and that returns us back to the values we hold…
is money/profits really the primary value you want to hold?

and the solution… Mr. Kropotkin?

if my beliefs and my actions are fueled by money, then money
becomes my point of reference for everything I believe…

what if, what if I don’t make money/profits, the most important thing
in my life? I have begun that process… when offer the chance to work,
I refuse… to me, my time is more important then money……

it is an age thing… as one grows older, one realizes what is truly important
and money/profits ain’t it…

I work enough to bring in enough money to survive, nothing more…

what work? that becomes the question?

to put food on the table? that there are other ways to put food
on the table cannot be denied…

is the pursuit of wealth and its extremely damaging effects on us,
individually, collectively, politically, socially, economically, in all ways
really… is that pursuit really worth it?

I say no… resounding no…

and my evidence lays all round us, politically where we have no
say in a democracy because we are poor means that democracy
no longer works…

the economic evidence lies all around us in massive poverty
and in millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck…

and the traditional answer that they didn’t work hard enough or
put their nose to the grindstone simply falls apart given the
sheer number of Americans who are on the border of complete
collapse economically…….

and economic system that doesn’t support millions of its citizens, is a system that
has already failed…

and what is the answer?

Not the answer you think…

Kropotkin

the answer lies in one simply statement…

you can’t know what actions to take unless you know what
values you have……

when you take an action, what values are you working with?

when I bring home flowers for my wife, what are the values I
am working with?

how can I take actions if I don’t know why I am acting?

to act without values is to simply act “ad hoc”…

I am not much more then a cat or dog who randomly gets up
and changes position…the point of being human is to have
intentionality…to have intentions to our actions…

and intentionality works best when we have some values behind
our intentionality……

democracy is intentionality behind our political ideals……

if we believe, truly believe in equality and the ability of people to
make their own decisions, then you must fight for democracy and what
it stands for…

if you believe in wealth and profits and the privilege that wealth offers one,
then don’t do anything… we are already here………
either we hold to democratic ideals or we don’t…and if we don’t,
then why have elections, why have voting, why pretend that we
are the masters of our own fate…we aren’t if we don’t have
a democracy…if you are ok with people telling you what to do,
all your life… hay, we are already there… you needn’t do a thing…

but, but if you hold to the ideal that we do have some control over
our own fate, then fight, fight like hell for a democracy…

and where does this all begin?

with an understanding of what values do you hold to be true.

it all begins with you engaging in a quest for your values,
not the values you were indoctrinated with, but your own
values you discovered when you were engaged in
the process of knowing thyself……

the intentionality that should govern our lives needs to begin with
us engaging in the process of knowing thyself and then becoming
who we are……

the revolution begins with us… discovering who we are
and what does that mean…

you want to save the world, it begins with you finding out your own
values and beliefs…….

why did people like Gandhi and MLK seem to succeed when others failed?

because Gandhi and MLK knew who they were and what values
they held… and they held to those values regardless of what
was happening around them…from start to finish… the values
determined their actions… the actions didn’t determined
their values…

you want to change the world… become aware of your values…

that is the place to start…

Kropotkin

From my frame of mind, this is you basically accepting that who you think you are in regard to the right thing to do about abortion or the coronavirus or capital punishment or Trumpworld etc., works for you “in your head” here and now. So why risk the comfort and the consolation that provides you in grounding your “self” in what you do believe by compromising with conservatives who from my frame of mind [if not from yours] are quite capable of thinking the same thing about you as well.

Let alone going down the path that now seems reasonable to me by assessing the extent tlo which your own particular “I” may well be the embodiment of dasein confronting conflicting goods and political economy as described in my signature threads.

I get that. After all, the last thing many folks here want is to end up thinking about these things like “I” do!

Indeed, if I could myself come up with a new way of thinking about them such that “I” was not nearly as “fractured and fragmented” as is the case now, I’d be ever so gratified.

As for God, it still seems reasonable to me to speculate that in a No God world, human interactions are essentially meaningless. That, in other words, meaning in our lives is derived historically, culturally, experientially, existentially, out in a world that is ever and always evolving in a swirl of contingency, chance and change. And then one by one we all topple over into the abyss that is oblivion.

Though sure there are any number of liberals and conservatives out there able to convince themselves that morally and politically they don’t need God at all to know that how they view themselves in the world around them is anything but essentially meaningless. Then the millions more able to convince themselves further that the virtues they pursued on this side of the grave assure them immortality and salvation on the other side of it.

The psychology of objectivism is no doubt buried down deep in our brain. Not many of us steer clear of it. Even assuming we have some measure of volition here at all.

The rest [from my frame of mind] is just back up on the skyhooks…

What can I say…?

Given what particular context in which both liberals and conservative – more or less sophisticated in their thinking – can provide us with sets of assumptions about the human condition that allow them to derive conclusions that, while at odds, are no less able to be defended.

And while you find yourself “not really caring about specific actions or specific political actions” how on earth can policies be broached, concocted, enacted and enforced, unless either the objectivists prevail in their right makes might world or all sides are willing to moderate their own convictions and through negotiation and compromise come up with actual “rules of behavior” in which all sides win some and lose some.

IAM: And while you find yourself “not really caring about specific actions or specific political actions” how on earth can policies be broached, concocted, enacted and enforced, unless either the objectivists prevail in their right makes might world or all sides are willing to moderate their own convictions and through negotiation and compromise come up with actual “rules of behavior” in which all sides win some and lose some."

K: I don’t start with actions, I start with values…the “rules of behavior” are
derived from values…and some things are negotiable and some things aren’t…

this is the lessons learned from Gandhi and MLK… at times they did
negotiate and at other times, they did not… what was the demarcation line
between negotiation and no negotiation?

I would say values…

I will negotiate at times over certain actions and other times
I will not negotiate… why? because of the values I hold…

I will not negotiate over abortion rights… to ban abortion is to
deny freedom… we must allow women to make their own choices…

and those who oppose it, will say, we cannot allow women their choice
in this matter upon religious grounds…

I didn’t make this a religious question, the anti-abortion crowd did…

and based upon a religious question, we cannot make a political answer……

the two must remain separate… the political and the religious…

for upon the question of religion, will the state flounder and collapse…

forcing people to act in a manner consistent with your religion is vastly
unfair to those people… in other words, holding me to a religious
behavior, to a religion I don’t believe in… saying I must pray to god,
when I don’t believe in god is wrong… and the exact same thing
as forcing women to keep children based on other people religious precepts…

now the second aspect is the hypocrisy aspect… holding that lives are
sacred and must be protected, based upon a religion I don’t believe in,
and then promoting violence toward people… for example, hold to anti-abortions
feelings and then supporting the death penalty for example……
or allowing the police to shoot and kill to “defend” themselves
without any repercussions or investigations……

the defender of these hypocrisies will only focus on a
particular aspect of their beliefs… they will not connect
the two aspects…

the abortion issue is held to be completely and utterly
separated from the death penalty issue…
and yet, I see them from a larger picture…

and they do form a whole reality for me……

I hold that if we have form values, then by holding those values,
we can avoid such rank hypocrisy that the right holds to…

in other words, the right can hold distinct and opposing beliefs
because they are really “ad hoc” beliefs… not from real values, but
from shifting beliefs to match the current situation…
not permanent beliefs but short term beliefs used to
hold one over until the next situation requires a “ad hoc” belief……

it is easy to hold opposing beliefs if the beliefs are simply
temporary beliefs needed to cover a one situation or another…

my feeling is that how can I compromise and/or negotiate if the other
side is simply holding “ad hoc” beliefs that are temporary and used
to simply justify hypocrisy?

more later

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
IAM: And while you find yourself “not really caring about specific actions or specific political actions” how on earth can policies be broached, concocted, enacted and enforced, unless either the objectivists prevail in their right makes might world or all sides are willing to moderate their own convictions and through negotiation and compromise come up with actual “rules of behavior” in which all sides win some and lose some."

K: I don’t start with actions, I start with values…the “rules of behavior” are
derived from values…and some things are negotiable and some things aren’t…

this is the lessons learned from Gandhi and MLK… at times they did
negotiate and at other times, they did not… what was the demarcation line
between negotiation and no negotiation?

I would say values…

I will negotiate at times over certain actions and other times
I will not negotiate… why? because of the values I hold…

I will not negotiate over abortion rights… to ban abortion is to
deny freedom… we must allow women to make their own choices…

and those who oppose it, will say, we cannot allow women their choice
in this matter upon religious grounds…

I didn’t make this a religious question, the anti-abortion crowd did…

and based upon a religious question, we cannot make a political answer……

the two must remain separate… the political and the religious…

for upon the question of religion, will the state flounder and collapse…

forcing people to act in a manner consistent with your religion is vastly
unfair to those people… in other words, holding me to a religious
behavior, to a religion I don’t believe in… saying I must pray to god,
when I don’t believe in god is wrong… and the exact same thing
as forcing women to keep children based on other people religious precepts…

now the second aspect is the hypocrisy aspect… holding that lives are
sacred and must be protected, based upon a religion I don’t believe in,
and then promoting violence toward people… for example, hold to anti-abortions
feelings and then supporting the death penalty for example……
or allowing the police to shoot and kill to “defend” themselves
without any repercussions or investigations……

the defender of these hypocrisies will only focus on a
particular aspect of their beliefs… they will not connect
the two aspects…

the abortion issue is held to be completely and utterly
separated from the death penalty issue…
and yet, I see them from a larger picture…

and they do form a whole reality for me……

I hold that if we have form values, then by holding those values,
we can avoid such rank hypocrisy that the right holds to…

in other words, the right can hold distinct and opposing beliefs
because they are really “ad hoc” beliefs… not from real values, but
from shifting beliefs to match the current situation…
not permanent beliefs but short term beliefs used to
hold one over until the next situation requires a “ad hoc” belief……

it is easy to hold opposing beliefs if the beliefs are simply
temporary beliefs needed to cover a one situation or another…

my feeling is that how can I compromise and/or negotiate if the other
side is simply holding “ad hoc” beliefs that are temporary and used
to simply justify hypocrisy?

more later

and back………

so, we have the right advocating the “need” for guns…

but the value of guns is the use of violence…

either the actual use of violence or the threat of violence…

the use of or the threat of violence violates the spirit of
the commandment “thou shall not kill”…

but one might argue, we “need” a gun to protect ourselves…

and once again holding diverse and separate values that are in conflict
with each other…the only way this could work is that values are
held as isolated, separate, distinct, “ad hoc” values…

they call themselves Christians and yet hold to guns which are
the threat of violence…

how does one negotiate with those who are unaware that they
hold diverse and contradictory values that conflict with each other?

values that are clearly “ad hoc” because they are for solutions designed
for a specific problem, non-generalized and not intended to be able to
be adapted to other purposes…in other words, the solution to being
“safe” has only one solution in their minds, and that solution “guns” isn’t
adaptable to any other problem…ad hoc solutions are temporary,
provisional or improvised solutions to deal with a particular problem…

how does one negotiate with someone who only has “ad hoc” solutions
to permanent problems?

now there are those on the right who accuse the left of holding “ad hoc”
solutions, but that is less true…

but let us give them their wish and declare that the left holds
“ad hoc” positions… so we have two side holding “ad hoc” positions
that shift and change with each passing day… how do two sides
negotiate when each side has positions that move with
each passing day. there is no overall connections between
the actions/values of either side… the right hold to guns, the threat to
violence and still holds to Christian values which are the opposite of
the threat of violence…

so how does negotiations work when each side holds to values
that are not permanent? if we only offer up temporary, improvised,
provisional solutions/values, how can we hold negotiations?

or if only one side holds values that are not “ad hoc”?
And the the other side holds to solutions/values that
are nothing more then a line drawn in the sand, to
what are we negotiating?

which line in the sand we will hold to, until its
convenient to hold another line…

holding “ad hoc” values leaves one with no center,
no central place to hold onto to be able to negotiate with…

I maintain that the right holds to values that cannot be used
to conduct negotiations… “ad hoc” values cannot be the basis
of any kind of negotiations…but let us, once again, give to the left,
that which dominates the right, which is the left holds to “ad hoc” values,
a proposition I disagree with, but let us give it, then we cannot
negotiate because we have no center upon to which to agree to…

every value is a temporary, provisional value meant to be held
as long as the that temporary provisional value solves some sort
of problem, then that value is forgotten… we cannot
negotiate or find common ground when values are simply
meant to solve some problem and then forgotten…

if we negotiate upon the values of love, then we must make sure
that the value of love last from past to present to future…

so I ask you dear reader, what values do you hold that has held
you from past to present to future?

what values of yours come out when they are solutions to a problem
and then those values go back into hibernation once the problem goes away?

are your values temporary, provisional, improvisational…
or are your values permanent, lasting, enduring?

if you don’t understand the question, then research Gandhi’s values and
how they lead him to throw the British out of India.

see his values and see what actions he took…

are your values able to hold up to test of Gandhi?

or are your values able to hold up to the test of Jesus?

which are values of love, equality/justice, charity…….

what are your values compared to Gandhi or to Jesus?

Kropotkin

it is interesting that, for some anyway, this virus has
us thinking about what is true or real in our lives…

we should be thinking about what it means to exists this current
time period, given a virus smaller then we can see with the naked eye,
has laid low hundreds of thousands of people…

how can one hold unto the previous value system which makes
the pursuit of materialism and wealth as the highest priority when
we can be laid low by such a small thing as a virus?

today, you have the motivation, the means, the opportunity to
examine what is truly important in your life…

that the materialism of capitalism and communism
leads us nowhere in thinking about what is next in our
endeavor to understand what it means to be human……

I have read the great works of thinkers like Goethe and
Dante and Jesus and Gandhi and the Buddha and not one,
one of the great thinkers that we reverie and build statues to,
hold that the meaning of existence is the materialism of
capitalism…

if the great thinkers, writers, philosophers don’t think the
answer is materialism, the pursuit of materialism and wealth,
then why should you think that the great materialism theories
of our time work?

to accept these materialistic theories without any reflection is to
violate the basic precept of Socrates which is the ’

“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

and one of the examinations of life is the examination of
what values we should hold and what values should
we hold in common, we cannot examine values without
some understanding that value are both individual
and collective…

value that seem to be suited for us individually
cannot hold for us collectively…rugged individualism
and the fable of the bee’s cannot be held to be
collective values…

but just as true is the understanding that values cannot be
conflicting with each other…… so you say publicly that love is the
answer, and yet privately, you act with domestic violence to your mate…

how does one reconcile such violent discrepancies?

by making them two distinct and separate actions that
are not connected in any way…to “ad hoc” your beliefs
and your actions…the other method is not to hold yourself
accountable for your actions… by justifying domestic violence
by self deception and personal dishonesty…

she deserved to be hit because she made me mad…
and other self deceptions we use to justify having
hypocrisy as our base mode of belief………

I don’t recall reading in Goethe or Dante or Jesus or
Gandhi about the use of self deceptions to allow
us to engage in hypocrisies……

and in our insincerity, we also have the false values
of materialism and the pursuit of wealth and power…

for within that pursuit of happiness, lies the empty promise of
materialism and wealth as being the answer to whatever ails you…
feeling sad, buy a new car, feeling depressed, go on vacation to
some high end vacation spot…it is the acquisition of wealth and
power and material goods that will cure you of all your ailments…

so says the ones who own the means of wealth and materialism…

if our media and state and society, all say, wealth and materialism
is the path to happiness, those who own the media and the state
and society, want you to continue their wealth and power.

it has nothing to do with you but with them being able to
maintain their wealth and power…….

so what values do you hold?

are they the values of wealth and power and materialism?

and what if you gain that wealth and power and all the
material goods you want? now what? there is no conclusion
to this pursuit of wealth or power or material goods…
just more of the same… there cannot be any other ending
when the only values are wealth, power, material goods…

look at the billionaires who keep working even though they have enough
money to buy whole countries… billionaires who are still working like
warren buffet…who is 89 years old…the only thing they are working for
is more wealth, more material goods, more power…the empty promise
of wealth and material goods……

the acquisition of wealth and material goods cannot answer the
important questions of life… what does it mean to
be human? what should we hope for? what can we know?
what should our values be? on what should we spend our energy on?
what are we to do?

look at the values of Jesus or Gandhi or the Buddha or MLK…
at no point do any of them advocate the pursuit of wealth or
materialism or power…

and if they don’t advocate those values, why should you?

Kropotkin

we have created vast weapons and technology
and the tools of the modern state, the police state…

but we haven’t, as yet, grown our values to match who we are…

our values haven’t kept up with the rise of the technological
state we have created…

in essence, we are dealing with middle age life and technological,
with infant feelings and understanding…

we are trying to solve middle age issues with a childhood
understanding…… as if the information I had when I was three,
will solve the problems I have at 61… not bloody likely…

our values must match the events on the ground……
the values we need at 61 must match the values
we hold at 61, not 6 or 16 or 26 or even 36, but our values
must match our age…

and the same is true of us in our current place in life as a society,
as a state, as a people…

we must hold values that match where we are in our current
state of existence, individually and, and collectively…

the problem is, the values we hold are appropriate for us
at an earlier level of existence… we hold values for
our pre-modern world in a post modern world…….

values that worked when we were rural, agricultural, living in
small villages and towns…our values must reach our level of
existence that we live right now………

we hold to the biblical values of Genesis 1:28…

"God blessed them and said to them, “be fruitful
and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule
over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over
every living creature that moves on the ground”

but we live in a world where we can no longer afford to hold
to these values… we cannot engage in increasing in numbers…
from this increase lies the multiple problems that plague the earth,
overpopulation, pollution, climate change, income inequality, the
extinction of many and diverse life forms… we cannot hope to
survive the extinction of life on earth… even losing vast numbers
of animal life will place our own existence in jeopardy…

we can no longer exists within the values of our childhood,
our species childhood…our engagement has to be with values that
match the events on the ground…if we hold to past values, we are
set up for failure…….

the values we need to succeed are not the values of money, of materialism,
of the pursuit of happiness……

the values we need are the reworked values of love, made to fit in a modern
times…of inclusive values that bring human beings together, not separate them…

of justice/equality, of charity, of hope, the values of the aesthetic…
for we have lost the values of beauty and form and art……

they have been sacrificed to the god of Mammon…

you might say, love, peace, charity, hope, and justice are old values…

you cannot put old wine into new wineskins…….

new wine must be put into new wineskins…

we must match our values with the new reality we face today…

just as I must approach old age with value appropriate to old age…

my values of childhood, of being 3, will not suffice to enable me
to navigate my old age… I need values that are appropriate to
to being 61……I need to put the values of love and peace and charity
and justice into context of being 61… I must renew the old values into
being age appropriate for me… as we must renew the old values into
being appropriate to our new reality…an upgrade if you will…

to take love 1.0 and turn it into love 2.0…
because we are closer to the year 2000 then we are to 1.
and our values must take notice of that……

we have science and technology and machines that require us to
renew our values of love and peace and charity and justice…

for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction…

for every attempt to dehumanize us, we must double our efforts to
become more human……

to find ourselves, we don’t use science or technology or machines, but we find love
and art and peace and beauty and all those “inefficient” methods of being human…

for every attempt to create order by machines or technology will fail,
because we aren’t about finding order via science or technology…

but we can find order and energy with values like love and peace and
justice and charity and beauty……….

the old fashion method of renewal…reworking values to
match our 21st century selves…

Kropotkin

I have stated that I don’t think that negotiations
and compromise is possible between the left and right
and I still hold to that…but Kropotkin, why? why can’t we
find a way to find a medium, a compromise between the two
sides?

simply, we on the left see human beings differently then
those on the right……

and the difference comes from our understanding of what it means
to be human…

the left see’s human beings as being as malleable, able to adjust
and adapt to the conditions on the ground…I am not who I was when
I was 6 and I am not who I was when I was 16 or 26 or 36 or 46…

I am 61 and I am someone who has to hold values and beliefs of a 61 year old man.

for the first time in my life, I see the end of my life as being imminent…
not today and not tomorrow, but sooner then later…

that very knowledge impacts the way I think of who I am and what
it means to be human…

I can see the impact of my live in terms of how the systems of
capitalism and nationalism and other negative, destructive systems
have had on my life…

I’ve worked for 43 years and I have nothing to show for it…
outside of the pain in my back and hips and neck and shoulders……
and I see that working for 43 years has left me with nothing……

capitalism is an empty promise of dreams fulfilled and those aren’t
your dreams being fulfilled, they are the dreams of the capitalists who
have gotten wealthy and powerful off of my 43 years of work…
while I gained nothing…

the pursuit of wealth and material goods doesn’t benefit you…
what do you get after decades of working? maybe a nice car,
perhaps, perhaps a house, virtually no retirement because that
all went down the drain in various market crashes…

you put food on your table… and a roof over your head…
that is what suppose to happen anyway… those are some of
the basic needs that must be fulfilled if we are to survive…

to work for 40 plus years to fulfill your basic needs and nothing more
is basically what animals do… they hunt their food until they die…
and we work to get food until we die, show me the difference…

one of the many lies of the modern world is in the alleged
dignity of working… there is no dignity in working 40 plus years
to achieve what animal achieve in their hunt for food…

we haven’t gotten any further along than animals…

and that is why we are still animal/human……

we haven’t reached the point of attempting to achieve
what is possible for human beings…we are still down
at the animal level… spending our lives pursuing food
and shelter until we die…big fucking deal……
my cat does that…

and until we begin to pursue what is human, we are no better
then animals…

and that is perfect for those who own the means of production,
the capitalists… because they also own the political and economic
systems, we are simply cannon fodder for them… lead into believing
that our sacrifice is for the betterment of human beings when
nothing of the sort happens… we sacrifice and that is all that happens…
we can nothing by it…

nationalism is also a fake, a fraud designed to
give us hope that our lives actually mean something……

it is the values of the right and their belief that human beings
are simply meant to be cannon fodder for the economic
system called capitalism…

don’t believe that?

then why the call from the right to restart the country, so
we can economically resume… putting the economic system
of capitalism before human lives… putting the pursuit of money/profits
before human lives………it isn’t safe to resume our way of life but
the right doesn’t care about lives… they care about money/profits
and they have even admitted that the old should sacrifice themselves
to help kickstart the economic system… and some have suggested
that restarting schools is acceptable because only 2 or 3% will die
from schools reopening…

money before lives…that is the right wing mantra…

how does one compromise and negotiate with someone who
is willing to kill 2 or 3% of all our school children, so we can
resume our economic system of sacrificing people in the name of
the god Mammon?

until we get our values straight, we cannot, cannot find the cure
for what ails us… and we are sick… sick, if we can consider
the deaths of people to be the cost of doing business…

sick, if we consider the extinction of entire species to fuel our
rampant materialism and desire, not need, desire for
material goods and wealth…

our current path of nationalism and capitalism and materialism,
is leading us toward the end of America… and if we continue to
feel that using people as cannon fodder is an acceptable practice
for business or for capitalism, then we are no better then animals,
in fact, I would consider us worse then animals because we know better…
at least animals don’t know any better……

of course dear reader, you will dismiss what I say because
you can’t conceive of what I say… and you will blindly follow
those who consider you expendable, thus in fact, worthless…

find your values before the machinery of capitalism
makes you the next sacrifice…

Cassandra

perhaps I am going about this the wrong way…

think about it…we have people including the Lieutenant Governor
of Texas who thinks that we should sacrifice people to the CV-19
in order to reopen the economy… in other words, we should
allow people to die in order to reopen the economy…
putting the economy before people’s lives…

and that quack Dr. Oz who thinks reopening schools is more
important then children dying…he believed that 2 or 3% death rate
in children is acceptable loss of life to reopen the schools…

and others who say that seniors should be prepared to die in
order to reopen the economy…

when there are those who believe that money/profits have more
value then people lives…

what we have is an illness, a sickness…an psychological sickness
that allows one to negate people’s life for a thing, money…

no more, no more can these people proclaim themselves pro-life if
they believe that money take precedence over people life…

but it is not enough to condemn those who fail to understand
life has more value then reopening an economy or life has more value
then money/profits…

and the fact that people were too silent about this outrageous
negation of human beings and their values tells me that
the American society, the country called America is ill…

not physically ill, but spiritually ill and psychologically ill
and emotionally ill…

have we become so psychologically ill that we think it is
appropriate that we should let people die to reopen the economy?

the shining city on the hill never looked so far away as it does today…

have we so lost our moral compass that we think it is right and necessary
to sacrifice people so that the wealthy can continue to make money
from the work of others…

wealth isn’t self made, it is made upon the back of other people,
upon their sweat and effort and daily sacrifice that the wealthy
can own billions of dollars… bill gates didn’t become wealthy
by his own work, he became wealthy by the work, effort, sacrifice
and drive of the people who work for him…wealth is created
by workers……. and without workers, there is no vast wealth of
a Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett… it is only upon the back
of workers that wealth can be built on…

and so, workers are called upon to sacrificed themselves once again
to allow the wealthy to stay wealthy…

and this too is part of our society/culture’s mental illness…

we are urged to be a team player and help build this country wealth…

and yet do we benefit from this?

no, no we do not…a country greatness isn’t about its GDP or
the size of it military budget but we are told to measure who we are
by the GDP or the Dow Jones average… but neither one is about
what it means to be a human being or what it is we are actually
trying to do as a country…

we are prevented from seeing reality as it is because we are
ill, mentally and psychologically…

we hold beliefs and idea’s that are damaging to both our physical
and psychological nature…

if we believe that economic heights, the GDP and the Dow Jones
have more value then human values, then we are ill…

but what is the cure for our Illness?

is there some pill or some drug we can take that will allow
us to properly and correctly to evaluate and understand
what is truly important, to us as human beings?

to allow us to return Art and beauty and aesthetic matters
to its vital and important place…

a pill we can take that we help us to correctly value
what it means to be human…

to no longer value people in terms of money or wealth or
fame or power…

we value the wrong things… money, wealth, power, fame…
and that valuation is part of our mental illness…
we give priority to things that negate us, dehumanizes us,
devalues us………

and this wrong valuation leads us to think that we can sacrifice
people in the name of money/profits… this wrong valuation leads
us to think we can let 2 or 3% of children in schools to die if it will
allow us to reopen schools… this misguided understanding of values
is a mental illness…we have lost sight of values that can connect us
to each other and ground us… those who believe the old should
be sacrificed to reopen the economy are no longer connected to
what is important or what is truly of value… they are no longer
grounded in values that put human beings and their values first…

this mental illness is caused by the nihilism that surrounds us
in society, the state, the culture…to deny human beings
and their values is nihilism… and the basis of the values
that conservatives and the GOP hold…

To put the economy ahead of people’s life is nihilism…

and the problem is that this nihilism, this mental illness,
is so ingrained into people that they don’t even see it anymore…

nihilism is status quo…

and to be pro-life is to be anti-American……

and by being pro-life, I don’t meant the pretend pro-life movement
of the right because that isn’t pro-life if it holds to allowing death
in other forms… to hold that seniors should be willing to die to
reopen the economy isn’t pro-life…to hold that we can reopen schools
with only a 2 or 3% loss of life isn’t pro-life, to hold that the death penalty
is the preferred method of punishment isn’t pro-life…to allow the police
the right to kill and not be held accountable isn’t being pro-life…
to hold that workers should be cannon fodder to raise the GDP isn’t
being pro-life…to hold to the right of companies to hold its employees
in bondage isn’t being pro-life…the very belief in the capitalistic system
is to be anti-life…certainly not being pro-life…for capitalism isn’t pro-life…
it is pro-wealth, for money and profits and not about the lives about
the workers… concern for the life of the workers, that is being
pro-life… putting workers before profits is being pro-life…

American has a mental illness and that illness is called
nihilism…

do you see a cure for this nihilism?

Kropotkin

the very act of asking, “which actions are moral actions”?
implies something very important…

in other words, if you have to ask if kindness is the right course for human beings,
it is clear you are infected with the disease of Nihilism…

if you cannot see why murder is wrong or why we can’t
send children to concentration camps or why sacrificing
workers to death to increase the GDP is wrong,
you are already infected with Nihilism…

one might say, Please Kropotkin, prove your point…
why kindness instead of being mean?..

why love instead of hate, why peace instead of war,
why should hope be a value for people?

If you ask these questions, you cannot see the damage our
modern age has done to people because of hate or war or
being mean…

why should we prevent the holocaust? why does the Holocaust matter?

if you ask these questions, then you are already morally compromised…

the same disregard for lives exists within the holocaust as does
the point that we should have seniors be willing to give their
lives to reopen the economy…or that 2 or3 % death rate is acceptable
to reopen our schools… you are morally and spiritually tainted…

what Kropotkin? no, I follow the laws, I have never been arrested,
I have spent time in jail… I have perfect morals… I follow the law……

and has following the law ever show us morality? it was legal to
hold people in slavery and it was legal to deny rights to women
and minorities and homosexuals and it was legal to sterilize people
without their consent and it was legal to deny a marriage between
a white person and a black person… and that law was still in effect
within my lifetime, and it was legal to have Jim crow laws
and it is legal to deny voting rights… as the GOP has done time and time
again over these last few years…

Morality isn’t about being legal……

Morality is about helping and improving the lives of people……

it is morally wrong to hit children… they can’t defend themselves
and hitting children harms them emotionally and psychologically…

so we don’t do that… it is the moral thing to do…

we can see what is moral by another test…
if people hide their actions and do it under the cover
of darkness, they know it is wrong and they are afraid of
being caught…

Moral actions can be done in the bright life of existence
immoral actions must be done in the dark, in the middle of the night…

you can use this to see what is moral and what is immoral…
the people who engage with life morally aren’t afraid of
showing their actions in the light of day…

immoral people hide under the rocks and wait for
the sun to go down to commit their actions, immoral actions…

that is why IQ45 doesn’t advertise his immoral actions
and does them under the cover of dark…and without
any comment…the government allows banks to take people’s
stimulus checks if they “Owe” money…and the government allowed
huge businesses to take the money meant for small businesses…
quietly and under the cover of darkness… it is wrong and everyone
knows it and so they do so quietly and out of sight…

it is morally wrong and by hiding their actions, they know it to……

we know what is moral… it isn’t that complicated…
you don’t hit defenseless people, you don’t steal from others,
you don’t murder…

and those who might say, but Kropotkin, it is complicated,
many factors are involved in these situations……it isn’t that easy…

let us take abortion, again…

look at those who oppose abortion, pro-life, they call themselves
and yet they have planted bombs and have shoot doctors
and harassed both patients and doctors…committee acts of
violence against those who favor abortion…

are these acts of violence really acts of morality?
is planting bombs and shooting doctors, really in the
spirit of being “Pro-life?”

the very violence protesters commit to those who favor abortions,
tells us that these protesters have no sense of what is really moral,
they have no morality if they are shooting people and planting bombs…
and they certainly aren’t pro-life…

those who are “pro-life” have been infected with an illness,
they are nihilists… they just don’t know it…and they hold to
nihilism as their base belief…

but Kropotkin, they could make the exact same argument about you…

and they be wrong because I don’t commit violence against the “pro-life” crowd
and I don’t advocate violence against people………
and I don’t hold nihilistic values that devalue and negate and dehumanize
human beings and their values…

to say, Kropotkin, they hold their values honestly and fairly… you can’t say
anything against them…

to say, that they are equal, the abortion crowd and the anti-abortion crowd,
is to say, that they are the equal, no difference between them,
they are very fine people on both sides…

is to ignore the difference in what they believe in…
and have hypocrisy about… pro-life isn’t pro-life until
they hold pro-life beliefs about every aspect of human existence…
not just abortion, but about the death penalty and police violence
and stand your ground laws and being advocates of equality and justice
between all people…for without justice/equality, there cannot
be a true pro-life society…… for being pro-life is more then being about
just the existence of life, pro-life must be about the quality of life,
to be pro-life is to be in favor of people having a fulfilling quality of life…

to be pro-life means to rise above just meeting the basic needs of people,
food, water, shelter, education, health care… no, pro-life is about the
entire quality of life for everyone…to allow people to rise in the basic needs
of people, to have security and safety and to have love/belonging and to have
esteem and most of all, the goal of life is to become self-actualized…
and then rise to what is above being self actualized………
to achieve our potential and possibilities… to reach that and help other
people reach those possibilities, that is pro-life……

to really become pro-life, we must engage in helping all people become
who they are… otherwise we are infected with the illness of
nihilism… which means we can negate and deny human beings
and their values…

we must expand what it means to be pro-life to include all
aspects of life…not just a fetus, but in being a human being…

Kropotkin

art is simply an awaking to the possibilities that
exists for us…

what are your possibilities and what does it take for you
to reach or become those possibilities?

going to work or helping generating a higher GDP isn’t going to
help you find or discover what are your possibilities…

it is those things which have no value in our materialistic
society that will awaken us to our full potential or our possibilities…

things like Art and beauty and reading and dreaming and
just sitting on a rock and thinking…

things that have no value in our modern world because they
don’t create money or profits…….and which is why they
are actively discouraged, because they don’t add to the GDP,
but they do add to our understanding of what it means to be human…

you want to stick it to the man…

take a walk… look at art… create beauty…

the most revolutionary act we can do today is to
rediscover what it means to be human……….

Kropotkin