In our day and age, there is much talk about
“platforms”. To get out the message via various platforms…
be it TV, radio, internet, media, movies…
what is left unsaid, is the content of that message…
what message are we sending over our various platforms?
Now platforms can mean something else…
for example, upon what platform are we going to build our
identity upon? How are we going to become who we are?
are we going to become or identify with the platform
of religion or nationalism or sports or conservatism?
when I want to become who I am, do I do that from
the platform of experience or ideology or some third basis?
How do I identify myself and begin my search for being human?
let us begin with one such ideology, nationalism…
the idea that we can find our true meaning in becoming part of
national identity? I am American, thus I would seek out who I am
in terms of being American…my individual and collective role
of being human would be through the ism of nationalism…
who am I? what am I to do? what should I hope for?
under the ism of nationalism, I would answer those questions
in regards to my identity of being an American…
Who am I? an American.
what am I to do? MAGA.
what should I hope for? a great America.
the profound questions of existence is woven into the accident of my
being born an American…
let us try again with religion…
who am I? what am I to do? what should I hope for?
who am I? I am a Christian waiting to be saved…
what am I to do? I am trying to reach heaven…
what should I hope for? to be save, redeemed…
your self identification, can reveal to us your platform of
how you see yourself…
now I have rejected nationalism as a platform in which to
identify ourselves and I have rejected religion as a platform
to see ourselves and I have rejected conservatism as a platform…
I have used liberalism as one such platform…
what am I to do? to engage with tolerance and equality and justice in
my dealing with other people…
who am I? someone who believes that we should treat all people
with dignity and justice and tolerance…
what should I hope for? that we become enlightened enough to
rise to the level of tolerance and decency and dignity in treating all people…
we answer the questions of existence, the Kantian/Kropotkin questions in
light of the self chosen platform that we see ourselves in…
but I don’t see liberalism as being the end all, be all of platforms in which
we engage with who we are and what are we to become…
as I have noted before, any choice of the platform of say nationalism,
means I have said, us vs them… if you are not us, you are them…
if I am an American you are not American , you are them…
if I am Christian, and you are not, you are them…
and if I choose liberalism and you are not, you are them…
the platform determines who can join our little club, be it
nationalism or religion or ideology…
I have expressly rejected the US vs THEM, understanding of the world…
there is no US vs THEM… there is only us…
so we come to the understanding that, as of right now,
our platforms are to limited, that our current platforms
do not engage enough people to be able to say, there is no them,
there is only us…
so what platform will allow me the space to include everyone?
what ideology is large enough to include everyone, regardless
of race, creed, color, nationality, sexual orientation?
a look at history can give us answer…
we began, in the beginning of time, as a small unit called
the family, quickly because it was both safer and more efficient,
to become a tribe, the a city, then a region or state then
a country…
our own self identification has grown from few, to more few, to
some to many and we include all (within our defined set of nationality or ism)
and we can then learn to increase our set, to remove subsets of men or women
or Christian or liberals within that platform… it is no longer a platform of
men or women or gays or whites or Christian, the platform include all who
exists within that platform… if I say, America, then everyone who is
an American regardless of the individual accidental traits of birth,
being born a man or a women or white or black or handicap, is included
within that platform…
if I say American, then everyone who is an American is included into
my platform…we have grown from a single family of 5 to a nation
of 330 million people in terms of identifying as part of our platform…
again, it is not large enough… we must be able to say, I am a human being,
and that will then include everyone who is human into my platform of identity…
I now identify with everyone who is human regardless of their accidental traits of birth,
of being born white or black or short or tall or handicap or man or woman…
there is no more US vs THEM in regards to human beings because
because we have erased the lines of demarcations between US vs THEM…
there is only us…
that is the goal… we can be Americans or religious or gay or woman,
it doesn’t matter what platform we self identify with individually,
we are still us…
and that is the goal…to make a platform large enough to
include all of us…
Kropotkin