a new understanding of today, time and space.

we have in America today, and in the world, a
despair, a melancholy about the world and ourselves……

how are we to be saved?

I would suggest that to be saved, is as always a communal, community,
an event that needs the polis to achieve……

we find salvation, not as a individual, but as part of the group…

salvation is found in becoming more human, not less…

of going forward, becoming human, is the path toward salvation…
to becoming human… that is our salvation……

look at your dog or your cat or your bird if that is the case…

look at them… truly see that dogs and cats and birds cannot,
be anything more then dogs or cats or birds… it is impossible for
them…they have reached the height of what is possible for them…
their very own nature has no where else to go… they cannot grow
or become anything else…

we can… we have traveled from animal to animal/human and now we
must take the next step of becoming who we are, which is human…
this doesn’t mean we reject or deny our animal side of human existence,
no, we simply have control over our animal side of us… we will still
need to eat and sleep and drink water and have shelter, fornicate
and shit… that is the animal side of us and we cannot deny or do anything
less… but we can rise above our animal nature and become human…
we can control our animal side and allow our human nature to
dominate who we are…

think of addiction… think of how an addiction can control someone’s
life to the point where all they do is attempt to feed that addiction…
every waking second is an attempt to feed their addiction…
that is not human, that is animal… they have no control over
what they think or what they do… they are controlled by their
addiction… that is not human… to be human means to be
in control over our thoughts and our actions…

and then, and then we can begin to overcome our animal nature…
which is being unable to control ourselves… being animal means
being unable to control who we are… to be addicted for example…

to meet our basic bodily needs is just the first step of becoming
human… we must also meet our emotional needs of
safety/security, belonging, love and esteem…

to achieve that then means we are about to become human, fully human
where we now are at the point of self achievement… we seek out our
possibilities and attempt to achieve them…if we are painters, we
become painters, and if we are philosophers, then we become philosophers…

and if our possibilities is to run a 4:00 minute mile, then that is how
we become more human… by seeing and then achieving our
possibilities of being human…

we have a path, a journey, of becoming human…
and that we means we are more then just
trying to achieve our basic needs of food, water, shelter……
or even trying to achieve our emotional needs…

to become human requires us to overcome and grow
and become who we are…….and this is by achieving our
possibilities…….

and the journey begins with knowing thyself
and beginning the process of examining one’s life……

“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

Kropotkin

we exist in a world with ism’s and ideologies……

we are born into a world with ism’s and ideologies
and we are then indoctrinated into these ism’s and ideologies…

so far, so good……. and because most people fail to
hold to the principle of knowing themselves
and doing an reexamination of values, most “people”
hold to the values and ism’s that they were indoctrinated with…

in America, we are indoctrinated with the value that “America” is
the greatest country on earth… we are indoctrinated with
“nationalism” as a value…from my dictionary:

Nationalism patriotic feeling, principles, or efforts.

an extreme form of this, especially marked by a feeling of
superiority over other countries.

advocacy of political independence for a particular country…

We in America hold to the second definition: an extreme form of
feeling of superiority over other counties…

Nationalism in America is overlaid with prejudice and superstitions
and biases… nationalism is held by those who believe in the
superiority of the white race… hatred of others is a prime example
of this nationalism…hatred of Jews, blacks, women, liberals, to be specific……
at least in America……if you are different from me, you are the other…
US vs THEM… I have rejected this viewpoint for a wide variety of reasons…

however to be clear, we must reject nationalism for another reason…

nationalism is a battle that was fought a long time ago…

in other words… nationalism as an ideology was for another
time, another environment… it was an answer that was right
and appropriate for another time and place…

but our environment today isn’t about nationalism…
we are in a post-nationalistic environment…

nationalism was an answer to a question a long time ago…

it no longer answer our questions…it no longer fits into
our environment…nationalism is fighting a war that was long ago won…

“tale of an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”

and lost in that sound and fury is the real question of our time…

how do we fit into the state? as individuals, how do we fit
into our current state? how do we fit into our society?

state and society, for now, we shall take as separate entities…

I am an individual… I hold certain values and rights…
how do I fit into a society that may or may not accept those
values and rights?

how do I fit into a state, our modern police state, that is determined to
measure me and time me and hold me accountable but not to hold
the state just as accountable… we have a double standard in America
today… the middle and working poor are held to one standard and
the wealthy and powerful are held to another standard
and the state to an entirely different standard……

if I am to be held accountable, and I have no problem with that,
then everyone must be held accountable with the same relentless
quest…and we can clearly see the question of accountability being
of two different standards in America……

how can I fit into a society that hold me accountable and doesn’t hold
others accountable for the same actions?

we have justice denied which means we don’t have justice at all…

and that is a big problem in America today……

and how do I fit, as an individual within that injustice?

how do I begin the process of holding people to justice,
as I am being held to justice?

as noted before, justice is the exact same thing as equality……
to hear one word, justice is to hear another word, equality…

so how do I fit into a country, as an individual that doesn’t practice
equality… given that equality is the basic principle of our country…

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

“man is born free and yet, everywhere he is in chains”

if I am born free and equal, how did time make me unequal?

by what principles have I become unequal? and thus can be
treated unfairly, unjustly?

justice/equality cannot be defined by wealth or titles or fame
or position…… no, justice must be justice regardless of wealth,
title, fame or position…….and so, how do I fall into a category
that allows me to be treated without equality?

the question, the modern question is one where,
we try to understand how we fit into society, where we can
still be individuals and yet, meet this question of being a part
of society……

if by principles, I become alienated from society, why must
the society principles become the only value that is accepted…….
why am I discounted from society because I hold different values
then the society holds to?

how do individuals fit into society?

and how do we understand that relationship between society
and individuals?

Ibsen and Kierkegaard both thought the “crowd was untruth” but
that just isn’t so… the individual as well as the crowd
can hold to untruth… but how do we understand this “untruth”?

by what measurement can we measure “untruth”?

what do we mean by “untruth”? and what can we do to return us
to the “truth”?

if I hold to my “truths” and that no longer allows me to belong
to the “crowd” then who is right, the crowd or me?

if I am alienated from society because of the values I hold,
then who must change, society or me?

so what is the relationship between individuals and society/state?

Kropotkin

in the midst of working several days in a row…

I have been accused of being a “communist” ……

but what am I actually attempting to do?

am I attempting to change society to fit or match some rational
ideals?

No, not at all…I do think society should be changed, but
how, how we change it makes all the difference in the world…

the American revolution succeeded whereas the French and
Russian revolution failed. But why did the one succeed and
the other two fail?

and given the fact those two failed, it would also suggest
that any attempt to radically change society will also fail…
but once again, why?

the American revolution wasn’t about changing society…
the structure of American society remained the same for a long
time after 1776…

and if you look at both the French and Russian revolution, the change
was in large part structural… the changing of the institutions that
people lived under…society dramatically changed in the 10 years
from the end of the respective revolution, French and Russian…

but the American society didn’t radically change after the revolution…

it was a political revolution that America created…

the French and Russian revolution tried to radically change
the institutions and method of people’s lives after the revolution…

the 10 years after the French revolution, France was a completely
different country…by 1799…

and think of Russia after the revolution… so 1928…
Russia was a completely changed country after the revolution…

but America was not completely changed after their revolution…

life pretty much went on as it had the years before
the revolution…

one could argue, that the America we know, didn’t come into being until
after the war of 1812…

but given all this, I don’t believe that revolution is the way to go until,
and this word until is very important… until their is a change in the mind
and heart of people……. if we don’t have an understanding of what being human is
and if we aren’t able to make sense of what our goal is, we cannot conduct any
type of revolution……. the true beginning of any, any revolution begins in the
minds and heart of the people…

the true revolution begins once we engage in Socrates two sayings…

“to know thyself”

“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”

the revolution of the state, society, culture, can only come after, after
we have engaged in our reevaluations of values…

the first step toward a reorganization of society begins with a
reorganization of the mind/heart……

the making of a better society beings with one person engaging
in a reevaluation of values…

one might proclaim: the world sucks… and it will continue to
suck until you, yes you engage in some sort of examination
of yourself that allows you to be clear on what it means to
be human and what is the goal/point of being human……
and what values are the values we are going to live by……

until we get individually right, we cannot get society right…

so when I say the revolution is to become who you are,
I mean that literally… to reorganize the world, we have
to have an engagement with who we are and what it means to be us…

and I can hear the negative ones, shouting, but Kropotkin,
I am right, it is all those other fools who are fucking it up…

every battle, every revolution, every war begins with one person…
and their engagement with who they are…

you want peace in the land… begin with finding peace within
you… what values are really your values?

you can’t control the others, the “fools”, but you can control you
and your engagement with who you are…that is all you can control…
and that is how we find peace and love and harmony in the land…

one person at a time… until there is a overwhelming mass that
will suddenly become one…

the cliché that is true, is the cliché that says: be the change you want…

and it all begins with an engagement with yourself…
and who you are…and what your values are……

the path, the journey to change the world is actually
an easy path/journey………. just become… go from being to becoming…

and what should I become? that is the question…….

to know what to become, you have to know who you are…
to know thyself………and then engage in a reevaluation of values…

the road, the path to a new society, a new state, a utopia… begins
with you and an examination of who you are…

Kropotkin

after several brutal days of work, I’m finally back……

I still have two more days of shit ahead of me… but what can you do?

as I am making this up as I go along, hang with me……

the question, perhaps the ultimate political and social question
is, what is the relationship between the individual and the society/state?

we see clowns walking around today without their mask, saying their
“rights” outweigh my right to being protected from the virus………

what height of stupidity are they reaching for?

but this brings to mind this question of the relationship between
the individual and the society/state?

perhaps we should start even more basic. Perhaps we should start
with the principles of philosophy…

for example, the Greeks thought the goal of life was to reach
“Arete”… which is excellence… everyone should attempt to
reach their excellence… and this was the driving goal of Greek
society for centuries…

The Chinese thought the goal was the “Dao” which is sometimes
thought of as a path, a guide, conduct or direction…

Follow the path of Dao and that lead to success, both individually
and collectively…Dao was thought of as an ethical/moral way……
the way to behave in society…

you hear another Chinese thought, which is harmony…

how do we achieve harmony, both as an individual and collectively…

we have another Chinese word, Ren… which can be translated as
humanity or benevolence…which is the Confucian virtue denoting the
good quality of a virtuous human when being altruistic. Ren can be thought
of as a normal adult’s protective feeling for children……

it is considered one of the means for a “good” king or leader to rule…

to achieve Ren, is the goal of a moral leader……

now each of these thoughts are not specific actions by themselves…

they are consider ideals or concepts in which people attempt to reach
to become moral people……

Perhaps we could rethink ethics and morality into terms similar
to Ren or harmony or arete or the Dao?

dinner is served, will write later…

and an excellent dinner it was…

as noted in an earlier post: there is no such thing as individual ethics,
ethics can only exists within the confines of a group, city, polis, family,
state or civilization…ethics… morality is based on a collective basis,
not an individual basis…

so in regards to ethics/morality, what is the relationship between
the individual and the society/state?

and another question: what is of greater value? the individual
engagement with their soul or the laws and institutions that we
know quite well here in America and the western world?

if one makes the argument that the society is ill and sick, what
are possible cures, more laws, more legislation, stricter adherence
to the legal and bureaucracies of the state or more engagement
with getting people to uphold the laws themselves?

and that is done by getting people to take the path of harmony
or Dao or Arete or Ren……….

you also have this question of science, of entropy…
everything is about entropy… which is the natural decay
everything piece of matter within the universe… everything
is in process and that process is going from order to disorder…

the final stage of entropy in a human being is by so much
disorder occurs that the body no longer functions and death occurs…

every question of morality and ethics must take into account
entropy and the movement, path of matter to go into decay/disorder…

as harmony and Dao and Ren bring energy into people and institutions,
the opposite of entropy… so, we can see how if we follow
a method, a path such as harmony or Dao, we can achieve
balance and keeping the equation equal…as I have argued for…
and this balance/harmony allows for the path of humans and
institutions and all things human, kept into balance which means
entropy cannot enter the equation…

the inflow of energy must equal the outflow of energy…….

keeping to the path or methods of the Chinese or the Greeks, Arete,
we can keep the equation equal, energy = loss of energy… the two must balance…

and I have defined equality as justice… the two are equal…
to have justice, we must treat everyone as equal………

think of money as energy… we must hold money in balance as we do
with energy…… to hold the equation…

too much money on one side of the equation sends the equation out of balance…

we have income inequality and that sends the balance of our equation out of control…

the equation of existence requires that we have just as much coming in as we
have going out… this is true of the body, this is true of justice, this is true
entropy and disorder, to hold balance means we must have equality of
going in as we do going out…………

being poor in America means you have less coming in then going out…

and that imbalance, disrupts and disturbs people…

if some/few are super wealthy, then most people are without wealth…
there is only so much wealth to go around……

the equation is off and by being off, we have entropy… more energy
going out then coming in…….

and all of this, is one, this is not a few separate thoughts,
but one thought about several different aspects of the same thing…

ethics, morality, income inequality, justice, entropy, the equations of life,
energy, matter, the way, Arete, Dao, they are not distinct and
separate entities… they are different aspects of the same idea…

human existence is a path, a journey… but where are we going to?

what is our destination?

we can have the same destination and still have different ways of
achieving those goals… some take their time when traveling
and some speed march when traveling and some take different approaches…

the path/journey is find our own path to the collective goal we have…….

I can bring in more energy into society and thus fight entropy…

I can find my own journey into bringing energy into the systems
we have…we don’t have to have the exact same method of bringing
energy into the system thus equalizing it… keeping the equation…

that is the path… how do we prevent entropy death of our society/ state/
civilization? many different possibilities exists… and we can mix and match
our findings…

ethics and morality is just another path, method of keeping energy into
the system… preventing entropy…

so in the end, we find our ultimate goal… preventing entropy from
destroying our society/state/ civilization. that is the goal…
how do we achieve it?

Kropotkin

so as noted above, we have vastly different possibilities as to
how to achieve our goals…….

we have methods like Dao and Ren and Harmony…

we have philosophies like Stoicism and existentialism and
positivism, analytic philosophy and poststructuralism…for example…

and we have specific philosophers we can follow like Kant, Spinoza
and Nietzsche…

we have ism’s and ideologies like capitalism and communism and
Catholicism…

and we have religions like Catholicism and Buddhism and
Islam…

pause for a second…

and back…

so we have the Kantian/Kropotkin questions of existence…

what am I to do? what should I believe in? what can I know?
what should my values be? to what should I put my energy into?

and the above list offers us possibilities…….

so, I ask myself, what should I believe in?
and the above list will offer me answers…

I can believe in Catholicism or I can believe in philosophy
or I can believe in capitalism…….the list is practically
endless…every single ism and ideology is a possibility for
us to believe in…

the question, what am I to do? also has endless possibilities…
I can spend my life engaging in religion or philosophy
or engaging in capitalism or eat, drink and be merry for
tomorrow I die…

the problem comes with the fact that people really don’t make
a choice…they simply fall into some indoctrination of their
youth and without any conscience choice, they simply follow
those notions we were indoctrinated with as children…

and that is what I am fighting against… the idea that we must,
must simply engage with what we were indoctrinated with…
with no choice given… you have a choice… you simple
won’t engage with your choices…

maybe what you are to do is engage with Buddhism or
perhaps with religion or perhaps with the way, the path of Dao…

people simply rush into their life without making any choices…

they allow their childhood indoctrinations to guide them…

and why?

because they didn’t have the courage of an reevaluation of values that
told them what they really and truly believed in… and not just
the stuff we were indoctrinated with…

I was indoctrinated with the idea that America is the greatest country
on earth… but we have failed that concept because
as any athlete will tell you, you are always working hard,
very hard to maintain that level of excellence… sports titles
are won every years and every year, you have to work harder
and harder to maintain that level of excellence…

and what does that have to do with America the Great?

because we don’t, won’t work every single day to hold
on to our excellence… a goal once achieved must be
worked on every single day to maintain… we refuse to
work on our excellence every single day and thus we
are no longer the greatest country on earth…

titles like that have to be worked for and we simply live
off the title that was achieved by those in the past,
not by us… until we achieve excellence every single day,
we are not the greatest country on earth…

so what ism or ideology will help us achieve our goals?

depends upon the goal, now doesn’t it?

now personally, I am not going to be defined by the supposed
greatness of America, I am going to be defined by who I am
and what I am reaching for…

you woke up today… and what was your goal for the day?

to simply be alive in the evening?

that is aiming very, very, very low……

why not attempt to reach for the stars and attempt
the impossible…

when history or philosophy books are written, I want
to be listed as one of the best philosophers who ever lived…

I want to be listed as equal to Kant or to Spinoza or to Nietzsche…

so I work every single day to achieve that goal…

and I work hard… every off hour I can spend, I spend it thinking
or writing or reading…I want to achieve excellence in being
a philosopher…

that in part, what drives me to engage in the way I do……

a day not spent in philosophy is a wasted day…
and lately because of work, I have wasted a lot of days recently…

so in the above list, I am engaging in philosophy,
not in ism like communism or Catholicism…
and I am not engaged in Dao or Ren or Arete
or any of the hundreds of possibilities that we call
isms and ideologies in which we can engage with as human beings…

and what of the other Kantian/Kropotkin questions like
what shall I believe in or what shall I spend my energy on?

we can search the above list and then apply energy into
our chosen picks… be it a ism or ideology or religion or
philosophy or being in the Dao or Ren…

the list is almost to big and so we fall back into the
safe, known of our indoctrinations… and thus we
miss an opportunity, a chance to become who we are…

I am not saying pick this path or this road, I am saying
make a choice… be who you are…don’t let your indoctrinations
decide for you, who you are……

we can be in the Dao or be a catholic or be an existentialist
or engage in communism or capitalism or Buddhism…

the point is to make a conscience decision to become who you are…

and that will only happen with some hard and sometimes
unhappy decisions… but make it happen instead of letting it
happen to you…be the change you want to be…

Kropotkin

survived… I worked 9 days with only 1 day off in between and
that off day, I spent on the couch sleeping from exhaustion…

so we have two possibilities… one possibility is that we find
our meaning, point, reason for existence within us and the other
possibility is we find meaning outside of us…

we discover who we are and what we can become…
going from being to becoming…as an internal discovery…

the other possibility lies with the external goals… our engagement
with ism’s is one possibility… being a good conservative is one such choice…
or being an anarchist or being Catholic or being Buddhist or a communist…

you find meaning and purpose in some assigned goal…which
is found in following an ism or an ideology…

it is not an either or situation… you can be a good Catholic and still
engage in your inner possibilities…the highest role model that existed
in America, for decades, was that of citizen… being a good citizen
was considered to be the height of what it meant to be human…

America first…be a patriot… America is number one……

jingoism at its best……

and IQ45 and his ilk still hold to the superiority of America over all other…

look at how IQ45 has called Mexicans, bad hombres and subhuman…

the negation of others who are not Americans…US vs Them…

you see this played out every day in America…

the white woman who called the police on black man in NY…
the other day… she lied to the police about him threating her…
she was trying to weaponize the police against a black man…
and why? because he was not “US” in being white…

this is what happens when you create an US vs Them attitude…

to be a “good” citizen means to negate others who aren’t America citizens…

to hold “White Privilege” is an US vs Them…

but is that really the path, the way to our engagement with the world?

and tell me, how does this make us better, as human beings?

Holding to being a good citizen or holding to “White privilege”?

what is really called for is an reevaluation of what it means to be human…

to begin the external or internal examination of what route to take,
requires, demands us to understand our starting point……

every decision we make to be good citizens or to hold to being
Catholic or to be communist or to be capitalist, requires us
to begin at the start and understand what we are, right from the start……

I am Kropotkin… and what do I believe in? I am a social creature,
I must, for both my mental and physical health, engage with other
human beings…that is the start of what it means to be human…

as we discovered during our self isolation, that we cannot, cannot
engage in true self isolation… for we are then denied what it means
to be human, truly human…contact with other human beings is essential
to what it means to be human…

so the Kantian/Kropotkin questions, what am I to do? what should I
believe in? what can I know? are really questions like this…

what are we to do? what should we believe in? what can we know?

so my possibilities aren’t really about me, but they are about us…

so we have dual questions of existence, how can I be a good Catholic?
and what is my relationship with other Catholics or the church or with god?

we have singular relationships like our individual questions about what it means to
be human… as one…what am I to do?

and we have complex questions of what does it means to be human, collectively…
what are we to do?

every singular question, what am I to do? also has a collective question,
what are we to do?

note, that I am not asking as a white person, or as a man, no, I am
asking a question of everyone who is human, what are we to do?

every question we have, must engage in both our individual selves
and our collective self…

so this question of what is possible for me, is also a question of
what is possible for us?

it is no longer enough to ask, what can I achieve?
we must ask, what can we achieve?

both questions must be asked…as individuals and as part of
the collective…

thus we cannot, as of now, engage with political philosophies
like anarchism because they fail to answer the questions of
us…we must ask questions that engage all of us…

but this then suggest that our political system, must engage
all of us… thus we can then rule out such political systems
as monarchy or autocracy or corporatocracy… because those
political systems don’t engage with us… they engage with a
small number of people who rule in our name… but to become
human, fully human, we must engage together… all of us…
as one…democracy is the only real answer to what political
system we can have because it is about us, and not about the “I”…

and this suggests our economic system also… and that isn’t
capitalism because capitalism is all about income inequality…
and income inequality isn’t about us, it is about a few becoming
wealthy off the work of millions………

our political system and our economic system must mirror what it
means to be human… it must be about all of us…
and not about the one… but it must be about the many, us…

communism/socialism must closely mirrors what it means to be
human far more then capitalism……

just as democracy mirrors what it means to be human, in
making decisions about our own lives, together……

it is this relationship between the individual and the collective
that matters…

it makes a difference in my life if you can’t, can’t meet your
basic needs of food, water, shelter, education, health care…
if your needs are met, then I can go about meeting my needs…

and we are physical beings, animals in form and we must
meet our bodily needs… and the best way to accomplish that
is by our collective efforts… we and not me…

but as human beings, we have emotional, psychological needs as well…

and we must engage in those needs as well, needs of love and belonging
and safety/security…

and those needs can only be met within a collective relationship…
it take us to meet those emotional needs… we need each other
to reach our emotional needs…

so our real possibilities lie with a more personal understanding
of what we individually need and what we collectively need…

it is this individual and collective possibilities that we need to
work with and understand…

so we no longer must engage with isms and ideologies
and labels like Catholic or communist or capitalist that
we must engage with but more importantly we must
engage with our human nature with an engagement with
ourselves as individuals and as a collective, us…

Kropotkin

How is the “US” engaged when as we discuss our return
from this Pandemic, where workers have no say, no voice
when and if we return to work… we are told, by the business,
the bosses and the government when and how we can return to
work, but we ourselves have no say in the matter… a matter of
great concern to both us and our families…

how does this engagement with us happen when, for
example, the women worker in Ohio who make almost
triple what she made while working, in unemployment…
that is patently unfair…why should a worker, working make
less while working then under unemployment?

the conservatives make that an argument to force workers to
go back to work… but the real argument lies with the fact
that we so underpay people, that they make more money on
unemployment……and meanwhile management makes 100 times
the amount an average worker makes…

How does income inequality make us better as individuals or
as a people/culture/state?

working because you won’t have food or have health insurance is
tyranny of the worst kind……

why? because being moral requires we allow people to meet their
basic needs of food, water, shelter, health care, education…

and our current capitalistic system negates people in
terms of what they need both physically and emotionally……

we cannot, under our current capitalistic system meet either our
physical and emotional needs… we cannot find love or peace or
happiness or safety/security or belonging if we are always worried
about our job security…or if, as know to be true, that love
or safety/security or belonging or self esteem is negated under
capitalism…….capitalism denies both our physical and our emotional
needs… that is why I call capitalism, nihilistic…

because we have no say, no voice in our economic being,
we are negated, denied who we are and denied our
possibilities… if we have no voice, no say in what
our political or our economic system, we are, to coin a term,
nihilised….

to put the point bluntly, if we have no say in our situation,
our economic and our political system, then we are nothing more
then slaves…

that is what slavery is… the denial of freedom, a choice in
who you are and what you can do…by having no voice in
our political system and having no voice in our economic system,
we are denied our being… we are slaves…

now one might make the argument that by voting, we have choice,
but that is clearly untrue… this last 4 years has proven that
government is acting under other voices, not ours…

now one may say, IQ45 was properly elected… but the argument can
be and should be made that the Electoral College, denies our basic
freedom of choice by not allowing the person with the most votes to
become president…… we are a democracy… and the person with the most
votes should become president… and that is subverted by the
Electoral College… which denies the right of the person with
the most votes to win… it is anti-democratic…

and IQ45 has clearly denied the voice of the majority of people living
in the US…….

if we have no say in what matters most to our lives, then we
are slaves…

thus to be clear, we in America have not enjoyed real democracy…

we are some mixed system which denies our right to make our
voice heard…

either we go all in on democracy or we end this…
there is no choice… we cannot go on pretending to have
a voice in our political affairs when we do not
and we can’t even pretend to have a voice in our
economic affairs……

to be able to choose what kind of toothpaste I can buy isn’t
economic freedom… it isn’t having a choice, a voice in our affairs…

it is still slavery… but with toothpaste…

having a say in our workplace… having a say when and how we return
to our jobs… that is the type of economic freedom I am talking about…

having a voice in how we do our jobs and what our economic status is…
that is true freedom and truly what it means to be empowered as human beings…

one of the conditions of being human, fully human demands that we have
a voice, a say in both our political and economic life…if we do not,
then we are slaves… politically and economically……

if we are not free to act upon our personal and collective needs,
then we are not being treated morally…morality demands that
we are able to fulfill our needs, both physical and emotionally…

our political and economic system isn’t moral…
that is the bottom line…….

and part of being human, fully human is to go beyond our
basic physical and emotional needs… to reach the point of
our being able to self actualize… to reach our full potential…
to discover our possibilities…

and we cannot, cannot get to reaching our full potential if
we can’t even reach our basic physical and emotional needs
because of our political and economic system…….

every question is question about who we are, what we can achieve,
what we can do……

either we include everyone or we continue to be slaves…

our own individual pursuit is contingent upon our collective
pursuit… we can only reach our individual goal if we help
everyone reach their individual goal……

my being able to reach my needs and desires and wants is
dependent upon you reaching your needs and desires and wants…

so what is required?

we must reevaluate our own personal needs and desires and wants…
instead of me, I must ask, how do we achieve our needs, desires and wants?

and what are those personal needs, desires and wants?

do we really want or are we indoctrinated into thinking that is
our needs, desires and wants?

the voice inside my head telling me what I need, what I want,
what I desire… is that really my voice or is that the indoctrination
I received as a child?

Kropotkin

complexity… humans have grown in complexity…
we are no longer animals which are limited by their very
nature to be simple, not complex…

a dog or a cat is less complex then a human being…

our modern world is far more complex then the world
of the cave man under the hunter-gather society…

and our modern world is far more complex then the ancient
Greek or Roman society…

and at every increase in complexity, we need to involved more
and more people…complexity requires more moving parts…
that is the nature of complexity…

our animal brethren… their needs are simple… meeting their physical
requirements is enough for them…

but we humans… we cannot be satisfied with just meeting our physical needs…

we also required our emotional and psychological needs to be met…
without meeting our emotional and psychological needs,
we are maladjusted and stunted… not fully human…

we are complex animals and the more complex we become,
the more we must have our needs and desires and wants to be met…

our political and economic systems must also need to meet our
complex needs… that requires a complex political and economic
system……

for example, if we are unable to have a voice in the matters like
if and when we return to work, then we are, as noted before, slaves…
and our emotional and psychological needs like belonging is unmet…
how can we say we belong to an economic system or a political system
that has no interest in our voice…the new political and economic
system of the future, must include our voices in the who, what, when,
where, how and why of our jobs, our companies, our entire economic
system…

the existential questions of, what am I to do, is directly tied up
in this question of, do I have a voice in that which matters to me most?

am I a slave or am I a human being?

to have a voice, to have a say in what matters to me most,
is being a human being… not to have a voice or a say in
matters like the political or economic system is to be an
animal……

what makes me a human being is choices…

animals can choose very little, but I can choose to
become what I am, I can choose to be human… and
have a say in what matters most to me…….

if I have no choice, I am not free, I am not a human being…
I am a slave…an animal…

so what is your choice? and that choice defines you as
being human……not slave or not animal…

Kropotkin

increase complexity requires increased comprehension and
increased adaptability…

in other words… I am born… I have very limited exposure
and understanding of the world I was born into…

and by age 3, I have an increased understanding of the world into
which I was born…because of the process that is part of being
human, I have changed physically, mentally, emotionally and
psychologically from birth to age 3 and I will continue to change
as I grow older… at age 10, I am a completely different person
from age 3… and we must continue to engage in this process
of changing and adapting to the environment…

I cannot function as a 20 year old with a 10 year old understanding
of the universe…my mental and emotional and psychological
nature must change and adapt as I grow older… I see the
world differently at 40 then I did at 20 or at age 10…

and as a senior citizen, I see the world completely different then
I did as a 40 year old or as a 20 year… I must change to adapt
to the ever changing conditions I find myself in…

my mindset today is completely different now that I am 61…
I am seriously trying to figure out a way to retire and still
be able to meet my basic needs of food, water, shelter,
health care and education… I just don’t have the money
to retire…

whereas when I was 40, I was still engage in the process of
thinking about a job or promotions or how much I was making…

today, I just don’t give a shit about my job, any promotions
or how much I am making outside of, does this amount
help me retire?

my life was engaging in increased complexity… from grade school to
high school to work was an increasing level of complexity…
today, I am at the point, where I want less, far less complexity in
my life…

I have matured enough to see most of my life was engaged in pursuing
crap…needless and unnecessary crap that didn’t improve my life
one iota…

this is far different then where I was at age 20 or 30 or even 40…

my journey or path to old age has taught me lessons I never
even imagined when I was younger…

and this is how it is supposed to work…

we grow and change and become something new
every single day……

and within that change, comes lessons in entropy
and process and becoming……

I finally, truly understand what entropy means to a human being
because I am a victim of entropy where I am losing more energy
then I can put in…it isn’t real noticeable but it is there……
and I suspect as I grow older, I will more and more notice
the impact that entropy will have on my life…

and enough entropy in my life means I will die… simple as that…
no matter what I do, entropy will end my life at some point in time…

so we must learn to see our lives in the context of energy
and entropy and change and process and time and complexity
and needs and desires and wants…….

that is the lesson I learned too late…

these lessons are not the lessons we got in grade school or high
school or in college……

we were taught the wrong lessons in school…

instead of learning a skill to have a job, we should
have been taught to become human and what does it
mean to be human…

and to be human means we are subject to increased complexity
and changes in our life up until the day we die and in fact, death
is the last, final change we go through in life…

adaption and complexity and process and change… these are the
real skills we should be educated in…

not in math or in history or social studies… but how to deal with
complexity and change and processes in life……

“what does it mean to grow old” should be a required course in school instead
of economics or social science…

the how in life is far less important then the why……

what lessons have you learned in life?

and did school teach you those lessons or did you
learn the important lessons while engage in life?

that is why I believe that education before 1900 was far more
useful then education today… because the lesson in school was
to train men into being gentlemen… men learned the important
skills of being a gentleman which was the entire point of education
in schools…not in being trained in a skill to earn a living, but
how to live life…… that what is missing in education today…
we learn unimportant stuff like math skills or what date was
the declaration of independence was signed…

what we need school for is, how do we engage with life,
with its complexity and change and the process of growing older…

those are the lessons we should be learning, not that the earth is 93
million miles from the sun… that information teaches us nothing
about what it means to be human…or how to deal with change in
our life……or how to deal with increasing complexity in our lives…

our educational system is a failure because it doesn’t teach us
how to be human… it simply teaches us facts or skills for a job…
and that tells us nothing about how to be human…

I can tell you all kinds of facts and information but can I tell
you how to engage in your life with its increasing complexity?

I doubt it……

so what does it mean to be human? what does it mean to engage in
the complexity of our daily life? How are we going to learn how to
change and adapt to the every changing complexity, processes and
viewpoint that is life itself?

how do I go from “I” to “us”? these are the lessons we must learn…
not how to add 15 + 15 = 30… what does math mean to me as a human being,
that is the question, not what does math mean by itself…

Kropotkin

So, one might argue that Kropotkin wants everyone to
march in communistic bootsteps… we dress the same
and live the same and eat the same and work the same…

Hardly… we can be individuals within a family as in a small
group and in a work environment and within the society/state/culture…

I don’t believe marching in the same fascist boot steps will solve
anything… we don’t have to believe in the same facts or in the same
god or in the same ism and ideology…

that is not the goal… the goal is to fight entropy by increasing
the amount of energy going into any system…

and that can be achieved in any number of ways…….

we have to become aware of our systems as they engage…
if we are aware of how our so called democracy works today,
we can see we do not have any democracy in America today…

but to achieve true democracy, we don’t have to march in step with
each other… we simply have to engage as is possible for us…

I am old… I can’t physically engage like I was once able to …
so my means of engagement will be different then a young, physically
able lad can…I can’t fight or brawl like I once could have… I must find
a different, suitable means of engagement with society and the state…

I believe each of us can contribute in different ways to the cause of
choices and freedom and change…

we have many different and diverse roads or paths to the same goal…

will I be manning the barricades? I doubt it… but I will be offering what
is appropriate to my age and current abilities…

the spirit is willing but the body, not so much……

I must engage as I can……

as you must engage as you must……

but that doesn’t require us to be dressed the same or speaking the same language
or both being white or male or loving the same gender…

we can march to the same goal and still be quite different people…

it is our differences that makes us strong, not our sameness…….

so join me in marching, be it in pants or dress or naked, I really don’t care
who you are or what is your color or gender or sexual orientation or nationality…

I only ask for tolerance and inclusion and acceptance…

be who you are and march with me toward a future where
we can be ourselves and still allow the equation of existence to
be maintained and the entropy be held equal in all our systems…….

Kropotkin

I have begun my rereading of Nietzsche…

I am rather annoyed that I can’t find my copy of “untimely mediations”

I do have 5000 books so finding one book is often quite hard…

so, started with “The Birth of Tragedy”… and am almost done…
quite an easy read…especially because I have read this before…

Kropotkin

in reading “the Birth of Tragedy” I am struck by
some thoughts…

Nietzsche said, to quote Section 14…

“Perhaps Art is even a necessary correlative of,
and supplement for science?”

let us think about this… science is a reliance upon reason, rationality
thought… but as the equation says, we must have equal and opposite
reaction… so the opposite to science, which is reason, mind… the opposite
is feeling, emotions… and we have seen this song before…

so the equation might look like this:

science/reason = emotions/feelings…

the two must be equal……

hence we might have an explanation for our modern era…

the science/ reason part of the equation became too much on the one
side and to equalized, balance it, the emotions/feeling side grew large…
to compensate for the excessive science/reason…

one way to think of emotions/feelings is in art…
we use art as an equalizer to science/reason…
but this modern age no longer takes art seriously or
worth pursuing… thus we must take our emotions/feelings
out in ways outside of art…

to keep the equation balanced, we have science/rationality/reason
on one side and on the other side, we have emotions/feelings/instinct…

and because we don’t have ART to turn to, we turn to other emotional
responses… we expend energy on such emotional responses like
devotion to sports and the need to slavishly watch the going on
of movie stars and musicians and fashion gurus and TV stars
with no discernible skills or talents but are household names…

we have transferred our emotional responses to unnecessary, unimportant
and negligible events…

and these unimportant emotional responses strike us as hollow
and empty…but what other choice do we have to engage
in our emotional side outside of these unnecessary and negligible events?

Art has been the traditional home of emotional responses to the world…

but ART is dead… it has the same emotional impact to us “moderns” in the same way
we respond to a detergent commercial…ART has no impact upon our lives…

but one might say, we respond to music and movies with an emotional response…

do we?

the impact of anything is reduced every single time we see it or hear it
or feelin it… music is the same way… the impact of a song is reduced
every single time I hear it on the radio…repetition reduces the impact of
anything we experience…….Eric Clapton wrote an emotional song for
the death of his son… and he played it in concert for a long time…
a while back he said he would no longer play that song in concert because
the song no longer had any impact upon him… it has lost its emotional
impact for him… that is the curse of repetition… and we hear songs
on the radio and play them all the time… they lose their emotional
impact every single time we play that favorite song…

and our modern age is nothing but a course in repetition
about every thing we hold dear…

but to hold the balance between science/reason and emotions/feelings,
we must continually renew our emotions/feelings to maintain that balance…

if repetition destroys our emotional context to things like music or
art, then we need to renew our emotions/feelings on something…

but this modern age is apathetic and indifferent to things that should rile
our body and soul… hence the indifferent response to IQ45 attempt
to turn America into a dictatorship…

America marches in response to the death of George Floyd and is
passive to the coming dictatorship…

the equation must still stand……

we cannot hold to a dictatorship because it destroys
the equation that is the modern state…

power cannot be in the hands of any single party or person…

the equation is destroyed in that case…

the equation between science/reason and emotions/feelings
is destroyed by the excessive emotions/feelings
engender by a dictatorship…

I remind the reader that Hitler was an painter and tried to
enter several art academies…….history was forever changed
by this failure… art would have been Hitler’s escape into
his emotionalism and feelings… instead those feeling/emotions
were channeled into hating and anger against the “others”, Jews for
example…

the desires we feel, it is emotions/feelings
and we channel those emotions/feelings into
such things as lust, fear, anger, hate, greed…
serving Mammon is an emotional response…

our “modern” problem is we don’t have an outlet for our
emotional/feelings because we have removed ART as that
channel…….

so where now lies our immense emotional/feelings?

in seeking money and love and engaging in our instincts
of hate and lust and greed…

the equation is lost in “Modern” America……

Kropotkin

when seen from the future, our age will be lacking…

this age is sterile and devoid of any value……

it is nihilistic and that means empty of value

One might demand, Kropotkin, Kropotkin,
proof, I want proof of your outrageous claims…

name a great artist working today?

name a great philosopher working today?

one might name Zizek?

I would argue that we are living on a very level plain
and anything that rises upon that plain looks huge…

and Zizek is a tree on that level plain…

but compare that tree to the mountains that is
Kant or Hegel or even Nietzsche… doesn’t make that
tree seem to be very high…

the truth is this “modern age” lacks any type of greatness…
in anybody at all…

part of this age failure comes from our accepting the nihilism
that lies within our age ism’s and ideologies………

low laying fruit indeed…

we seek out money and fame and titles and material goods……

this search for this nihilism has meant that we fail to engage in
what it means to be human…we don’t treat philosophy or even
life as a calling, a way of life……

for example, early Christians felt that, to be Christian was a way of life…
it didn’t just mean to pray once a week in church, but to live the life,
24/7/365…… to be Christian meant to live and breath and die as a Christian…
anything less was anemic and half hearted…

and our age? Some of the best description of it could be weak, anemic, half hearted,
sterile… for we don’t live life as a way of life…best described by a play
many years ago where the master said:

“as for living, our servants can do that for us”

and others have called it: “sleepwalking through life”

Our best Philosophers and our best Artists, weak, anemic, sterile, half hearted…

to match the world they live in…Artist can only create what they see
and feel and touch… and today, we are sterile and anemic and half hearted…
and that is what artist see and feel and touch……

we don’t live our lives anymore, we simply post it on face book or Instagram…

as if you can discover what life is through the lens of your cell phone…

the engagement of most, most existentialist was to “being authentic”
and what or who is truly “Authentic” today?

the call to be “Authentic” can only happen in this modern age, in
the pursuit of false ism’s and ideologies that make money and titles
and fame being the thing we pursue and engage with…

more low laying fruit… money and fame and titles…….

our age is sterile because the things we pursue are sterile……
money, fame, titles, power have no value or is not worth the energy we put into it……

it only makes sense to seek things that have a payoff in the end and
very little that we “moderns” do, have a sufficient payoff.

who lives a value as a way of life? few, very, very few……

who engages in love or peace or hope or charity as a way of life?

we engage in the lower level, instinctual things as a way of life
and thus we have emptiness and sterility as the only signs of life…

to engage in hate or anger or lust or greed as a way of life is to
hold to animal values as values worth living with… I am human…

I hold human values, not animal values so I don’t need to engage
in animal values of hate or greed or lust or anger among the many
animal values we “Modern’s” hold dear…

I am seeking values in which I can engage with, as a way of life…

what are you seeking?

Kropotkin

we “moderns” are so engaged with the false values
of money, fame, titles, power, that we forget the most
important question, why?

why do you engage in wealth or power or fame or power?

who is asking themselves the important questions?

why do we exists? what are we to do? what can we know?
what values should we hold? what are we to hope for?

it is not enough to seek the empty and sterile values
of the modern world, but we have to ask, why seek them?
why those values and not other values?

and I suspect we seek those negative, instinctual values
of power and money and fame and titles because they
were indoctrinated into us as children…

I call them negative, instinctual values because they don’t
build us up, they don’t create, they don’t add energy into
a system, they have no positive value to us…

values like love and peace and hope and charity build us
up, they create, they add energy into a system,
they have positive value to us…

but human understanding comes down to one question, why?

the questions of who, what, when, where and how, those questions
set up the scene, the why question asks about the nature of the scene…
why does that scene matter to us……

our age is sterile because it doesn’t ask why, it ask, who, what, when, where
and how, but not about why?

the question of religion in our modern age isn’t about why…
the conclusions are already mixed into the question of religion…

god created the heaven and the earth…

there is no question there…… just who, what, when, where and how…
but nothing suggesting a question…….

a honest heart felt question such as, why am I here?

What is the meaning of life?

the answer is already given in the statement of, “god is……”

there is no wonder or mystery in the answer given by religion…

for ask any question and the answer is god…
not many questions there…

science tells us the rational/reason explanation of existence…
religion tells us the irrational/emotional/ feelings explanation of existence…

and philosophy can tell us both sides, the rational/reasoned side of existence
and philosophy can tell us the irrational/emotional/feeling side of existence…….

philosophy can straddle both sides of rational vs emotional sides of existence…

we just have to open our eyes to the possibilities/the potential of what
philosophy can do………

is money/wealth/power/titles/fame really important?

no, and then answer becomes philosophy and then ism’s and ideologies…

Kropotkin

perhaps, perhaps, one of the reasons we are
so alienated and disconnected from ourselves,
from others and from the state, civilization, culture
we exist, in is, because of the nature of
our daily lives……

my life, for example, I call my life,

“the repetition of existence”

I wake up… I get ready for work…
at work, I am a checker in a supermarket…
where I spend my days, scanning in products
and typing in codes for produce…
my store, as all major supermarkets do, keeps track
of how long I spend on each transaction, they keep track
of my till and if it is short or over, they track how many customers
I go through every single day…

I average, during an 8 hour shift, dealing with between
200 and 300 customers a day… since the pandemic started,
it has been a little less…….

my day is one long repetition… I ask every single customer
“did they find everything?” I conclude with “have a nice day”
roughly 200 times a day…

I stand on my feet all day long…try that for 8 hours a day,
4 days a week…because of my back, I can only work 32 hours a week…
and I walk around 5000 steps a day doing my job…

when I go home, all I can do is sit on my couch and watch TV…
I’m too tired to do anything else after work…
then by 8:00 at night, I go to bed

those are my days…my life is on eternal replay…

my off days are spent resting and recovering from my
extremely hard job…

then to mix it up, for example, tomorrow night,
I work from 12:00 to 9:00 PM… then on the next day,
Tuesday, I work at 7:45 in the morning to 11:45 AM…
So I get 10 hours between the night shift and the next day shift…

this is quite common in the supermarket business…
quick turnaround between the night shift and the morning shift…

having done it so often, I know I will be unfunctional on Tuesday,
after my morning shift because of the quick turnaround…

so that is just another day wasted for me…

instead of doing something worth doing, I am simply recovering from
probably 5 or 6 hours sleep on Monday night…

how can I ground my life given I rarely ever have 2 days off in a row?

I mostly have split off days… this week, my off days are Sunday/today
and Thursday…

we humans, we function better when we have continuity and regularity
in our lives…how do I get any type of continuity when my working hours
can happen anytime between 6:00 AM and Midnight… my working hours and my
days off can happen anytime during the week…

my viewpoint of the world is impacted by my environment…
my working and the repetition of my life has impacted
how I view my life…my environment, in a large degree,
impacts how I view myself and my society and my culture…

the fundamental fact of human existence is that we are social
creatures…….and I feel disconnected from others socially because
of the discontinuity of my life…

At this point, I only exists for working my crazy hours…
my down time is spent recovering from those hours…

and how do I reconnect with who I am, when I don’t have
any time to spend in an engagement with who I am…

one of the things that keep us human beings sane and functional,
is our private time… the time we spend engaging our souls in
conversation…

and the only time that can happen if we aren’t kept so busy doing
all the other crap we humans are forced to do…

to discover who I am take private time… leisure time that isn’t pressured
or spent recovering from such wasted activities like work…

the human questions of existence require, demand that we
are prepared to spend time to think about these important questions…

What are we to do?

how can I contemplate the meaning of existence if I am to tired
to think? or If I am spending time recovering from work?

my working directly impacts my ability to engage in contemplation about
who we are and what is the answer to the question, “What are we to do?”

the repetition of my existence takes time away from me to spend on
the important questions of existence…

so, how does your environment help or hinder your search for
your questions of existence?

Kropotkin

I am in the midst of Nietzsche’s “Untimely Meditations”
book three, “Schopenhauer as Educator”…

as I read, several questions arise in my mind…

Who is our educators? Why are we so shallow?
Why are there no real Philosophers right now?

let us begin with the question, what are we so shallow?

most people in the modern age are shallow, having the depth
of a piece of paper…what you see is exactly what you get…

but why is the modern age so full of shallow, empty, hollow people?

it is, in part, because of the ism’s and ideologies that we hold dear……

to steal a line from Modonna, we are material people living in a
material world…

our recognition of other human beings rarely ever go beyond
the material… what kind of car do they drive? what neighborhood
do they live in? how chic is their clothes? is there hair cuts up to date?

rare if ever, do we ask, are they honest people? do they live “morally?”
are they becoming? going from animal to animal/human to finally,
human?

we don’t ask these questions because it would be “impolite”……
it would be crass to ask someone, are you something more then
just materialistic? is there any depth to you at all?
or is it all just show and tell?

maintaining appearances is really just another way of saying,
I am a modern person… interested in only maintaining
appearances…to be human means to own a fancy car,
living in a “nice” neighborhood, taking long vacations to Europe…

and maintaining appearances really avoids the questions of
existence… who am I? What am I to do? what values should I hold?

in a world of appearances, these questions don’t matter…
it isn’t about the values one holds or doesn’t hold…
it is about looking good on facebook… looking chic
and tanned……

we hold to materialism… which means what?

what does materialism really mean?

it means we hold onto material goods and we all know that
material goods are meant to be replaced quickly and often…

to have a car over 5 years old isn’t chic and it isn’t maintaining
appearances… if I haven’t remodeled my kitchen recently,
I am clearly out of date………

but these shallow and superficial signs of being modern,
being materialistic, doesn’t reach the heart of what it means
to be human……

this modern shallow materialism is a game we play…
and it isn’t meant to account for much…

but what would it mean to actually be interesting in
becoming human?

it means existence is no longer about playing a game,
the materialistic game, no, the real path of
becoming human is far more then a game…

it becomes a way of life…….

it is the most serious question we ask?

how do I become?

and that question has nothing to do with being chic or
what car I drive or what neighborhood I live in……

the question of existence is about what values I hold
and how those values impact my actions……

are my values the higher values of love, peace, charity,
hope, justice, equality……

or are my values the lower values of hate, anger, lust, greed,
vanity………

do I have any values at all?

or am I just a materialist person living in a materialistic world?

so, the next question is, who is our educators?

are we educated by shallow, vain, materialistic people?

turn on the TV, to any channel, and see our educators…
talk show hosts and the talking heads of fox news or CNN or MSNBC…

people who can only answer a question in two minutes or less…
giving materialistic answers to materialistic questions…
full of sound and fury…….

perhaps, perhaps we should ask ourselves, who should our educators be?

to whom should we pay more then lip service to?

we can use, as educators, we can use philosophers……

not by the answers they gave, by the questions they asked……

what does it mean to be human? what am I to do? what are we do to?
what should WE believe in? how do we, as individuals, relate to
the collective? the we……

what is the proper relationship between individuals, the “I”
and the collective, “WE”?

the current answer, the chic answer, is as producers
and consumers…….as buyers of goods that keep
the material world going…….

stop buying goods and the current material world collapses …….

stop creating profits and the current material world collapses…

and this is the argument of both anarchist and communist……

end the material world… but communists are all about
the material world… every decision is made with the material
world in mind………Marx himself declares that communism is a
material philosophy…fit for a material world…

there is no spirit in a strict communist world…

it is all about classes and wealth and how the state will
“wither” away…

but nothing, nothing about who we are and what it is
we are becoming……what are we to do?

to live forever in a stateless society?
nonsense… if evolution teaches us anything, is that
we must adapt and react to our environment, every single day…

the stateless society isn’t about the goal of becoming human,
of the path, the journey of going from animal to animal/human
to becoming, finally, human, all to human…

the stateless society is simply another step, another path to something
else… for we are always going somewhere, to stand still, to become
static, to forever hold still, that is the path of the death of stagnation…
we can no more choose to stand still then we can choose to fly without
wings…….

entropy tells us that we are always going in one direction or another,
either we are going toward energy or we are going to a state of entropy
which is the loss of energy…there is no such state as being static…
it violates the principle of entropy…

so who should our educators be?

to those who values are positive…

to jesus, to Gandhi, to MLK, to any who proclaims the
road into the future is a peaceful road… the path into
the future, to becoming human is the path of love
and hope and peace and charity and equality and justice…

our educators are those who practice, not preach, but practice
love and hope and charity and equality and justice and peace……

blessed are the peacemakers…

for they advocate the path of increasing energy into our system…
entropy demands that we either increase energy into our system
or we decrease the energy into the system… and to decrease means
we are one step closer to the loss of energy, the death of having no
energy……… so think of your educator as being someone who
increases energy into our systems, the positive ones…

so, who are your educators?

Kropotkin

My 3 best teachers are

Jesus
Nietzche
Khrishnamurti

But Jesus is dangerous because He demands we carry a cross and love the little children. That is reductive because our loving children means we have to think like they do, playing the games that we know change rules drastically when they are grown, and if we play their game too long, then we will believe them.

If we believe and play the games of children too long and loose sight of the real games people play, we have to be crucified, and leave the children parentless.

Khrishnamurti own as cogniscent and educational as Buddha pointing to the sad futility of Buddha’s idea of near infinite rebirth until enlightenment, conflicting with Jesus promise of getting to paradise as soon as we are crucified, but lacks Jesus’regressed love of naive realism, and trust in the father.

Nietzche reaffirms what Buddha cast out through Khrishnamurti, that reincarnation is merely a metaphor, and he rejects the ideology of pure formal dialectical purity of wisdom in favor of material manifestations of the deepest of depth psychology, where the will can overcome the veil of illusion below the level of faith, and helps to conclude that reincarnation is really the primal foundation of human reality, without which we could not deconstruct our self , simultaneously, while constricting alternate possibilities , where our children can escape from the confusion between various games we play.

thank you Meno for sharing……

there are no right or wrong answers here…

just answers…

but that leads me to the next point……

to discourage thought and thinking… we accuse those who
think and engage in thinking about the existential questions of being
which are the known questions we have faced here…

Who am I? what am I/we to do? what are I/we to hope for?
what values should I/we hold?

so, to discourage those who engage in existential questions,
we accuse them of being liberal or democratic or perhaps
anarchist or communist or even as those who engage in
sexual conduct toward goats or sheep…

we throw these labels around in hopes of silencing those
who question the established order… but that is the point,
it isn’t about the alleged answers of being liberal or being
conservative or being an anarchist… those answers are meant
to silence the questions which disturb the establishment…
and that suggest that the questions, not the answers are
important…

we often talk of objective and subjective…

so, what is objective? so, what is subjective?

I would suggest that the question that disturb society, the establishment,
civilization, questions such as, what am I/we to do? those are the
real “objective” questions… not subjective, but objective…

it doesn’t matter if the person who is being labeled is really
an anarchist or a liberal or a democrat or who “loves” goats…
that is subjective if they are or are not…

the real importance isn’t the answers, but the questions of
existence…which are objective… who am I? that is
an objective question, not a subjective question…

the person who answers an objective question with
an answer is being subjective……

we see objective and subjective as being engaged
with questions and answers, not in any other form…

questions are objective…
answers are subjective…

so accusing a person of being a “liberal” is irrelevant…
what does matter is the question that person ask…
for that question is what is objective…
because it cannot be changed or is an accidental question…

answers are subjective because they are engaged with what
can change or what is accidental… my religion is catholic…
that is an accidental answer…

questions are objective because they cannot be changed or
are engage with what is accidental…

who am I? what am I/we to do?

those are fundamental questions about existence
and thus are objective…

who is going to win the world series this year?

that answer is subjective because the answer is
changeable and accidental… it could be the Cubs or
the Giants or the Braves or the Yankee’s… those answers
are subjective, changeable, accidental…

so to accuse someone of being a anarchist to silence them
from answers important/objective questions is unnecessary…

because the answers are subjective…

but the questions of existence, they are objective…

what values should I/we hold?

the question… objective…
the answer… subjective…

Kropotkin

as I am far too tired to write a full on post,
I shall leave you with this thought…

Schopenhauer as educator…

what was Schopenhauer educating Nietzsche on?

what is the role of an educator?

so, beyond who is your educator, what did they educate you on?

what is the value/point of education? and given the state of affairs
in modern America, what is the point, value of education today?

Kropotkin

so in Nietzsche “Untimely Meditations”…

“Schopenhauer as Educator”
what was the role of Schopenhauer in Nietzsche’s education?

was Schopenhauer, a teacher as Nietzsche claimed or did Nietzsche
simply began with Schopenhauer thoughts and built his own philosophy
upon what Schopenhauer wrote?

This question of education is a fundamental one in every society…

The Greeks were obsessed by it…much of Plato
and Socrates thought was dedicated toward education…

as shown by Werner Jaeger in his groundbreaking work,

“Paideia” The ideals of Greek Culture

How does the process of education work?

how do we transmit information from one generation to another?

as I have noted before, when we are born, we are instantly placed into
a situation where we are educated. I have called this “indoctrinations”
we are indoctrinated with the values, beliefs, hopes and dreams of
our parents and our society/state and culture…
we are taught their biases, their prejudices, their habits, their
superstitions, their ism’s and ideologies……

this is education…

so I ask, is Christianity, an education?

is Buddhism an education?

if we teach our children these ism’s as the basis for how to live life,
then yes, we are using Christianity as the basis of an education…
and yes, then we are using Buddhism as the basis of an education…

what is the value of an education? we use education as a means
to be an example… education is an example…

If I walk down the street and see a person lying on the ground
after being beaten, should I intervene? The parable of the good
Samaritan tells us that we should intervene and help that person…

education is meant to tell us what to do in any given situation…
as an example…

so is democracy, an education?

is democracy, an example?

we have historical examples of thinkers using education as
an example, Kant, Spinoza, Hume for example…
take Kant for example, his Categorical imperative,

“act only according to that maxim, whereby you can,
at the same time, will it should become a universal law”

that is an example, which is education…

but who was the philosophical educator, par excellence?

why Socrates, of course…

think of what Socrates brought to the table?

and no, I am not going to help you figure that out…

now, is a scientist, an educator?

can we use a scientist, such as Newton, as an educator?

Now as a hearing impaired person, I am very aware of communication…
the steps of what happens in communication…
and the steps of education follows the exact same path as communication…

in communication, we have three steps, we have the person who communicates,
we have the message and we have the receiver of the message…

a failure at any of these three parts will prevent communication from
being successful…

and in education, we have the exact same three parts, we have
the educator, we have the message and we have the student…
and failure in education can come at any of the three parts…

so, for example, we have Jesus, he is the educator… and his message
is of love and we have the final aspect, which is the receiver,
the person who receives the message…

the failure of this communication can come at any one of the three points…
the sender, the message, the receiver…….

Now both Iambiguous and myself have both publicly stated that one of our
formative books we have read, is William Barrett, “Irrational Man”…
I list that book as one of the 5 most formative books I have ever read…

and so we have our three aspects of communication…
we have the sender, William Barrett, we have the message, the book,
and we have the receiver, the reader of said book…

what is the education we received from that book?

but I must say, I had some friends read this exact same book
and they said, so, what, the book meant nothing to them…
it was nothing more then a dry boring read to them…

and yet it changed my entire intellectual life…

how does a book that has dramatically changed both iam
and myself, not change other readers?

the role of education can only come within a certain context
within the reader, the person who reads the book…

I was ready to hear the message of Barrett, my prior education
and life, was in preparation to hear Barrett’s message…

the communication of the book, “Irrational Man” had a willing
receiver in me… I was ready to hear that message…
but we are not always ready to hear a message given,
we are not always ready to be educated……

which leads us to another point, those who think they have all the
answers given by an ism or an ideology… in other words, those
who believe that the bible is the one and only answer to every question,
will not be ready to hear the message of Barrett’s because they believe
that they already have the answer…… at no point have I felt I had the
one and only answer to the questions of life… this uncertainty that
I didn’t already have the answers worked for me because that made
me ready to hear the message of the “Irrational Man”

if I already thought I had the answers to the questions, the book
wouldn’t have meant a thing to me… communication requires
the willingness to admit that we don’t have the answers already…

Barrett’s books isn’t about answers, it is about the possibilities…
it is possible that we don’t have the answers already…
and Barrett’s book addresses those possibilities…
not the answers, the possibilities ………

to continue on…

in a society rife with alienation and discontentment, what education
or examples should we reach for?

given our alienation and discontentment, should we use Darwin or Freud
or perhaps Shakespeare as educators?

can anyone really speak about the question “to be or not to be” with the
same commitment that Hamlet spoke of?

is Hamlet an example or an educator?

this is the function of Art… to be an example or to be used
as an educator………we can see from Hamlet the question of
continued existence, as an example for us to emulate…

Art gives us possibilities, gives us examples and can be used
as education……….

so we have other ism’s and ideologies that can be used
as examples, education……

for example, is capitalism education?

let us understand the message of capitalism…

capitalism promotes as part of its message,
greed, lust, selfishness, self-indulgence,
self-centeredness………

is that really the education we want to deliver to
our children or grand-children?

is that our example of human existence that we want to
continue as our legacy?

We engage in education today and what do we learn in trying to understand
education today?

we seek to make people little and small……. for example
we don’t teach grand and big examples, like history or literature anymore…

why not?

look at the point of education today… it isn’t to build up better people
or to make us cultured human beings… the point of, the example of
education is to create workers and producers and “good citizens”…
and we don’t need the examples of great human beings in becoming
workers and producers and “good citizens”… the state goal in education
is to create better workers, not better human beings… and that goal makes
all the difference in the world…

in my job in a factory lite existence, what values do I need?

is knowing history or literature or the potential greatness in
human beings, going to make me a better worker?

nope… and that is the point of education today…

not to create human beings engaged in values and rising to become
human beings…

no, the society wants and engages in education of making people
drones and better workers and “good citizens”… society doesn’t want nor
is engaged in improving the soul of its members…it wants workers
and those high minded ideals interferes with the stated goal of
our American society to create profits/money……

thus we constantly promote specific American idea’s like
the soldier as educator… and what does a soldier do?

they follow orders and they are willing to sacrifice their lives
for society… this martial example gives us what America
wants from its education of its citizens…to be a good worker
who is willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the society,
the state…….

and if I am not willing to follow these example, then I
am declared to be a traitor, Un-American, a bad citizen,
an anarchist, a liberal…

I reject such educators as examples such as soldiers
and “good citizens” who only exists to be
workers and producers and “good citizens”…
within society, within a state…

I don’t believe such examples, such education helps the society
nor does it help the state nor does it help the individual finding
his/her place within society…….

the only people such examples/such education helps are those
who own the means of production… the 1% that own America…

for everyone else, such education fails to bring about what is
most important which is the journey to become human…
not just animal/human, but to become fully human…

we praise as the highest example of education business leaders
and soldiers and “good citizens”

we should no longer praise such examples…we should in fact,
despise and ridicule such examples of educators…

for they don’t help us in our journey to become who we are…

for those educators as examples don’t aid us in finding out our
true possibilities… what is truly possible for us…

if we are only acceptable to society as workers and producers,
then there is no need for education to be about literature
or science or even philosophy because those skills don’t make
us better workers or better producers or better “citizens” willing
to sacrifice ourselves in the name of capitalism…

all that is required is job skills and that is exactly what
education is about today… getting job skills to be able to
make a living… which doesn’t promote us as human beings
or as beings with possibilities…

the point of education today is to make us good workers,
good producers and “good citizens”… and that education
has failed us and our society……

we can tell this by the amount of alienation and discontentment
we see in our society/state today…

our education/our education doesn’t fill our soul…

we are simply trained to be workers
and not to be human beings…

so, what is your need for an education?

what are you becoming, a good worker or a good human being?

Kropotkin