a new understanding of today, time and space.

Just before I went on this site right now, I paid
our cable bill…because of some extra money
came in from work… some bonus money due
to us from the signing of our new contract……

and my wife and I have been talking about what to do with
that extra money…how do spend it?
we have spent some time on it and we have worked
out that we are going to pay some more bills and debts we have…

you might ask, rightfully so, what in God’s name does this have to
do with philosophy?

nothing and that is the point…

we are so engaged in our paying off bills and seeking out new experiences
like going to the newest restaurant in town or planning that vacation you have
put off because of the worldwide pandemic

and that is the point… we are so engaged in our daily lives we “forget” to
engage in the questions of existence…

if I am busy paying bills or working or planning vacations, when do I have
time to think about the questions of existence…“who are we”?
“what are we to do?” “What are we to hope for?”

the sheer busyness of existence prevents me from engaging in
the real questions of what it means to be human……

if I am too busy to think about the questions of existence, I
am no longer engaging in the quest to become human, all too human.

I am stuck in the animal side of existence…

I have a mother and three sisters, a wife and a daughter…

I have seen what women do when they are bored… they start doing
things like cleaning the house or they start doing laundry…

they just can’t sit still and just think…

if they are doing something, they call it wasting time…

If I am doing something other then just thinking about existence,
I am wasting time…

that cleaning and washing clothes and moping the floor…
that busy work prevents me from doing the important work
of trying to make sense of my/ours existence…

but one might argue, that without cleaning, the house will get dirty…

and frankly, I don’t care… it isn’t important to me, it is busy work that
prevents me from thinking about this important thing we call life…

so what busyness keeps you from engaging in philosophical thought?

Kropotkin

a crime has been committed…

we must search for the nature of the crime…

our evidence:

a confession…

The madman:

"Have you not heard of that madman who lit a candle in the bright morning
hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!-
as many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he
provoked much laughter. Has he gone lost? ask one. Did he lose his way like a child?
Ask another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage?
Immigrated? -Thus they yelled and laughed.

 The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. 

Where is God? He cried, I will tell you. We have killed him-you and I.
All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this?"…

indeed, how did we do this foul act?

Just the same way that we murdered the previous gods of man…
Ra and Thor and Apollo and Anubis and Set and Enki among the many
Gods that have been slaughter in human history…

These Gods die because they no longer meet or fit our needs…
recall we have just as strong emotional, psychological needs
as we have physical needs…

we must kill those gods that no longer meet our emotional needs……

the Cristian faith is no longer meeting our needs, as an ism or an ideology,
and it has been murdered……

what we the event that caused that murder?

the various revolutions, the scientific, political and philosophical
and the industrial revolutions…those events have made it impossible
for people to have faith in the same God as the simple Shepard’s of
the Middle East believed in…

the world and everything in the world is making a journey from
simple to complex… it is the nature of things… and that complexity
has forced us to change, adapt to a new vision of reality/environment…

the old ways, the old gods no longer can meet our needs after
the various revolutions…

we are seeking, but have we found?

and thus we are having a spiritual crisis……

the time between gods… when the old gods leave
the land and before the new gods come to take over……

you could replace the word “god” with the word “ism”
and have the exact same meaning……

for belief in God is nothing more then a belief in ism’s and ideologies…

there is discontentment in the land and that discontentment is caused
by the lack of an viable ism or ideology that we can turn to……

democracy? we haven’t failed democracy, democracy has failed us…
by being bought and sold like cheap linen…

we haven’t failed our ism’s, they have failed us…….
and we must seek new ism and ideologies that can’t be
bought and sold to benefit others………

the new ism and ideologies must benefit us or they
have no value……

and here lies the nature of our spiritual crisis……
we have no ism or ideology that hasn’t been spoiled
by cheap commerce of capitalism and nationalism
and other failed ism’s and ideologies…

not only must we have our physical needs met, food, water, shelter,
education, health care, but we must have our emotional and psychological
needs met, love, belonging, safety/security, esteem…

but we have another psychological need that must be met…

that need is a need to have working system of ism’s and ideologies
that allow a person a compass or guidance to make their way in life…

we have no such working system of ism and ideology that allows
us to make sense of who we are and what is the point of life
and what are we to do?

we don’t have that and thus we have a spiritual crisis…

the loss that prompted our current spiritual crisis is the loss
of god and the loss of the ism’s and ideologies that keep people
engaged in what their life meant…

the age old ism’s and ideologies of the world that existed before
the various revolutions meant that man had a guide, a compass,
a means to understanding the world and their place in it…

we no longer have those guides… we are spiritual at loss because
we no longer have those old and familiar ism and ideologies that keep
human beings grounded and aware in the world…….

the old ism’s and ideologies were destroyed during the various revolutions
and we no longer have a guide, a mission statement of what it means to be human…

I cannot whine or cry about something that happened many, many years ago…
my task now is to find us a new mission statement about what it means
to be human……

we can end the modern spiritual crisis by a creation of a new mission
statement about what it means to be human and what is the goal of
being human…… what is it we are trying to do? and what will it take for
us to go from being animal/human to becoming fully human?

a new mission statement about what it means to be human……

a new ism…….

to end the ongoing spiritual crisis that has engulfed the world…

god is not the answer… a new ism that tells us what it means to
be human is the answer…

what is your mission statement?

Kropotkin

ok, so let us think about this……

we know that Nietzsche wrote about the “death of god”
which is also the “death of the ism’s and ideologies” that
help human beings understand their place in the world…

so Nietzsche wrote his “Gay science” in 1881…
so, what was the result of the spiritual crisis that
was clearly going on……

this is one area that confuses people… the loss of ism/ideologies/god
doesn’t create an immediate impact… it takes time, years in fact…
we can see the impact with the increased tensions and problems that
occur after the turn of the century…1900…

the spiritual crisis of the modern age impacts every major event
of the 20th century… from World War One to the Great Depression
to the Second World War to the long war of the Cold war to
the 60’s which was an attempt to solve the spiritual crisis…
the search, the seeking of the 60’s is an clear attempt to answer
the questions left by the spiritual crisis…

and to this day, we are still suffering from this spiritual crisis
that is over a hundred years old……

we can think of the Nazi’s for example as an attempt to answer
the modern age spiritual crisis with Nazism being the answer
and we can see communism as being another attempt to
answer our spiritual crisis and we can see the busyness
and great effort of capitalism as being another attempt to
answer the questions left by our spiritual crisis…

“We are we to believe in”

if we don’t believe in the Christian god? what are we to believe in if we
don’t hold to the old ism’s of monarchy and the King and the absolutism
of the monarchy? What are we to believe in when science and the political
revolution took out the old beliefs that rules the world for a thousand years?

before the industrial revolution, 95% of all people on earth, lived
on the land, being farmers, the lives of most people were driven
by agriculture and its needs…

that was lost and we don’t have an answer to the answers
offered to us by the third revolution in our existence……

from hunter-gatherer to the farmer/agriculture living
and today, we have a new way of life…

the hunter-gatherer existence lasted for a million years
the agriculture lifestyle lasted for 10,000 years
and then our new way of life which took over in less then
250 years… notice the speed in which the new way of life
has taken over…have we human had enough time to process
our new way of life?

have we found our new isms that answer the questions that
exists because we are living a new way of life?

we have new experiences of existence, our modern, urban lifestyle…

our spiritual crisis comes because we haven’t yet adapted to or
understood our new place in the universe…
and after 10,000 years of our agriculture life, we now engage in a new
form of existence… have we adapted yet?

no, and we can see now how we have killed god…

because our new way of life, our new existence doesn’t allow
room or space for a god based upon the old agriculture way of life……

our existence is difference and so our ism’s and ideologies and gods
must change and adapt to our new existence… and thus we are suffering
from a spiritual crisis…

the rise of fascism and Nazism and Trumpism and other dictatorships
answers to the questions rise because people have yet adapted to
or changed their isms and ideologies to meet the new reality/environment
that exists today…

the rise of IQ45 is a direct example of the spiritual crisis that fills
the land……

if we had faith and belief in the old ism’s and ideologies, we wouldn’t
need to find our faith in Trumpism……

it is the result of the loss of faith in the old ism’s and ideologies
that created room for dictatorships that exists all over the world……

our spiritual crisis has created the many world wide crisis of the last
120 years…….

as Mulder said, “I want to believe”

In what shall you believe in?

Kropotkin

as I have noted before, one of the primary needs of
a human being is education…

now, we “moderns” have misunderstood exactly what it means
in terms of being educated…

Our education begins the very day we are born……

we begin to learn that very first day…

we experience things, such as cold and soft and hard…
but we don’t have the words to label it as such……

childhood is about labeling things…

this is hot, when referring to something hot…
this is cold, when referring to something cold,
this is hard and this is soft and this is mom and this is dad……

education in our very early years is simply learning to name things…

this is a dog, this is a cat, this is a tree, this is a stove…stay away from
the stove because it is hot…this is a TV… this is the floor, this is a door…

our childhood is spend learning the names of things…

another goal of education is to indoctrinate children…

as I have gone over time and again, we indoctrinate children
with our beliefs… America the great is an indoctrination…
going to church is an indoctrination…prayer is an indoctrination…

the third goal of education in America is to train children to
become workers…

we have removed some basic educational methods by
removing such educational ideals as Art, history, social science…
we have kept that which a child can make a living from…

in other words, if we train children to become factory lite workers
like me, they don’t need to know art or history or social science…
factory lite workers only need to have a moderate understanding
of math and counting and enough social skills to keep customers
happy…that’s it… if monkeys could count out change, I would
be out of a job…

but I maintain that we fail our children when we only educate
them to become workers……

we must education children to become human beings…….

what does it mean to be human? now the Arts and literature
and history become important… to what end are we educating
children?

what is needed?

what we need is a new “Enlightenment”…
not one that tries to attack the old ways, the old isms
and ideologies…

no, that isn’t what enlightenment means…

the very term of enlightenment means coming to a realization
of what it means to be human…

it is a positive, coming to understand something, not to deny
something that was the original intention of the enlightenment of
Voltaire…

the original enlightenment was about attacking the old forms
of oppression, the church and the state……

but and this is important, the actual engagement of enlightenment
is about some understanding of what it means to be human…

this new enlightenment is our understanding that we are in a journey
from animal, to animal/human to becoming, fully human…

we can give children the tools they need to engage with enlightenment
but we cannot actually create any sort of enlightenment within them…
that process is within us, individual and separate, apart from other
engagements with what it means to be enlighten…

I can walk the horse to the water, but I can’t make him drink…

and the same can be said about enlightenment…

we can walk the child all the way to the water (enlightenment)
but we can’t make them drink…

the new path of enlightenment is not about some agenda against
something but a path toward something…

the goal is no longer to train children to become workers…

but to lead children to become human beings……

and the entire Raison d’etre of the modern world,

creating workers and consumers…

that is no longer is the reason/goal for what it means to be human…….

we are not meant to be workers, but we are meant to be human beings…

so let us act upon that goal… how do we become human, fully human?

we must change the entire point/goal of education if we are to
achieve our goal of creating human beings, ones that are not
animal/human, but fully human……

to become human, we must return to the Arts, to poetry, to
literature, to painting, to the many manner of creation that
exists…to path to becoming human lies in our act of creation…
of ART and the only way we can reach this new goal is to
create a new enlightenment… in which we no longer hold
to the old paradigm that we find our true nature in work…
that work is uplifting and work is noble and work defines who
we are…the new enlightenment rejects these notions that work
is anything more then a means to lower us to animals…

enlightenment means we discover the path to becoming…

human… all too human…

Kropotkin

according to my handy, dandy dictionary…

Enlightenment: the action of enlightening or the
state of being enlightened:

the action or stat of attaining or having attained
spiritual knowledge or insight… in particular
(in Buddhism) that awareness which
frees a person from the cycle of rebirth…

as I have noted, whatever an individual can experience,
is also communal/community experience…

we can experience enlightenment both individually
and collectively………

and because it is communal, collective, we can
discover what it means to be human, not just individually,
as workers or consumers but as human beings…

we are social beings and an engagement with becoming
enlightened must also be in terms of being social
and communal…

the original enlightenment motto was: Sapere aude….

Dare to think for yourself. Dare to know…

but to know what?

and what was one going to do with any knowledge we might
attain?

the original enlightenment failed to include operating instructions
as to what to do once we have our knowledge…

“dare to think” in regards to what?

what was the point of our gaining new knowledge?

and what was the point as to “dare to think for yourself?”

we need to give people a reason to think, because on their own,
people will rather die then try to think…….

what is the incentive for people to attempt a personal
enlightenment? to become who they are?

and against something isn’t enough, it has to be for something,
not just against something like the state or the church
or the culture or the society…….

what are we for? instead of what are we against?

we can be for the positive values of existence…

love, hope, peace, charity, justice, and a thousand other
positive values… all we have to do is engage with those
positive values… enlightenment can just mean we become
aware of, and engaged with positive values instead of
engaging in negative values…

the path, the journey to becoming human lies with the
positive values of existence… and becoming enlightened
is one way of becoming aware of this…

becoming enlightened means becoming aware of…

and every step of becoming enlightened, leads to
another step along the way…

take the first step and stop and think…

what does it mean to be human?

Kropotkin

this much I know to be true…

that human beings are social creature…
we cannot exist alone…
every question I can ask, can be asked both
individually and collectively…

that we human beings cannot avoid suffering…
it is a much a part of existence as breathing and eating…
so instead of trying to avoid suffering,
one should learn to accept it…

that the point of existence is to discover and fulfill our
possibilities…to become who we are……

that the ideologies and ism’s that lasted for over a thousand years
are no longer viable…that the modern complexities of our urban,
industrial society with it vast number of people have overwhelmed
the pre-industrial ism’s and ideologies……the political ism’s of monarchy
and nobles and the static state can no longer exists…that we cannot
hold onto outdated economic theories like capitalism…

that we are a people, culture that is in search of ism’s and ideologies
that match our current situation… I hope that we become the first
culture that says no to gods and yes to people…….

that we finally engage in working toward a future that includes all of us…
the future doesn’t happen by accident… it must be worked for, fought for,
dreamt of and engaged with…every decision we make today, impacts and
helps create the future of tomorrow…

that the only way we humans become who we are is by the simply step
of becoming aware… know thyself…examine our lives…examine our values…

and one more truth: that that is no one, unifying truth that covers all…
the search for a single, unifying truth is doomed to failure…
we have as many truths as we have human beings…
I have my truths and you have yours…

these are some of my truths… what are your truths?

Kropotkin

the question people ask are simple questions:

what is the meaning of life?
what is the point?

let us say that there is not point, no meaning to life…
many people will panic and decide that having no point in life,
nullifies and negate their lives……

but I say unto you… the opposite happens…

without a fix and set meaning to life, where life has no point,
actually frees you, liberates you……

because there is no set, fixed meaning to life, we can
make life be what we want it to be…

I can become who I want to be because there is not any meaning or
point to life…

I can become who I am when there is no meaning to life……

instead of some artificial and false meaning to life, I can
work out what is my meaning to life and because it is mine,
I am, perhaps for the first time in my life, authentic and real…

to find out there is no meaning or point to life isn’t the end of life,
no, it is just the beginning of life… we are free to become… whatever…

Kropotkin

Autonomous:
A. having the right or power of self-government.
B. untaken or carried on without outside control, self-contained
C. existing or capable of existing independently
D. responding, reacting, or developing independently of the whole…

much of the original enlightenment worked around this idea
of being autonomous…especially Kant…

to be an autonomous figure outside of the authorities of
the time, the church, the state, the society…

we have concerns being autonomous today because we
have more forces to worry about…
we can add the media and culture, work………

in our time, we cannot be physically autonomous……
we are so connected and interconnected that we can’t even
if we tried, to become autonomous (outside) of society/state…

but we can be autonomous in our mental/psychological/emotional
state…we can work on being mentally autonomous from the
modern state which is more and more turning into a police state…….

we can free ourselves from this by our emancipation from the
indoctrinations of our childhood… we can become free by
a mental emancipation from the myths, habits, prejudice, superstitions,
biases of our modern age… these includes the myths of a god, of
America the great, of nationalism, of the prejudice against people
for their accidental traits of color, race, creed, sexual orientation…

I cannot be free of our modern society in terms of my physical needs,
to meet my need for food, water, shelter, health care, education…
I must engage with society and the state…
I must engage with my fellow human beings to met
my needs of love, safety/security, belonging, esteem…

but where does autonomy fit into this complex web of needs, both
physical and emotional/psychological?

By knowing that we must engage with society to met our primary physical
and emotional/psychological needs… but we can also be in control of
who we are… we can rise above our indoctrinations and that gives
us autonomous/independence from society/the state……

by holding onto values and beliefs that I have worked through, not
given by society/state, I am in control of my values, I can live within
the values I choose, not live with values given to me by my family,
the state, the church, the media and society…….

my engagement with my values gives me independence or autonomy from
the forces wishing to dictate to me what I believe in…

I can become autonomous mentally, emotionally, psychological,
philosophically……

I am autonomous when I engage with the values I have created or values
I hold to be the highest values regardless of the values the state/society/culture/church
wants me to hold…

my engagement with my values, not the states or the society or the church or
the media values, my values…and then I am being autonomous……….

how do we reach this point?

once we begin our reevaluation of values which means we subject the values
we hold to testing and reevaluation and see if they are really our values or, or
if they are the values we were indoctrinated with in our childhood and within
our education…

“I hold these truths to be self-evident”

not the states values, not the society values, not the church values,
but my values, my truths……

the new enlightenment requires, demands that we engage with what it means
to be human and what does it take to become human, who we are………

our current engagement with the state is all about us being workers and consumers,
that must end if we are to find out who we really are……

is being autonomous the highest possibility for us humans?

no, it is just another step along the way…

so what is the next step? who knows, I for one have no idea…
but we can find out by our engagement with what it means to be human…

Kropotkin

One of my plans was to provide a reduced dependence on humanity.
Through non-rent / reduced-rent.
Then all you’d need is food and drink.
We can try to make those things on our own also.

Freedom-to, and freedom-from.

The problem, it seems,
is that few people are ready for this.
So it would be difficult.

However, thank you for your post.
You seem to be reviewing ideas that i have also tried to review in my own way.

Well put.

I have my usual reservations of course but this encompasses a frame of mind that allows any particular individual considerably more options in their life. As opposed to those who insist that not only is there an overarching meaning to life but that they have come to embody it. Meaning that their options revolve solely around doing either the right or the wrong thing.

Of course in believing this it becomes the foundation upon which their comfort and consolation rests. No small thing. But their options are no less circumscribed [even circumvented] by subscribing to one or another rendition of The Way.

God or No God.

Peter, John-

How could we get to the point where we would avoid paying rent?

That is now up to 50% of the cost of living wages.

Another 15-20% goes for transportation

Leaving about 30% for food, medical, dental, insurances, retirement, entertainment, cosmetics and hair care, travel, and clothes’ purchase and cleaning.

A lot of people would resent any help here, for they own their own homes, and pay only taxes and utilities.

Would free universal 'projects be the answer?

I
I have never thought about it in these terms, only with the memory of commune-all living, as in flashbacks and dreams that occasionally come through.

I must interject, inadvertently, since I believe now, more than ever, there are at this point in the American experience, some really great potential opportunities for tremendous societal changes.

Ideally we could own something, then not have to pay as much rent for owning it.

I was thinking more in line with reasonable universal reduction in rents, with rent control across the board.

Here in. Ca its called chapter 8.
Extremely hard to qualify for. And even after that there is a very long waiting list.

this thread is open to all… feel free to offer up your possibilities…

I shall continue on…

I wonder why we don’t honor or even have anything resembling
what the ancient Greeks called “Sages”… Wise men who educated us…

now this isn’t an expert… that is something different…
we have expert on virtually everything under the sun…
but we don’t have anything like a wise man or a Sage……
or even someone we might call an educator……

why is that???

I have named my educators… Colin Wilson, Friedrich Nietzsche,
Walter Kaufman, William Barrett, Goethe, Kazantzakis, Pierre Hadot,
and they are my private educators, but do we have educators that
exist for all of us?

who stands as an educator, a teacher for us all?

I would submit that in America, we have a shortage of
educators for all of us…

We might include Washington (I cannot tell a lie)
and then Lincoln (with malice toward none, with charity for all)
FDR (All we have to fear is fear itself)
MLK (Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “what are you doing for others”?)
and a second quote,
(injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere)
third quote (the ultimate measure of a man is not where he
stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands
at times of challenge and controversy)

what we need more of is public educators, sages, wise men…
those who guide us and advise us and educates us……

Kropotkin

Nietzsche often wrote about the concept of being a “good German”…
versus being a “good European”…….

I ask you, what does it mean to you, (and granted not all of you
are American)so what does it mean to you to be a “good”
whatever country you are from…

for me, being an American, what does it mean to be a “good American?”

and I ask, is that really the highest value we are trying to go for?
is being a “good American” really the highest possibility for us to
achieve?

I would say no…… the highest value or possibility to reach now is to
be a “good human being”…

the question revolves around this question of “good”?
what does it mean to be good?

as the concept of “good” is based on situational ethics, which means
ethics/morality depends upon the situation…

what is good in one situation isn’t good in another situation……

to be a “good” solider in war means to be able to kill a lot of the enemy…
but to kill a lot of people outside of war is “bad” even perhaps evil,
but we authorize the state to kill/execute people all the time…….
and that is suppose to be “good”? so killing depending upon the context
can be either “good” or “bad”?

so I submit that being a “good” American is in violation of being
a “good” human being…

a “good” American is about jobs, the GDP… Gross domestic Product…
achieving the “American way of life” which is the house in the burbs,
wife, two kids and a dog name spot and a cat name muffin…
this drive to be a “good American” means achieving a job with a high salary
and a new car every year, vacations to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon…

I hold that to be a “good” American means to be a “bad human being”
we must hold to value that don’t use up resources like coal, oil and
wood and other valuable resources…I would rather be a “good human being”
over being a “bad American” ……

where concern over my fellow human beings is greater then any possible
promotions or raises or titles I might get…

where I raise to a higher level of understanding my relationship with
other human beings… it is no longer enough to put my needs
and desires and wants first… that is a requirement of such ism’s
as capitalism and rugged individualism to work……… capitalism
demands greed and lust as a primary driver/motivation so it can exist…

no, we say no to such motivations/drivers… what drives me is something
more then just making money and owning fancy cars or houses or TV sets…

my concern becomes, what can I do to help and engage with my fellow
human beings?

some isms’ and ideologies are only concerned with the few, ism’s like
nationalism and capitalism and rugged individualism and fascism
and dictatorships and militarism (America second favorite ism)
and imperialism…

I reject any ism, any ism that is only concern with the few or some,
or that is limited to the a minority…

an ism must reflect us all, or it doesn’t stand for any…

thus I reject such isms as Catholicism and Buddhism
and even communism……

communism is a materialist ism/ideology… and a materialistic
ideology isn’t concern with people, only with the form of
materialism such as “dialectical materialism” ……

for in communism the belief that political and historical events
result from the conflict of social forces and are interpretable as a
series of contradictions and their solutions…….

the focus is upon those social forces and the conflict… not on human beings
and their needs and wants and desires even if the social forces are driven
by human beings and their needs…

so what does it mean to be a “good” American, (in my case but what about
your case)

I would rather be a “good Human being” instead of being a “good American”

and what say you?

Kropotkin

we live in a complicated and complex universe…
so why do many demand simple answers?

an example, MAGA… make America great again…

really? how does “making America great again” solve
any issues? in fact, what is exactly involved in "Making
America great again? which values or actions will
“make America great again?”

How does a simple and plain slogan like “MAGA”
make America great again?

it doesn’t … and anyone who buys this nonsense clearly has
no idea of the complex and complicated nature of the modern world…

in fact, most of the idea’s of MAGA make life far more difficult and
tough… for example, eliminating immigration into the U.S…
SO, who exactly is going to go out into the fields and pick
our crops? I don’t see loads of American’s rushing out to work in
the fields and pick these crops……

all over the country, our restaurants and other such retail
establishments require such help as illegal aliens to
continue the business because these business pay so badly
that they cannot attract anyone else…….

the real problem of America isn’t illegal immigration but
the degrading and disrespectful attitude toward the poorly paid workers
in America…we pay them shit and offer them nothing in the way
of respect or appreciation in the fact that they keep America running…
as shown by our ongoing pandemic in which the lowest paid people
in America has keep America going…

jobs in America has nothing to do with any sort of “dignity”
of work or the respect of people or bring people self-respect……

you want to make MAGA, pay people their worth when working such
jobs as in bars, restaurants, retail, the grocery industry……
if you want to make MAGA, then you have to pay people a living wage
and benefits… one might argue then business can’t make a profit…
so the reality is this, it is more important to make profits then it is
to have a wage that one can live on…

and that is considered to be the American way… but it fails
the test, the higher test of being a “good human being”…

we cannot babble crap about the dignity of work until we actually
treat workers with dignity… and with wages that allows them to
not only just survive but to prosper… we don’t need jobs that
we only keep because we must have health insurance…
and how many jobs don’t have health insurance?

to treat people with dignity means we offer them health insurance
even if they don’t have a job… we mustn’t force people to hold jobs
just to be able to have health insurance……

that is barbaric and not being a “good human being”

so the answers of a complicated and complex universe lies
in our engagement with making people better human beings,
then being better Americans……

to make better human beings means we no longer educate people
to become workers or consumers or producers… we no longer treat
people in an economic sense, but we treat people to become
better people…we educate people to become better human beings
with an engagement/education in Art, history, literature, paintings,
with leisure to think and contemplate what it means to be a human being…
we must, must encourage people to actually pause and contemplate
their existence to free people to become who they are…

to treat human beings as human beings instead of disposable workers……

if you want to MAGA, you have to begin with the basic concept of
treating human beings as human beings… ……

and this is not the only or final solution, it is just one of many possible
solutions to MAGA…

so how would you make America great again?

Kropotkin

as today is the last day of my vacation, 10 rather lovely
days off, tomorrow I must go back to work…
thus you shall see less of me as of tomorrow…
I shall write as time allows…

I had hope to finish “The Gay Science” by Nietzsche today,
but I may not be able to get there…I had hoped to start
Zarathustra by today…but I shall keep on plugging on in
my attempt to engage with philosophy from the beginning to
today… Nietzsche is my introduction into “Modern” philosophy……

I hope to see where Nietzsche takes philosophy to…

I am reading it like I have never read N. before…

the “Gay Science” is the first book of his works that actually fits
what Nietzsche is all about…he has his consolidating idea in which
to work his thoughts about… and that centering idea is morality…

and I can see after 120 years of thinking about morality after Nietzsche,
we still don’t have any understanding at all about what is and isn’t morality…

and ignorance is all we have to show after decades of the modern world
emergence…

Kropotkin

question? why are there no great artist working today?

answer: perhaps it is because we no longer attempt to
become a human being… perhaps we negated art when
we made becoming a worker and a producer more important
then finding out what it means to be human…

our journey determines what becomes possible……

if our journey is small and has a set destination, then
we cannot expand any further beyond that…
but if we open up our journey to see what
is possible for us, then we can learn to create
art and maybe even great ART…

what are you trying to achieve?

if you are try to sell yourself short and become
a great American, by seeking titles and wealth
and fame and material goods, you have no chance
of becoming a great human being and a great artist…

only when you seek the higher goal can you achieve the higher goal…

seek the small goal/destination, and you can only achieve a small goal…

such small goals as getting raises, getting a promotion, seeking titles
and wealth will only get you a meager goals and destination…

such a paltry achievement as wealth will negate your possibilities
of becoming human…

become someone who creates or attempts to reach for the sun…

become Daedalus or Icarus!

to seek becoming human means to reach beyond your current
possibilities and reach for that which beyond you right now…

dare to fly too close to the sun…….

or dare to become a creator… which is even more dangerous
then flying too close to the sun…

don’t play it safe… explore who you are which means exploring your
possibilities… which means it isn’t enough to be a worker or a producer
or a consumer…….the possibilities available to us Americans is sadly
lacking… become something above you… dare to greatness……
rock the boat…… make people uncomfortable… challenge
who you are and challenge who they are…

become Socrates and not a “good American”

Kropotkin

I have a few hours before I go to work…

a question has been bothering me…

Nietzsche idea of the “herd” mentality…

what exactly does this mean?

I recall during my Nietzschean days where I thought I was,
as all young men believe, that I was an Ubermensch, that I was
above the “herd” and I was superior…

the problem, one of many, is how do we know we are “superior”?

how are we to measure this “superior” nature?

How am a I to know what is the “herd” mentality, so I could
know what was “superior?”

so after a few days thought, I “think” this is the solution to
the problem of what is the herd?"

as is known, we are born, then immediately, we surrounded by
indoctrinations…for the most part, education is indoctrination…
as least in America…there is a god, America is number one,
capitalism is the greatest system on earth and other indoctrinations…
recall no proof is ever offer for these indoctrinations…
they are to be taken on faith…

at some age, we human beings might engage in some self evaluation,
we might begin the process of examining our values, to sort out
the values we were indoctrinated with and which values we actually
believe…this reevaluation of values is crucial for us to becoming
autonomous beings…

this reevaluation of value is what sorts out the autonomous individuals
and the “herd”…

the “herd” are those who never complete or begin a reevaluation of values…
the “herd” simple accepts the indoctrinations of their youth and that is their
values… America is number one… that indoctrination is a value…
a person who is part of the “herd” never doubts or challenges this “truth”…

the Ubermensch is the person who engages in their doubts and challenges
the values, the indoctrinations of their youth…

so the battle to rise above the “herd” is really a battle fought within,
it has nothing to do with any type of engagement with controlling others
or some type of power over others… the power one has is the examination
and reexamination of values that one has… what values are truly your values?
and what values were indoctrinated within you?

that is the difference between one is a Ubermensch and one who is
in the “herd”…

a reexamination of values that leads one to knowing which values are
really your values and which values you hold were indoctrinated by the
state/media/church/ society/ culture?

the difference between the “herd” and being an Ubermensch is
a battle fought between one’s ears…….

the engagement with values is what determines being an Ubermensch
and being part of the “herd”…

Kropotkin

This idea of being an autonomous person as the highest ideal
of being a person, is an enlightenment ideal…
and this was brought forth most clearly by Kant,
the last of the Enlightenment philosophers…

Nietzsche himself declared that his goal was to become
an Autonomous person…holding his own values and
then following those values… that is what is meant by
being autonomous…having one’s own values and then
following those values…

the problem I see is the problem of morality/ethics…
morality/ ethics is a collective issue… one person cannot
hold separate morality/ethics… we are a collective…
we are social creatures that can only exists collectively…

and morality/ethics is the grease that allows us to
coexists together… without any morality/ethics to guide
us, then how would we be able to coexists together?

systems, all systems have rules of some sort… we may not be able to
see or understand all the rules, but to become and hold being a system,
that system must have rules…

and human beings are no different because we to are a collection
of systems… my body is a collection of systems and my body
exists within a wide variety of systems…and every single one of
those systems have rules…

morality/ethics is just another set of rules for
how we are to engage with each other……

right now, in this very time period, we are engaged in
the transition between rules set up by a higher being,
god and rules set up by human beings, for human beings……

or said another way…

morality of the people, for the people, by the people…
instead of
morality of god, for god, by god…

this was Nietzsche goal… to create morality/ethics without any
influence of god… morality/ethics of man decided by man
and engaged with man…

the history of human beings tells us that every single moral or
ethical theory has been based on god… the bottom line of
morality has been the presence of god in some fashion…

but, as Nietzsche said, god is dead and we have killed him…
and what does that do for morality/ethics?

we must compose morality/ethics based upon some
aspect of human existence, not god or any type of religious basis…

this is in essence, a collective reevaluation of values…
we scrutinize who we are and what is possible and from
that evaluation, we can set some basis for human beings
having morality/ethics… based upon human values……

so should human morality/ethics be based upon the higher
positive values of love, hope, justice, peace, honesty, charity…
just to name a few positive values……

or should human morality/ethics be based upon the lower, negative
values of hate, anger, lust, greed, violence, among the many
possible negative values we can hold as the human value that
we might base our morality/ethics upon?

how do we collectively decide upon the values that we will base
our human morality/ethics upon?

and that is your question…

upon what value would you base all human morality/ethics upon?

one of the higher values or upon one of the lower values?

what value would you use to base all of human morality upon?

Kropotkin