a new understanding of today, time and space.

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

is the goal of human beings to become “Autonomous?”

yes… and no…

we should aim for being autonomous beings based on
our reevaluation of values where we find “our values”
not the values indoctrinated into us, but values we find
as being genuine values that we become

and then as with everything, being autonomous is just
another step along the way…the process of becoming human
lies, in part, with becoming autonomous and then overcoming
that…

there is no final step in becoming… it is a process and by definition,
processes never ends…

we are simply a step to something else…

animal to animal/human to human and then… perhaps
superhuman?

and then?

the road is wide open ….

Kropotkin

I am pretty much average height, 5 foot 8…
about 205, a little overweight there…not much though…

However I cannot wear clothes for someone who is taller then 6 feet,
or someone who is 300 pounds… those clothes won’t fit…
I cannot wear shoes from someone is a size 13… those shoes are far
too large…

human beings come in all shapes, forms, sizes
and we cannot dress them with the same size clothing…
one size does not fit all……

and yet in our laws/morality/ethics, we do hold that one
size fits all…

we say, for example, stealing is illegal and immoral and unethical…
we make a class of actions illegal……

or we say, everyone must stop at red lights… no exceptions…

I have been to Costa Rica… and they go through red lights if no one is
going the other way… yellow lights meant go faster… the laws, at least
the driving laws really mean if you feel like stopping at a red light,
go for it, otherwise don’t worry about it…

so why do laws that are obey in one country disobeyed in another country…

why are laws so different in different countries?

because people are different… we cannot have laws that are
one size fits all… uniform laws that ignore the reality that people
are different and operate differently…

so given this reality, what should our laws be?

what should our morality be?

ethics should take into account the difference in people…….

so, let us be theoretical, what should, or what ought the laws be?

not reality based, but in theory…

not is, but ought to…

what should/ought to be our morality/ethics?

Kropotkin

ok, we have had laws/rules for as long as their has been a human
civilization… I’m sure that the hunter-gather of a million years ago,
had rules of some sort…we have had laws/ rules as long as there
have been human beings and yet, think about it…

in those million years, has laws/rules prevented laws from
being broken… in other words, we have a million years of
evidence that laws/rules don’t work… we still have crime
and violence and people going through red lights…

laws haven’t changed a thing…

so, what is the problem?

why can’t we obey the laws/rules?

now at this point, a whole myriad of answers can appear…

people are stupid, people are lazy, people are fundamentally
evil, people are always searching for an easy fix, people are always
seeking some sort of advantage, people are selfish, people are greedy,

and yet earlier we decided that a one size fits all answers aren’t valid,
so we cannot answer that question of why we can’t obey laws with
a one size fits all answer……

so why do people break the laws/rules?

the problem is with the word people, because it is some people
that break the laws, not all people, but some people…

and why is that? why do some people feel themselves above/outside
the laws/rules?

they can feel superior perhaps, or perhaps they are disconnected/alienated
from the society/state/culture…

if we don’t feel like we are a part of a system or society, we might feel
more like we can break its rules/laws because hay, we aren’t part of
that system/society anyway…

how do we get people to invest in their state/society/ culture enough to
get them to obey, follow the laws or rules?

I would submit that people break the laws/rules because they aren’t
invested into society/state enough to care about what happens to
that society/state……

if the society deems it that every person for themselves, as the
capitalistic society deems it, then what is the value for a person
to obey or follow the laws/rules?

every person for themselves… following the rules/laws isn’t
acceptable because by following the laws/rules, you might, might
fall behind others… the competition is to put yourself on top or
above others… then why follow the rules if there is nothing to gain
in the rules of capitalism, which is about every person for themselves…

if the game is to enrich yourself at the expense of others, then
there is nothing to be gained by following/obeying the laws/rules…

but what if, what if the game is something else… not personal advantage
but collective advantage…it is not whither the individual succeeds but
if the society/collective succeeds that matters…

if we make the game to be, if the society/state succeeds, then
we all succeed… then obeying the laws/rules makes much more
sense…

it is the individual pursuit of our goals that allows
one to decide to not obey the laws/rules, to help one
gain an advantage…

in other words, it is the rules that determine how we play the game…

if the rules/laws are different, then we play the game differently…

for example, in baseball, we have very set, determined rules…

threes strikes and you are out…

if we changed the rules, then we change the nature of the game…

if we give batters a forth strike, then we fundamentally change
the game of baseball…….

so let think about how we if we change the laws/rules, we fundamentally
change the game…….

so for example, we no longer require people to stop at red lights…
we change the game and people will react differently…

but that fundamental change will also create chaos and disorder
in the streets… people will demand, demand that we put in laws that
force people to stop at red lights… but and this is important…
some people will resist that… some people will call it socialism
and communism to make people stop at red lights…
those people will declare it their “right” to drive their cars through
a red light…but these people only have their rights in mind…
they don’t get the fact that they exists within the collective…
we cannot exists outside of a system… we are social creatures
that must have a social structure about us for us to survive…

there is in fact something wrong with people who don’t get that
they can only survive within a social system, a state, a society,
a culture…

they don’t get the collective nature of human existence…
we cannot survive alone and thus we must have
a collective existence… it isn’t about you or me, but about us…

and the rules/laws must reflect the collective nature of human
existence…

the game of life/existence depends, demands that that we
have rules/laws that put the collective first…not the individual…

however, does that mean we trample upon the rights of the minority?

no, and that is the beauty of the American system, where we have
institutionalize the idea of individual protest and disagreement with
the system/state……. we guarantee minorities the right to disagree with
the laws/rules of the state/government/society……

but that disagreement ends with the engagement of violence
and physical actions of any disagreement…you can protest all
you want until, until your actions violate my rights… you can act until
your actions hurt or damage my right to peacefully exist…

so given this, does current actions of pulling down right wing
or confederate statues “violate” my right to peacefully exist?

you haven’t enter my personal space, you haven’t violated my
personal possessions or harmed my person… so, no,
the current action of pulling down statues should be allowed…

does it disrupt the current system? yes, but that is the point of
these demonstrations… to bring about change in systemic racism
in the U.S…

it is the collective actions of a collective people to bring about
collective changes in the laws/rules……

if we make racism illegal, then we must change our actions to
accommodate the new rules/laws…

changes in the rules/laws changes the way we play the game…

those protesting are protesting as a collective hoping for a collective
change in the rules/laws……

it doesn’t benefit any single one person to create changes in the laws/rules…

it benefits everyone to have a change in the rules/laws that prevent
systemic racism in America…

for injustice that impacts one group exclusively, is impacting all groups
collectively… for the very point of justice is to treat everyone equally…
regardless of race, creed, sex or sexual orientation, color of one’s skin,
wealth, title, or amount of power one might have…

and once again, we see the collative nature of existence…

in other words, the laws/rules must impact everyone equally or if it impacts
one group with greater impact then other groups, then it is unjust…
unequal… and not in the best interest of the collective…

so we engage in laws/rules that impact everyone equally
and we understand human existence as being a collective
engagement…this means the rules/laws must
engage collectively……

we must play the game with equal rights and equal opportunities…

the rules/laws must be equal and fair to everyone…

do we have this in America today?

Kropotkin

many people including the Buddha and Nietzsche have felt
that the key to life, understanding and the point of life is
suffering…for Nietzsche, he felt that the “great soul” man
was “great” because of the lesson of suffering…it is by
suffering that we learn of our great lessons of life…

and I agree that suffering is “ONE” possibility to discover
the lessons of life… and a possibility it is, but we have
a vast number of ways we can discover/ learn
what is the point of, the meaning of life…….

once again, one size does not fit all…

and which example, like suffering teaches us the “most”?

actually it is the experiences of life that teach us, not
necessarily one specific experience, but all experiences are
teachable examples…

last night for example, I was checking and a couple of guys came into
my line… one was not wearing a mask… mask are mandatory if you
are outdoors and especially if you are indoors, in a place like a grocery store…
I told the man, young 20’s, that he must wear a mask to be in the store and
he replied, “that wearing a mask wasn’t a law”… which isn’t true, and I said it
was, he said, no… now clearly at this point he is wrong…
so I said, either he put on a mask or he must leave the store,
there was no third choice… he disagreed and started to yell at me,
well, when people yell at me, I yell back… at that point, the
supervisor, Sheri, stepped in… she had heard me say, no mask, no service,
and so she said, as a compromise, ok, you, the customer, can stay in the store
and that I can ring him up… that was the point I lost it…
NO, I will not ring up someone who is not wearing a mask… plain and simple…

but her statement said several things to me, one, that she didn’t back me up,
she tried to calm the situation down by simple accepting the customer version,
no, compromises can be made on a great many things, but not on this matter
of public health and safety… she didn’t have my back… and by accepting
the customer statement, she in fact gave him permission to continue his nonsense…
which he did… and he continue to espouse nonsense to her……
after a point, she told him to leave, but she had already lost the argument by
conceding his point of staying without a mask and having me ring him up……

he finally left… and she wanted me to “talk” about the situation…
which I refused to…I was mad as hell and talking about it wasn’t
going to make me less mad… I will probably face a long talking too
on Monday, but screw them…

by not wearing the mask, this clown put his rights ahead of my health and the
health of other customers…

does his right to choose override the law and my rights to protect my health?

Now, will Sheri learn from this experience, I seriously doubt it…

for her, the matter was what can I do to settle this down for the least
amount of issues for me…what was less work for me?
that was her resolution to the situation…

what did I learn? that Sheri didn’t have my back…
that she was more concerned with appearances then
with the facts of the situation…she didn’t want to seem
to be unreasonable to the customer for fear he might complain…

I learned that I cannot trust Sheri in any given situation…

she was too busy covering her ass…

every single experience we have can be a lesson to be learned…

so can suffering be a lesson? yes, as can be love and charity and
anger and lust and hate and peace and violence and any other
experience can become a lesson to be learned…

far too often people just accept experiences at face value
instead of treating them as possible lessons to be learned…

so, if every experience can be a lesson learned, what
lesson can we learn from, say death, for example?

and this is the point of existentialism… what lesson can be
learned from death?

and what can be learned from our understanding of leading
an “authentic” life? and what does the word, “Authentic” mean?

these are all lessons we can learn from existentialists……

what lessons can we learn from our day to day life?

that is the point of existence…

to learn its lessons…

what lesson did you learn today?

Kropotkin

I am deep into Zarathustra…….

how have you spent this day?

have you wasted it by seeking false idols?

were you seeking the idol of the tribe?

are you seeking the idol of the cave?

are you seeking the idol of the marketplace?

or will you be seeking the idol of the theater?

what narrative are you seduced by?

what have you overcome?

Kropotkin

do you have “paralipomeni”?

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin:do you have “paralipomeni”?

Paralipomeni: Greek for something left undone or unsaid…

so have you?

Kropotkin

…always Peter… always.

it is my contention that the things we have left
undone or unsaid is just as important as the things
we have done or have said…

in fact, one might be able to make the argument that the
things we have left undone or unsaid is MORE important then
the things we have done or we have said…

Freud thought that because of the thing we have repressed,
left undone or unsaid… these unsaid or undone things
left in the subconscious create neuroses and emotional trauma…

people interviewed at the end of their lives, reported that
the things they regret the most were the things they left undone
or unsaid, rather then the things they said or did……

and what does this have to do with philosophy?

everything… for what is human is within the realm of philosophy
and psychology and history and economics and science and the humanities…
and ART and biology and…….

who are you? you are not only what you have said and done,
but you are what you haven’t said or done…….

Kropotkin

Judaism and Christianity have the same requirements…

the demand of god to worship god…

that is at bottom the essence of both religions…

seeing as how one religion begat the other religion, we
can see how they follow each other…

beginning in the years after the various revolutions, political,
scientific, industrial, say from 1800…we see man drifting away
from the idea of man worshiping god… but we cannot see any other
path outside of worship, so we have Marx who wants us to worship
dialectical materialism which makes Marx playing the role of Moses…
and he wanted to be honored as such……

and we have various ism’s and ideologies also attempting to replace the
demand of god that we worship god… we now hold vigil to the many
replacements of god demanding we worship god…

we have many who worship nationalism and white power and bigotry
and prejudice… alternative religions for those who are too lazy to
hold to the worship of god……

such worship of nationalism and prejudice fills those people heart with
the same satisfaction that god worship fills others…

the religions of nationalism and prejudice and hate fills one heart with
a meaning and purpose and a goal……something they cannot achieve with
the worship of god…

this shows us the emptiness of the “old time religions”…

Islam, Judaism, Christianity…

what is called for is a new, understanding of what it means to pray……

who do we pray to?

what do we pray to?

even perhaps, how we pray?

in the beginning, people didn’t pray to specific gods or religions,
they prayed to nature and all that existed within nature…

and perhaps we should return to the beginning of prayer…

not to the divine within us, but to the nature within us…
and that is all around us……

for human beings aren’t separated from, or isolated from nature…
nature lies all around us and is in fact, within us…

Kropotkin

ok, let us try this…

we have a need, a motivational need to understand the world
and our place within that world……

how do we accomplish this?

we use isms and ideologies to understand the world…

for example, we can use a wide variety of ism’s to understand the world…

we can use, for example Catholicism…

“in the beginning, god created the heaven and the earth”

and in that framework of the bible, we can find an understanding
of the world and our place within it… our meaning, our purpose
is to worship god in this particular ism… and if we do, we go to heaven
and if we don’t, we go to hell…
and the world is described, laid out in a certain manner or way…

and we can see our role, our place within the universe…

this ism, creates a narrative from which we can see where we
stand in the universe…

the earth is 6,000 years old and Adam and Eve is our founding members
and then came the flood and Noah built the Ark… we are rather
familiar with this narrative…this understanding of the universe…

we have hundreds, if not thousands of ism’s or narratives that explain
our universe and our place within that universe…

for example, Marxism, we are simple pawns within the dialectical materialism
of the universe…we can work with or be destroyed by this ever ongoing
ism or narrative of the universe and our place within it…

science for example is an narrative about the universe and our place within it…
is science an “Ism”? one might be able to call science an “ism” because it is
a narrative that explains our universe and our place within that universe…

the problem with science as a narrative is that it cannot offer us a why…
why do we exist? whereas other narratives, other ism’s do attempt to explain
our universe in terms of why…Buddhism for example… we suffer and to
escape our ever ongoing suffering, we must discard our attachment to the
universe… Buddhism quite well, explains our universe and our
specific place within the universe… but Buddhism too, fails to
explain why, why do we suffer? what is the point of the suffering?
who caused that suffering?

Philosophy too, has it narratives… Existentialism is a narrative about
our universe and our place within the universe…an ism if you will…

Philosophy has many different narratives about the universe and
our place within the universe…the Enlightenment is one such
narrative and Kant created another narrative about the universe
and our place within that universe…

so, philosophy can create narratives about the universe
and our place within the universe, every single ism of the
20th century is an narrative about our universe and our
place within the universe…post-modernism, logical positivism,
deconstruction, phenomenalism, and all the other narratives put
forward by philosophers within the last several centuries…
Descartes for example…

so within philosophy, we have certain narratives that explain
the universe and our place within that universe…

so what is the interesting thing about philosophy?

Philosophy also, in addition to creating narratives/ism’s
attempts to understand each narrative put forward…

in other words, philosophy doesn’t just create narratives,
it critiques them, philosophy tries to understand the
various narratives/isms……

philosophy tries to see if each narrative/ism is in fact,
“right” or “wrong”…….

Philosophy tries to make a judgment about each narrative/ism…

is it true? Does it have value? is it worth following? does that narrative/ism
really describe the world as “I” know it? for we cannot know the world from
any sort of objective viewpoint… all we have is subjective viewpoints…

this holds true for such narratives/isms as liberalism and conservativism
and nationalism and prejudice and superstitions…

when I say, “all men are created equal” that is not only political
philosophy but it is a narrative/an ism… I hold that

“all men are created equal” ….

that is a narrative about how I believe is people place in the universe…

when a conservative states, "man cannot change his stripes, he is as he is
born, either good or evil, but he cannot escape that term their entire life…
it is inborn within them…

that is simply another narrative/ism about the universe and our place within
the universe……

can we see the universe without any such narrative/ism?

can I see/understand the universe without the aid of some sort
of narrative/ism?

can we simple say, the facts of the universe says that this narrative/ism
is the true narrative/ism?

must we have a narrative/ism for us to understand the universe?

can we understand the universe without any recourse to a
narrative/ism?

for example, some use nationalism or prejudice to explain the universe,
“white people are the superior race” for some, that is an explanation
of the universe and our place within the universe……

but that narrative/ism is a very narrow narrative/ism……

it doesn’t account for anything else outside of its narrative/ism
“white people are the superior race”… it cannot explain
love or history or what is the goal of the human race or
anything else… this very narrow narrative/ism cannot explain
the why? Why should we believe that “white people are superior”?

that narrative/ism cannot really explain anything of value…
it gives us absolutely no answers to the important questions
of existence… what are we to do? what are we to believe in?
what should we hope for? what should my values be?

if a narrative/ism so limited as not be able to explain
the point of existence, it cannot have any value…
the narrative/ism itself has no point, no value…

a narrative/ism must be inclusive enough to give meaning
and purpose to the vast majority of people…

it will not be able to give meaning or purpose to everyone,
because that is not possible…….

but when you think of ism’s/ideologies, you must think
that they are a form of narratives that attempt to
explain the universe and our place within that universe…

what narratives do you hold to?

philosophy is a means for us to understand that
narrative…

and philosophy is a means for us to engage in a reevaluation of
that narrative/ism and to see if that narrative is really our narrative/ism
or, or if it is a indoctrination from our childhood……

we engage in philosophy to understand why we believe in
this narrative or that ism and if we need to reevaluate
that narrative or ism……

is that narrative/ism true? we use philosophy to discover if that
narrative is true?

so what narratives/isms do you believe in?

do you engage in philosophy to see if that narrative is actually true or not,
and if you don’t engage in philosophy to find the truth of that narrative/ism,
then why do you engage in philosophy in the first place?

do you engage in philosophy to confirm your narrative/ism?

then for you, philosophy is simply a conformation bias…

and it isn’t philosophy at all…….

if you don’t use philosophy to engage in understanding the
narrative/ism for you, then why engage in philosophy?

Kropotkin

the question becomes, can we exist in the world without a
narrative? can we exist without a ism to guide us?

just existing? I don’t know…

Kropotkin

this use of a narrative to guide one is a basic fundamental
aspect of human existence…political narratives are democracy,
monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorships…

economic narratives are capitalism, communism, socialism,
mercantilism, feudalism, statism….

myths are a narrative…myths are quite often, traditionally anyway,
stories about the gods…a narrative about the gods…

an American myth of my childhood was of George Washington chopping
down the cherry tree and then admitted to it instead of lying about it,
that myth was about how children should always tell the truth…

it was a narrative about telling the truth…

philosophy is a narrative about our place in the universe…

existentialism is a myth about how we are condemned to be free
and the reason for much unhappiness is the fact that we
do not have a “authentic” relationship with both ourselves
and others…we are not “authentic” because we hide behind
masks and customs and social convention so that our “real” self
isn’t discovered or seen…we play act our lives and in doing so,
we don’t reach or become who we are…the life we are living
is a lie because it doesn’t reflect who we really are…

I present a mask at work… we all do… we cannot be who we are
at work because work demands that we must follow certain rules to
ensures the company makes a profit… the restriction of denying
our “authentic” comes about because the company must make profits/money…

my company is always preaching us to be professional…

whatever that means, but we are to present ourselves at all times
being professional…to ensure profits/money……

to wear a mask…corporate America is all about the wearing of mask…
the company itself wears a mask… to hide its corporate greed, the company
will often advertise itself as being committed to helping people……

most commercials are about the mask a business wears…
trying to present itself in positive light… buy our product because
we care about you… lies, dam lies and huge fucking lies…

read a corporate mission statement, any corporate statement and
within the first 4 lines of any corporate mission statement will come
the very reason for the existence of companies… to make profit/money…

the corporate use of commercials to present itself as honest, benevolent,
kind, worthy of trust…is a narrative, mythmaking……

so we have several types of narratives that exists within modern life…

we have narratives about the society we exists within, narratives about
our political system and narratives about our economic systems
and narratives about our social systems… in America, we can become
anything we want to be if we work hard enough… and other such lies…
America land of equal opportunity…

and we have personal narratives about who we are…

each of us tells ourselves and others, stories about who we are…
where we came from and where we are going…

the entire point of a narrative, myth, story, ism and ideology,
is to provide some context of our lives, both individually
and collectively…

who we were, who we are and who we will be…

a narrative/ism creates context of our beginning and our current
status and what is to be our goal, our final destination…

and that is a very important aspect of a ism or narrative…
to create some sort of goal or destination to us to reach,
both individually and collectively…

think of Catholicism… it is a narrative about our beginning, Adam
and Eve and the bible creating context for who we were…
and it also creates a final goal, a context for which we can become…
we can be “saved” and then be in heaven for the rest of eternity,
worshiping god… personally, I considered that to be the worst
possible outcome ever for an eternal resting… give me hell rather
then heaven for at least hell won’t be as boring as heaven…

perhaps, perhaps instead of reaching for some fantastic and outlandish
goal, we should be more aware of more human goals…

the narrative that we should be engaging with should be narratives
about us engaging in more human results like who we were,
animals, who we are, animal/human and who we should become,
human, fully human…

to be animal means to engage with instinct and raw emotions…
to be animal/human means we can, to some extent, control
our instincts and our raw emotions… to be animal/human means
we are still in the process of becoming something different…
we are still trying to reach our goal… and this may take another
million years to reach…

to become human, means we control our instincts, we have control
over what it means to be human… it means we react within the context
of the situation…we engage with situations and other people with
with inclusion, not exclusion…we react with people with the positive
values, not with the negative values… we engage with hope, love,
peace, understanding, justice, charity……

to say it another way, we no longer will need masks to engage with
other people…for the use of mask hides our real nature, hides who we are…

and sometimes with a mask, we forget our real nature… we begin to see
the mask as our real self and it isn’t…

the battle is to become our real self, our engagement is to be
as “authentic” as possible… we no longer rely on masks to cover
up who we are……… for to be human means we can become who
we are…if I am strange and weird, and that is who I am, we don’t
use masks to cover the fact that we are strange and weird, let us
be that…let us become who we are… without fear or fear of
estrangement…….acceptance of who we are regardless of
what it might mean……

now one might argue, that means that if we are serial killers, then
we come out of the “closet” as it were and begin to kill people without
any punishment, no, not that isn’t what I mean, it means we
come clean about who we are…if I have feelings and urges to
kill and maim people, I don’t hide behind a mask to cover up that fact,
if I am to be an authentic person, I must reveal who I am… I can no longer
hide behind some mask of normalcy…

we reveal who we are… that is seeking the light…

and that is what the Greeks for example saw as truth… the
dropping of the mask… the coming into light…

Aletheia is truth or disclosure in Greek philosophy. It was used in ancient
Greece. Aletheia is variously translated as “unclosedness”
“unconcealedness” “disclosure” or “truth”

for the Greeks, light was truth… and darkness was untruth…
the dropping of the Mask is “disclosure” we see the truth…

for us to achieve becoming who we are, we must “disclose”
who we are… we can no longer hide behind mask and “inauthentic”
behavior and beliefs…

the struggle in modern society/culture is the struggle from our
attempt to hide our real self …… from both ourselves and
from others…….

it could be said, that modern society is our attempt to
hide who we really are… that to move beyond modern society is
to move past our need to wear a mask…

we are alienated and disconnected from society/state/ourselves
because we hold onto the mask that we use to be a “good” citizen…
to be a “good” worker, a “good” consumer… the roles we play in modern
society also requires us to don masks to play these roles of modern
society…

my alienation comes from the fact that I must hide my real self from
myself and from society… my alienation comes from my being forced
to wear a mask to fit into society/state……

human beings at heart are strange, weird beings…

instead of hiding that, we should become who we are…

let us become who we are and if that is strange and weird,
let it be…

if we repress, as we have, our true nature, then we create
the exact problems of people who have repressed and not come
to terms with their “issues”. Freud believed that much of our
“Modern” problems stem from us not coming to grip with
who we are…

we may, may be able to understand modern history, of our World Wars,
and the alienation and disconnection of modern society, with our
inability to become who we are… by using masks to hide who we are,
we create and continue the neurosis that exemplify our modern era…

until we cure our “soul”, our modern soul, we cannot continue to
become and engage with the continuation of becoming who we are…

we are “soul” sick, and we will continue to be “soul” sick until we
actively begin to seek solutions to our “soul” sickness, we will continue
to be alienated and disconnected from both society and ourselves…

I cannot become healthy until I can drop my mask and be who I am…
and you cannot be healthy until you drop your mask and become who you are
and society cannot be healthy until it drops its mask and become who we are…

so, what mask/masks do you wear? are you prepared to, finally, drop your mask
and become who you are?

Kropotkin

Today of all days, 4th of July, we ask, what does it mean to be
an American?

the very term, American, isn’t an answer, it is a question…

“I am an American”?

that is a question about what it means to be an American…

the question involved is a economic, political and social one…

the political question being asked, given that human beings are social
beings, what sort of political system should we have? the answer given is
a system (and it is a system) that people should be able to control their
own fate, their own destiny by making political choices collectively…
a majority rule system of politics…

instead of a dictatorship in which decisions are made by one or a few people…

are people qualified enough to make their own decisions about how they lead
their own lives?

to choose one system over another is to make a choice over the ability
of people to choose wisely for themselves…

despite the last election which made the individual choices we make
problematic, I still hold to the collective wisdom of people…

one of the questions about our modern age is how does the wearing of
masks which helps hide people from who they are and what is possible for them,
how does wearing a mask influence our collective choices?

If I am not being truthful to myself, how can I be truthful to the collective in
which I live in?

the mask I am forced to wear, influences the choices I make…

the isms, ideology, the narrative we follow, influences the choices we make…

so why don’t we question the ism’s, ideologies, the narrative we follow?

we pretend we have answers in the ism’s, ideologies, narratives we hold
to…capitalism, Catholicism, communism, Buddhism, democracy, monarchies,
and so on…

these are not answers, but questions about what it means to be human?

science has a definite method or methodology it follows…

and it is encouraged to discover the correct answers…
for example, before Copernicus, there was a ism, ideology,
a narrative about the way the universe moved…that the earth was
the center of the universe was the narrative before Copernicus,
and he questioned that narrative…thus “disproving” the old model,
the old narrative of the earth was the center of the universe…

science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge
in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe…

every single advance in science advances a new narrative, ism about
the way the universe works…

so science is a question about how the universe works…

at no point does science offer up some “final” answer as to
which narrative is the “correct” narrative…

each question leads to another question and once again,
we don’t have a why given in science…

it is about the how, not why……

I don’t get final answers in science, I get the latest understanding of
how the universe works…

and that difference between getting the final answer and getting the
latest answer makes all the difference…

so given this understanding, we can see what is the role of such
isms, narratives as capitalism really means…

capitalism is not the final answer, it is simply the answer for a past
age… capitalism no longer answers our questions anymore…

as a model, a narrative capitalism leaves much to be desired…

it fails too many people, it isolates people from each other…
it is too much of an “US vs THEM” understanding of the universe…

at every step of human existence is another step for inclusion for
human beings… exclusion doesn’t work on any level in human existence…

if we look at human history, the march of history has been for inclusion,
not exclusion…

from the Egyptians to today, has been a journey from the one, to the few to
the many to all…

our country foundations of voting has gone from the few, landowning white men,
to become ever more inclusive…to women and to blacks and to the young…
it hasn’t become exclusive, solely to the few or to the wealthy, but to everyone
regardless of accidental traits of existence…color of skin, the religious,
of sexual identity, to height or to the color of one’s eyes…

the very movement of human existence has been of going from
the one or the few to many or to all……

and the 20th century history could be written as inclusion and exclusion…

the Nazi’s were examples of exclusion, the Fascists were example of
exclusion, the KKK are examples of exclusion, the GOP is an example
of exclusion…the ongoing GOP voter suppression is an example of modern
day exclusion, whereas the Democrats practice inclusion…

the Democratic party clearly has a much larger “tent” then the GOP
and the Democrats are attempting to allow everyone the chance to vote…
inclusion, not exclusion…

and for this and other reasons, the Democrats are the party of the future…
for the future will follow the past and become ever more inclusive…

from one to few to some to most to all…

and in every area of life, follows this path of one to many to all…

we go from a few scientists to some scientists to many scientists, perhaps
someday we will get to every one being a scientist… or not…

we have more scientists graduating from MIT in one class year to
being more scientists then in the entire world in 1600……

so if you ask yourself, what questions am I asking?

are you British? Are you white? are you male? are you
religious? are you an atheist? are you gay?

each one of these are not answers but questions of existence…

what is your question of existence?

Kropotkin

religion: a tale told by an idiot full of
sound and fury, signifying nothing…

Kropotkin

I am sick… and this entire modern age is sick…

the question becomes this, how are we to be cured?

how are we to be saved?

what is this “modern” illness?

we are “soul” sick……

but what exactly does this mean?

it is just like a person having the flu or having cancer,
but instead of the body being sick, the soul is ill…

what is the cause of this illness?

we have lost sight of what it means to be human…

we no longer know who we are and what is possible…

what is your goal?

what is the goal of the collective?

no one knows… hence we are sick because we know not where to go…

for people to be healthy, they must, must have a sense of who they
are and what is possible for them…

one of the Kantian questions: what is possible for us?

and who knows the answer?

no one… hence we are ill, “soul” sick……

how do we cure the human race of its “soul” sickness?

we create a goal and a destination and a meaning/purpose…

we are stuck until we find ourselves on a path into the future
and into what it means to be human…

being “soul” sick/illness means not to know what it means to be
human………to think we are the destination, instead of what we really
are, which is another step into becoming…becoming human…

it is not enough to say, I have a goal, a destination…

we must say, we have a goal, a destination…

and we shall remain “soul” sick until we answer the question,
what does it mean to be human? and what is our goal?

Kropotkin