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
Socrates is famous (or infamous) because he brought
Philosophy down from the stars. Philosophy before Socrates,
was basically what we today would call, science. Natural philosophy
which was concerned with the natural world… what was the “ultimate”
substance in the universe? This we see as a scientific question, but
was considered to be philosophy, natural philosophy, until the
18 or 19 century………
Newton for example, was considered to be a Natural philosopher,
in his day…
we fast forward to our modern times…
we see philosophy of the modern times to be movements,
for example, German idealism, Analytic philosophy, Phenomenology,
Pragmatism, structuralism, deconstructionism, Logical positivism, Marxism…
to name a few……
so, we have theories that don’t really tell us about who we are…
philosophy as it were, is in the sky…
but then we have another movement that brings philosophy back down
to us at the human level, existentialism…
the movement is the same, bringing philosophy back down to earth and
engage us at a personal level… just as Socrates did…
but today, after decades after the death of existentialism, we have lost
sight of us, as human beings and what really matters to us…
Philosophy doesn’t matter anymore because it isn’t engaged with
anything that influences our lives anymore…the movement of
Deconstructionism for example… it has nothing to tell me about
what it means to be human…what are my choices in being human?
what are my possibilities because I am human?
what am I to do? what should I hope for? what values should I hold?
what can I know? and by extension, the questions of a collective, of being human isn’t
answered either…
what are we to do? what should we hope for? what values should we hold?
Philosophy has lost sight of its purpose and meaning… by its engagement with
such movement as in logical positivism or with structuralism, or phenomenology…
the very questions modern philosophy asks, has no relevance to me as a human being…
what does it matter to me that a given text can be deconstructed?
does that tell me, What am I to do? or What should I believe in?
or what values should I hold? little less the collective questions that
we exists within…What are we to do?
so once again, we must bring philosophy out of the sky and bring it
back to earth… and by doing so, we can engage with philosophy to have
meaning in the world again…
what does it mean to be human? that is one of the questions that
philosophy ought to be engaged with… and those types of questions
about the meaning/goal/destination of us humans must become
the primary questions of philosophy…
what is the point of human existence?
bring philosophy back down to the human existence level…
don’t tell me what language tells you about this text or that text…
tell me what it means to be human?
and how does being human affect the goal of existence…
the quest of philosophy needs to return back to this question
of being human… return philosophy to the human existence level…
Kropotkin
philosophy engages with the rational part of existence…
it is rational to think about what it means to be human,
but the human experience is so much more then the rational…
for example, love isn’t rational and love is a key, vital part of being
human… and we cannot, cannot explain love in the rational terms of
philosophy…hence the rise of the Romantic movement of the late 18th
and 19 century…that was an attempt to explain human existence
in terms of emotions and feelings… and in some ways, these
Romantics did explain human beings better then the rationalist of
philosophy…
human existence is some combination of rationalism and emotionalism…
and if philosophy is to be engaged in the human experience, then
philosophy must too engage with the Romantic’s understanding of
existence…
if we cannot explain what it means to be human by the binary choice
of rationalism or of emotions, then we must combine the two…
rationalism and emotionalism…
philosophy that isn’t engaged with what it means to be human
without any reference to the emotional aspect of being human,
it isn’t really philosophy… it is a rational inquiry and thus
only half the necessary inquiry needed…
the statement “I love” cannot be understood or is understandable by
philosophy… the statement “I hope” isn’t understandable by philosophy…
pain or suffering or despair isn’t understandable by philosophy……
these are emotional responses to people, events, actions outside of us…
remember the equation…
if we have logical/rational on one side of the equation,
then we must have feelings, emotionalism on the other side
to even out our equation…
logical/ rational = emotionalism/feelings……
the two sides must balance out…
and we philosophers only consider one side of the equation,
the logical/rational side of the human equation…
and poets and theologians and artists consider the emotional/feelings
side of the human equation…
so what needs to happen?
we must become philosophical artists or perhaps poetical philosophers?
and this was the tactic of Nietzsche… he wanted to become a “philosophical artist”…
or perhaps he should have become a philosopher who uses poems to engage his thought…
oh, wait, Nietzsche did write poems, his “Gay science” had a great many poems in it…
and his Zarathustra was an Artistic attempt at philosophy…
and we can do no worse then follow Mr. Nietzsche by attempting
“Artistic Philosophy” or perhaps being a “Poetical Philosopher”
our engagement with philosophy must be expanded to include the
emotional/feeling side of existence…or it isn’t inclusive enough to
really explain the “human condition”…
and we have inclusion once again…
Camus and Sartre both attempted to be “Artistic Philosophers” in their
plays and their works of fiction…
and note, they were both existentialist…just saying……
the world is in fact ready for “Artistic Philosophers”, in fact,
I would suggest that the world is vastly overdue for someone who
uses Art to discover what it means to be human, philosophically…
the revolution is to become human and we need both the rational/logical side
of us as well as the emotional/feelings side of us… to become whole…
and perhaps that is why we don’t feel whole, we have disconnected
our rational/logical side of us from our emotional/feelings side of us…
to become human, fully human requires us to reconnect our rational/logical
side with our emotional/feelings side of us…
and who is brave enough to engage with both sides of being human?
Kropotkin
I might say for example, that capitalism is soul crushing,
and alienating and corrupt and anti-human, anti-art,
anti-anything that might redeem human beings…
and one might say, ahhhh, you are critiquing capitalism from a
Marxist standpoint…
using one viewpoint, one ism or ideology or a narrative to critique
another viewpoint or ism or ideology or a narrative……
but that is presumptuous… I don’t need a “Marxist” viewpoint to
criticize capitalism… I just need eyes to see…
the failure of capitalism is clear for all to see… if you only have eyes…
you can believe that human beings have an inborn dignity and self-worth
that isn’t connected to some other ism or ideology…
I don’t need an ism or an ideology or a narrative to believe that
human beings, by being born have an inborn dignity and self-worth…
I don’t need an ism or ideology to understand that since the start of
the “modern” era, that we have negated and devalued, (nihilism)
human beings……
this new wave of isms/narratives that say, only by being a “good” citizen
or being a “worker”, gives us any value………
I say unto you, that the higher value is the value of being human
and the value of being life…the very act of being born and alive,
give us value and dignity and self-worth……
we are not born within the act of sin… we are born with dignity
and value regardless of the accidental traits we might have been born with…
the history of human beings is the history of inclusion…
at every step, we have engaged in the inclusion of others…
at one point in time, we were tribal and everyone was judge
by their existence within the tribe… very few people engage
in that primitive mode of narrative or ism any longer…
we have expanded our idea of being human to include everyone who
belongs to a nation or a society or a state…
and again, without any reference to any accidental traits…
thinking of people in tribes is so old fashion as to belonging to
the stone age…that narrative is long past its time…
the end game of our current narrative is to included everyone who is
human, regardless of their nationality or creed or color or sexual
orientation… the accidental traits of being human is no longer
even considered when we reflect upon what it means to be human…
all that is needed is to be born human…that is narrative enough…
and that is our current end game… and what I mean by that is that
after we understand that we are one, a human being is a human being
is a human being regardless of any accidental traits they might have…
and after that we will include life, all life, which means all the life
on planet earth is equal to us… regardless of any accidental traits
being born by that life……
the narrative/ism will be that there is no difference between a whale and
a cat and a lion and a snail and a human being………we are bound because
we are life… that is the sole narrative or ism needed… that will be the
next inclusive step of human existence… and then we shall expand again,
we shall include all life, everywhere… in every solar system and star
and galaxies all across the universe…
we are connected because we are life… to be alive is enough to
be accepted into the narrative/ism we have constructed…
the universe is simply a game of going from one single
being to being included into a all forms of life…
we are traveling the journey of having all life, all life,
of going in our viewpoint or ism or narrative being as one…
all life is classified into a hierarchy of biological existence…
we go from species to genus to family to order to class to
phylum to kingdom to domain to life…….
and we human beings will understand life as going from
species to life…
we just recently have begun on this classification system…
in other words, we still haven’t even begun to think of all human
beings as being part of the species…
we still haven’t even engaged in human life on this scale of
biological classifications yet…
so perhaps we might go with this (from bottom to top)
tribe
nationality
(nationalism accepts the idea of people being within a section like
this, but it only accepts white people or Christians or the wealthy…
it doesn’t accept everyone who lives within this classification regardless
of accidental traits is part of nationality and until we accept everyone who
falls into this category, we cannot even have nationality as being a classification
of people…because we are still in the tribe phase)
western civilization (everyone who lives and exists within the confines
of what we think of as western civilization regardless of any accidental traits)
and then we see everyone, everyone on planet earth, as being part of
the human classification, species…
we then begin on this long chain of understanding our place
within this hierarchical chain……
we are just at the beginning of our understanding of what
place that human being, exists at…
as our understanding rises up this ladder of existence from species to
genus to family to order and so on… our viewpoint, our narrative becomes
more of how we fit into the family or the order of the biological classification
system…….
in our viewpoint, we will soon exists as a species, not black or white or
Christian or Jewish or young or old, but as a human being. period…
and our understanding will rise as we better understand our real
existence in the biological classification system…
and soon, we will go from seeing ourselves as a tribe to a nation to a civilization
to a species to an class to a kingdom and eventually to being part of life…
how do you see your fellow human beings?
are you even on the lowest level of understanding which means
how do you classify people, as a tribe or a nation or a civilization?
but who is evolved enough to see human beings as being something higher
then just a tribe or a nation or a civilization but as a species or even higher,
as a genus or perhaps even a family?
we have a long ways to go before we think about all life as being one life…
and thus once again, we human beings are not engaged with answer, we
are still in the part of existence that is working out the questions…
we are in a journey, a process of discovery that we are not just a tribe or a nation
or a civilization, but a species and a genus and a family and a order and a class
and a phylum and a kingdom and then a domain and finally, we reach the highest level
of understanding, that we are life, not just human beings but we are life and
we exists along with all the other life, be it on earth or elsewhere…
life is life is life… no matter where that life lives or what it looks like or
how it moves or what colors it is, life is life and we are a part of
that vast chain of existence…and the goal of existence is to
be able to engage in the journey or process that human beings must
engage with to become one with all life… to self identify as life…
not as a tribe or a nation or a color or even a species but as life…
Kropotkin, who are you? I am life and I am equal to all life and all life
is equal to me…
when I reach my apex of human achievement… that is when I no longer
self identify as being white or American or male or Christian or even
as part of the human species… I have reached my journey end when
I finally identify as just being life…
Kropotkin
so we aren’t even close to being able to think we are
the highest specimen of animals on planet earth…
for we have several different types of journeys to engage with…
as are engaged in the journey to go from animal to animal/human to
becoming human, fully human…
and we are engaged in the process/journey of thinking of ourselves as human beings,
not as individuals, as I am Kropotkin… and I have no other designation outside of
being a American…
I am on two separate journeys… one to engage with going from animal to
animal/human and then finally to become human… which means I am no
longer driven or motivated by animal instincts and motivations…
I am in control of my instincts and my motivations and my emotions
and reason… I am human…
and the second journey is to travel from thinking about human beings
in terms of a tribe or a nation or even a civilization…
these small simple thoughts betray someone who hasn’t
make the journey or begun the process to become something
more then just human…
we are more then just a tribe or a nation or a civilization…
we are a species of human beings…
and we are part of a Genus and a part of a family and part of
a order and part of a class and a part of a Phylum
and a part of a kingdom and part of a domain and finally
thinking of human beings as being part of life…
when I think of Kropotkin, I don’t think of being part of a tribe or
being part of a nation, I think of being part of a species and being
part of a class and finally being part of life…
those two notions, of our becoming… becoming more human and
thinking of human beings as more then just a species, but being,
being a part of life……
that is when we have finally grown up……
we are not complete or final… we have a very, very, very long
ways to go before we can think of ourselves as being anything other
then a child……
Kropotkin
what is the value of greatness?
we have, as examples, the greatness of such people
as Mozart, Goethe, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Socrates…
we can see their greatness, we have honored their greatness,
Each of them has a greatness…Mozart wrote some of the greatest
music ever written, and Goethe is one of the most complete human
beings ever to live and we know the Greatness of Shakespeare
and we think of Lincoln as being of one the great leaders ever
and we know, know that Socrates was the greatest philosopher
of all time…
each of these people were great and frankly a couple were miracles
of nature…
but what do these great human being have to do with me?
our role is to overcome even their greatness…
I am attempting to become the possibility, of becoming
the greatest philosopher of all time…
and others who engage in music, should engage in music
by trying to become better then Mozart
and writers should engage in becoming a greater writer then
Shakespeare… a very tall task indeed, perhaps even impossible…
and that is the very point… measure yourself against the very best
in your field of endeavor… as I am trying to create the best philosophy
ever, I am trying to overcome the very large shadow of Socrates…
and to those who don’t know what greatness they are trying to overcome,
I would suggest that they try to overcome Goethe and a become a fully
realized human being who has achieved their potential/possibilities…
or perhaps try to overcome Lincoln… in his determination to overcome
vast odds and accomplish something like keeping a country together in
the face of a long devastating civil war… use his example to attempt to
achieve greatness in some field of action you decide upon…….
the point is not to look up and daze in wonderment about their great
achievements, no, no, a thousand times no…….
the point is to overcome them by becoming something even greater
then the great ones…….
overcome Socrates by becoming the greatest philosopher ever…….
that is my goal…
what is your goal of overcoming greatness like a Goethe or a Lincoln?
who is great in your mind? and why haven’t you overcome them by
achieving even greater things then they had achieve?
the members of the famous herd… the ones you so laugh at, they
are members of the herd because they are afraid of attempting the
greatness I advocate…… they are the herd… and they have settle into
their little world of being animals… of avoiding greatness like the plague
if you are to become better then the herd… you must achieve the
greatness you want to overcome……. that is being the Ubermensch….
in not just being animal/human but in being fully human and overcoming
even the great human beings…
so what greatness are you attempting to overcome?
and if not, why not?
Kropotkin
ok, let us say you want to achieve greatness, how do you do so?
by overcoming… by practicing values that are positive…not negative…
think of the great ones I mentioned in the last post…
do those great ones engage in negative values of hate or anger or lust
or greed or violence?
no, they achieve greatness by achieving positive values of love, hope,
charity, peace, justice, non-violence…….
any step toward greatness begins with the values you become…
Lincoln became great because of the values he championed and promised…
he became great because of his values choices…
think of other great human beings… they are great because they choose
to live by positive values… like love and peace and hope and charity…
think of the infamous “great” human beings… like Hitler…
he valued the lower, negative values of hate and anger and lust
and greed and he promoted those values and he championed
the Nazi party which is the negative values incarnate…
those who championed and held negative values are those like
Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Pol pot…
no one but a fool considers those negative values purveyors
as being “great”… no, no, a thousand times no… a holder of
negative values like IQ45 can never be considered to be great because
negative values cannot lead one to achieve something higher, something
worth achieving… like overcoming Lincoln or overcoming Socrates…
you need, you must have positive values of hope and love and charity
and honesty and peace to overcome and achieve greatness…….
you want to achieve greatness, you must first begin by achieving
positive values… by overcoming your indoctrinations and achieving
values worth living for, values worth dying for, values worth holding…
Kropotkin
one of the things that science does well, is ask questions…
one could make the argument that the “great” scientist were
“great” because they asked the right questions…
it wasn’t the answers that made scientist great, but the right questions…
What was Newton’s question?
the apple that fell, or didn’t, how is that connected to the solar system?
what was the force in nature that allowed that apple to fall “down” instead of up?
and we have Darwin’s questions, how was man “created”?
we have the biblical stories, but what if we remove the biblical stories,
and ask, how else did we human beings get here?
and what about Einstein’s question? what about the motion or speed of light?
the theory of relativity was really a theory about something moving both in
relation to a non-moving object and a theory about one object in relation to
another object moving……. the entire theory of relativity is
about the motion of objects in relation to the speed of the objects………
science ask questions… and philosophy/philosophers ask questions…
that is the true relationship between science and philosophy…
not about the method of the two or how close should philosophy
mimic science in seeking answers… no, the relationship
between science and philosophy is about finding the right questions to ask…
it doesn’t matter what the answers are, it does matter what the questions are………
don’t seek answers, seek questions…
and that is what it means to be both a scientist and a philosopher…
Kropotkin
as I seek to overcome myself, I have found the noise
of my “friends” to be loud and distracting…
so, I left them behind…to engage in their endless babble
by themselves……
we humans, we humans are social creatures by the design of evolution,
the creator of all… we are wired to connect to each other…
the greatest punishment handed out is solitary confinement…
any person who has been confined by themselves, quite often
begins to go mad after a week or two…
I confined myself to be solitary and alone with only the words on the printed page
to keep me company…
why? why such craziness?
the only conversation I allow myself is within reading…
right now I am conversing with Nietzsche…….
what is he trying to tell me?
what is his message to me?
by shutting all other voices out, I am left with only two voices left…
the book I am currently reading and my own voice………
you would be surprised at how many people feel shame and fear when
they can only hear their own voice…
people try to drown out their voice with TV and music and movies
and loud and distracting friends………
meanwhile I try to hear what my voice is telling me…
what my soul is telling me…
that voice, that soul is quite scary because if we are truthful,
that voice is not who we are that we present to the world……
we offer the world a mask, a disguise to hide who we really are…
and why?
because we are afraid of being shamed for being different…
we obscure who we are because of fear and shame and doubt because
we don’t really trust our true self, our real self…we are afraid to
be authentic because we dread to hear the truth about who we really are…
so we hide behind mask and disguises…………
and we use these mask and disguises to silence our inner voice…
do you have the strength to hear the “real” “authentic” you?
I doubt it… few have that kind of courage……
we are always trying to “look good” even in front of strangers,
perhaps especially in front of strangers………
we are social creatures which means we fear judgement of others……
we practice “paralipomena” because we are afraid of being judge…
and yet the harshest judgment I face isn’t from others, no, I fear my own
judgement far worse then I fear judgement of others……
although I must admit, it is women who are far more severe judges
then men are… and women are more influenced by being judged then
men are…
in the end, I always return to my friend, silence……
most people are afraid of silence… but I, I truly enjoy
silence…… I am not being judged…….
and silence allows me to engage in conversation with my soul…
and sometimes, sometimes, I even peel back the mask and disguise that I hide behind
and I see me for who I am……….
and in moments of bravery, I wonder, I wonder what is possible for that true
self I see, when I am without a mask or disguise……
what is possible when I am not wearing a mask…….
for that is true courage… to overcome without wearing a disguise…
do you courage enough to become who you are… with no mask or disguise?
Kropotkin
“most people are afraid of silence…”
Depeche Mode isn’t. In fact they even encourage others to enjoy it.