ought and is....

[Peter Kropotkin]

this topic I have been thinking about for a while......

our actions, our beliefs, how do we come to them?

we can have the lawyers tell us what the law is in regards to certain actions....
or we can use our humanity, our reason, our sense of justice to tell me
what we "ought" to do.....

I hold to the "liberal" viewpoint that human beings are basically, wanting
to do good... the problem is that sometimes it is really, really, really
hard to figure out what the "good" is in situations.....

we can make rational arguments for just about any, any situation...
including what one might call murder...which I might call "self defense"......

we have "rules/laws" about most situations... but the law isn't the end all,
be all... for example it has been legal in the past to have slaves, to forbid
homosexual marriage, to prevent mixed, black and whites, from marrying....
to have women be the property of men, be it their father or their husband.....
Laws/rules that today, we in our infinite wisdom, see the laws/rules were
false or ignorant about what it means to be human....

but who know what laws/rules are truly ignorant we follow today,
that the future will declare to be just as foolish as the former belief
in slavery or the Jim Crow laws...

idea's like human beings are basically good or evil as the conservative beliefs,
which beliefs will come under attack in the future as being foolish or ignorant?

I come to my own beliefs from attacking them in both theory and in real life...
My beliefs come from who I am and what my socio-economic place is in life,
from my childhood and from the many books I have read over these many years....

that I can be mean and downright vicious one moment and walk little old
women across the street is part of who I am..... at times, I am hold to
"liberal" beliefs and other times, I hold conservative beliefs... again,
depending on the situation and circumstances......

I work retail...and if you have ever worked retail... you come to the conclusion pretty
quickly that you hate people.. that they are all really dumb and remarkable
stupid....which is in conflict with my "liberal" beliefs... so which beliefs should
I hold to? I come to my understanding of people from my humanity, my reason
and my sense of justice and from spending 40 plus years working with people....
and yet, my work in retail has me, quite often, hating, just absolutely
hating people...so how do I resolve this conflict?

I don't have to... that is the point....I can hold conflicting beliefs....
beliefs that even contradict each other..... it is ok to do so....

but I can also hold to the belief that this is where we are.. right now, right here
and this is where we "ought" to be... to see the difference between what we are
and what we should be...and in large part, my liberal beliefs are what
people "ought" to be.... we should be here and not there... that is the liberal
belief, in large part to go from here to there...we should have some sort of idea
where want to be.......

the conservative doesn't seem to hold to the "where should we ought to be" ....
the conservative holds to, we are here.. vision of existence...instead of thinking
about where we should be......where we "ought" to be....

and in large part, that is the failure of conservatism... no understanding of
where we "ought" to be...

so, where should we be as human beings?

Kropotkin

[Dan~]

so, where should we be as human beings?

A bit better every generation,
until we transcend everything through technologies and sciences.

[Sculptor]

this topic I have been thinking about for a while......

our actions, our beliefs, how do we come to them?

we can have the lawyers tell us what the law is in regards to certain actions....
or we can use our humanity, our reason, our sense of justice to tell me
what we "ought" to do.....

I hold to the "liberal" viewpoint that human beings are basically, wanting
to do good... the problem is that sometimes it is really, really, really
hard to figure out what the "good" is in situations.....

Hilter definitely thought he was doing good. SImply by thinking that the German people (whatever the fuck that is) was more important than all other humans, and that the Jews were trying to assert control of the world's economies.

we can make rational arguments for just about any, any situation...
including what one might call murder...which I might call "self defense"......

we have "rules/laws" about most situations... but the law isn't the end all,
be all... for example it has been legal in the past to have slaves, to forbid
homosexual marriage, to prevent mixed, black and whites, from marrying....
to have women be the property of men, be it their father or their husband.....
Laws/rules that today, we in our infinite wisdom, see the laws/rules were
false or ignorant about what it means to be human....

but who know what laws/rules are truly ignorant we follow today,
that the future will declare to be just as foolish as the former belief
in slavery or the Jim Crow laws...

idea's like human beings are basically good or evil as the conservative beliefs,
which beliefs will come under attack in the future as being foolish or ignorant?

I come to my own beliefs from attacking them in both theory and in real life...
My beliefs come from who I am and what my socio-economic place is in life,
from my childhood and from the many books I have read over these many years....

that I can be mean and downright vicious one moment and walk little old
women across the street is part of who I am..... at times, I am hold to
"liberal" beliefs and other times, I hold conservative beliefs... again,
depending on the situation and circumstances......

I work retail...and if you have ever worked retail... you come to the conclusion pretty
quickly that you hate people.. that they are all really dumb and remarkable
stupid....which is in conflict with my "liberal" beliefs... so which beliefs should
I hold to? I come to my understanding of people from my humanity, my reason
and my sense of justice and from spending 40 plus years working with people....
and yet, my work in retail has me, quite often, hating, just absolutely
hating people...so how do I resolve this conflict?

I don't have to... that is the point....I can hold conflicting beliefs....
beliefs that even contradict each other..... it is ok to do so....

but I can also hold to the belief that this is where we are.. right now, right here
and this is where we "ought" to be... to see the difference between what we are
and what we should be...and in large part, my liberal beliefs are what
people "ought" to be.... we should be here and not there... that is the liberal
belief, in large part to go from here to there...we should have some sort of idea
where want to be.......

the conservative doesn't seem to hold to the "where should we ought to be" ....
the conservative holds to, we are here.. vision of existence...instead of thinking
about where we should be......where we "ought" to be....

and in large part, that is the failure of conservatism... no understanding of
where we "ought" to be...

so, where should we be as human beings?

Kropotkin

We are fucked

[Peter Kropotkin]

government is and ought....those on the left and those on the right
disagree with both the "is" and the "ought" of government....

government "is" means what is government is today... but that "is" is
based upon what history has told us about the government in the past
has been and done....we see government, both in its function and its
theory, as being historically decided....which is to say, what is the point,
function of government.. and that is known in historical terms.....
as taught by Hegel.....government does collectively what people cannot
do individually...government takes over doing the things necessary that allows
me to do the things I need and want to do.... so, by having the government take
care of the roads, the sewage plants, education of my children, defending my
property, I can do other things.. I can make a living, I can go about my daily life
and become who or what I want to be....

the conservative believes that the government prevents us from being able
to engage in our daily life....take taxes for example.... I see taxes as part
of the cost of existing in a society and a state where I have a fire department
and a police department and a sewage plant and schools... I don't have to do those
things... the government does that and thus I can do other equally important things....

the conservative attack against government comes along the lines of "government
takes away our rights".. but without clarifying if those "rights" come from the
government itself or, or is natural rights we already have?

from where does the conservative gets his "rights" theory from?

I hold that "all men are created equal" the declaration of independence
declares that it is "god" who has created this "inalienable" right...

but I don't believe in god, so from where do I get my notion of
"all men are created equal from?"

as I look about me, I see human beings being equal... because
I cannot see any way to make a distinction between two human beings,
either politically, socially, biologically or philosophically......

we human beings, all human beings, have within them, needs and wants
that all biological creatures have... we must eat, we must have water, we
must have shelter and we must have health care and education...those
are the physical needs of every single human being... how do I get from
everyone having the exact biological needs to some sort of difference between
human beings? All human beings are created equal because they have the same
basic biological needs of every other human being... but that is physical needs
and we all have psychological needs.. every single human being alive has the
same psychological needs.... to be loved, to be esteemed, to be safe and secure
those psychological needs are the same in every single human being...
we are created equal because we have equal needs and desires....

so what is the role of government given that we human beings have the
exact same needs and desires? to make is possible for human beings to
reach those goals of meeting those needs of food, water, shelter, education,
of finding love, safety/security, to be esteemed.. the path of human existence
lies along the lines of seeking and finding our basic biological and psychological
needs....we are created equal in the fact that we seek the exact same thing,
biologically and psychologically....

so the role of government is to insure people the ability to achieve
their biological and psychologically needs... so the government cannot
know what I need, exactly in terms of biological or psychologically...
but the government can make it possible for me to engage in my own search
for what I must have, biologically and psychologically.... with the government
taking over some basic actions such as protection and removal of waste
and fixing the roads and educating my children, I can engage with
seeking my own fundamental needs, both biologically and psychologically.....

let us take another example... the wearing of masks....
now those on the right claim that this action, denies them
certain "rights".... but they never engage in where do these rights come from?

are the rights that the conservative speak about come from the state? come from
nature? come from god? or do the rights the conservative speak of come from
some other source/ place?

and why? because so much of what the conservative talk about is actually
never reflected upon......We hold these rights to be self evident.. is
what the conservative says... but those rights aren't self evident....
and need to be explored and understood....

so when the conservative says, we hold that mask deny us our freedoms,
upon what theory are they basing that upon?.... what is the source of
their claims?

the constitution? the declaration? the "American way of life?

what is the source for the conservative claims?

I doubt even conservatives know on what they base their claims upon....

so we return to the original question..... what is the source of the "is"
understanding of government and what is the source of the "ought" claim
of government?

government is... and government ought to be.........

all of this relies upon some understanding of what is the exact role
of government... and we haven't really established what is the exact role
of government in America...and what the role of the government ought to be....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

from the book "the western intellectual tradition" by Bronowski and Mazlish.....

" A dominant trend of the period which this book covers (1500-1800)is the rise
of the scientific method, both in the natural and in the human sciences. Of the
many idea's which flow together into the scientific method, one is fundamental:
the idea that nature-physical nature and human nature-follows consistent
and permanent laws."

so some of the physical laws can be stated as "gravity" and "evolution"....
we cannot describe the universe without some recourse to the explanation
of gravity....and we cannot describe a human being without some recourse to
the concept of evolution....to do so would create a false and wrong
understanding of the physical universe and the human being....

try this, can you explain the game of football without any reference to a ball?

to do so would badly misconstrue the nature of the game of football....

and to explain nature without any reference to gravity is to badly misconstrue
the realty of the universe....

we can easily see the rules/laws of the universe.. by the 4 fundamental forces
or interactions of the universe....gravitation, electromagnetism, the weak interactions
and the strong interaction.... you can explain
the way the universe works by these four forces... these fundamental laws of
the universe....

so how can we also create the rules/laws of human beings...

how by offering up forces that define who we are... evolution,
the needs of human being, biologically and psychological/emotionally,
and the final human force is our goal..... what it is we are trying to achieve....

evolution is the beginning... we are created by the force of evolution...
we are social creatures.. this is the result of evolutionary forces on human beings...
we survived because we banded together as human beings... our direct survival
depended upon us working together and living together and dying together...

we also have the forces of our biological needs, the need to eat, sleep, drink water,
education, health care... these forces directly impact our actions in the world..
you cannot explain or understand human beings without recourse to our biological
needs

and we have psychological needs.... to be loved, to have safety/security,
to have esteem of our fellow human being....these psychological needs are
as strong if not stronger then our biological needs....

and the final factor in human beings is the goal... what goal/goals are we trying to achieve?

are we trying to fulfill our biological needs or our psychological needs or
our evolutionary needs?

and quite often we have a conflict between our various needs/natures...
sometimes we desire to fill our biological need over our psychological needs
and sometimes we are trying to fulfill our evolutionary needs over our
psychological needs.... but we aren't very clear as to which need is being fulfilled
at any given time....

but the laws/forces of human beings lies within the context of biological,
psychological or in the goals we decide upon...

is this list of needs complete? I don't think so...... for example, one might
argue that human beings have a need for pleasure or for knowledge or
for some physical need like money or cars.... but I hold that these needs
are found in the list of biological, psychological, or in our goals decided upon....

so to return to the is and ought.... government is a question of is vs ought....

and in terms of our laws/ forces of human beings... we see that government
can aid in our search for our physical needs or our psychological needs or in terms of our
individual or collective goals?

now the right claims that government itself is seeking its own needs
and desires, of which one is the domination of other human beings....

so how does that fall into our "is" idea or our "ought" to idea?

should government engage in, "is" seeking its own power to control
the human beings that are part of human society?

what is the role of government? should government be able to
hold the fate of its citizens to the government own idea of the needs
and desires of the government?

or should the government simply be an "umpire" in the existence
of its citizens? and that becomes an "ought"... government "ought" to
be an "umpire".. simply calling balls and strikes and not interfering in
the game....

I hold that government should play a role within the lives of citizens
by its shifting resources to whatever side needs it....

sometimes government needs to be strong and in control
and other times, it doesn't.....that government should have a fixed
and set role within the course of human events, I deny.....

so in times of economic troubles, the government does need to be
in control and working actively.. and in good times, the government doesn't
need to be in so much control.....

in other words, there is not set and fixed role of the government.....
it waxes and wanes depending upon the status of the "people"
now this leaves the question of which "people" does the government
aid or not aid, depending....

the GOP believes in aiding and helping the wealthy to the exclusion
of the middle class and the working poor and the dem's believe
in aiding the lower classes over the wealthy class.......

I am a liberal and so, I hold to the use of government to aid in
and help the lower classes in their pursuit of meeting their own needs......

the wealthy have already met their needs of being able to feed and clothe
and house themselves.... their basic biological needs are already being met...

the middle class and the working poor are attempting to meet their basic
physical needs.. and thus the government "ought" to help them reach those
basic biological needs......

it becomes a question of people reaching their basic, biological needs..
that becomes the role of government... how to help people reach their
biological needs.......

and this is, to some extent, already the function and goal of government..
by creating such social programs as WIC and Social Security and Medicare....
to aid in people reaching their basic biological needs of existence....

but the conservative beliefs that this use of government in reaching peoples
basic biological needs is the wrong use of government.... but they don't
explain how that is......the basic and primary argument used by conservatives
to deny governmental use of resources to aid people in reaching their biological
needs is that by doing so, people become "dependent" upon that resource....

in other words, conservatives claim that governmental aid to people creates
"lazy" people... to create "welfare queens"..... but conservatives
miss the point the point the to aid the wealthy in tax cuts and welfare to
corporations is the exact same thing..... you can't hold the wealthy and
corporations to a different standard then you hold lower class people....

to say that aiding the welfare of the wealthy or the corporation is to
engage in the "trickle down" theory of economics... is to miss the point....

either we create a means and ways to allow people fulfill their needs,
be it biological and/or psychological needs or we we don't ........

the standard we should use is, how does this help or hurt people in meeting
their biological and/or their psychological needs........

the "ought" theory and not the "is" theory.....

so, what is the role of government?

Kropotkin

[Dan~]

so, what is the role of government?

Goverment mutated over time in history.

Small tribes don't have a government.

Big countries have big macro governments that have a lot of influence.

Money itself is a kind of governing framework.

[Peter Kropotkin]

so, what is the role of government?

Goverment mutated over time in history.

Small tribes don't have a government.

Big countries have big macro governments that have a lot of influence.

Money itself is a kind of governing framework.

K: and that is true....

Kropotkin