Detective Kropotkin, at your service...

For all things philosophical.

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Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1505
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: Detective Kropotkin, at your service...

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

One of the Kantian questions is,
"What am I to do?" has not just philosophical implications,
but has other implications... for "what am I to do" also
has historical, social, economic, political, and psychological
implications...

my own historical context, my own personal story, plays a role
in "what am I to do?" for myself...I was born in 1959, that aspect
plays a role in my own story of "what am I to do?" I was born with
a handicap, hearing loss, which has impacted all my choices, all
my life...I couldn't be an astronaut or a soldier or a policeman,
those possibilities were simple out of the question..

I was born in a nonreligious family and I am nonreligious, so
those choices, of an engagement with becoming a priest or a Rabbi,
wasn't possible...I tried going to a junior collage and discovered that
my hearing loss made schooling very difficult...so, I didn't go to
collage... another choice that has limited my options...
my own personal story has limited me in my choices...

the question of "what am I to do?" has limiting choices due to
our own personal story, historically, or psychologically...
my own temperament has limited my choices...
I hate being told what to do... I have an anarchistic
temperament... my element is organized chaos....I like
chaos, to a point... I like to improvise.... a structure life is
my enemy...part of the reason a 9-5 job never worked for me...

the answer to the question, "what am I to do?" has a historical,
psychological, economic, political, to name a few possible context,
in which that answer is possible.... "what am I to do?" is limited
by our own personal story or context....

Kant approached that question in terms of philosophy, but the real
answer lays in our own every day life and who we are and the context
of our lives...

or to say this another way, philosophy isn't just limited to philosophy,
we are engaged in life within our own history, our own culture, our
own political, social, economic history...and our own personal
psychology which is a story of our family, our beliefs, our indoctrinations,
our physical and mental state.... all of this is philosophy...

there is a reason why philosophy and psychology are so tied together,
they are very close to being one and the same..

in my own being a philosopher, I engage with not only philosophy,
but in history, science, economics, social theory, and psychology.....
my own philosophy cannot escape those disciplines, no matter
how hard I try...

which is to say, that the modern philosophical tendency to narrow
our focus, to specialize in small sectors, cannot succeed because
it narrows our own personal and collective history that defines
our philosophy... for philosophy to be successful, we must
engage in the big picture of who we are, historically, socially,
economically, politically and psychologically... we have not
only our own personal psychology, but we have a collective
psychology... or how do you explain Nazi Germany?

our story, be it historically or politically or economically,
is connected.. to speak philosophically is to speak historical
or politically or economically or even psychological....

"What am I to do?"

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1505
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: Detective Kropotkin, at your service...

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

the modern answer to the question,
''what am I to do'' revolves around the
mindless task of seeking the baubles of existence...
seeking the transitory trinkets of existence,
money, fame, power, titles, material possessions....
values that don't bring us any answers as to what it means
to be human, for the goals themselves, of money, of power,
of fame, of titles and material possessions... don't lead
us anywhere.. seeking money only results in money,
and seeking fame only results in fame and seeking material possessions
only results in material possessions.. there is nothing beyond
those values that gives us answers to what means to be human...
the search for trinkets only gives us trinkets in return
an empty and pointless search....

of greater value is a search for values, or in a search for the meaning of
existence, what values are worth searching for?

various values offer us a greater return than the search for
trinkets....the search for value can begin in one such search,
what does it means to be human...
another possible search is for morality/ethics...
the modern philosophical, that began with Nietzsche and
had Heidegger, Sartre, Wittgenstein also engaged in,
was this search for morality/ethics...this is the modern question
of philosophy, of 20th century philosophy....what does it mean to
moral, ethical... but that is not the only search today...

we can search for the aesthetic, the search for beauty has
far more value than any search for the trinkets of existence...
given a search for aesthetics or the trinkets of existence,
the search for beauty has far greater value than seeking the trinkets
of existence...but one might argue that that beauty is temporary,
transient, impermanent... as is the case for the trinkets of existence,
money, fame, titles, power, material possessions are also ephemeral...
but part of the value of beauty is in its fleeing nature...it is
temporary and that is what gives beauty its worth... we can enjoy
beauty knowing that it is and will be fleeting... the value of beauty
is in its transitory nature... but money or fame or titles gives us no
such pleasure in their transitory nature.....

we can seek out beauty and be forgiven their fleeing nature
because of the intense pleasure that surrounds beauty....
I feel better about being human in being able to see and enjoy
beauty.... a pleasure that is lacking in seeking out money or
fame or power or titles...

we seek, that is part of what makes us human, but in this
seeking, we must be sure we are seeking something that has
greater value than money or titles or fame...
and in seeking out philosophical concepts such as aesthetics or
morality/ethics or justice or epistemology... we seek out that which
confirms us as being human, in a way that seeking out money or
fame or titles does not... the factory lite conditions of most
workers denies us beauty or morality or justice... the factory
lite conditions of most people is nothing more than nihilism...
the condition of dehumanizing or devaluing human beings and/or
their values.....work as we modern define it, has no interest in
such values as justice or beauty or equality... it has only one
interest and that is money/profits and that single minded
search devalues us, and that makes work, the modern concept
of work, nihilistic... our modern work has no need for
morals or beauty or justice or equality....the values worth living for
and the values worth dying for....the modern concept of working for
40 years and then to retire for 5 to 10 years before death, makes no
sense...it is an unequal deal that only benefits those who own
the means of production... and has no value or worth to
the modern person... better to seek out beauty or justice or
equality and live on the streets than sell oneself into slavery
and work for 40 years to achieve, to get nothing but a temporary
retirement of a few years...our entire modern way of living, of
seeking out money, fame, titles or material possessions has
no benefit or gain for any of us.... but seeking out beauty,
or seeking out love, or seeking out what it means to be human,
has a far greater benefit for us than just seeking out money or fame....

I have wasted my life because I sought out money and titles
and fame and material possessions.. I could have had
a life full of beauty and justice and morality, which is
a life well spent...a life not wasted...

what does it mean to be human? That question is worth a lifetime seeking out....

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1505
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: Detective Kropotkin, at your service...

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

philosophy/philosophers are always engaged in seeking out
some sort of "final" overarching answer to everything...

Philosophers go about seeking out "final" answers" such as freedom,
equality, nationalism, god, immortality, justice, rationalism, and in
the case of Romanticism, irrationalism.....

upon what principles shall we build our understanding of what
it means to be human? as all living creatures have needs, needs
of food, water, shelter, education, love, security, (note I don't add
happiness to this list) life as we know it begins with our needs..
and thus we start with how do we achieve those needs...
by noting that our needs come from both biological needs,
needs driven into us by evolution.. we have our needs that
evolution has put into us.. needs that are, in part, listed above....
but we also have social, political, economic, legal, philosophical
needs.. our need to know, that is driven in part, by philosophical
needs... for example, what is my place in the universe? there is no
economic or biological need to know, what is my place in the universe?

now some of the answers offer by the question of
"what is my place in the universe" does come from our own
individual need to know........ but ''what is my place in the universe'',
isn't about our need for love or our need for food or water or shelter,
this need to find our own place in the universe, has a different context...

and this need to know where we are, has a physical context,
astronomers and those who study such things a geography,
geology, sociology, history, biology, are also engaged in the
question of ''what is our place in the universe", as with
philosophers... these disciplines are just different aspects of
of that question...

but let us think about the person who is hungry or one who has
no shelter, or is lacking in education or health care,
does the question of ''their place in universe" really matter much
if their needs are not being fulfilled? of the person lacking love
or esteem or safety/security, does it really matter what
is our place in universe, if we are lacking in those important
needs? Personally, I am not driven by my need for love or
esteem or safety/security needs, because those needs, for me anyway,
are already being met.... I have my basic needs being fulfilled and so
they don't drive me... my bodily and psychological needs are being
met, so am free to engage in the "higher" questions of who are we,
and what does it mean to be human.... but that is the point..
in which my "lower" base needs of food, water, shelter, love,
safety/security needs are being met.. I am free to engage in the
"higher" questions of existence...I have the time and leisure to
engage in these questions...or to think about it another way,
as my lower needs are being met, I can be more "rational" in
my thinking... as my needs are biological imperatives..
I cannot escape those biological imperatives...

and so if I were to place the question of where we start with,
or how do we begin to understand what it means to be human,
we begin with our "Lower" biological imperatives...
that is where we begin to understand what it means to be human...
both biological needs and psychological needs have to be met for
me to have the time/leisure to ask the "higher" questions of existence...

so the bottom of our own ''pyramid of existence'' is this question
of needs... how are we to meet our needs?

and as our needs are social, collective, we now can engage in
thinking about how do we meet our needs, in terms, in light
of our ism's, ideologies...or said differently, which ism's or
ideologies actually do met our inherent biological needs of
food, water, shelter, education and our psychological needs
of love, esteem, safety/security?

does capitalism, as an ideology, actually fulfill or met
our biological needs as we have described them?

the answer is self-evident.. a resounding no... millions
of people are lacking in proper resources to met their
biological needs of food, water, shelter, education
and health care, and that doesn't even get into our
psychological needs of love, esteem, safety/security...

as an ideology designed to meet our needs, capitalism fails...
as we have an entire biography of communism, as defined
by the Soviet Union, we can see that ideology also failed,
in both meeting the biological needs of people, in terms
of their biological needs and in terms of their psychological
needs...

so, we ask ourselves, who seems to be happiest in the world today?
and it has been the countries that seem to split the difference
between capitalism and communism... Norway, Sweden, France,
Finland...European countries that have mixed economic societies...
with the best of both worlds, the best of capitalism and the
best of socialism... a place where most people have their
biological and psychological needs met....
places that have a far better ratio of work/leisure than
in stricter capitalism countries like the US.... where the
division is more like 60 or 70% work and 40% or less leisure....

we need to think about what works and what doesn't, in terms
of our ism's and our ideologies....capitalism fails in its
basic premise, the greatest benefits for the greater numbers....
possibilities to improve the work/leisure mixture lies within
such concepts of a UBI... Universal basic income... and the
great fear that it might make ''people lazy" is some sort
fantasy that that the point of existence is to work, to
provide for oneself is the point of existence... no,
the point of existence is to met one's needs... and that
can be done in a wide variety of ways....including a UBI....

and it can be done, if we understand that socially and
politically, it makes no sense for billionaires to hog all
the available wealth... in other words, by preventing
vast amounts of wealth to go into the hands of the 1%
and get into the hands of the vast majority of people...
is the point of existence meant to bring great wealth to a
few, or bring wealth to the many? do we believe in
the greatest good for the greater number of people?
which is one of the starting points of political systems
like democracy....to meet the needs of the many
and not the needs of the few or the one....

this becomes a question of equality/justice...what is more
just/equal... a system that delivers vast wealth into
a few hands or a system that brings about wealth to the many?

it doesn't matter about "How hard one works" to gain wealth,
it is a matter of justice/equality.....what is fairer? what is just?
wealth in the hands of a few or wealth in the hands of many?

your answer will help you decide upon the social, political
and economic ism's and ideologies that you want to put in place....
not what is currently in place, but what we should be engaged with...
and that becomes our social, political and economic goals...
what systems actually met our needs?

the question is rarely, what is in place, but the question should
be, what ought to be in place, what ism will meet our basic biological
and psychological needs....because capitalism has failed to
meet our basic biological and psychological needs..

so what ism/ideology will met our needs? begin there....

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1505
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: Detective Kropotkin, at your service...

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

we can admit that those who hoard things, have a mental
illness... I have a friend of mine whose brother was evicted
from their apartment because of extreme hording.. there
was literally no place to sit in that apartment because of
all that crap that he horded... and that is, a walking
definition of mental illness, hording possessions to the point
that all other needs are removed..... and keep this in mind when
we think about billionaires....people who have enough wealth to
last them several lifetimes and yet, they still have the need,
the hoarders need to have more and more...
billionaires are simply hoarders of money... it is a mental
illness... nothing more, nothing less...but Kropotkin,
billionaires give their money away to charity all the time..
and that is the second feeling that often goes with vast wealth,
guilt.... so, they assuage their guilt by giving some of their money
away, few if any ever give all their money away while they
are still alive...

hording is still hording regardless of what is being horded... newspapers
or cans or boxes of papers or money....so why do we discourage
hoarders from hording paper towels or boxes of clippings or
tennis shoes, when we applaud billionaires for their hording?

the effort to achieve wealth is not much more than just
another effort to horde something...wealth in this case,
but we can see hording in those who seek fame, or titles
or power..... if they can't just walk away from this type
of hording, they are hoarders and need to be treated as such...
addictions are really hording in another format...
if we are addicted to something, we are just hoarder's in
a different way.... a mental illness....
and in seeking wealth even if one is vastly wealthy, that is
an mental illness... the most prominent hoarder
in America today is IQ45... he claims to be a billionaire, but
he still constantly seeking out new ways to make money..
that is a sign, as if we need another sign from him,
a sign of mental illness....

Kropotkin
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