so what is needed today?

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Peter Kropotkin
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so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

after a day of contemplation, I wonder about what it is
that we actually need? and I believe that part of the individual's
problem lies within the social and political problem or
question that we must face.... that of a reevaluation of
of what it means to be an American?

look at individual Americans and look at America as a whole,
and one see the exact same problem... an inability to
see or to have a goal, for the future....

and that comes from our emphasis on the ism capitalism..
which focuses on very short-term gains and profits...
a long term plan in America is 6 months... and anything
longer than that, just doesn't happen...

the trinkets of existence are focused on and with demands being
about short term gains... fame is about fame today and wealth is about wealth
today and power is about power today and material possessions..
they are built to fall apart in a few years forcing one to buy another..
a couch or a car only last a few years before needed to be replaced...
and that symptom is an American trait... focusing on today and tomorrow
be damned...civic leaders and business leaders and the famous, only
praise short term goals....have you heard anybody in America talk
about a 5 year plan or what should happen in the next 10 years?
I can't even remember someone talking about plans or goals longer
than a year.. in several years.....

we in American are of the moment and live for the moment and die
within the moment...all of our planning and organizing and living
exists within this moment and no further out.....

and the next point is that we in America live and die for profits
and money... we have no other goal or point outside of profits/money....

we use education to create jobs and careers, and we use
drugs and booze, among other things, to distract us from our
failure to have any other interest outside of the creation of
profits/money..... ART is thought of in terms of how much money
can one make or how much can an item be sold for... no real
interest in ART for ART sake....it is forgotten and forsaken...
and sports and TV, the real housewives for example, are
just ways to distract Americans from the poverty they live in,
not just our economic poverty, where half of all Americans make
35,000 or less, no, not just that poverty, but our poverty in
seeking out becoming a better human being... for in America,
that is equated with getting a better job, with a better job,
you become a better human being, not that false but prevalent
belief....

We in American don't even have a sense of what it takes to become
a better human being and in fact, I would suggest that it is of
no interest to Americans.... so what, being a better human being doesn't
have job benefits or overtime pay and it is way too much work to even
consider it..... why bother even thinking about being a better person
when we could be thinking about the real housewives or how the Giants
did last night... (they won) or where we are going on our next vacation....

we Americans deal with and engage with minor, superficial shit...
with no thought as to the big questions of existence.....
to call Americans shallow would be an insult to shallow people
everywhere.... why bother with any type of big picture stuff when
I could be watching TV or smoking a joint...anything to distract me
from any actual consideration of what it means to be human, or
what does it take to travel down the road from being animal to
being animal/human, (where most people are) to being fully human..
what would it take to make that journey? few know and even fewer
care.....

IQ45 is an ideal role model for America because he has all the
depth and complexity of a piece of paper....and Americans love him for that
complete lack of depth and intellect..... I have tennis shoes smarter than
IQ45..... think about the role models of American's today...

IQ45, The Kardashians, game shows winners, sports hero's...
not one of them engages with any type of thought about what
it means to be human or how do we become better human beings?
or even what is the role of education in America or the role of
prisons?

or how about this.. name me one, ONE college professor in America
today, not named Noam Chomsky... I can't think of one... and that devaluation
of education is, in part, why America is floundering... we have failed
in thinking about ourselves in intellectual terms... what is the role
of reason, what is the good life? what does it mean to be human?

I am not talking about the so-called experts, but about what the average
educated person in American thinks about these important questions....
and that again, is part of the problem, that we don't educate to
think about questions or answers, we educate to give people the
skills for jobs and careers... and that has lead to the failure in
America today...we have misused the value of education into
job training, instead of using education to teach people to think critically
and wonder about what it means to be human.... today, to think critically,
is attacked as being "woke"

we need to rethink, to reevaluate what it means to be an American
and what values should American's have? to do something that we
haven't done in a long time now, to think about what our future
should be and what it should look like....

more later....

Kropotkin
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phyllo
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Re: so what is needed today?

Post by phyllo »

If only everyone was like Kropotkin, then there would be no more problems.
Peter Kropotkin
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Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

to return to the post at hand....

if we were to lay out an American ''mission statement"
what would that mission statement look like?

first and foremost, to seek out the baubles of existence...
to "eat" the empty calories of life, in seeking money,
fame, power, material possessions, titles... to seek these
values out is the same as eating empty calories..
it has no other value than to fill you up.. it has no
nutritious values...eating the pizza box is healthier
than eating a pizza...and seeking out those baubles of existence
is no different than seeking out empty calories....

but what should we seek? instead of seeking out isms and
ideologies that have no value, we should seek out
values that have a more transformative value...
to be human is to engage in change all our lives....
but for most people they simply react to the changes within
themselves, instead of being the change themselves...
in other words, let us seek out what changes we want
to make and why those changes and then act upon that...

what values are worth holding? values that allow us to move
further along in the path from being animal to animal/human to
becoming fully human... thus we need to grow from
just seeking out our needs, to spending our time in
pursuing the bodily and psychological needs of all human beings...
seeking out food, water shelter, education, and the psychological
needs of love, and esteem and safety/security and a sense of
belonging.... seeking out these needs are not a choice, they
are necessities, but we can rise above seeking these
basic needs/necessities...and seek out what values we should
be engaged with... values like love, peace, hope, justice,
to engage in these values as a "way of life"

the path to becoming human lies along the lines of seeking out
bodily/psychological needs into living our lives based on values
and using those values as a ''way of life"

so when I pick a values, say justice, I don't just give justice
any type of lip service, I engage with justice with my every action,
and I engage in justice as a "way of life" every single action
and thought of mine is an engagement with the value of justice....

is this action, of putting people before material good/possessions,
an act of justice? Yes, it is clearly an act of justice to put
human beings before material possessions...

so our every action become a means to engage in the values
we have selected... so we hold to justice as a value and not
to the pursuit of wealth or power or fame...
every action is an attempt to find justice, not wealth...
or fame or titles.....to pursue wealth or power or fame,
is that all we get from that pursuit is more fame or power
or money.... there is nothing beyond the pursuit of
wealth or power or fame.... we just get more of the same..
if you pursue wealth, that is the only thing you will get from
it... it has no other value.. and if you pursue fame,
and all you will get is fame or no fame, but nothing
beyond that.. and power will only get one power,
but nothing else...empty values....

but to seek out values like love and justice, means you get
something more than just those values in return...
in seeking/finding love, you get much more than love,
you get a peace and a happiness and a contentment,
that cannot be found in seeking out the trinkets of
existence....in finding love, you transform the world..
and in finding justice, you transform the world,
and in finding peace, you transform the world....

the world changes all the time.. in fact, if there were a
consistent point about existence I would make, it is this,
the world changes... and we shouldn't be passive about
the changes to be made, we should be proactive about
the changes in our existence...and in pursuing love or
justice or any other values, is to be proactive about change...
to transform our values is to make changes that are beneficial,
is an active choice...let us be active participants in our
changes instead of letting them happen to us...

what choice to act on values like love or peace or justice
is to make an active choice in what kind of future we want...

what kind of human being do I want to be, and what choices
must I make to be that person? to transform into our chosen
person is to make choices about what values we should
hold to....

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
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Re: so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

so to flesh this out further....

what does the society/state require of us?
what does it train us to do?

to be independent thinkers, or to hold values that aren't popular?
nah, the state/society requires us to be educated into being
workers, producers and consumers... hence the state/society
making education as the means to train people into having
marketable skills, to be able to get a job/have a career...
that is the education we get in our schools today...

but we cannot live by that very limited understanding of
what it means to be human... we are more than just workers,
or producers or consumers..... and to engage in that understanding
of what it means to be human, we must have diversity and choice
and possibilities...to choose from and to engage with... we cannot
become who we are if we have but limited choices as to
what it means to be human.... think of nationalism and
consumerism and militarism as values to be pursued...
for those are the American values today....

(America has spent over 90% of its history engaged in wars or
violent actions.. 90% of its entire history fighting someone,
that militarism has infected us into thinking the highest value
is that of sacrifice for country and that particular value is wrong
because it leads us only to the value itself.. violence, and
the creation of violence as the only possibility for violence...
there is no other possibility in violence.. just more violence)

and what about peace? who knows, American has never chosen
that value...the why not give peace a chance,
instead of the violence that is so inherent in America today...
as a choice... by holding onto weapons of death, having guns
in America, we are choosing violence over peace... for guns
have only one purpose.. and that is to commit to violence..
guns have no other role or value.... keeping guns is
about choosing violence over peace.....
and we can do better than that.. if we are serious about
becoming a better people... a better nation... and why
peace instead of violence? because peace gives us something
more than just peace when carried out, and violence can only
give us more violence.... peace can leave us hopeful and trust
more and love more... whereas gun violence has no other value
than violence...it just brings out more of the same.. violence
begats violence....nothing more....

the path into becoming more human, lies in the understanding of
what it means to be human... to seek out that which has more
value... to seek out diversity and love and peace.. that brings us
closer to being/becoming human, fully human... and violence and hate
and prejudice/bigotry only brings us violence and hate and
prejudice/bigotry... it has no other value or other possibilities..

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
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Re: so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

and I can see some out there thinking, how naive is
Kropotkin, how engaged in utopianism he is....

but tell me, if I am engaged in utopianism, by
promoting love, peace, diversity, justice..
and what are you promoting?

Hate, violence, anger, prejudice and bigotry,
to name a few values, you are saying that we
human beings have no choice but to be violent
or hate or to hold onto prejudice... but I say,
I say we have a choice... we can become
the lives we want to be, by making choices....
you can choose the future possibilities by choosing
peace or love or justice...

the choices we make, decides the future we have...
and I want a better future so I choose positive values, not
negative, violent values...what future do you want?
by making choices today, we can create that possible future...

what future do you want and what choice are you going to make
to create that future? and why that future, why those choices?

why these values and not another set of values? choices...
choices are really all we have as human beings.... and then
why can't we be engaged in making our own choices?

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

Re: so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

then what is philosophy?

the means by which we decide on what values we should
be engaged with... philosophy is the method on which
we decide which values we should hold or not to hold.....

life can be said to be about the values we pick, not the experiences we
have....

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

Re: so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

so let us rewrite what I said above....

we can think of existence in terms of leading ethical/moral lives...
and what does it mean to live ethical/morally?

that is the question we must be asking....
instead of thinking about existence as the society/state
does today, we only have value as consumers, workers,
and producers, what if, what if our value as a human being
really is about being ethical, moral?

what is the point, goal of existence?

to be ethical, to be moral... that is the point of existence....
not to make things or to build things or to buy or sell things,
but to be an ethical, moral human being....

so, what in practical terms does that mean?
it means with every action and thought, we might
ask ourselves, is this an moral/ethical action/or thought?

and what do we base our judgment on what is ethical, what
is moral? What standards are we using to decide what it ethical or
what standards are we using to decide what is the
"morally right thing to do"....

that understanding of what it means to be human makes as much
sense as our thinking that existence is about making things, or producing
things or consuming things... to be moral/ethical makes as much
sense as us consuming and producing things as a meaning to or
purpose to life....

the goal of life, of existence is to be moral/ethical...
that statement makes as much sense as this statement:

"The point of existence is to make and consume things"

to be ethical/ to be moral is a choice.. a choice we can make
if, if we actually knew what being ethical or moral actually means?

''what is the "right thing to do?"

who knows because we don't ask that type of question,
we want to know what is in it for us or how much do we
get paid for being ethical, to be moral?
we seek ethics and morals in terms of what it gets us personally,
how much benefit we can get from being ethical, from being moral.....

and that is the problem with our capitalistic mindset, we think
in terms of what is in it for us, instead of approaching
ethics and morals as a way of life, and not as a means to get paid.....

and what does it mean to have life being an engagement with
consuming or working or producing? Because the fact is that
when our mindset is about working or producing or consuming,
it doesn't matter what we are producing or working on
or consuming... it is irrelevant as to what is being made
or what is being consumed... but it is very relevant to
understand our moral and ethical accountability in life...
every single action and thought can be engaged in what it
means to be moral... whereas our modern way of life, of
working or consuming, it doesn't really matter what we make
or consume...it is all the same thing..... what difference does
it make if we make or consume cars or TV sets or books?
it doesn't matter... but being moral or being ethical, every single
action and thought becomes another question about the
morals of that action or thought...we can apply ethics and morals
to every single aspect of our lives...something we cannot do
if we are busy consuming or working or producing things....
they exist as examples of themselves, not as examples of
anything else.....and their certainly isn't much thought into
the ethical or moral stance of consuming or producing things...
it is considered to be a good, regardless of what is being make or
produce...

the highest value in existence in our modern world is to produce
or to consume or to be a worker...
whereas the highest value in existence ought to be in our
thinking about the moral or ethical value of our actions or
our thoughts..... that should be what it means to be human,
not what we can consume or what we can produce...
or what we earn while producing and working.... these
are the wrong questions to ask...

the right question should be,
what does it mean to be ethical and moral?
not how much can I make or my value as to how
much I can buy? Existence becomes a judgement on
our value being moral/ethical...
not on what we can buy or produce....

a reevaluation of values... from producing, working
and consuming things to thinking about what it means to
be an ethical, moral person.... and what standards are we using
to explain what is ethical, what is moral?

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
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Re: so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

if the questions of existence is about what actions or thoughts
are moral and ethical, then currently we are wrong about the
meaning of life...

In today's world, is it ethical or moral to have children?
In today's world, is it ethical or moral to lay waste to
to the natural world in an effort to make profits?
Recall that scientist believe that we are in the midst
of a 6th extinction event.. cause by our ever growing
pursuit of profits.... we are killing the world to make money..
it that moral or is that ethical? Who knows, no one ever
ask that question.... it is assumed that capitalism is moral,
is ethical, no matter what it does.. because the highest value
that we believe in is profits, the making of money...over
all other values.... and that is nihilism... the domination
of one value over all the other values.. to the point where
the pursuit of money/profits denies human beings and their values...
as it denies the right of nature to exists, to be.. not to be
in the service of human beings, at all costs, but to be
a part of nature, not to destroy nature for our insane need
for profits over all other values...

is it ethical, moral to destroy nature to feed our inner need
for profits? should we be able to destroy entire forest to
make one person or a small group of people profits?
isn't a forest something that is owned by all, and not by a few
or one?

and so we bring into question this idea of ownership....
is it moral for people to own animal solely for the
purpose of profits? is that an ethical stance?
Is land something that somehow bypasses any ethical or
moral concerns? I would think even land or property would
be a question of morals or ethics.... as everything else
is a question of morals and ethics, why not land or property?

is the individual need, for profits or greed, more important then
the community or the whole? if we are serious about morals,
ethics, then we must question every single aspect of existence
today... from shopping online to the usage of land to
the modern attempt to drive the entire planet into extinction...
and us with that....

every action, every thought must be accounted for, both in terms
of being moral, ethical and in terms of its value to us tomorrow...
and now we bring in time as a measure of morals, ethics....

is our actions, which impact tomorrow, in terms of our impact
on us tomorrow, ethical or moral? We need to account for our
action in terms of how it impacts us tomorrow... morally and ethically,
not in terms of such outdated words like progress and profits...

in terms of what actions we take, our understanding of tomorrow
should be just as important as our understanding of its moral,
ethical impact on tomorrow...

we are thinking way too small, we need to expand our thinking into
what impacts us today AND what impacts us tomorrow...
and what is the moral, ethical meaning of our actions...
no matter how small or large, our actions are...

a reevaluation of values means we bring ethical and moral
concerns to the front of every single discussion and decision we make...

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
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Re: so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

but Kropotkin, why can't we just make the easy decision
and think only about profits and the cars we can buy,
by ignoring ethical, moral considerations....

my job isn't to make your life easier by ignoring ethical considerations,
my job is to get you to think about what it means to be ethical,
to be moral, given the impact our modern world has had
on morals and ethics.....

the primary question of existence isn't about how much money we
can make but is our actions and thoughts, moral, ethical actions
and thoughts..... are we being moral? no matter what actions or
thoughts we make... is that action or that thought a moral, ethical
action or thought?

that is the business of existence.. to think about what it means
to be moral, what it means to be ethical... that is what it
means to be human....not how money we make or how many
houses I can buy...but is it ethical or moral to buy more than
one house? or to have more than one car? what is the moral,
ethical thing to do? that is our only question in existence...


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

Re: so what is needed today?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

let us try this....
let us use the Declaration of Independence, as an ethical/
moral standard.... and the key line will be this:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS''

And we focus on the words, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness....
and that will be our moral, ethical standard we use in the judgement
of what is ethical, what is moral....

so, we take the modern problem of gays and trans people...
and using the declaration as our guide, how do gay and trans
people interfere with or prevent our achieving, life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

I can't see how gay and trans people interfere with my life,
as in my still being able to live out my life.... so that is out,
what about my liberty? How do gay and trans people interfere
with my right to liberty? Am I somehow prevented for achieving
my own liberty by gays and trans people trying to achieve their
own liberty? again, I don't see how... so, what about
''the pursuit of happiness?''
how is my happiness connected with others trying to become
who they are? Once again, it would take a serious stretch of
imagination to connect a gay/trans person seeking their own
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to my own happiness.....
How does a gay or trans person using a bathroom in Ohio,
stop my own happiness here in California?

it doesn't... now let us flip this...
by using the exact same logic, how do we interfere with
gay/trans people right to, as defined by the Declaration of
Independence, "to hold to their life, liberty and their own pursuit
of happiness"

let us see.... we know, that preachers in the south has called for
the death of gays and trans in America... so, their life has been
threatened by others...in violation to the declaration...
and what about their right to liberty? do deny people rights
based on sexual orientation is to deny them the right, as given by
the declaration of Independence, to have liberty.. the same liberty
I am guaranteed to by the declaration...
and now what about the "pursuit of happiness?"

we can clearly see this right, as being guaranteed by the declaration,
has been violated every time there is a law that defines or against
their right to happiness...when we say, gays or trans people cannot
marry, we are denying them their basic rights, to both liberty
and the right to pursue happiness...when we deny gays or trans
people medical care based on their sexual orientation, we are
denying them their right, to both liberty and their right to happiness...

when we ban events involving gays or trans people, based on their
sexual identity, we are interfering with their fundamental rights
as defined by the declaration of independence...both the right
to liberty and the right to happiness...
using the declaration of independence as a guide to moral/ethics,
we can see that the right wing has abandoned any pretense of
following the declaration of independence...

and what about using the bible? the problem here is
why this document and not another, like the Koran or
the words of Buddha? why must our ethical beliefs be based
on one particular set of beliefs that a large percent of the
American population doesn't believe in?
why that particular value system and not another?

to be frank, we have belief in the bible and the Christian god
because of geography, not on actual a actual belief system...
we believe because we live in America, and that is the system
that we inherited from our forefathers...
if we have been conquered by Muslims, we would happily practice
the Islamic religion and claim it is the "one and true religion"
just as easily as we make the same claim for Christianity...
religion is just about location and nothing more...
what religion you have is a function of where you live,
not what you believe in......

and I don't know what other belief system we have that might, might
justify denying gays and trans people the rights we give ourselves.....

can you?

Kropotkin
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