the role between the state and the society

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

the role between the state and the society

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

we have a society... and within that society, lies
the state... in other words, the state exists within
the society, but the society doesn't exist within the state...

let us look at two people, married people... I have been
married for 26 years... and one of the important
aspect of our marriage, the way we stay married,
is by conflict resolution...of course, we have
disagreements, any two people who spend any time together,
will have disagreements....we have created our own rules
and methods for working our own conflicts...
usually, I just give in... it seems to be the fastest way
to resolve conflicts that I can't win anyway....

now let us expand our thinking about conflicts....
within conflicts, we have conflicts that cover two
or more people... and the very existence of the conflict,
shows that the rules about conflicts are not being used
or two or more people have a conflict about the very
rules being used to resolve conflicts...the society
has created, by the creation of the state, means and
methods of solving conflicts... we have the police,
fire departments, the military, the court system, judges,
we have a vast array of ways to resolve conflicts...
and one method of conflict resolution is by ethics/
morality... by having a common set of rules that govern
our actions, our behavior, we can, hopefully, resolve
conflicts...in fact, one could argue that the main point
of a society is to be a means to resolve conflicts...

now think of someone who doesn't need ethics/morals?

that would be Robinson Crusoe.. because he lives alone...
and one who lives alone, has no need for ethics or morality...
a person in solitary confinement has no need for ethics or
morality either.....but, add one more person, and now,
with two or more people, we need a method or way to
resolve conflicts...hence, we have ethics/morality....

now to be clear, the state is a part of the society, the society
is a much larger entity than the state... the society creates
the state as a method of conflict resolution and so the state
lies within the society... and this is an important point to keep in
mind in talking about the society, the state and conflict resolution...

when we think about or talk about, how do we fit into something,
it is the society that we are talking about, not the state...
what is my place, is what is my place within the society....
and what about the questions of meeting our needs,
especially meeting our psychological needs.. to belong,
to have self-esteem, to be safe and secure.... those are societal
questions.. how do we fit into a society? what is our place in
our society?

we have history and we have economics and political theory
and philosophy and sociology... and all of these relates back
to the society... and our place within it...history and economics
for example, are social questions... questions about the society,
the society that was or the society that is or the society that will be...

now we combine these two theories, one, the society was
formed or created to resolve conflicts and two, that
questions of existence are social questions, questions
about our society...

we can rethink philosophical questions as questions about
the individual and the society at large...how do we find meaning
and purpose within a social environment that is our society?

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1501
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: the role between the state and the society

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

so, philosophy is about some aspects of the society and/or
the society and the individual...what is the relationship
between the individual and the state? Political theory is
but one part of philosophy and its wondering about
the relationship between aspects of the society
and the individual....

it has been said, that philosophy is about creating the original
question, the first principle of existence... but I don't think so...
metaphysical questions are not the starting point of philosophy
or even ethics or history.. no, the starting point of all our inquires
begins with the society/and or, the state.... how do I fit into
the society? with the point being, the society and my place within it...

isms and ideologies and values are all aspects of a society
and our roles/place within that society....

there is no point for Robinson Crusoe to seek out love
or a sense of belonging or finding what does capitalism mean
to him... he has no society and thus he has no possibility for
love or a sense of belonging or knowing capitalism....
those idea's only work within a society...

all Crusoe is engaged with is the securing of his physical needs,
he can't even meet his psychological needs because
that requires a society/state to meet those needs....
life for Crusoe is about seeking the basic elemental needs
of a living being...food, water, shelter....
he really can't even meet the educational or health care needs
because he is alone... and those two, educational and health care
require two or more individuals....or a society and he doesn't have that....

so the Kantian questions, "what am I to do?" 'What should I believe in?"
"what can I know?'' are not really individual questions, but
they are questions involving the state or the society...
thus the true questions to ask is this,

"What are WE to do?" "What are WE to believe in?"
"What can WE know?" our questions of existence are
really questions of our relationship with a society/state

So, what about religion? what about it?

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1501
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: the role between the state and the society

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

So, what about this question of religion?

this is one of the few times we actually escape the society/state...
for in seeking religion, one is seeking god.. and the relationship
with god.. and how does this impact our relationship with the
state or the society? seeking god is not about seeking our role
within the state or the society.....

but we have failed this basic test by bringing religion into
the state/the society..... by making religious test within
a state or a society, we have removed one of the basic aspects
of religion... that religion is about a one on one with god....
a personal relationship... and by bringing religious criteria into
politics, we remove that fundamental basis of religion...the
one on one with god....by having religion being nothing more
than a hour or so long sitting in church listening to a preacher,
we have lost the fundamental aspect of religion in our lives...
this sitting in a church listening to a preacher takes away the
meaning and point of religions....of seeking god....
seeking god is not a public activity, but a private one, done
best between oneself and god....being an atheist, I am often
accused of wanting to destroy religions and god, but that
is not true...I want a return to the point and meaning
of religions...I don't want hundreds of churches, I do
want a sacred place in the home where we privately seek
out god... I want 8 billion different religions, not thousands
of churches...for me, churches negates what it means
to be religious....

it could be said, the entire point of churches is to teach us
how to pray and in what language.....

if you need a church to be religious, you really aren't that
religious to begin with...and if churches are, as I suspect
they are, really nothing more than meeting places where
we congregate and engage with other ''religious'' people...
it is a social event, not a religious event...and as such,
it should be treated as such... not as being religious but
being a social event.. and that is how churches, here on the
west coast, are advertising themselves, not as a place for
religion, but as a social event, to meet other people...
and at least, here anyway, we are being honest on the value
of religion, it is a social event, not a religious event....

but the truth of the matter is that seeking god is way too much
work for people anyway... they aren't interested in an honest
dialogue about god or religions or even churches...
the church is just another place to see and be seen...
with no other value attached to it....

and I wouldn't mind so much if people weren't so engaged in
taking their private beliefs into public policy... to
have a clerk in a pharmacy, say Walgreens, deny my wife
birth control based on his religious beliefs is to force
her to hold his beliefs....to deny anyone actions based on
religious grounds is to force that person into having those
beliefs, regardless of their own personal beliefs.....
my actions are determined by your personal religious beliefs..
is anathema to anyone wanting personal choice and freedom....

but the right wing isn't about personal choice or freedom unless its
their own personal choice or freedom we are talking about...
and they are all about that... take masks for example...
the signs were about, "My body, my choice" unless its
abortion or my religious conscience or trans people...
then its "your body, my choice"

anyway, back at the ranch.....

by making religious questions into social questions we dilute
and diminish religions.... and even I don't want that...

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1501
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: the role between the state and the society

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

another way to think about this question about
the state and the society and you, is this
question that has been around since Kant...
the question of the "other"...

Now this question of the "other" has been the focal point
of philosophy since Kant... Hegel and then
Kierkegaard then Nietzsche and then Sartre.. all of them,
have made this question of the "other" front and center within
their philosophy...

the basic theory of the "other" is that we discover who we are,
by this contrast and comparison with others... Hegel "master and slave"
analysis is a total investigation about this "other"....

the idea is simple, we, as individuals, can only learn/discover who
we are by some contrast or comparison with ourselves to others..
those others can be family, church, the state, society, or as Nietzsche
pointed out, we can compare ourselves with others who are strong,
powerful individuals... N. himself pointed out others like Goethe,
or Napoleon or Emerson, are the Ubermensch, people we should
compare and contrast ourselves with...but what does this means?

that the Ubermensch is one who has overcome his/hers base
soul.. the animal part of us....one who has become master of
his/hers own feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions....
to be in control of who they are... regardless of what the state,
society, religion or others think of us or want from us....
this type of comparing and contrasting is comparing and/or
contrasting ourselves with the great souls of humanity.....

thus we have many who like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Ibsen,
who want us to avoid our comparing and contrasting ourselves
with the state, to find our identity through strength of our own
selves, through comparing and contrasting ourselves with
the great individuals who have gone before us...
recall K. command... "the crowd is untruth" ....
and we become who we are by us comparing ourselves with
the great individuals of the past.....not with the state,
or the state's apparatus of education, which to many is
nothing more than indoctrinations into the "lowest common
denominator" of the society/state/religion.....not the highest
aspirations of being human, but the lowest... that is what
we learn from our ''education'' to seek out the lowest
goals of existence, of seeking out the trinkets of existence...

for the goal of the state/religion/society is not to reach up and
become a Goethe or any other great person, but to remove
traces of our individualism... to be a ''team player''... to seek out
as the highest goal, the pursuit of money, fame, titles, material possessions...
the empty calories of existence...

so the question becomes, who are we going to use to become
who we are? Are we going to use the state education as a method
of knowing who we are, or are we going to use, as Nietzsche suggested,
the great individuals of the past as our goal to reach....
which other are we going to use to compare and contrast
ourselves to? and therein lies the attack that Nietzsche made
on Christianity... that was not a good role model for us to
compare and contrast our becoming into.... that we should
use Christian role models to become who we are would work
if, if we actually used Jesus instead of the caricature that
has been used since the time of Jesus as a role model...
and N. argument is that Christianity as a role model of
us as human beings, is a terrible role model...and fails
to create human beings worth being... and the same
argument applies to most religions... the human being
that they argue for are not human beings that we
should become..... they are not good role models
for us to become..... ask yourself, is the Christian
role model, the one that Christianity really a role
model that we should emulate?

I would answer no, as did Nietzsche... and others to be fair....
look at what Christianity, as a role model for human beings,
actually wants? to be engaged with life after death, not
with life during life...what a sad role model... to deny
and diminish who we are as human being into some sort
of failed and diminish human beings.... the bible,
Christianity denies the strength of human beings,
and glorifies our weakness and failings....
to turn our cheek if we are attacked... to be passive in
the face of aggression.... and that boys and girls is
exactly what the state wants.... the state uses the
state's religion of Christianity to create passive and obliging
human beings.... or to say it another way... to have
domesticated human beings... which religion does very well...

so which ''other'' are we going to compare and contrast ourselves
to? when seeking out who we are, who do we do compare
and contrast ourselves to? The standard role model provided
by the state, docile, passive, waiting to be organized,
or do we contrast ourselves to those who are self-organizing,
like Goethe, Gandhi, Napoleon, to those who have stretched
the idea of what it means to be human, into those who do
have thoughts and beliefs not sanctioned by the state...

but Kropotkin, you have stated, more than once, that
the path we must take/follow must be the path into
order.. not disorder and chaos... and those who don't
follow the state/the religions path into order, are
preaching for disorder and chaos...not order and structure...

my answer...

next post...

Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1501
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

Re: the role between the state and the society

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

the path into order, by a society is by using ism's and
ideologies... we use such ism's as capitalism to organize
our society, state... but as with any system, as we
go along, the system bleeds energy, bleed enough energy,
to engage in entropy long enough, the system will
become weak.. enough entropy and the system will
no longer be as stable as it once was... think of our
own body.... we are born and we self-organize ourselves
by the rules of biology, evolution and the rules of
science, gravity, thermodynamics, form an organized/ordered
body... but as the years pass, we become disorganized...
we are no longer as ordered and structured as we once were...
old age and disease and injuries are part of entropy in our lives
and death is the final act of entropy in our lives...old age
is the movement from order and structure to disorder
and chaos in our own bodies...when we die, it is the final
victory of chaos, disorder, entropy in our biological bodies..
we cannot renew or draw into our bodies, enough energy
to overcome chaos and disorder.....but think about a system,
such as a political system or a economic system such as
democracy or capitalism... it too must operate under the
ever present state of entropy... any political system
begins by self-organizing itself and as it ages, it
too falls victim to disorder and chaos...but unlike,
our physical bodies, we can renew, overcome disorder
within our social and political systems...

and that renewal, reorganization comes from those who
are self-directed, those like Goethe or Gandhi or Napoleon,
who bring into those systems, new energy and thus escape
the effects of disorder and chaos, escape the effects
of entropy.... our social and economic and political systems,
get renewed by thinkers and philosophers who engage
in renewing those systems..,.. and by renewing, I mean
bring in new energy into the systems they are engaged with...
for example, Gandhi didn't just bring about the end of
English control over India, he brought in a new energy
into the country, politically and socially and economically...
in a very real sense, Gandhi brought about new energy into
India which renew its energy, thus fighting off the effects
of entropy, of fighting off the effects of disorder and chaos....

the value of the rebels and dissenters is that they bring
in new energy into the areas they are attacking, the state itself,
or the society or the economic system.... Marx didn't just
attack capitalism, he brought new energy into the system,
which renewed and brought about a greater order and structure
into the economic system...think about the Jesus revolution...
what did Jesus do, what did he actually accomplish?

the fact of the matter was the old way of doing religion,
was fading, turning from order and structure into disorder
and chaos.... the old religions that existed before Jesus,
were losing energy and were going to fade away at some
point.. regardless if Jesus had lived or not....
all Jesus did was bring a new energy into the very
old religious systems that had existed for a millennium
before he was born... those old systems were running out of
energy and thus they were descending into disorder and chaos,
they were engaged in entropy...that is why, in part, why
the only religion to survive the fall of Rome, was Christianity..
because it brought into the empire, new energy, that
created a new system of order and stability and structure
into Europe...that was called Christianity.... the new
order and structure....

and that is the value of those who oppose or object
the current system in place.... like Nietzsche, he
brought about a new energy, a new way of thinking
about what it meant to be human... and this new way
of thinking has brought about a new energy, a new
path into order and structure and stability.... but
because we still irrationally hold onto the old way,
the way that has lost energy and is going from
order/structure into disorder and chaos..
we still haven't regained our energy and turned
disorder and chaos into order/structure...

that is why our age is disorder and chaotic... we are still
engaged in the political and economic systems that
has lost energy and is descending into disorder and Chaos...

how to escape this disorder and chaos that we exists in today,
that is the real question of today...

Kropotkin
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Harbal
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Re: the role between the state and the society

Post by Harbal »

Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 4:03 pm
Now this question of the "other" has been the focal point
of philosophy since Kant... Hegel and then
Kierkegaard then Nietzsche and then Sartre..

Kropotkin
Ooh, someone knows his philosophers. :wink:
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