In line with both Socrates and Nietzsche, we philosophers have
to think of ourselves as doctors.. and the society being the patient...
and we have, as Socrates did in his day and Nietzsche did in his day,
to pronounce the verdict against the society.....
and the diagnosis is that the society is sick... soul sick...
and what is the evidence for this conclusion?
the rise of the MAGA/GOP crowd....the fact that a person who could
be so soul sick, to the point of mental illness, could be a realistic
possibility for being the next president... a criminal, a rapist,
someone who has no shame... a nihilist... and yet, 70 million
people voted for this person....
but what I find to be the real evidence of our society soul sickness,
is that the ''leaders'' of our society have failed to call this psychopath out....
the silence is what condemns our society to being labeled as soul sick,
has Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or even Oprah, or Lebron, has any
of them called out this criminal?
No, and none of them will because they are afraid... and that fear is
the second sign of our society's soul sickness.... to be fearful is
actual a sign of a human being... fear is a healthy part of existence,
unless fear is what is driving our society today...the conservative today
fears everything... the lists of their fears is long and has been
well documented.... blacks, gays, trans people, education, immigrants,
are just a few of the modern day fears.....
but why has fear, come to dominate our society, our state?
I have lived for a long time, and we weren't always so fearful....
the turning point seems to have been 9/11.... we were not afraid
during the 90's... but 9/11 changed everything..... we became soul sick
after that..... and what has fear driven us into? we think an psychopathic
idiot is the way to overcome our fears...
now some, or perhaps even most people here will dismiss this thread
as Kropotkin being Kropotkin... hating on conservatives again....
never actually giving any thought as to A. what if he is right,
B. what are possible answers to this ongoing fear we have,
of well, everything..... we are soul sick.. our fears demonstrate
that...so, what is the solution?
the path of overcoming, even fear, lies in our taking the first step...
of acknowledging that we are afraid of, everything... to become
aware of this fear that has driven the society and state for over
a decade....
for those who fear, that fear overrides good sense, rationality,
people who live in fear rarely make good decisions, or even make
sense... that fear of everything dominates every single choice we make....
and that is being soul sick... we think, what will make us safer? instead
of, what actions will be smarter for us to do? what actions make sense
for the future.. and because we have no plan for the future, no plan about
what we are aiming for, no plan for what we want to achieve tomorrow
and beyond, we don't even know what it means to be human.......
the fears drive out all attempts to understand the who and what
of being human.....
the question becomes, do you want to live your life in fear?
those who hold to god are also afraid... for holding to god
isn't from a sense of strength, a sense of power, no,
those who hold to god, do so from a place of weakness....
how do overcome this weakness? We begin from a place
of strength....that we can achieve greatness without a god or without
religion or without someone holding our hand.....
that we can become within the state/the society... our modern fears
have pushed the believe in the state/the society into something
to be afraid of, something not to trust....our own soul sickness
has turned something that is one the fundamental, the Greeks
held that the state being a basic reason that human beings
become human beings...without the state, we are just animals...
and they are right... our strength of being human comes from
the state/the society... and our current soul sickness has turn a
powerful tool of becoming human into something to fear...
we are social creatures.. and we best come into being human via
social means....by the state/the society/ the civilization......
the path to becoming human is best found within the state/society....
we learn our possibilities within our interactions with the state/the
society.... the only true path to becoming human lies within
our actions and interactions with the state and the society.....
in the path of becoming human, of going from animal to animal/human
to finally becoming fully human.. lies in our relationship with
the state and the society....animals have no need for a state/society...
and with every step closer to becoming human, come a greater
and greater need for us to engage with the state and the society.....
we cannot, cannot become human without the state and society...
and every attack on the state, the society, takes us one step further
from becoming human...and closer to being an animal....
and that is all fear driven.... of being afraid of everything....
what do you fear?
Kropotkin....
the fundamental problem of our modern day...
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
this question of being soul sick... what exactly does that mean?
how is one soul sick? what does it mean to be soul sick?
Nietzsche once predicted that the follow age.. the 20th century,
will be a ''nihilistic'' age...I would suggest that there is a
connection between this soul sick and nihilism....
and in fact, being soul sick is part of the disease of nihilism....
Nihilism, as I have defined it, is the denial, negation of human
beings and their values.... when people values are negated,
that is nihilism.. and when human beings themselves are negated
or devalued.. and what causes this nihilism? I would suggest that
our isms and ideologies, in part, caused this nihilism.....
one could easily say that the 20th century was the age of isms
and ideologies.....and this devotion to isms and ideologies,
is nihilism.....for the devotion to isms and ideologies does
deny human beings and their values....ism's/ideologies by
their very nature, deny/negate human beings and their values....
if you are busy seeking god or Marxism or brahman, you are not
paying attention to the soul and what it takes to have a healthy
soul......capitalism is the pursuit of money, and that too is not
paying attention to the soul... and what it needs....
the goal is the objective of these isms and ideologies...
and the goal of god or money or Brahman, doesn't
answer the question, of do we have a healthy soul or
what does it take or do to have a healthy soul?
if we could take Buddhism and remove its goal, of reaching Brahman,
or the one.. and hold to the eightfold path with no preaching of
liberation or salvation, then we have the right tool of
reaching a healthy soul.....
the eightfold path is right view, right resolve, right speech, right
conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness,
and right samadhi... which is meditative absorption or union,
or equanimous meditative awareness.....
and the one that sticks out for me, is right mindfulness... to be aware,
to be cognizant of oneself and one's surroundings.... right mindfulness
isn't about passing judgement on others, as we so often do today,
but to be mindful of others and their own road/path to becoming....
everyone, all of us, is on a road to something..... what I am saying is
that for most people, that road is not the road to a healthy soul....
is this the path to one having a healthy soul?
we wake up... most of us rush to leave home to get to work...
at work, what is the goal? to create profits... day after day,
we are negated in the search for profits... for that is capitalism..
to negate and devalue human beings in search of profits...
we come home after several hours of work, tired, exhausted...
we eat dinner, watch a little TV and then go to bed....
and every day is a repeat of that.... when do we have time
or space to think about our soul? we don't...... every day is rushing
around trying to accomplish some goal that has nothing to do with
us having a healthy soul.....
to spend our days and nights, seeking out profits or retirement or
salvation/being saved is not spending any time on the health of our soul....
for the search for salvation/to be saved is about god, not about us...
for us to reach heaven, a goal that only has impact after we are dead...
not while we are alive...... this focused on the next life, on the
afterlife, is a denial of our soul because it denies our soul today...
and our focus must be on ourselves, today, here and now...
not tomorrow or in the next life......to be mindful of who
we are and what we are doing today, not tomorrow....
to be focused on tomorrow or on the afterlife, is to engage
in nihilism.... and in case you were wondering, an focus
on the past, as conservatives do, is also nihilism... for in
focusing on the past, we are no longer concerned with today,
of being mindful of who we are and what is, right now....
Buddhism has the right idea if, if you lose the engagement with
becoming one with Brahman.....
being soul sick is really about forgetting about what we think, feel
and act upon, right here, right now.... being mindful of where
we are and where we need to be..... rushing around, trying to
get things done is really being soul sick.... the best example of
one who is not soul sick, is the person who stops and smells
the rose... making a mindful choice to pause and reflect..
that is someone who is healthy in the soul....
and the worst part is that we don't even have a word for
those who are not soul sick... for the few healthy souls
that exists in today's world.....what do we call them?
it is far easier to describe someone being soul sick, than
it is to describe someone who does have a healthy soul....
the question to ask is this, am I soul sick? and the answer comes
from our daily actions.... are we rushing around trying to make
profits or getting things done? then yes, you are soul sick....
but if we are mindful of our place and what we should be doing, then
we are healthy souls..... the path of existence is not to gain the
trinkets of existence, but to overcome and be aware of the nature
of our soul.....
what are we trying to do? what exactly are we attempting to
do in this life and why, to make a name for ourselves, or to do something
far more beneficial? to become soul healthy.....
become mindful of what we are doing and why.....
Kropotkin
how is one soul sick? what does it mean to be soul sick?
Nietzsche once predicted that the follow age.. the 20th century,
will be a ''nihilistic'' age...I would suggest that there is a
connection between this soul sick and nihilism....
and in fact, being soul sick is part of the disease of nihilism....
Nihilism, as I have defined it, is the denial, negation of human
beings and their values.... when people values are negated,
that is nihilism.. and when human beings themselves are negated
or devalued.. and what causes this nihilism? I would suggest that
our isms and ideologies, in part, caused this nihilism.....
one could easily say that the 20th century was the age of isms
and ideologies.....and this devotion to isms and ideologies,
is nihilism.....for the devotion to isms and ideologies does
deny human beings and their values....ism's/ideologies by
their very nature, deny/negate human beings and their values....
if you are busy seeking god or Marxism or brahman, you are not
paying attention to the soul and what it takes to have a healthy
soul......capitalism is the pursuit of money, and that too is not
paying attention to the soul... and what it needs....
the goal is the objective of these isms and ideologies...
and the goal of god or money or Brahman, doesn't
answer the question, of do we have a healthy soul or
what does it take or do to have a healthy soul?
if we could take Buddhism and remove its goal, of reaching Brahman,
or the one.. and hold to the eightfold path with no preaching of
liberation or salvation, then we have the right tool of
reaching a healthy soul.....
the eightfold path is right view, right resolve, right speech, right
conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness,
and right samadhi... which is meditative absorption or union,
or equanimous meditative awareness.....
and the one that sticks out for me, is right mindfulness... to be aware,
to be cognizant of oneself and one's surroundings.... right mindfulness
isn't about passing judgement on others, as we so often do today,
but to be mindful of others and their own road/path to becoming....
everyone, all of us, is on a road to something..... what I am saying is
that for most people, that road is not the road to a healthy soul....
is this the path to one having a healthy soul?
we wake up... most of us rush to leave home to get to work...
at work, what is the goal? to create profits... day after day,
we are negated in the search for profits... for that is capitalism..
to negate and devalue human beings in search of profits...
we come home after several hours of work, tired, exhausted...
we eat dinner, watch a little TV and then go to bed....
and every day is a repeat of that.... when do we have time
or space to think about our soul? we don't...... every day is rushing
around trying to accomplish some goal that has nothing to do with
us having a healthy soul.....
to spend our days and nights, seeking out profits or retirement or
salvation/being saved is not spending any time on the health of our soul....
for the search for salvation/to be saved is about god, not about us...
for us to reach heaven, a goal that only has impact after we are dead...
not while we are alive...... this focused on the next life, on the
afterlife, is a denial of our soul because it denies our soul today...
and our focus must be on ourselves, today, here and now...
not tomorrow or in the next life......to be mindful of who
we are and what we are doing today, not tomorrow....
to be focused on tomorrow or on the afterlife, is to engage
in nihilism.... and in case you were wondering, an focus
on the past, as conservatives do, is also nihilism... for in
focusing on the past, we are no longer concerned with today,
of being mindful of who we are and what is, right now....
Buddhism has the right idea if, if you lose the engagement with
becoming one with Brahman.....
being soul sick is really about forgetting about what we think, feel
and act upon, right here, right now.... being mindful of where
we are and where we need to be..... rushing around, trying to
get things done is really being soul sick.... the best example of
one who is not soul sick, is the person who stops and smells
the rose... making a mindful choice to pause and reflect..
that is someone who is healthy in the soul....
and the worst part is that we don't even have a word for
those who are not soul sick... for the few healthy souls
that exists in today's world.....what do we call them?
it is far easier to describe someone being soul sick, than
it is to describe someone who does have a healthy soul....
the question to ask is this, am I soul sick? and the answer comes
from our daily actions.... are we rushing around trying to make
profits or getting things done? then yes, you are soul sick....
but if we are mindful of our place and what we should be doing, then
we are healthy souls..... the path of existence is not to gain the
trinkets of existence, but to overcome and be aware of the nature
of our soul.....
what are we trying to do? what exactly are we attempting to
do in this life and why, to make a name for ourselves, or to do something
far more beneficial? to become soul healthy.....
become mindful of what we are doing and why.....
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
one of the dangers to a healthy soul is ego...
for it is within ego that we hold to values and beliefs
that prevent us from having a healthy soul....
it is from ego, that we hold to paths that are clearly
dangerous for our soul... for as Nietzsche said,
" it is not enough to have the courage of our conviction,
but the courage for an attack upon our convictions"
but due to ego, we quite often think our values and beliefs are
the right values and beliefs... without a reevaluation of values
that everyone should have, we cannot be certain that our
values are really our values/beliefs or we simply hold the
values/beliefs that were indoctrinated with as children...
for most of our values/beliefs are simply indoctrinations from
our childhood... believe in god, our parents ''educated" us with
that and education is simply another word for indoctrinations....
believe in the greatness of America, and that is just another
indoctrination from childhood....indeed, almost all our values
and beliefs we hold as adults, are simple indoctrinations from
our childhood.....
and in part, that is partly why we are soul sick.... we hold
childhood beliefs as adults... we lose our faith in, belief
Santa Claus, as we grow up.... but why haven't we lost our faith,
our belief in god... the two beliefs are identical...
to be good in both is to be rewarded in both...heaven in one,
presents in the other... as adults, we know that we are Santa Claus,
so, how come we don't know that we are also god... in the way of
being supernatural or holding court in heaven...
but we can forgive ourselves.... we can be the change that
we want to see... we can make the choice to be soul healthy,
or to be soul sick.... we can find salvation, to be saved in
just being who we are....and becoming soul healthy is one
clear path to discovering the holy within us.... we can become
''divine'' by simply becoming soul healthy.... to walk away
from isms, ideologies, activities, that deny or negate our soul...
my wife is always busy doing tasks and errands... but never engaged
in what is the state of her soul? she is, soul sick.... and unless
you engage in the state of your soul, you too are soul sick.....
but Kropotkin, I am healthy... are you? or is that ego talking?
Kropotkin
for it is within ego that we hold to values and beliefs
that prevent us from having a healthy soul....
it is from ego, that we hold to paths that are clearly
dangerous for our soul... for as Nietzsche said,
" it is not enough to have the courage of our conviction,
but the courage for an attack upon our convictions"
but due to ego, we quite often think our values and beliefs are
the right values and beliefs... without a reevaluation of values
that everyone should have, we cannot be certain that our
values are really our values/beliefs or we simply hold the
values/beliefs that were indoctrinated with as children...
for most of our values/beliefs are simply indoctrinations from
our childhood... believe in god, our parents ''educated" us with
that and education is simply another word for indoctrinations....
believe in the greatness of America, and that is just another
indoctrination from childhood....indeed, almost all our values
and beliefs we hold as adults, are simple indoctrinations from
our childhood.....
and in part, that is partly why we are soul sick.... we hold
childhood beliefs as adults... we lose our faith in, belief
Santa Claus, as we grow up.... but why haven't we lost our faith,
our belief in god... the two beliefs are identical...
to be good in both is to be rewarded in both...heaven in one,
presents in the other... as adults, we know that we are Santa Claus,
so, how come we don't know that we are also god... in the way of
being supernatural or holding court in heaven...
but we can forgive ourselves.... we can be the change that
we want to see... we can make the choice to be soul healthy,
or to be soul sick.... we can find salvation, to be saved in
just being who we are....and becoming soul healthy is one
clear path to discovering the holy within us.... we can become
''divine'' by simply becoming soul healthy.... to walk away
from isms, ideologies, activities, that deny or negate our soul...
my wife is always busy doing tasks and errands... but never engaged
in what is the state of her soul? she is, soul sick.... and unless
you engage in the state of your soul, you too are soul sick.....
but Kropotkin, I am healthy... are you? or is that ego talking?
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
one of the major reasons that human beings got to
where we are, the top of the food chain, as it were...
is simple, we humans are the animals that have learn to
adapt the best...
and it is the ability to adapt that has allowed us to survive
over a million years...(granted that a million years in the overall
scheme of things is negligible, I'll give you that)
it is that ability to adapt beyond our programming, our instincts,
that have allowed to do both the wonderful things of existence,
creators of great beauty, of ART, of music, of paintings..
and the acts of horror that is a litany of the history of the 20th century..
the Two World Wars, Auschwitz, the My Lai massacre, the easy/casual acceptance
of the violent deaths of innocent people, that in 2022, the police killed over
a 1,000 people...
so which beings are we? are we the killers of innocents or are we
the creator of great beauty and ART? and what role does
our ability to adapt play into this?
it is my contention that part of our current failure lies in our
inability to adapt to our current situation.....a look into history
tells us a story... that human beings were originally hunter-gatherer,
and we held to magically thinking... like the type of magical thinking
that children have.... with no thought to cause and effect...
and the next phase was the pastoral age... where we still move around,
but this time with the animals we needed to survive... where we controlled
the animals, sheep herding and the like... and this age, the pastoral,
is where we began to shift from magical thinking to theological thinking...
we begin to think in terms of cause and effect... the reason can
be due to the changing environment... in other words, we human
beings adapt our behavior and thought process to our environment....
and being in a pastoral society requires different thinking than a
hunter-gatherer society... we adapt to our new environment....
and the next environment we faced was the rise of the urban
environment... the rise of cities which was from the new format
of gathering food.. agriculture.... and with each new environment,
we changed our thought process... we adapt to each new environment..
and the rise of the cities created new problems that required solutions...
and many of the new problems come from the inability of some societies
or people to adapt the new environment....the inability of many to adapt
from the pastoral society to the new urban state/to agriculture...
and here is where it gets interesting... we have different societies/states
living in different environments... which is to say, some states/societies,
stayed pastoral and some switched to the new way, of agriculture, of cities...
the two distinct and different environments require two distinct and
different thinking...there was conflict between the two ways of life...
and here come the rise of thinkers and philosophers like Socrates,
the Buddha, Confucius, recall all three lived within 150 years of each other....
this cannot be a coincidence... three of the most influential philosophers of all
time living within a 150 years of each other.....
and all three arising during each of their respected states/societies are in
conflict and upheaval...and the conflict arises because each state/society
is in the midst of massive changes in their environments...
in India for example, the Buddha was faced with the various environments
clashing.. facing the clashing, changing cultures of the pastoral people
and the new environment of the cities and agriculture ... for each
different environment requires different types of thinking...
and this was the conflict, between the old thinking of the past, pastoral
and the new thinking of cities/and agriculture... if you fail to see this point,
you fail to see or understand the entire background of Socrates, Buddha
and Confucius... and we can see how the old way of thinking, the pastoral
way of thinking was not useful or beneficial for the new environment....
the old way of thinking held back the new ways of thinking...
the old gods, the old religions, the old thoughts have little value
in the world... the reason the Greeks so praise the cities was because
that was the new way, and cities were the new environment....
it was clearly an advancement on the pastoral life...
and the Greeks knew it....
and how in gods name does this have anything to do with today?
that is easy to work out.... we too, are in a transitional phase
of humankind... going from the old way of agriculture and rural
base life... agriculture was the heartbeat of the world for
over 2000 years.... and it is being replaced by the new environment...
that of technology and science.... and here lies the modern day
clash of conservatives and liberals....
conservatives want the old way, of being agricultural based and
theological based...that served human beings for over 2000 years..
and if it was good enough for our grandparents, by god, its good
enough for me.....that is the conservative arguments......
but we are in a new age, a new environment....
an age of science and technology.... where there is no
room for theological thinking... and no room for rural/
agriculture based thinking....
we are reliving the old clash between the pastoral society and
the city/agriculture society.... a different wine for a different
time....
even though we now live in a scientific and technological world,
conservatives want us to live in the rural/agriculture world...
that is fundamentally the clash between conservatives and liberals...
the old way vs the new way.....
and part of the old way of thinking lies in the theological thinking....
the conservative still holds to theological thinking and the modern
way of thinking no longer needs this theological thinking....
we can live in this modern world without god or religion....
and because the conservative can only live in the old ways,
the old thinking, they still live in religion and god....
and that way of thinking, of still believing in god, believing
in religion is what is holding us back from making real
progress in our lives..... belief in god and religion is preventing
us from becoming who we are....god and religious thinking
is holding us back...
and therein lies the modern clash... between the old way of
thinking and the new way of thinking... of being religious
and having no religion at all....conservatives are on the wrong
side of history... just as it took a while for the urban/agriculture
to become dominant in India, China and in Greece, it will take
some time for the next generation of thinking to settle in...
and the interesting thing is that this next wave of thinking will
only last a certain amount of time and then a new wave of thinking,
will challenge this new technological/scientific way of thinking of today....
and one of the results of this new way of thinking about our
environment, is that we will have a new wave of thinkers
and philosophers moving us into a new direction of
how we think about the environment....... we can think about
modern philosophy as a progression from the old way of thinking,
of thinking about the world in a theological, rural way, to
the new way, of being scientific and technological..
and part of the question become, what is being moral/ethical in
a scientific/technological world? how do we think of being moral,
given we now live in a technological/scientific world?
that was the real basis of Nietzsche thought.... what is morality/ethics
in a no-god world? and that has been the question of every major philosopher
since him....what is being ethical in a scientific/technological world?
and that is the next goal of philosophy....
Kropotkin
where we are, the top of the food chain, as it were...
is simple, we humans are the animals that have learn to
adapt the best...
and it is the ability to adapt that has allowed us to survive
over a million years...(granted that a million years in the overall
scheme of things is negligible, I'll give you that)
it is that ability to adapt beyond our programming, our instincts,
that have allowed to do both the wonderful things of existence,
creators of great beauty, of ART, of music, of paintings..
and the acts of horror that is a litany of the history of the 20th century..
the Two World Wars, Auschwitz, the My Lai massacre, the easy/casual acceptance
of the violent deaths of innocent people, that in 2022, the police killed over
a 1,000 people...
so which beings are we? are we the killers of innocents or are we
the creator of great beauty and ART? and what role does
our ability to adapt play into this?
it is my contention that part of our current failure lies in our
inability to adapt to our current situation.....a look into history
tells us a story... that human beings were originally hunter-gatherer,
and we held to magically thinking... like the type of magical thinking
that children have.... with no thought to cause and effect...
and the next phase was the pastoral age... where we still move around,
but this time with the animals we needed to survive... where we controlled
the animals, sheep herding and the like... and this age, the pastoral,
is where we began to shift from magical thinking to theological thinking...
we begin to think in terms of cause and effect... the reason can
be due to the changing environment... in other words, we human
beings adapt our behavior and thought process to our environment....
and being in a pastoral society requires different thinking than a
hunter-gatherer society... we adapt to our new environment....
and the next environment we faced was the rise of the urban
environment... the rise of cities which was from the new format
of gathering food.. agriculture.... and with each new environment,
we changed our thought process... we adapt to each new environment..
and the rise of the cities created new problems that required solutions...
and many of the new problems come from the inability of some societies
or people to adapt the new environment....the inability of many to adapt
from the pastoral society to the new urban state/to agriculture...
and here is where it gets interesting... we have different societies/states
living in different environments... which is to say, some states/societies,
stayed pastoral and some switched to the new way, of agriculture, of cities...
the two distinct and different environments require two distinct and
different thinking...there was conflict between the two ways of life...
and here come the rise of thinkers and philosophers like Socrates,
the Buddha, Confucius, recall all three lived within 150 years of each other....
this cannot be a coincidence... three of the most influential philosophers of all
time living within a 150 years of each other.....
and all three arising during each of their respected states/societies are in
conflict and upheaval...and the conflict arises because each state/society
is in the midst of massive changes in their environments...
in India for example, the Buddha was faced with the various environments
clashing.. facing the clashing, changing cultures of the pastoral people
and the new environment of the cities and agriculture ... for each
different environment requires different types of thinking...
and this was the conflict, between the old thinking of the past, pastoral
and the new thinking of cities/and agriculture... if you fail to see this point,
you fail to see or understand the entire background of Socrates, Buddha
and Confucius... and we can see how the old way of thinking, the pastoral
way of thinking was not useful or beneficial for the new environment....
the old way of thinking held back the new ways of thinking...
the old gods, the old religions, the old thoughts have little value
in the world... the reason the Greeks so praise the cities was because
that was the new way, and cities were the new environment....
it was clearly an advancement on the pastoral life...
and the Greeks knew it....
and how in gods name does this have anything to do with today?
that is easy to work out.... we too, are in a transitional phase
of humankind... going from the old way of agriculture and rural
base life... agriculture was the heartbeat of the world for
over 2000 years.... and it is being replaced by the new environment...
that of technology and science.... and here lies the modern day
clash of conservatives and liberals....
conservatives want the old way, of being agricultural based and
theological based...that served human beings for over 2000 years..
and if it was good enough for our grandparents, by god, its good
enough for me.....that is the conservative arguments......
but we are in a new age, a new environment....
an age of science and technology.... where there is no
room for theological thinking... and no room for rural/
agriculture based thinking....
we are reliving the old clash between the pastoral society and
the city/agriculture society.... a different wine for a different
time....
even though we now live in a scientific and technological world,
conservatives want us to live in the rural/agriculture world...
that is fundamentally the clash between conservatives and liberals...
the old way vs the new way.....
and part of the old way of thinking lies in the theological thinking....
the conservative still holds to theological thinking and the modern
way of thinking no longer needs this theological thinking....
we can live in this modern world without god or religion....
and because the conservative can only live in the old ways,
the old thinking, they still live in religion and god....
and that way of thinking, of still believing in god, believing
in religion is what is holding us back from making real
progress in our lives..... belief in god and religion is preventing
us from becoming who we are....god and religious thinking
is holding us back...
and therein lies the modern clash... between the old way of
thinking and the new way of thinking... of being religious
and having no religion at all....conservatives are on the wrong
side of history... just as it took a while for the urban/agriculture
to become dominant in India, China and in Greece, it will take
some time for the next generation of thinking to settle in...
and the interesting thing is that this next wave of thinking will
only last a certain amount of time and then a new wave of thinking,
will challenge this new technological/scientific way of thinking of today....
and one of the results of this new way of thinking about our
environment, is that we will have a new wave of thinkers
and philosophers moving us into a new direction of
how we think about the environment....... we can think about
modern philosophy as a progression from the old way of thinking,
of thinking about the world in a theological, rural way, to
the new way, of being scientific and technological..
and part of the question become, what is being moral/ethical in
a scientific/technological world? how do we think of being moral,
given we now live in a technological/scientific world?
that was the real basis of Nietzsche thought.... what is morality/ethics
in a no-god world? and that has been the question of every major philosopher
since him....what is being ethical in a scientific/technological world?
and that is the next goal of philosophy....
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
it is, at least one of my contention, that attempting to
hold on to the old way of life, to the old way of thinking,
is, in part, holding us back from moving forward into
our new world of science and technology......
theological thinking is holding us back.... but the question
becomes, what replaces it? it is my belief that the believers
in the old way, is what keeps our civilization in crisis....
the wars of today, are fought between the new way of thinking
and the old way... and what is even worse, there are wars being
fought between two sides of the old way of thinking......
the Muslims and the Christians are fighting about an old way
of thinking.... of there being a need for a god or a religion....
in the new world of science and technology, there is no need
for either a god or religion... Allah and Yahweh is dead...
the followers just haven't seen that yet..... but the death of god,
is fairly recent.. only within the last few hundred years...
and perhaps, as Nietzsche suggested, word of this hasn't reached
the ears of everyone...... yet....
so, the question becomes, are you part of the old way of doing things,
the past or are you engaged with the future, the new way of thinking,
of thinking in terms of science and technology.....and not in god or religion....
Kropotkin
hold on to the old way of life, to the old way of thinking,
is, in part, holding us back from moving forward into
our new world of science and technology......
theological thinking is holding us back.... but the question
becomes, what replaces it? it is my belief that the believers
in the old way, is what keeps our civilization in crisis....
the wars of today, are fought between the new way of thinking
and the old way... and what is even worse, there are wars being
fought between two sides of the old way of thinking......
the Muslims and the Christians are fighting about an old way
of thinking.... of there being a need for a god or a religion....
in the new world of science and technology, there is no need
for either a god or religion... Allah and Yahweh is dead...
the followers just haven't seen that yet..... but the death of god,
is fairly recent.. only within the last few hundred years...
and perhaps, as Nietzsche suggested, word of this hasn't reached
the ears of everyone...... yet....
so, the question becomes, are you part of the old way of doing things,
the past or are you engaged with the future, the new way of thinking,
of thinking in terms of science and technology.....and not in god or religion....
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
or said in another way.... that belief in god or religions,
no longer work as a paradigm... a pattern or model of something...
at one time, theological belief was actually useful.. but not today....
we cannot take our next steps as human beings if we are held down
by beliefs that no longer fit in our new age....
beliefs like the belief in god or religions.... be it Christian,
Buddhist or Muslim... we exist in a no-god world, let us
think, believe and act on that idea....
Kropotkin
no longer work as a paradigm... a pattern or model of something...
at one time, theological belief was actually useful.. but not today....
we cannot take our next steps as human beings if we are held down
by beliefs that no longer fit in our new age....
beliefs like the belief in god or religions.... be it Christian,
Buddhist or Muslim... we exist in a no-god world, let us
think, believe and act on that idea....
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
as one or may not recall, that I am currently in the process of
reading the ''History of Indian Philosophy'' in 5 volumes, by
Surendranath Dasgupta... I am currently toward the end of volume
3... and I have noticed something, just not about this book, but
about this book and other philosophical writings/thinking...
in this book, much talk has been about what god is and what he can
do as well as the limits of Brahman.... god can do this and this,
but cannot be this because of.... and also talking about Brahman this way,
Brahman can be this and everything and the limits of Brahman...the nature
of Brahman...
which is no different than western thinking about god that is the source
of our happiness or what we need to be focused on if we want to go to heaven....
the nature of god is.....
and that is nice and all, but has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with
god or Brahman...... it is basically just making shit up about the
possibilities of god.... or Braham.... there is no reality in this type
of writings... wishful thinking or wild guesses, or just pulling crap
out of their ass.... there is no way, given the description of god or
Brahman, to be able to know what god or Brahman actually is...
one could just as easily write that god or Brahman is the source of
all evil and be just as close as those who glorify god or Brahman.....
because we have no way of knowing either way, what god or Brahman
actually is or its potential/possibilities....
much of western philosophy is this type of pulling shit out of their ass...
I would suggest most of Heidegger is this type of pulling shit out of ones ass....
all his talk about ''being'' and what ''being'' is....it is just a word that means
nothing in this reality.... he may as well write about gobbledygook...
and it would have been just as realistic as writing about ''being''....
and this type of writing avoids the actual day to day life's that we human
beings actually live....how does ''being'' or Brahman actually helps us
to live out our day to day lives? the day to day bullshit compromises that
define our lives... what acts must I do to get to my own goal of retirement?
I'll tell you, bullshit crap is what I must do to get to my own retirement....
or as my wife tells me every single day, that I gotta play the game....
I gotta give something to get something..... but to give away my soul
and my dignity for a few years of retirement before I die?
and where stands ''being'' or Brahman during all this bullshit?
or Kant's idea of duty? or the other bullshit that philosophers put
out..... that is in part, why philosophy has no impact today... it is
useless in dealing with our day to day bullshit of working, of
dealing with the nonsense of the government, of trying to ''wake'' people up....
it is no wonder why as we grow older, we have less and less to do with
the world....with the nonsense of paying attention to movie stars or
how large a house a rap star buys... who gives a fuck? is our lives so
empty that we must find meaning in who is fucking who in la la land....
that we seek out this nonsense tells me how empty and how barren our
wasteland really is.....just a few minutes ago, I got a text message from
CNN, telling me that Taylor Swift is the most nominated musician
in Grammy history for one album.... and does this crap helps me to discover what
the point or goal of existence is? or is there any relationship between
Taylor Swift and god or Brahman? none that I can tell.....
it is just more white noise that our society/civilization seems to
specialize in....
the white noise has so overwhelmed our society/state that we can't
even hear ourselves think anymore...
this is my cranky post for the day...
Kropotkin
reading the ''History of Indian Philosophy'' in 5 volumes, by
Surendranath Dasgupta... I am currently toward the end of volume
3... and I have noticed something, just not about this book, but
about this book and other philosophical writings/thinking...
in this book, much talk has been about what god is and what he can
do as well as the limits of Brahman.... god can do this and this,
but cannot be this because of.... and also talking about Brahman this way,
Brahman can be this and everything and the limits of Brahman...the nature
of Brahman...
which is no different than western thinking about god that is the source
of our happiness or what we need to be focused on if we want to go to heaven....
the nature of god is.....
and that is nice and all, but has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with
god or Brahman...... it is basically just making shit up about the
possibilities of god.... or Braham.... there is no reality in this type
of writings... wishful thinking or wild guesses, or just pulling crap
out of their ass.... there is no way, given the description of god or
Brahman, to be able to know what god or Brahman actually is...
one could just as easily write that god or Brahman is the source of
all evil and be just as close as those who glorify god or Brahman.....
because we have no way of knowing either way, what god or Brahman
actually is or its potential/possibilities....
much of western philosophy is this type of pulling shit out of their ass...
I would suggest most of Heidegger is this type of pulling shit out of ones ass....
all his talk about ''being'' and what ''being'' is....it is just a word that means
nothing in this reality.... he may as well write about gobbledygook...
and it would have been just as realistic as writing about ''being''....
and this type of writing avoids the actual day to day life's that we human
beings actually live....how does ''being'' or Brahman actually helps us
to live out our day to day lives? the day to day bullshit compromises that
define our lives... what acts must I do to get to my own goal of retirement?
I'll tell you, bullshit crap is what I must do to get to my own retirement....
or as my wife tells me every single day, that I gotta play the game....
I gotta give something to get something..... but to give away my soul
and my dignity for a few years of retirement before I die?
and where stands ''being'' or Brahman during all this bullshit?
or Kant's idea of duty? or the other bullshit that philosophers put
out..... that is in part, why philosophy has no impact today... it is
useless in dealing with our day to day bullshit of working, of
dealing with the nonsense of the government, of trying to ''wake'' people up....
it is no wonder why as we grow older, we have less and less to do with
the world....with the nonsense of paying attention to movie stars or
how large a house a rap star buys... who gives a fuck? is our lives so
empty that we must find meaning in who is fucking who in la la land....
that we seek out this nonsense tells me how empty and how barren our
wasteland really is.....just a few minutes ago, I got a text message from
CNN, telling me that Taylor Swift is the most nominated musician
in Grammy history for one album.... and does this crap helps me to discover what
the point or goal of existence is? or is there any relationship between
Taylor Swift and god or Brahman? none that I can tell.....
it is just more white noise that our society/civilization seems to
specialize in....
the white noise has so overwhelmed our society/state that we can't
even hear ourselves think anymore...
this is my cranky post for the day...
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
the question for us today, is, as it was for Nietzsche,
how to escape nihilism.... we are so infected by nihilism,
that I am not even sure we can see it or recognize it...
the various isms and ideologies of today, are infected with nihilism...
Christianity is a death cult...the focal point of Christianity is the
crucifixion of Jesus, the death of Jesus, is the heart of Christianity...
without that, there is no Christianity....because there is no alleged
rebirth...
and in Buddhism, there is the escape from rebirth.. the life we lead
is full of suffering... at least according to Buddhism... everything
is maya, or illusion... happiness, joy, love, beauty... all transitory
and maya.... the only point to life is to escape it... from Atman to
Brahman... the drop of water going into the sea... that is the escape
of Buddhism...
Conservatism... the longing of escape from the present into the long dead
past...the illusion here is that the past is better than the present...
that living within a slavery country is better than living in our current age
of equality.... that living where women are the property of men is a better
age than today.... living in an age where only property white men have
rights, is a better age than today...
where living in a world where abortions were conducted in back alleys
and many women died, is a better age than today.....
and living in a world where Hobbes ''state of nature'' is a better age
than today.....
we live in a fundamentally nihilistic age.... and what are some solutions?
instead of focusing on the negative, dystopian world that conservatives
live in, how about we begin by noticing the positive aspect of living...
something that the isms I've talked about, don't even notice...
life is worth living... the pursuit of the afterlife or the
the suffering of the human race is nihilism... there is joy
and love and hope and even beauty in our world....
but Kropotkin, joy and love and hope and beauty are all transitory...
and that transitory nature is what makes them so special...
a moment of perfect beauty can last.. as long as we remember it...
and its value lays in its brief existence...to remind us of the beauty
that does exist in our world.....
if we begin this road of seeing the beauty of the world,
we begin to replace nihilism with something else...
something positive... and there in itself is part of the problem...
what word is the opposite word of nihilism?
in my handy dandy thesaurus... the words that are opposite of
nihilism are, allowance, approval, ratification, belief, faith,
obedience, optimism....
none of which really seems to capture a word opposite of nihilism....
how does one fight nihilism if we don't even have a word that is opposite
to it?
the word nihilism seems to me, to suggest entropy... the losing of energy...
of the imminent dissolutions of the universe... by its losing energy
nihilism could be this loss of energy that happens to every single
object in the universe....and the universe won't end with a bang,
but with the dissolution of all matter and energy into an endless void...
and that seems to me to be a fairly decent concept of nihilism....
the dissolution of both matter and energy.....
so, what would be a reasonable word that the opposite of nihilism?
perhaps, energy.... perhaps.......
so, what other ways can we begin to turn our focus from nihilism to
becoming ''energy?" by engaging in how we can bring back joy,
love, beauty, hope and peace? instead of hate and violence, more
nihilism.....
or said another way, nihilism is the dissolution of our values that are
positive... we replace hope/love with hate... we replace joy with
despair... we have no more room for the positive values of beauty or
peace... we only have room for the nihilistic values of anger,
hate, violence, despair... and we replace those values with
the positive values...
that is the path from nihilism to energy.... we replace negative values
with positive values....
and most people here will either ignore me or tell me how wrong I am...
and that is how nihilistic a world we have... we can't even be bothered
to escape from our nihilism....to try the path of energy and seek out
hope and love and peace and charity and decency.....
the positive road of existence is too much work for most people....
Nihilism takes no energy and is very easy to have... positive thought
takes energy and effort... god forbid we have any energy for positive thoughts...
Kropotkin
how to escape nihilism.... we are so infected by nihilism,
that I am not even sure we can see it or recognize it...
the various isms and ideologies of today, are infected with nihilism...
Christianity is a death cult...the focal point of Christianity is the
crucifixion of Jesus, the death of Jesus, is the heart of Christianity...
without that, there is no Christianity....because there is no alleged
rebirth...
and in Buddhism, there is the escape from rebirth.. the life we lead
is full of suffering... at least according to Buddhism... everything
is maya, or illusion... happiness, joy, love, beauty... all transitory
and maya.... the only point to life is to escape it... from Atman to
Brahman... the drop of water going into the sea... that is the escape
of Buddhism...
Conservatism... the longing of escape from the present into the long dead
past...the illusion here is that the past is better than the present...
that living within a slavery country is better than living in our current age
of equality.... that living where women are the property of men is a better
age than today.... living in an age where only property white men have
rights, is a better age than today...
where living in a world where abortions were conducted in back alleys
and many women died, is a better age than today.....
and living in a world where Hobbes ''state of nature'' is a better age
than today.....
we live in a fundamentally nihilistic age.... and what are some solutions?
instead of focusing on the negative, dystopian world that conservatives
live in, how about we begin by noticing the positive aspect of living...
something that the isms I've talked about, don't even notice...
life is worth living... the pursuit of the afterlife or the
the suffering of the human race is nihilism... there is joy
and love and hope and even beauty in our world....
but Kropotkin, joy and love and hope and beauty are all transitory...
and that transitory nature is what makes them so special...
a moment of perfect beauty can last.. as long as we remember it...
and its value lays in its brief existence...to remind us of the beauty
that does exist in our world.....
if we begin this road of seeing the beauty of the world,
we begin to replace nihilism with something else...
something positive... and there in itself is part of the problem...
what word is the opposite word of nihilism?
in my handy dandy thesaurus... the words that are opposite of
nihilism are, allowance, approval, ratification, belief, faith,
obedience, optimism....
none of which really seems to capture a word opposite of nihilism....
how does one fight nihilism if we don't even have a word that is opposite
to it?
the word nihilism seems to me, to suggest entropy... the losing of energy...
of the imminent dissolutions of the universe... by its losing energy
nihilism could be this loss of energy that happens to every single
object in the universe....and the universe won't end with a bang,
but with the dissolution of all matter and energy into an endless void...
and that seems to me to be a fairly decent concept of nihilism....
the dissolution of both matter and energy.....
so, what would be a reasonable word that the opposite of nihilism?
perhaps, energy.... perhaps.......
so, what other ways can we begin to turn our focus from nihilism to
becoming ''energy?" by engaging in how we can bring back joy,
love, beauty, hope and peace? instead of hate and violence, more
nihilism.....
or said another way, nihilism is the dissolution of our values that are
positive... we replace hope/love with hate... we replace joy with
despair... we have no more room for the positive values of beauty or
peace... we only have room for the nihilistic values of anger,
hate, violence, despair... and we replace those values with
the positive values...
that is the path from nihilism to energy.... we replace negative values
with positive values....
and most people here will either ignore me or tell me how wrong I am...
and that is how nihilistic a world we have... we can't even be bothered
to escape from our nihilism....to try the path of energy and seek out
hope and love and peace and charity and decency.....
the positive road of existence is too much work for most people....
Nihilism takes no energy and is very easy to have... positive thought
takes energy and effort... god forbid we have any energy for positive thoughts...
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
one of the ''problems'' we have, is that we have two
distinct and different things going on....
people engage in two different things, one is the verbal aspect...
and the second is the actual, physical aspect....
we see the verbal aspect all the time around here...
we see people use words to describe something or some
aspect of reality....words.... is the use of words to describe
our reality... and nothing more than words.... a verbal description
of what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch.. and do....
the second aspect is our actual actions in the world....
and I am willing to bet many schekels that most people
around here talk a good game but in reality they just do as everyone else does...
there is no attempt to use their philosophical knowledge, the theory
of philosophy to guide their actions in existence...so we have the fancy
words of philosophy like moral, or goal or meaning, reality.. words tossed
around here like candy, but in their day to day life... we just do what
everyone else does in the society/state without questioning it...
the philosophy that is grandly talked about here only exists as verbal
language... it has no effect in the real world because it is only
debated and discussed as simple word games, nothing more...
the best example I can think of is that like in collage, we spend
our hour a day in our philosophy class and once back into the world,
we act as if that philosophy we just learned had no bearing on our
actual real world actions...we make no attempt to turn that
philosophical knowledge into practical actions... philosophy used
this way is sterile and pointless.... why bother learning philosophy
if we don't bother to even put it into practice?
Philosophy value comes into being by use actually using the philosophy
we learned and acting upon that philosophy... using philosophy as a
''way of life''.. not just something we engage with once a week in class,
as theoretical knowledge... if philosophy cannot be used in the real world,
as a way of life, it has no value, no point.... may as well burn all the philosophical
books as being a waste of time.... if, if we don't bother to turn that abstract
knowledge into concrete actions or a ''way of life''......
as Marx noted, it is not enough to understand the world,
we must change it... but, but we must use philosophy to
change the world, as a way of life... religion, or seeking god,
only has value if one is just seeking salvation... and what a shameful
use of time.. just using religions, seeking out god, as a way of life,
if one is just trying to be ''saved'', what a small, pointless goal to reach for....
if you are not using your religion, or faith in god, to help people
or as a ''way of life'', you are just wasting your time....mental
masturbation really....just trying to make yourself feel good about
your existence if you only use that existence to try to be saved....
seeking out salvation for its own sake has no value... it is empty
calories, as it were... and why? because it a selfish goal....
that only benefits yourself... it brings out no other value to
anyone outside of yourself... you may as well engage in
the trinkets of existence that also have no goal or value...
the seeking out of wealth, power, fame, titles or material possessions....
seeking out salvation is no different than seeking those empty trinkets of
existence....
so, to try different words... we are failing because we are
seeking out the wrong goals.. the wrong purpose in our day to day lives....
instead of seeking out our own personal salvation, which only benefits
ourselves, what can we do that will not only benefit ourselves, but
will benefit others...
and why should I try to benefit others? because we are not alone in
this existence... we cannot survive without others.. we are social creatures
that can only survive and prosper with the help of others.... there is
no other way in our lives... the isolated human beings is a being that
can only last a short time without the help of others... to achieve our
goals, we need the help of others and to achieve their goals, they
need our help....
in other words, it is through the state/society/civilization that we have
that allow us to achieve our goals, individually and collectively...
a small government with few or no taxes, cannot protect us enough to
allow us to achieve our goals... in other words, we must have a strong,
central government for us to reach our own personal goals...a weak,
destabilized government, forces us to spend our time in a ''state of nature''
in which we must spend our time protecting what is ours....a strong
government allow us to have time to reach both our individual
and collective goals....you want to be saved, you want to have
salvation, you need a strong government to reach those goals...
we are tied into the state/society in which we live in...the Greeks
understood this when they wrote that the only man, a human being,
can become who they are is by the help of the state.. that is why
the Greeks praised and promoted the state... as a means to
achieve our own individual goals... you can only become human within
the promise of the state, the polis...without the state, you cannot
become human....that is the basic premise of Greeks thinking about
civilization and human beings.... the one required the other........
and today, we have separated the two... some think that we can achieve
our own promise/possibilities without the state, but that is not true...
we can only become within the state/the society....so to this end,
we must spend as much time thinking about the format, the
method of the state, as we do about our own salvation....for we cannot
reach our won salvation without a city/state...it is that simple......
so our pursuit of a ''way of life'' must include our relationship
with the state/with the society/civilization...as we cannot be without
the state/society, then we must include our thinking about salvation,
our way of life in terms of the ideal state that we must have for
us to become who we are....
and in thinking about our situation in these terms, leads us to
believe that the ideal political structure for us to achieve our
own goal of becoming, lies in our having a democracy....
the political structure that best allows us to becoming is by
a democracy.... for having a dictatorship means that someone
else will tell us what is or isn't possible, as does a monarchy
as does an oligarchy or corporatocracy....
the only political structure that allows us the freedom to become,
is a democracy.... all other political structures block us
from becoming human, fully human...
so IQ45 drive to turn America into a dictatorship has no appeal for
us because it is antithetical to us becoming human...for us to achieve
what our own goals and purpose, we need the freedom and possibilities
within a democracy, and no other political philosophy will allow us
those possibilities....
so, in following our thinking, we can work out what political
philosophy is best suited for us...the goal, the final purpose will
allow us to work out the best structure for us, politically, socially,
economically and philosophically....
thus, once again our answers are found within the maxims of
Socrates... to know thyself and the unexamined life isn't worth living...
the path we follow is Nietzschean... to go from animal to becoming human...
and part of the tools we use to get us from being animal to becoming
human is political... and to reach the various possibilities of being
human requires, no demands a state/society...
in the various schools of Greek philosophy requires us to have a state/
a society... stoicism, epicureanism, hedonism, cynicism, Peripatetics,
all require a state/society for them to exists for them to work....
we cannot be stoics without the state/the society... we cannot
be epicureans without a state... all manners of being required
by philosophy, as their backdrop requires a state/a society to work...
the understructure of all philosophy lays in their being a state or
society that makes that philosophy work....no society or state,
there is no possibilities for us to achieve salvation or to have
philosophy as a ''way of life''
the bottom line understanding of human existence begins with
what state do we must have to meet our basic expectations?
no state, no philosophy...the one demands the other...
and that is one of our problems... that we fail to connect our state/society
to what is necessary for us to find our own salvation... to achieve our
own goals....
Kropotkin
distinct and different things going on....
people engage in two different things, one is the verbal aspect...
and the second is the actual, physical aspect....
we see the verbal aspect all the time around here...
we see people use words to describe something or some
aspect of reality....words.... is the use of words to describe
our reality... and nothing more than words.... a verbal description
of what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch.. and do....
the second aspect is our actual actions in the world....
and I am willing to bet many schekels that most people
around here talk a good game but in reality they just do as everyone else does...
there is no attempt to use their philosophical knowledge, the theory
of philosophy to guide their actions in existence...so we have the fancy
words of philosophy like moral, or goal or meaning, reality.. words tossed
around here like candy, but in their day to day life... we just do what
everyone else does in the society/state without questioning it...
the philosophy that is grandly talked about here only exists as verbal
language... it has no effect in the real world because it is only
debated and discussed as simple word games, nothing more...
the best example I can think of is that like in collage, we spend
our hour a day in our philosophy class and once back into the world,
we act as if that philosophy we just learned had no bearing on our
actual real world actions...we make no attempt to turn that
philosophical knowledge into practical actions... philosophy used
this way is sterile and pointless.... why bother learning philosophy
if we don't bother to even put it into practice?
Philosophy value comes into being by use actually using the philosophy
we learned and acting upon that philosophy... using philosophy as a
''way of life''.. not just something we engage with once a week in class,
as theoretical knowledge... if philosophy cannot be used in the real world,
as a way of life, it has no value, no point.... may as well burn all the philosophical
books as being a waste of time.... if, if we don't bother to turn that abstract
knowledge into concrete actions or a ''way of life''......
as Marx noted, it is not enough to understand the world,
we must change it... but, but we must use philosophy to
change the world, as a way of life... religion, or seeking god,
only has value if one is just seeking salvation... and what a shameful
use of time.. just using religions, seeking out god, as a way of life,
if one is just trying to be ''saved'', what a small, pointless goal to reach for....
if you are not using your religion, or faith in god, to help people
or as a ''way of life'', you are just wasting your time....mental
masturbation really....just trying to make yourself feel good about
your existence if you only use that existence to try to be saved....
seeking out salvation for its own sake has no value... it is empty
calories, as it were... and why? because it a selfish goal....
that only benefits yourself... it brings out no other value to
anyone outside of yourself... you may as well engage in
the trinkets of existence that also have no goal or value...
the seeking out of wealth, power, fame, titles or material possessions....
seeking out salvation is no different than seeking those empty trinkets of
existence....
so, to try different words... we are failing because we are
seeking out the wrong goals.. the wrong purpose in our day to day lives....
instead of seeking out our own personal salvation, which only benefits
ourselves, what can we do that will not only benefit ourselves, but
will benefit others...
and why should I try to benefit others? because we are not alone in
this existence... we cannot survive without others.. we are social creatures
that can only survive and prosper with the help of others.... there is
no other way in our lives... the isolated human beings is a being that
can only last a short time without the help of others... to achieve our
goals, we need the help of others and to achieve their goals, they
need our help....
in other words, it is through the state/society/civilization that we have
that allow us to achieve our goals, individually and collectively...
a small government with few or no taxes, cannot protect us enough to
allow us to achieve our goals... in other words, we must have a strong,
central government for us to reach our own personal goals...a weak,
destabilized government, forces us to spend our time in a ''state of nature''
in which we must spend our time protecting what is ours....a strong
government allow us to have time to reach both our individual
and collective goals....you want to be saved, you want to have
salvation, you need a strong government to reach those goals...
we are tied into the state/society in which we live in...the Greeks
understood this when they wrote that the only man, a human being,
can become who they are is by the help of the state.. that is why
the Greeks praised and promoted the state... as a means to
achieve our own individual goals... you can only become human within
the promise of the state, the polis...without the state, you cannot
become human....that is the basic premise of Greeks thinking about
civilization and human beings.... the one required the other........
and today, we have separated the two... some think that we can achieve
our own promise/possibilities without the state, but that is not true...
we can only become within the state/the society....so to this end,
we must spend as much time thinking about the format, the
method of the state, as we do about our own salvation....for we cannot
reach our won salvation without a city/state...it is that simple......
so our pursuit of a ''way of life'' must include our relationship
with the state/with the society/civilization...as we cannot be without
the state/society, then we must include our thinking about salvation,
our way of life in terms of the ideal state that we must have for
us to become who we are....
and in thinking about our situation in these terms, leads us to
believe that the ideal political structure for us to achieve our
own goal of becoming, lies in our having a democracy....
the political structure that best allows us to becoming is by
a democracy.... for having a dictatorship means that someone
else will tell us what is or isn't possible, as does a monarchy
as does an oligarchy or corporatocracy....
the only political structure that allows us the freedom to become,
is a democracy.... all other political structures block us
from becoming human, fully human...
so IQ45 drive to turn America into a dictatorship has no appeal for
us because it is antithetical to us becoming human...for us to achieve
what our own goals and purpose, we need the freedom and possibilities
within a democracy, and no other political philosophy will allow us
those possibilities....
so, in following our thinking, we can work out what political
philosophy is best suited for us...the goal, the final purpose will
allow us to work out the best structure for us, politically, socially,
economically and philosophically....
thus, once again our answers are found within the maxims of
Socrates... to know thyself and the unexamined life isn't worth living...
the path we follow is Nietzschean... to go from animal to becoming human...
and part of the tools we use to get us from being animal to becoming
human is political... and to reach the various possibilities of being
human requires, no demands a state/society...
in the various schools of Greek philosophy requires us to have a state/
a society... stoicism, epicureanism, hedonism, cynicism, Peripatetics,
all require a state/society for them to exists for them to work....
we cannot be stoics without the state/the society... we cannot
be epicureans without a state... all manners of being required
by philosophy, as their backdrop requires a state/a society to work...
the understructure of all philosophy lays in their being a state or
society that makes that philosophy work....no society or state,
there is no possibilities for us to achieve salvation or to have
philosophy as a ''way of life''
the bottom line understanding of human existence begins with
what state do we must have to meet our basic expectations?
no state, no philosophy...the one demands the other...
and that is one of our problems... that we fail to connect our state/society
to what is necessary for us to find our own salvation... to achieve our
own goals....
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
let us look at another structure of modern society...
that of economics...
we have, in very loud voices, proclaim the victor of the economic
theories as being capitalism.... the promise of wealth to people...
with money being the driving factor of people's motivation....
you want wealth as your goal, your purpose....
but it is becoming increasingly clear, that achieving wealth is
not part of the reality of Americans lives.... that there is only so
much wealth, a fixed number, and if a very small group of people,
Gates and Buffet for example, own that wealth, there is less and less
wealth for the rest of us.... for most people, even having enough money
for retirement is becoming a greater and greater issue...
as with most Americans, I have very little money saved up for my retirement...
but the powers to be, love that... for in my continuing to work for my retirement,
I make the Gates and Buffets of the world wealthier and wealthier...
when I work, I am not creating wealth for myself, I am creating wealth for
those who own the business I am in...for every penny I earn, the company makes
dollars... it is on the back of workers that makes people millionaires and
billionaires...capitalism can only make a profit by stealing the money made
by people.... if I make 5 dollars an hour, and my company uses my labor
to create 10 dollars, then they make 5 dollars an hour, every hour I work...
every hour I work is profits for the company....and thus they want children to work,
they want the very old to work, the disable can still do something to make a
buck for the capitalists...and that is all that capitalism offers... its workers
get pennies and the owners of that company millions of dollars... this
understanding of the capitalistic system has created much dissatisfaction
in the capitalistic countries...but we are given no other choices, no other
possibilities as economic choices other than capitalism...
why work if I get pennies and the owners get millions off of my work?
this inequity of capitalism is not a extra fixture, but its a
basic, built in feature of capitalism... capitalism itself cannot
survive without this stealing of millions/billions of dollars from
its workers..
so, we have not only political discontentment, but economic
discontentment... we are not happy with our lives because
we are, both politically and economically, being sold
a worthless bill of goods...
so part of the solution lies within the understanding that we can,
if we so choose to, begin to think about other political and economic
solutions....we aren't forced to accept only one particular political
solution or one economic solution.... we can think about other possibilities,
economically and politically....
we have a choice... you just think you have no choice, which is by
designed... a people with no choice, tends to be more passive,
than a state/society that believes that it has a choice...
Kropotkin
that of economics...
we have, in very loud voices, proclaim the victor of the economic
theories as being capitalism.... the promise of wealth to people...
with money being the driving factor of people's motivation....
you want wealth as your goal, your purpose....
but it is becoming increasingly clear, that achieving wealth is
not part of the reality of Americans lives.... that there is only so
much wealth, a fixed number, and if a very small group of people,
Gates and Buffet for example, own that wealth, there is less and less
wealth for the rest of us.... for most people, even having enough money
for retirement is becoming a greater and greater issue...
as with most Americans, I have very little money saved up for my retirement...
but the powers to be, love that... for in my continuing to work for my retirement,
I make the Gates and Buffets of the world wealthier and wealthier...
when I work, I am not creating wealth for myself, I am creating wealth for
those who own the business I am in...for every penny I earn, the company makes
dollars... it is on the back of workers that makes people millionaires and
billionaires...capitalism can only make a profit by stealing the money made
by people.... if I make 5 dollars an hour, and my company uses my labor
to create 10 dollars, then they make 5 dollars an hour, every hour I work...
every hour I work is profits for the company....and thus they want children to work,
they want the very old to work, the disable can still do something to make a
buck for the capitalists...and that is all that capitalism offers... its workers
get pennies and the owners of that company millions of dollars... this
understanding of the capitalistic system has created much dissatisfaction
in the capitalistic countries...but we are given no other choices, no other
possibilities as economic choices other than capitalism...
why work if I get pennies and the owners get millions off of my work?
this inequity of capitalism is not a extra fixture, but its a
basic, built in feature of capitalism... capitalism itself cannot
survive without this stealing of millions/billions of dollars from
its workers..
so, we have not only political discontentment, but economic
discontentment... we are not happy with our lives because
we are, both politically and economically, being sold
a worthless bill of goods...
so part of the solution lies within the understanding that we can,
if we so choose to, begin to think about other political and economic
solutions....we aren't forced to accept only one particular political
solution or one economic solution.... we can think about other possibilities,
economically and politically....
we have a choice... you just think you have no choice, which is by
designed... a people with no choice, tends to be more passive,
than a state/society that believes that it has a choice...
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1638
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: the fundamental problem of our modern day...
in the post, I shall name it, illusions/maya and nihilism...
by holding onto illusions, such as capitalism or god, we help
create nihilism....by creating actions that are harmful to
us as human beings, the illusions cause us to hold onto these
illusions to the point of nihilism....again, how have I defined,
Nihilism?
Nihilism is the act of negating, dehumanizing human beings
and their values...and by holding onto illusions, we negate,
deny human beings and their values.... we hold to capitalism
as being the ''best'' economic system ever... and yet, by capitalism
very actions, it denies, negates human beings and their values....
and by us holding onto this illusion, we practice the action of
negation and denial of human beings and their values....
and capitalism is an illusion because it fails to be what it promises
to be, which is something that allow us freedom to choose...
and the freedom to choose is materialistic things like cars, TV sets,
houses, couches... and it is an illusion that the ownership of these
things will bring us some comfort or joy or even prestige or influence...
the illusion of ownership of cars, for example, is that somehow by
the purchase of that car, you gain something more than just a car..
you get some sex appeal, you get some status, you get some peer
approval... if you buy a Rolls Royce as opposed to a Honda, you will
get a higher status approval, you will be marked as a person of
distinction... you will gain social standing... just for buying a car....
and what do you get for buying a Honda? not much....
but their job is exactly the same... to move yourself and whomever
you bring to another location... they do the exact same job....
but what you get is an illusion... that one vehicle has more
value and prestige than another is an illusion... because the added
value comes from our mental perception... not from facts...
we mentally create the added value, it isn't inherent in the
vehicle itself... social status is a mental construct, not a physical
construct...
and this is just one example of our modern illusion that we hold to,
believe in and most importantly, act on....there is an illusion that
we have been taught since our birth, that there is a god... and we
act upon this illusion thinking that if we do ''good' actions, we
can go to heaven... but like god, heaven is ani illusion...
and if we follow an illusion like it is real, then we are engaging
in illusions... we are engaging in mental constructs instead of reality...
there are many in America who believe that IQ45 can walk on water...
but that is an illusion... he is a criminal, thief and liar, and con man...
nothing more, nothing less... and easily the most dangerous man in
American history... if reelected in 2024, he has said he will round up
and jail the homeless, liberals, his opponents.. by the millions...
when someone tells you who they are, believe them...
and to believe in him is to believe in an illusion... an illusion,
as with all illusions, full of danger and precariousness, and peril
to every single person in America...
we hold onto illusions that threaten us into extinction...
we must, before it's too late, wake up, and see that our lives
is full of illusions... and to free ourselves of our illusions, is
to allow us to understand what actions are actually available to us...
not what our illusions say, but what reality says, we should be doing...
and what illusions do you hold?
you might say, think, nah, I don't have any illusions...
and that in itself is an illusion.....the path to reality is
by knowing thyself and what illusions you hold to...
and only by being in reality can we make the choices that
will make a difference in the world....and by being a force for
good and our possibilities... free ourselves of our illusions should
be the job of everyone... for then and only then can we begin to
make the right choices in life....
Kropotkin
by holding onto illusions, such as capitalism or god, we help
create nihilism....by creating actions that are harmful to
us as human beings, the illusions cause us to hold onto these
illusions to the point of nihilism....again, how have I defined,
Nihilism?
Nihilism is the act of negating, dehumanizing human beings
and their values...and by holding onto illusions, we negate,
deny human beings and their values.... we hold to capitalism
as being the ''best'' economic system ever... and yet, by capitalism
very actions, it denies, negates human beings and their values....
and by us holding onto this illusion, we practice the action of
negation and denial of human beings and their values....
and capitalism is an illusion because it fails to be what it promises
to be, which is something that allow us freedom to choose...
and the freedom to choose is materialistic things like cars, TV sets,
houses, couches... and it is an illusion that the ownership of these
things will bring us some comfort or joy or even prestige or influence...
the illusion of ownership of cars, for example, is that somehow by
the purchase of that car, you gain something more than just a car..
you get some sex appeal, you get some status, you get some peer
approval... if you buy a Rolls Royce as opposed to a Honda, you will
get a higher status approval, you will be marked as a person of
distinction... you will gain social standing... just for buying a car....
and what do you get for buying a Honda? not much....
but their job is exactly the same... to move yourself and whomever
you bring to another location... they do the exact same job....
but what you get is an illusion... that one vehicle has more
value and prestige than another is an illusion... because the added
value comes from our mental perception... not from facts...
we mentally create the added value, it isn't inherent in the
vehicle itself... social status is a mental construct, not a physical
construct...
and this is just one example of our modern illusion that we hold to,
believe in and most importantly, act on....there is an illusion that
we have been taught since our birth, that there is a god... and we
act upon this illusion thinking that if we do ''good' actions, we
can go to heaven... but like god, heaven is ani illusion...
and if we follow an illusion like it is real, then we are engaging
in illusions... we are engaging in mental constructs instead of reality...
there are many in America who believe that IQ45 can walk on water...
but that is an illusion... he is a criminal, thief and liar, and con man...
nothing more, nothing less... and easily the most dangerous man in
American history... if reelected in 2024, he has said he will round up
and jail the homeless, liberals, his opponents.. by the millions...
when someone tells you who they are, believe them...
and to believe in him is to believe in an illusion... an illusion,
as with all illusions, full of danger and precariousness, and peril
to every single person in America...
we hold onto illusions that threaten us into extinction...
we must, before it's too late, wake up, and see that our lives
is full of illusions... and to free ourselves of our illusions, is
to allow us to understand what actions are actually available to us...
not what our illusions say, but what reality says, we should be doing...
and what illusions do you hold?
you might say, think, nah, I don't have any illusions...
and that in itself is an illusion.....the path to reality is
by knowing thyself and what illusions you hold to...
and only by being in reality can we make the choices that
will make a difference in the world....and by being a force for
good and our possibilities... free ourselves of our illusions should
be the job of everyone... for then and only then can we begin to
make the right choices in life....
Kropotkin