a new understanding of today, time and space.

[Peter Kropotkin]

because I have centered myself.. I am not as mystical as I once was.....

but at one time, at one time, I was in fear, fearful, scared? I am not
quite sure what word will work here, but in any case, the thought that
man/human beings suffered, was a great trial for me.. I thought of
how little children got cancer and died horrible deaths, deaths full
of pain and agony... and I couldn't make any sense of it... it seem as
arbitrary as the sun coming up in the morning... there was no conscience
thought or wonder about it... children died and there was nothing anyone
could do about it... it was wrong but so what...it was incomprehensible
to me that a god, a so called kind and benevolent god would allow
children to die from such horrible diseases....

but like I said, I was able to ground myself and I forgot these
metaphysical problems of existence......

what sort of existence allowed such terrible thing as children dying
of horrible diseases and deaths, both great and small.....

these metaphysical problems no longer touched my soul.. I was freed
of being concerned with these sort of inexplicable and terrible problems
of existence...why must I die? why should my mother die? why should my dog
die? why should my children die?

much of the questions of existence were questions I had no answer for
and in fact, I still don't have an answer for.. but I am centered today,
so those questions of existence, the ones I had forgotten, didn't matter anymore......
they didn't touch my soul and rock my entire existence like they did so long
ago.......

but the question arises, how could I forget such a thing? how could I forget
such questions that would torment my soul for days, weeks, months and years..
so long ago.....

I read literally hundreds of books seeking answers to my most profound
questions.. why/how is it possible that evil and the deaths of innocent
children so bothered me, so long ago, and today, arises the question that
I had forgotten....

I was trying to understand the arbitrary nature of the universe using facts, and logic
and rationality.....and when I learned that the arbitrary nature of the universe cannot
be answered by facts or logic or being rational..... I just forgot the problem.....
and I forgot my search into the very nature of what it means to be alive, to be human..
given the arbitrary nature of life and death and all that jazz.......

if there is a god, then I can blame god for this unreal problem of human existence
being arbitrary and even unnecessary.......I now look at myself and these
questions that so dominated my youth and I wonder, who was I? it doesn't even
seem like a part of my life I am talking about.. it seems like some other life
we are talking about.. not mine.......I centered myself and thus closed myself to
these questions of existence that so rocked my world, when I was young.......

I cannot, even to this day, imagine how someone could take another life...
how could I even contemplate taking another person's life?

By what right had I to even consider this vile course of action, to take another's life.....

I try to imagine myself committing violence enough to take someone's life and I
can't even get there, not even in my imagination.....

I read a book many, many years ago, I still have it, by Nikos Kazantzakis called,
"Saint Francis" and in it, Francis was very bothered by the millions who, during
that very night, was so poverty stricken that they didn't even have clothing to
wear to cover themselves from the harsh weather..... so, St. Francis took off his
clothes to be in sympathy with those who did not have clothes..
he couldn't provide all those millions with clothes, so he did what he could
and showed empathy and sympathy with all those without clothes....

this is in fact what I tried to do in my anarchist years... I couldn't feed
or clothes or house all those millions but I could go without in my
attempt to have sympathy with all those without.....

I still cannot feed or house or clothes those millions without and I cannot
cure those, who like the children, will die of cancer or some other disease....

"what am I to do?" How am I to face myself knowing, knowing that millions
are suffering and I am not... given it has been the luck of the draw that they
suffer and I do not.....

is it enough to know that I feed one person or helped clothed one
person, when I know it is million who do without?

but I am centered now and I am above such youthful questions...

it is the young who suffer from such knowledge, not the old, like me....
for I am centered and beyond such waste of time......

drive it out of my mind.... go back to pretending that it doesn't matter
that children die of cancer and that people live without any hope or food
or clothes or a home..... for I am centered and beyond such things.....

am I?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I have heard it said, "that all men are dishonest with themselves"
and upon reflection of my many years of existence, I find this to be
true.... I also have listened to those who have practiced "dishonesty"
with themselves and with others and I find their dishonesty to be
discouraging..... I was an anarchist for decades and one of the points
that lead me to anarchism was the idea that human beings can be honest,
with themselves and with others.....this notion of honesty, of being honest
with one still drives me..... I see dishonesty all the time...we see it
in politicians and corporations and lawyers and in the conservative
mentality...... lies are indispensable to their way of life.... but what I
can't understand is how does one lives with themselves if they lie...

is their objective to be reached by lying more important then their self worth....

I don't see wealth or fame or titles worth lying to yourself or to others.....'

this is, in part, my attraction to existentialism.....

I think and I got this from Nietzsche, is that the strength of a human being
is found from how much truth a human being can hold within themselves....
those who lie, lie because they are too weak to handle the truth about themselves...

lying comes from weakness, not from strength... a human being who can hold to the truth
is a much stronger person then one who requires lies to get through the day.......

lies, we can shed our lies like water off a duck... but the truth, the truth
lies deep within us and doesn't let go.... you cannot escape the truth no
matter how far you run away.....no matter how many lies you spin out, on
yourself and on others......

the strength of a society can be measured by how much truth that society can
face...One of the great truths of American was that we were considered
to be honest and truthful because we had the strength to face the truth,
regardless of what it said about us... but today, I consider American weak,
weak because a large part of the population requires, demands lies
and denounces the truth....42% of the population is truth adverse...
and it is a sign of American weakness.....

how do you consider the truth?

if you have never considered it, perhaps that is a sign that you can't face
the truth because you too, are weak.....

I cannot tell you... only you can tell yourself... but be honest, for once
in your life......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I spend many years of my existence in a state of
discontentment and despair and desperation..

for I couldn't see the point of existence...for everything seem to
me to be false, empty, hollow....so I went to seek out the wisdom
of the world... and I read religious tracts and fixtures like
the bible and the Torah and the Quran and I dived into such
religions like Buddhism and Jainism and Hinduism.....

and I was seeking, like a man who was drowning into a sea of
despair......but I found no release, no answers in the religious....

so I turned to the scientific and and read all I could.. I read
Newton and Einstein and Freud in some desperate attempt
to discover what it was to be Kropotkin........

but I found no release, no answers in the scientific.....

so, I turned to the philosophical and read all I could.....
I read everyone from Plato to Wittgenstein and I tried to
make sense of it all...here, at least here I found a real attempt to
find my questions answered......the Kantian questions of "what am I to do?"
and "what should I hope for?"

but in my seeking, my seeking for the last 40 years, I had forgotten my youth....

the despair and agony and misery of my youth... how can I have forgotten such
a thing? every single day for me, in my youth, was a torment...a torture
to my soul and my very existence....and yet, I seemed to have forgotten....

today, my circumstances has changed quite dramatically... I live quite
a middle class life where I have no questions of being able to meet
my basic physical needs of eating, water, shelter, education, heath care.....

these bottom, lower level needs are easily met whereas in my youth,
I went homeless once and was quite often very poor...
to the point where I went for weeks on end with only a big jar
of peanut butter to sustain me.. and this happened more then once.....
(I couldn't eat peanut butter for years after that)

I think I was seduced by the lifestyle I came into.... I could
say, I am free of the possibility of starvation and homelessness
and poverty that so dominated my youth..... from 20 to 32.........
so much of the agony and discontentment of my youth went away
once I solved my economic status/problem, but I am more then my economic
status....I am still puzzled by questions of existence....
I am no longer bothered by questions of discontentment.....

for discontentment is caused by the failure of one's hopes, desires, or expectations,
disappointment, discontent, disgruntlement, dissatisfaction, letdown and regret
in my youth......

but today, I hold no expectations or desires..... I hold no discontentment because
I don't hope for any satisfaction of my hopes or desires or expectations....
the "Sturm und Drang" of my youth has been replaced by my settled old
age where I have no more hope or desires to meet......

but am I a better person today then when was seeking, so desperately
to solve my questions of existence, in my youth?

I don't know......

the very questions change as we age and become something different.....

not the questions themselves, for I still seek to find out "what am I to do?"
but the answer has changed, now that I am old.......
I cannot answer that age old question with answers from my youth...
I am old and so I must answer the question of "what am I to do?" in terms
of my being old... my options are much more limited today, then they were
in my youth....

the desperation of my youth has changed into the fixed nature of old age........
that which lies before me is... is death... and the various doors of possibilities
that filled my youth have slowly closed around me....... the last great
event that faces me before death is retirement....but that is a few years away....

I have had the "Storm and stress" of my youth brought before me, in all it great
despair as I have settled into my old age.....

something long dead and buried has resurrected itself and I cannot
just walk away from it..... I must face those old emotions and feelings
that so drove my life for so many years........ perhaps I still feel those emotions
of my youth, the agony and despair and discontentment that drove my life
for 10 or 15 years....perhaps I still feel them, buried way down deep, under
my middle age settling down phase...I didn't go seeking my youth,
it came looking for me and now I must respond if only to free myself
of that time of my life.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

So, these last two days here have been about my youth,
my days that were all "Strum und Drang" 24/7....

and them we have today, being a "Philosopher" which is
about the cold rationalism of the 7 branches of Philosophy:

Epistemology, Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics, Aesthetics, and political philosophy......

We are all familiar with these 7 branches of philosophy
and every day, we write in cold, rational terms about these 7 area's of
study.......

but that leaves me with a problem.... How do I classify my youth,
full of "Sturm und Drang"? How can I rationally talk about such wildness
and emotionalism in the 7 area's of philosophy? Where would I fit such
"Sturm und Drang" into philosophy?

I cannot deny such irrationalism didn't occur... it did...but how would I
come to understand it? the problem with, or I should say more correctly,
one of the many problems of philosophy is its failure to account for such
essential aspects of life...how would/does philosophy account for the soul
sickness that so dominates our modern age? Under what aspect of our
7 area's of philosophy would you put my "Sturm und Drang" and
the soul sickness of our modern world?

for example, how would political scientist be able to account for the
rise of irrationalism in politics? both in Germany in the 1920's and 1930's
and here in the United States since 2000......which culminated in the
election of IQ45 in 2016? and which is today, nothing more then a cult,
just the exact same way that Jim Jones and the people's temple was a cult...
and where we get the term, "drinking the cool aid".....

so how is philosophy able to account for irrationalism that exists in our
daily life? and leads to extreme emotionalism which is damaging to
all parties involved.....

until we can begin to account for our "Sturm und Drang" and
such emotionalism as the People's Temple, philosophy has
a long way to go......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I guess this leads us to some fundamental questions about philosophy.....

Is philosophy suppose to help us understand the individual person, the
one I call Kropotkin and by doing so, help us understand all individuals?
or is philosophy suppose to be about some specific situation, for example,
Political philosophy is suppose to tell us about how we arrange ourselves
politically, but that doesn't reflect upon the one, the individual, it
tells about the one individual within the context of the political
situation......political philosophy tells me my role within a political
world, but doesn't tell me about how I exists within a political situation....

political science tells us about the external world but to make
some sense of that external world, how much of me, must exist
within that external world....does political philosophy shed light
on me within the context of the political world, or can philosophy
help me understand myself in the context of the political world.....

so I guess the question is this, in our study of political science,
what is the subject of our research? is it the individual person,
Kropotkin for example or is it the area of research and only
peripheral about the person called Kropotkin.....

who is the subject of the inquiry, the individual or the situation?

any proper study, must include both the individual tree's and the collective
forest.....unless the study is really about the individual tree's and or the
collective forest......

the question becomes, what is being studied? the individual or the
larger structure........ and what does a study of the larger structure,
say a study of the Presidency tell us about any given individual such as
Kropotkin?

how much does the individual impact any study we engage in.....

how much does the one person known as Kropotkin, impact a much larger
study such as a study of the "IQ45 years".....and what would a study tell us
about individuals who survived the IQ45 years.....what would such an study
tell us about people in general?

so what would a political study about the "IQ45 Years" tell us or inform
us about the existential questions of humanity?

"what are we to do?" "What should we believe in?" "What should we hope for?"

or what would an Epistemology study tell us about the deep and dark forces
that lies within everyone, forces one might call, "The Sturm und Drang" forces....
every single person alive is subject to the "Sturm und Drang" forces because
they are an essential part or aspect of human existence... so how does
philosophy help us to understand or explain these deep underground forces
that lie within us, the "Sturm und Drang" forces....

how does philosophy help us explain love which is a powerful part of the
"Sturm und Drang" forces which quite often dominate us?

It seems that we must reexamine what questions philosophy can solve and should
solve and what philosophy questions we should leave to the experts in that area.....

what is the real range of Philosophy?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Ok, we have several things going on and how do we link them?

We have got this idea of Salvation... we have this idea of a person
or society being soul sick.... we have this notion of being soul sick
as being a particularly modern problem (that may be debatable)
and we have several revolutions that has, in part, created our
soul sickness........

so, first of all, what is our modern "soul sickness"?

I believe that our modern soul sickness comes from our
modern nihilism... which means we are focused on the wrong thing...
what is the cause of our modern nihilism?

Nihilism: the negation and dehumanization of human beings and their values....

that is also our soul sickness...... we are negated and dehumanized and that
creates in us, a soul sickness.... if we put or seek profits/money before human beings,
and their values, that is the classic definition of being soul sick..... if our only two
economic options is to exploit or be exploited, and both choices lead us to
Nihilism, the dehumanization of human beings and their values......

the soul sick both within us individually and collectively is the nihilism
we practice within our economics, our politics and our society.

so, the next step, how do we find salvation from being soul sick?
both individually and collectively?

to find salvation is to remove the nihilistic aspect within our society that
dehumanizes and negates us individually and collectively...

any ism or ideology like capitalism or communism or catholicism that puts
the individual human being second to the ideology like capitalism and communism
and catholicism.... I pointed out in an earlier post how such ism's and ideologies
negate and dehumanize human beings and their values.....

so to escape being soul sick, we reject such ism's and ideologies.......

to reform society must come second to escaping being soul sick individually....
because if we have enough individuals escaping being soul sick.... it is an collective
salvation that begins with the one... I am the beginning of the resurrection
of mankind by beginning the saving or the salvation of myself from
being soul sick... that is the path into tomorrow... the collective salvation
of everyone that begins with each individual person....

our soul sickness comes out of the revolutions that have completely
changed our society and how we look at ourselves and our society...

these revolutions are political, scientific, economic and social.....

but being saved from soul sickness cannot at the same time, address
the various symptoms of our being soul sick... we cannot find salvation
from our political, scientific, economic and social soul sickness at
the same time...

the first step, as always is to become aware... few if anybody today,
understands they are soul sick because of their failed search for
what passes as salvation in an capitalistic society....

so, instead of seeking the failed symptoms of salvation in
a capitalistic society, which is to seek wealth, fame, titles,
material goods... that is our modern version of salvation....
which is the opposite of the path to being saved from being soul sick....

we must walk away from seeking wealth, seeking fame, seeking titles
and seeking material goods... that is part of being soul sick.....
this seeking......

my next step after becoming aware is to stop and think about what it means
to be human..is it really about seeking false idols as money and fame?

what is the point or goal of being human? well as I have stated before, I
don't even think we are human, we are animal/human right now,
because too much of our actions and behavior is connected to
the instincts of our lower self....when we react, we react too often
with the lower values, instincts of hate, anger, lust, greed....

the step to becoming human is to engage with our higher values
and that takes an understanding of who we are.....am I my lower values
of hate and anger and lust and greed or am I my higher values of love, hope,
peace, justice... now notice the thing about these values.... the lower values
we can connect to by just reacting to someone or something.... the higher values
must be engaged with before we can bring them up.....
I cannot automatically connect with my higher values like I do the lower, instinctual
values of hate and lust and anger.... I must think about engaging the higher values
whereas I don't have to think about engaging in my lower instinctual values.....

to reach our higher states, we must intentional activate them, they do not come
naturally in us... but anger and hate and lust and greed are just base, easily reached
instincts within us.....

Intentionality marks the difference between the lower, easily reached values
of instincts, of hate, anger, lust and greed... we can reach those values quickly
and easily.....

but the path to becoming human is the action of intentionality of acting upon
the higher values of love, peace, hope, justice, charity......

at every step in our journey from animal to animal/human to becoming
fully human comes another step in our intentionality.... in our
being fully engaged in our actions, not just acting upon instinct or our lower
level values, but in being a participant in what values we accept...
by our intentionality in making our choices whither to engage
in our instincts or our higher values.... that is a choice....

a choice we must engage with intentionally...so to be saved, or
to find salvation, we must engage with who we are with intentional
actions..... that is to become human..... to engage with intentionally.....

not just react, but act with intention...

that is how we become human.... and how we are to be saved......

by acting with intention, we can then, hopefully, avoid some of
the problems and conflicts that arise when we just act with instincts......

so to escape being soul sick, we need to engage with our lives with
intention.... we must make choices that reflect what it means to be human...
not to seek the lower instinctual values of wealth, power, fame, titles and
material goods... but to attempt to reach the higher values of justice, hope,
peace, love and charity, (to name a few of the positive values we can seek)
and we seek those higher values by our intentional actions and beliefs.....

you want to escape being soul sick? then begin by becoming aware of
who you are and what is your meaning? what goals is it you are attempting
to reach and are they goals that reflect who you are or are they goals that
reflect the soul sickness of capitalism or catholicism or communism?
any ism or ideology today is a testament to being soul sick........

so escape from ism's and ideologies and stand alone.......

Do you have the courage of your convictions or do you
have the courage for an attack upon your convictions?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

the collective soul sickness is the
vast and terrible events of the last 120 years,
the terrible event of World War One, the war to end all wars was
perhaps, the worst war in Human history, it was far worse then the
Second War.. but then we also have the Holocaust and the dropping
of the bomb in Hiroshima... we have had vile biological attacks
on people and chemical attacks on people and nuclear weapons....
the last century was a list of the horrors human beings can inflict
upon each other.....all the way though 9/11 and the way republicans
are ok with the deaths of hundred of thousands from Covid_19....to think
that Americans are ok with 198,000 deaths from Covid-19, that is being soul sick....

we cannot allow our being the victims of nihilism to influence
our commitment to being human....... once we reclaim
being human and being the higher values of human nature,
can we escape our being soul sick.........

if we are not outraged by the Holocaust, even today, we are soul sick.......

so, does the death of millions, bring about a "meh" from you,
then you are soul sick......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

food for thought.....

Perhaps we are soul sick and the cure/salvation comes from our
connecting the words and actions we have......

this concept of "bad faith" is, partly, the reason for our being soul sick.....

our modern age makes it easy, oh so very easy to hold this divide within us...
this being deceitful with ourself...

Goethe once wrote: "Alas, I have two souls in my breast"

and the modern man says, two, that all, why I have dozens of
souls that reside in my breast.... I am a father, a son, a husband,
a worker, a citizen, a consumer, producer and many other roles.....
that is the part of the many, many characters I play every single day....

which role we play is the "real" role?

there is no "true" character or authentic person that lies within ourselves....

which of the many possibilities that you play is the "real" you?

as Kropotkin, I play several different roles or characters in my daily life..
which role is the "real" me?

If you can't tell anymore, then you are soul sick.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

let us continue on this path......

philosophy is a neglected area of thought and the most neglected
area of philosophy is probably ethics or aesthetics....

this post is going to focus on ethics.....so in my handy dandy dictionary we
have the word "Ethics" being:

ethic: a set of moral principles, especially ones relating to or affirming a
specific group, field, or form of conduct.

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing,
defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior"

ethics: deal with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation....

so we have three different variations of the definition of the word "ethics"

so, we have also brought into play the idea of "bad faith" so how do we connect
these two different ideas?

first of all, we have an image of ourselves.. we consider ourselves to be "good" or "bad"
or "evil" based upon some basis, be it our own guidelines or based upon others/societies
guidelines....... I might say, of course I am a good person, I have never broken the law....
thus I must be a good person.....

part of this "bad faith" is where we don't have a factual idea of who we are.....
to be a bit extreme, I am a good person, because I only limit my
violence to women and they clearly deserve it, so I am a good person....
and the point is, that there are people who truly believe that they
are good people even though they have committed violence to others
or have broken the laws or have cheated on their spouses...

How can this be so? how can we consider someone being good if they
act in this way? being violent to people.... because people are so good,
so very good at deluding themselves......
they might think that they are a good person because they have never been
caught.... I am a good person because I haven't been sent to prison....
even though I have committed multiple acts of violence against people....

becuase I haven't been caught, I must still be a good person.....
and there are people who believe this... and this belief
is "bad faith"...

and what I find incredibly stunning is that most people don't even
think about themselves in terms of "am I a good person?"
" am I a ethically responsible person?"

most people don't even consider themselves in this manner....

they automatically assume they are a good person, even if there
is evidence to the contrary......I have beating my wife and children
and I drank up my wife's inheritance and I cheat on my tax form...
but hay, I am still a good person... or so they assume.....

so who here actually thinks about their being "good" or "bad"?

who here actually thinks about their moral status?

and anyone who says yes.... is a liar.... we never think about
if we are "good" or "bad" people or if our actions are moral or not?....

and the worst part is most people, in fact, 99% of people just don't care if
they are moral people... it just isn't important to them.....

as long as the assumption people hold about themselves isn't
destroyed, they are good.......

part of your "bad faith" is to assume that this isn't about you...
it is....every word is written with you in mind.....

instead of shuffling off the blame onto your mother, the state, the society,
work, god, existence... try taking responsibility for who you are.....

most people can honestly and sincerely pass off their accountability to
other people or things or whatever and that is "bad faith"....and I can hear
you say, so what, big fucking deal if I am in "bad faith".. who cares?

you should, because by hiding behind "bad faith" you hide yourself...

we are in a world where partisan politics dominate the day and we are
struggling with a incredible complicated series of issues from global
warming to the future American civil war to our dysfunctional American government....

we have so many issues dominating our world we don't even know where to begin
and I would suggest that above all these other issues because it helped create
these issues is this question of "bad faith".....

you want to become part of the solution instead of being part of
the problem then you must, must engage with this issue of "bad faith"....

I am not suggesting that part of our problems exists because of "bad faith"
I am saying that our problems exists because of our "bad faith"....
how can we solve the worlds problems if we can't even face up
to our problem of "bad faith"?

Kropotkin, you are making a mountain out of a molehill.....

and how would you even know given you, yes you, haven't given
this issue of "bad faith" a second of thought?

are you a good person? who knows, you are so busy lying to yourself
about this..... are you a moral person? you say, who gives a shit?

you should......

what kind of human being are you? you certainly don't know because
you haven't given it a moments thought in your entire life.....

Don't lie to me.....

it is clear to me from your writings that 99% of you have no idea who you are
and it is also just as clear, you don't give a shit....

why bother when you have some false, delusional understanding of who
you are....most of you will blow me off.....

but I hope you at least pretend to want to become human, instead
of being an animal... no different than a dog or a cat or a monkey....

because those animals also don't think about or give a shit about who they are,
they are simply living out their lives without a moments thought as to
what does live mean.....

and to hold to your ignorance is to hold onto your animal, instinctual
part of you.....you are not even human if you don't consider who you are....

for that is what makes us human, as oppose to being animal.....

we can think about what it means to be human... we can consider ourselves...
and no animal can do that.....

and if you don't consider yourself, then you are animal.....

to consider yourself means to wonder what it means to be human,
to wonder if I am a good person? or to wonder what is real?
am I in "bad faith" with myself and with others?

it is these questions that allow us to rise above being just animal....
eating, drinking, fucking, sleeping... that is what animals do...
they don't contemplate what their nature is, but only human beings can....

so are you a human being or an animal?

what is your choice?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

as I further explore this idea of "bad faith"
and my early days of "Strum und Drang"... I
see something interesting.....although I didn't see
it at the time, I see that I considered the world,
the world we see, of people living, working, dying,
fucking, eating was a false world because of
our "bad faith" that world didn't exists for me....
and it doesn't exist today....

What Kropotkin? what the hell are you smoking?

as our world is dominated by the "bad faith" of individuals,
and corporations and politicians and lawyers, all of
whom engage in "bad faith".....

how can we consider the world to exists if it is involved
in so much "bad faith"?

the very amount of "bad faith" we see in the world
invalidates our vision, our understanding of the world....
how can we see the world true, if everybody engages in such
wholesale "bad faith?"

we have countries like america proclaiming to be the "promised land"
when engage in such practices as torture and concentration camps for
children? we see 200,000 deaths as acceptable losses and that
"bad faith" and it is "bad faith" because Americans like to call their
country "a christian country" and we have millions who say they are "pro-life"
as they are clearly not when they support the reduction of such essential
programs as social security and medicare and WIC programs.. if you favor
reducing these programs, you are most definitely not "Pro-life"

if American can engage in such "bad faith" how hard is it for you to
engage in "bad faith"?

this large scale "bad faith" challenges our notion of
what is "right" and "wrong" and "good" and "evil"
who even cares if America engages in acts of "evil"
and that isn't even noted... Moral actions by either
the individual or the larger groups like America,
isn't even thought about.....

if we engage in "bad faith" by not even trying to
understand if an act is "good" or "evil", then
how can we say that we are "moral" people....
how can I say, I am good......
if I don't even know what "good" is or what "bad" is
and if we cannot tell because of our constant involvement
with "bad faith"... then we are lost as a people....

how can I say this world exists when we can't even know if we
are good or not? How can I say this world exists if we, as a people,
and as individuals, are so lost as not be able to understand
what is "good" or what is "evil"?

we cannot even understand that the Holocaust was "evil"
and we can't even tell anymore what is "good" or "evil"....

we are lost... or how do we find salvation from this "being lost?"

escape from this unreal world of consumption and production
and making money and seeking unreal things like wealth,
power, fame, material goods.... they don't exists....

how do I know? because we can't even tell what is "good" or "evil",
what the hell makes you think we can tell if wealth or fame or
power or material goods is something worth searching for?

We can't even do the basics right now.....am I a good person?

we can't tell that because of our "bad faith" in lying about
who we are and what is possible.....

our addiction to the false beliefs/values of America leave us
failing to understand whither I am a "good" person or not?

we are living in a state of unreality and we don't even know it.....

you of "bad faith"..... you are living in a state of unreality and
you don't even know it.....

what next?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

today, I look at my fellow human beings....

and what do they do?

They race around seeking baubles that are hardly worth the effort....

isn't it enough we are trapped into living lives
that is no different then my cat's life.....

eating, drinking, sleeping, working, repeat.. again and again
until the day you die.....

what do we human beings do, day after day after day
is simply living lives of animals......

an animal doesn't ask itself, what is the point of this existence?

what does it mean to spend one's day in an animal existence?

and most human beings don't question existence either....

they go on in their hamster treadmill lives.........

a wasted life....

because they don't question what is really important...

is life really about our daily grind of being a consumer and a producer?

that is an animal existence........am I a animal?...

I am human....

and that means I question what is the point of existence if all we do
is seek out our daily needs of food, water, shelter, clothing....

that is easy, animals do that every day.....

WAKE UP.... WAKE UP.....

is that all existence means to you.. the daily grind of work?

is that the point of human existence....

to simply spend it like animals... eating, working, sleeping....

such a sorry reason for existence......

then we engage in "bad faith"....

we lie to ourselves that all that pointless work means something...

it doesn't... just another lie we tell ourselves.....

I would guess that it is our ''bad faith" that allows us to
delude ourselves into thinking we are making a "difference".....

am I advocating nihilism or simply giving up?

not at all.....

we cannot make any real progress as human beings until we
see the reality of our existence.... we must stop lying to ourselves....

until we see our current manner of existence is pointless and even
useless... we cannot make any progress into finding our real existence...

into finding out what is our purpose.......... once the lies stop
and the "bad faith" ends, we might be able to see, truly see
what human existence is really for........

human existence isn't for spending our lives like animals....
spending our time grinding out the basic needs of existence,
food, water, shelter, education, health care..... until we see
that that basic level of existence is the lowest level of existence
and the one all animals have... but are we just lowly animals?
doomed to exist in that lowest level of existence?

I say no.... I am not an animal.... my value is more then
just grinding out my basic needs of existence...

I can dream and I can wonder and I can hope and I can love....

but first I must ask myself, is that existence, this level of
being animal.. just seeking the basic of my needs really
what it means to be human? A question we must all ask ourselves....

it is "bad faith" our lies that keep us in the lowest level of
existence... once we begin to tell the truth, then we can rise
above being just a animal... seeking our basic needs and nothing more..

once you ask yourself, is this all there to existence?

that is the point when you begin to rise above bare animal existence....

do you dare try to become human? do you leave your animal existence behind,
that safe and secure animal existence because you can't be honest with yourself?

the rise to becoming human begins when we ask ourselves this question:

Is that all there to our existence? might there be something more then just
seeking our daily bread?

and if you answer yes, then you are on the way to becoming, becoming human....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

as we plunged into the civil war that is about to begin, I try to
think of some understanding of the situation....

but as usual, my mind tries to see everything from
an bird's eye view... from above...where I don't
see every tree in the forest, I just see the forest....

what I see is something akin to a hurricane about to reach shore
and we are smack in the middle of the hurricane's path.....

I cannot see what will happen once the hurricane strikes,
will the damage be great or small or somewhere in between..

I cannot say.....

a part of me, a small part, but nevertheless, a part of me believes
that this storm might even do us some good... it might wake up some
people into becoming aware of who we are and what it is we want....

the reason people will vote for the village idiot is because they are afraid...
fear has driven them into voting for dictatorship and a loss of freedom for
everyone.....

what is your reason for voting for IQ45?

If you say to keep the cities safe, then you are reacting from
fear... I believe that no good decisions has ever, ever come from fear...

any decision made from fear is the wrong decision.....but that is the point,
we are making decision based upon what? what is your criteria for
making such a decision?

I hold that justice and hope and love and charity and honesty
should be the standard we follow.....

hear me out.... if we hold the police to a higher set of standards,
to a higher level of justice, then people will hold the police in
a higher standard.....

the drive for justice is one that forces people to become
accountable for their actions.... I would argue that
it is the failure of the idea of justice that has
turn this nation into the crisis that it is today....

our failure to hold policemen and politicians and lawyers
and anyone who has money, fame, titles and power
is the reason we are in such bad shape, everyone must
be held accountable...... we must all play by the same
rules....a principle denied by republicans....

this fundamental decision has subverted and damaged America
in ways we cannot even begin to fathom....we cannot recover America
has the shinning city on the hill until we recover the notion of
justice.... equal standards for everyone.....

the GOP hates anything resembling equality....
and that includes the equality principle of justice....
for justice is nothing more then equality put into action.....

if you play the nationalism game, then you by definition
hate justice... there cannot be any such thing as
justice that doesn't also practice equality...

which leads back into my argument that we must forsake
ism's and ideology and invest into values like justice.....

what I am proposing is that we no longer follow ism's or ideologies
like capitalism or nationalism or catholicism or Buddhism...

we abandon ism's and ideologies.. in we replace them with
a pursuit of values and we use those values to make judgements
about the world......

capitalism says that we all are producers and consumers and that
is our only value as human beings.... I say no, a thousands times no.....

my theory says that we use our values of love and justice and hope to
make our judgements.... so, when faced with a choice, a decisions,
instead of choosing based upon some ism or ideology, I make
a choice, a decision based upon the value I have make my primary
value... as Liberal, I have and will always choose two such values upon
which I make all my decisions, justice and freedom.....

now some say that the values of justice and freedom is incompatible,
but I say no.... in fact, they are very compatible and can work very well
with each other.....for justice is nothing more then equality put into
action.... and freedom is about the ability to make one's own choices
by oneself.......I believe in democracy because I hold that our freedom
is best guaranteed by democracy... the political idea that we can live
our best life within a democracy.... we can find justice and freedom
best within a democracy... a minority rule, by one or by few, does not
care about what is best for the majority, it cares only about what is
best for the minority.......a dictatorship only cares about its
existence, an oligarchy only cares about what is best for those
few who rule within the oligarchy.... but a democracy holds
that "all men are created equal" that we have an obligation to
hold that everyone has an equal opportunity to decide what is best for us.....

as I see it, the problem has been we didn't trust democracy enough....

we lack "faith" in democracy to actually put it into effect.....

let us trust democracy.... that has been the modern failure..
We didn't really trust democracy..... hence we fall into old
habits of thinking a dictatorship or a small minority like
an oligarchy will be able to see us though into the future.....

but the fact is, we are brave enough and strong enough and
smart enough to behave responsibly....... we can have control
over our lives......but this means we must take the next step
in human evolution... and that step is taking accountability
for our actions...... holding ourselves responsible for our actions....

in other words, we can no longer hide like teenagers behind
our youth or some other factor like god or other adults.....

we must begin to act like adults....take responsibility
and accountability for who we are......

at work, If I mess up, I immediately take responsibility for my actions....
my fault... I own up to all my mistakes because that is the adult thing
to do.... If I am fired for my mistake, then I own up to that too.....

I don't blame others for my mistakes... I am accountable for who I am.....

are you accountable for who you are?

that is what has prevented us from us reaching the next stage
in our evolution... we still pass the blame to others for our
mistakes... we cannot go to fully human if we don't take
accountability and responsibility for our actions....

we will always be stuck in the animal/human
part of our nature if we don't begin to engage with
each other in an adult manner....

in other words, we think that we are the end of existence,
the top of the line, the final destination of where we are going,
but in fact, we are not fixed or set in our existence....
we have a long, long way to go to become fully human...
and that path lies in us taking accountability for our actions....

so once again, if you want to change the world, you begin
by changing who you are....

it won't be enough to march the streets and demonstrate against
evil...... we must also change who we are and what it means to
be human..........to be human today means we engaged in a struggle
to make ends meet, we struggle to meet our basic physical needs of
food, water, education, shelter, health care.... but we can change that....
if we change who we are...... the real struggle isn't meeting our
basic physical needs, that is what animals do, we are no longer
animals, we are human beings.... we must fight for the next stage
of existence, to reach the higher levels of existence,

to love, to belong, safety/security, to gain esteem.... those are the
higher level of needs, the psychological needs, and then we must reach
for the highest level, the self-actualization needs... to reach our
possibilities....it isn't enough to engage in meeting our lowest,
animal needs but to reach our higher level needs.....

and we can't find that in our current economic tyranny and
the soon to be, political tyranny of dictatorship of IQ45 and the GOP.....

to discover who we are, we must recover both our political
and economic freedom.... which means we must escape from
both capitalism which is economic dictatorship and political
dictatorship which we are fighting against right now....

who are you? I bet you haven't spent 5 seconds ever trying to
figure out who you are and you have spent even less time
trying to understand what it means to be human...

at the beginning of philosophy, at the very beginning of philosophy,
Socrates said, KNOW THYSELF.... that is the first rule of
philosophy..... do you really want to spend the next several years
under a dictatorship lead by someone who has a lower IQ then his
belt size?

then begin the process..... engage with who you really are....
that is why I think iambiguous is the best philosopher here...
because he knows who he is... he has engaged with the process
of finding out who he is... and no other person on this website has
so fully engaged in finding out who they are.....he has engage with
Socrates and discovered... who he is..... he is the only one here
who has answered the call by Socrates...TO KNOW THYSELF.....

the answer to what ails us is simple, an engagement with
knowing who we are and then becoming who we are....
and until we do that, we shall be haunted by such
things as political and economic dictatorships like
the one threatened by IQ45.....

Kropotkin

[Ecmandu]

Peter,

With all due respect. You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about right now.

Iambiguous is a horrible person. With all due respect to iambiguous, anyone who doesn’t understand that win/lose realities don’t work, is a moron.

Those are the “conflicting goods” of iambiguous.

[Peter Kropotkin]

we are facing a world with a multitude of problems....
from overpopulation to global warming to massive global
insecurity to increasing environmental issues and we must
ask ourselves, what is the cause of these problems?

Even to the most casual observer we can draw but only
one conclusion.... we are the source of the problems...

we are the problem... we are soul sick and that is the basic
fundamental problem.......we human beings have been downright
evil to each other for 200 years.... from the first World War which was
the opening salvo in what horrors we human can inflict on each other
to the evil of the Holocaust and Auschwitz to the dropping of the Atomic
Bomb to the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam war to the current
atrocities committed in the American citizens name with the
children being put into concentration camps........ we cannot
deny that man's inhumanity to man has no basement, no bottom
because even with the memory of history, we still commit atrocities
to other human beings.....

and the only explanation lies within us... within the soul sickness that
infects us and allows us to treat our fellow human beings worse than
animals, in fact worse then the garbage we throw out.....

when 75% of all republicans think that 180,000 deaths from Covid-19 is
"acceptable" then we can finally acknowledge that we are soul sick
and we must do something about it before it destroys us all.....

the greatest fear all of us have is the fear of seeing who we really are.....
the fear of self knowledge is the great fear that drive much of
what it means to be human..........

we will explore the great oceans and climb the highest mountains
and seek the vastness of outer space, but to finally come face to
face with who we are..... who we really are.... that fear has
driven us into avoiding the question entirely....

we must have the courage to face who we are and
what is possible for us....

and quite clearly terrible actions like the Holocaust and
the two World Wars are possible for us, but we can also
be other things, we can be beautiful and we can pursue
beauty and wisdom and justice and peace... if we so choose to....

but then the question arises, why don't we choose love
and peace and justice and hope?

why do we instead choose hate and violence and anger and fear
and lust and greed?

that is the soul sick part of us..... we make the wrong choice but
once again, why?

Because we have no idea what it means to be human......

we cannot see what is possible for us human beings....

we cannot see the beauty in the world and the beauty
of the sunset and the natural beauty of the forest and
sea and sky.... and the beauty that lies within each of us.....
if we only would look inside of us....we could see what beauty
lies within us.... but Kropotkin, how do I know that there is
beauty inside of me? that beauty that is inside all, ALL human
beings is visible within our art and paintings and literature...

we could not create outside beauty if it wasn't inside of us...
I can not create what I don't know... and so, we know that
beauty lies within us.... and the Greeks thought that beauty
and truth were the same thing....
for them, the truth didn't exists outside of beauty... the truth must
have and must be beautiful....... there was no other way for the Greeks....
the two words, truth and beauty, meant the same thing......

and so when we paint the beautiful and when we create beautiful
poems and literature and when we capture the beauty of land
in ART, that beauty is the truth.... so in the late 19th century when
painters and Artist began the shift to "modern" Art, that also
was a sign of the dual nature of nature/truth.... for we began to
see our modern world in terms of the fracture art of the late
19th century art that has lasted to today.....Art some might consider
to be ugly and tortured... but it does capture the "truths" of our modern
times.... the fact we have turned our beautiful land into a landscape
of factories and steam mills and tenements... full of pollution
and smoke and visually ugly.... the type of scene that turns one
stomach..... we are what we have built... we are also that ugly
inside of us...... but the question becomes which vision of the
human soul inside of us are we going to follow?

I say we seek the beauty of the human nature.. and those who
follow evil, say we should seek the ugly side of our nature...
and allow for, even cheer for the evil events that portray our
evil nature, the Holocaust and the two world wars.....

we have done a disservice to us and to future generations by
not having a place for beauty and truth and justice and love.....

we see this in the news for example, when the lead is always,
if it bleeds, it leads.... the news upon we rely upon is always
focused upon the evil side, the evil nature of what it means to
be human because it sells... that sex and violence are bigger selling
points then love and peace.. and that is being soul sick....

what if the news took to focusing on the beauty of who we are
and the beauty of the world? why Kropotkin, that would be boring.....

yes, yes it would be and the problem with that?

we are always looking to simulate the emotions and feelings...
but that path is always looking for things that don't
enlighten us or don't help us become who we are, who
we really are......we are beauty and love and peace....
if only we took the time to see that inside of us....

as I am old, I like a boring world... it works for me....I
no longer crave excitement like I did when I was younger....
give me peace and quiet and love every time.....
every single time.... I am reminded of the Shire and
Frodo Baggins.... he loved the Shire and what it stood for....
we too should love the peace and quiet that exists if we only
allowed it..... the problem with the world is us....
and only we can fix it....

so how does one begin to fix that which seems to be
impossible to fix? by starting small... and begin the long
road to knowing thyself.... and from there to becoming
who you are.......

the path is clear... all we need do is have the courage to follow it...
do we seek excitement and seek the lower instinctual level of
human beings or do we seek peace and quiet and work on
the higher levels of being human..... as seen in the art
and beauty of the world....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

what has been some results of our society being soul sick?

we have become bankrupt.. emotionally, intellectually, in our soul...
all bankrupt.. we are unable to respond with any new idea's or thoughts
about the multitude of problems that we face.... and in the face of those
multitude of problems, we are unable to respond with genuine emotions...

our here, in the west, entire forest burned to the ground... and where
is the grief? IQ45 says he would do away with ballots and then there
is no need for a transition of power....he would stay in power forever...
and he means it and where is the outrage? where is the indignation against
this flagrant attempt to steal the election?

the silence on the right... the silence on the right is scary.... because
there is no other emotion exhibited outside of this silence while
an mentally unstable human being who shows clear signs of dementia
is allowed to remain in the White House...... instead of seeking
much needed medical treatment for his failing mental faculties....
the drive to hold power permanently is a sign of mental illness...
look at others who sought to hold power permanently...

Hitler.. you can't tell me Hitler wasn't mentally ill.... clearly he was....
and you can't tell me that Stalin wasn't mentally ill..... to actively
engage in killing your own citizens is being mentally ill.... this is
nothing more then being a serial killer on a large scale.....

IQ45 has no problem with violence against anybody who doesn't support him,
he has no problem with the deaths of, of a large number of people including
Jamal Khashoggi and the attempted death of the Alexei Navalny...

this love of violence against people, he has called for violence against
a large number of people, liberals, blacks, protesters... how is this a sign
of being in possession of one's faculties?

and the right remains silent... that is being soul sick to be silent
while violence is being called for........

how has the call of/or the act of violence against those who oppose us,
become normalized? that is because we no longer think that calling for or acting
upon violence as being a sign of being sick... but it is.....the 17 year old kid who
crossed state lines into Wisconsin and shot 3 people has been defended as a hero..
because he was the right color and the victims had the wrong "viewpoints"....

how is that not being soul sick?

the act of violence and the silence in condemning violence is systemic
in America and a sign of being soul sick....

but of course, almost all of you will say, nah I'm good, it is the
other guys, the ones who oppose my viewpoints, they are the sick
bastards....and thus skipping over that I said, everyone is soul sick
and you are part of everyone...this allows one to skip over asking/
wondering about who I am...avoidance of asking if one self is
soul sick... no, we find a multitude of ways of avoiding
an examination of who we are..... we are experts in denial and
avoidance of an exploration of "Knowing thyself"

we do anything to avoid knowing the truth about ourselves, hence
we take drugs and drink and watch football and we immerse
ourselves in the lives of the stars, what did Brad Pitt say today?

Anything to avoid seeking and understanding the truth about
ourselves...we will go to great lengths to avoid knowing who
we really are and what is really possible?

I ask myself, in this random violence, am I capable of committing
violence to others, even to the point of killing someone?

I cannot see or visualize how someone could coldly kill someone....
I could see it during an action of self-defense but otherwise no...
and I don't see how the police can coldly kill another with their guns....

that seems to me to be a bridge too far....if I am aghast at the violence in
the world, am I less soul sick then you? perhaps, perhaps.......

but I must engage in some "soul" searching to really know the truth....
can you stand up and search your "soul" for the truths about who
you really are?

for most people, I would say, no.... we are afraid of seeking out
the truth about who we are...... we fear the answer maybe someone
we won't like.... I am afraid I might be capable of violence against
another human being... and that scares me.... but at least I am
engaged in an honest search into who I am and what is possible for me.....

the only way I can overcome my fears is to confront them...to face
the fact that I too, might be capable of violence against my fellow
human beings....could I kill? I cannot deny that the possibility does
exists within me.... but to be forewarned is to be ready when
the urge to violence does strikes me....

my honesty about myself has lead me to an important understanding
of who I am... I am capable of violence against my fellow human beings.....
that possibility does exist for me..... and so I can learn to control my
anger and hate and greed and lust which are factors into driving
me into committing violence....... I seek to learn what is possible for me
and can then learn to control that which leads me into acts of violence...

by learning the truth about myself, I am no longer as soul sick..
I have "cured" part of my soul sickness.....

and by becoming aware of my possibilities, I am not as bankrupt
as I was before.... everything is a matter of degrees...
and we slowly climb the ladder out of being soul sick
and of being morally, emotionally and psychologically bankrupt...

we can learn in stages how to become a better human being....

and with my newly found self knowledge, I can slowly work toward
become what is really possible for me.... I can become the person
that is possible for me... to reach the higher possibilities of being
human, not the lower possibilities of being human...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Hang in there.. I am spit balling here....

I am reading about Heidegger, he writes about Heidegger in
term of "themes"... what "themes" does Heidegger have?

which lead me to think about my "themes".. what "themes" do
I have?

in no particular order.....

who am I? am I a good person, a bad person, an evil person?

what am I to do? should I follow the ism's and ideology of my
birth culture and slavishly follow capitalism and other soul destroy
ism's and ideology?

what beliefs/ism's should I hold?

I have already dismissed or denied most of the beliefs and ism's of America
today.....I reject the martial society of America today....I reject the
pursuit of money/power/ fame/ material goods/titles....I reject
the viewpoint of life/America/people as being hierarchical...in other words,
we exists equally, not top to bottom...

I hold that most people live out their lives, on the very surface of
existence... they don't go above or below to seek out answers to
why they exists or what does it mean to exists....people live
on the surface of existence which means they don't rise above
to seek the higher in themselves and they allow the lower plane
of existence, which in human beings means the animal aspect of
their existence to often lead their thoughts and beliefs....

I believe that people were once animals, and we are now, some of
us anyway, animal/human and the goal is for all of us to reach
becoming human, fully human....when the instincts kick in,
that is animal.. not animal/human.....when we just react instead of
pausing and thinking about it, then we are being animal.....
I reject the animal nature of being human... I want us, all of us,
to reach the being human part of existence....

I believe that we should live our lives by values, not ism's or ideologies....
we should be able to choose what kind of existence we want to live in...
I believe in the higher values of existence, love, hope, peace, justice, charity,
and a thousand other higher values which leads us toward becoming
human, fully human... pick a higher value and then live that value...
if you pick as your value, justice, then you must strive with all your
heart to be just and to hold justice as your engagement with the state,
society, family, church, media....you live your life in an ongoing attempt
to be just and create justice to everyone in your society/state/church......
justice becomes the value upon which you base your existence upon....
or you can choose love or peace or hope or charity.... there are a thousand
ways to go, you know that there are.. and the values I personally choose
is justice and freedom.... but I could have chosen hundreds of different values
in which to live out my life....

I hold that as long as we are primarily engaged in the lowest
level of existence, the pursuit of the basics in which we need to
live, then we are living in the lowest level of existence, the animal
level of existence... and until we can rise above just being animals,
living in this lowest level of existence.. we cannot begin to the rise to
becoming animal/human.... little less becoming human, fully human....

if our lives is engaged in seeking just food, water, shelter, education,
health care... then we lead an animal existence... but I am human and so,
I want to become more.... so, I reject the lower level of existence as
our primary level of existence.... to grow as a human being, I must rise
to the next levels of seeking love/belonging, safety/security, self esteem,
above the physical needs of animals, we need the psychological needs listed
above... and then we become fully human when we reach the top of the various
levels... that is the self-fulfillment stage.. which is the stage where we
begin to seek our higher possibilities.... we no longer are living animal lives,
we are living the lives of being human.... when we seek out our possibilities
of being human.... one of my possibilities is to philosophize... one of the possibility
that I no longer have is to run a 5 minute mile.. I am too old for that now...
but that is the beauty of being young...you have far more possibilities
you can reach because you are young.. I do believe that "youth is wasted
on the young".. they too often miss possibilities that the old would jump on
if given the chance...

I believe that when we are born, the very moment of birth..
we face existential questions of existence....

"what am I to do?" "What should I believe in?" "What values should I hold?"
"What should I hope for?"

these questions of existence should dominate our lives, not the seeking of
the baubles of modern society, the pursuit of wealth, power, titles, fame..
those are useless wasteful seekings.... I mean the real pursuit of our existence...
to discover what it is we are and what we should be seeking....

life is not a statement, it is a question........

and what is your question?

and this another "theme" of mine, we should be seeking
out our questions of existence... my question is not your question....
and the society we live in has a different set of questions and I
have declined to engage in that pursuit.. because I believe that
the questions of society/the state as to be the wrong questions,
for me anyway.......

I believe one of the basic questions we face is the questions
of Socrates, one, to know thyself and two, the unexamined life isn't worth
living....

I hold to both of these questions and I believe them to be part of
the basic questions every person should wonder about...
to know thyself.... to know who you are.... and then that
can tell you what kind of person you are, good, bad or indifferent....

and the question of the "unexamined life being not worth living"

for me, this is the fundamental question that underlies
every single question I have ever asked...I must examine my life
and examine all our lives..... for we cannot and do not exist alone...

and this is another fundamental proposition I have....
we are social creatures that must exist in constant
communication with each other...... the past shelter in place
that forced millions to live existence alone, should us what
happens when we are forced to live our lives alone...
it isn't pretty.... we can only survive mentally with
each other... human beings who exists alone, become
mentally challenged... we go crazy, in the basic sense of the word...

that is why, being put into isolation in prison is the worst punishment
one can receive in prison... the isolated person is no longer
in connection with other human beings and we lose that which
makes us human... our connection with each other....


these are some of the "themes" of my existence...
can you name your "themes" of existence?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I am not sure how it happened, but I have stumbled into
a study of Heidegger.. I was reading a book called
"What is Existentialism?" by one of my favorite authors,
William Barrett who also wrote one of my most influential
reads, "Irrational Man".....

and this book, "What is Existentialism?" is all about Heidegger
which I didn't realize when I started it... so, now I am fully into
the study of Heidegger.... I guess it had to happen as I am right around
the turn of the 20th century in my overall historical study of philosophy...
I just passed Nietzsche who is really a 20th century writer although all of
his writings were done by 1890.... so, I have, as per my usual practice,
have ordered a biography of Heidegger and will get it soon, I hope....
in the meantime, I do have one of Heidegger books, "An Introduction
to Metaphysics"... where I got that one, I have no idea?

and soon I will attack his famous book, "Being and Time"....
once I am ready to face it.....

and on I go, I am still engaged in my study of philosophy... from
the beginning to my time... I think my 20th century study of
philosophy is going to take a long, long time..

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

the very first sentence of "An introduction to Metaphysics"
lies this sentence....

"Why is there "essents" rather then nothing?"

and Essents means existence, thing that art...
and that is a familiar question in philosophy....

"why is there existence rather then non-existence?

and to be honest, I really don't care about that question....

my concern is to what happens because we do exists....

in my mind, existence is a given... and what should we do with
that existence that we are born into...... what does it mean
to be born into this set existence that we have no control over?

"what is the point of this existence"

is another question I can ask about existence..... what is the point or purpose
of existence.... of my existence, of our existence, individually and collectively....

that we exists, seems to me to be basic, but what to do about this existence is
what we are looking at....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

part of the failure of philosophy is the fact that philosophy
has not kept up with the times.....in other words, philosophy
hasn't caught up with the modern times in regards to
how to come to grips with the events and thoughts of
our modern times.....so that means that philosophy
hasn't caught up with such events as the Holocaust,
the atomic bomb, the violence of the two World Wars,
the rise of our modern technology... to name a few things
that philosophy has yet to come to grips with.....

the world spins out of control because philosophy has
yet to come to terms with much of, if not all of the modern
aspects we deal with on a daily basis....

to even mentioned something that we take for granted these days,
the speed and the ability of technology to be world wide in
a second.... we can communicate world wide instantly in several
different formats.......philosophy hasn't even come up with some sort of
response to that basic change in how we communicate....

the times are moving too fast for philosophy to catch up and
that has hurt both philosophy and those who can benefit from
philosophy... and that is..... everybody.....

for that is the point of philosophy..... to engage in thought about
things that people take for granted... we cannot understand something
that we take for granted.....and that is part of why philosophers are
about being gadflys... we force people to reevaluate what it means to
be human and that a very good thing......and what does our amount of
technology mean in regards to being human.... for example,
transhumanism... is that really going to be a thing or, or is that
already a thing? Is a hearing aid or glasses, an part of transhumanism?
or is an cochlear implant which is technology implanted into people,
is that part of transhumanism?

my own audiologist has suggested a cochlear implant in my left ear,
my right ear has never had any hearing and thus is probably not a good
candidate for an cochlear implant.... Is that transhumanism?

I don't know and neither do you and that is the point....

we don't know... and how do we find out, is by engaging with
philosophy about what it means to be human and is transhumanism
part of being human?

many such questions exist in the modern world... basically ask yourself,
what does that.....(point)....mean to me as an human being?

Kropotkin

[Ecmandu]

Peter, firstly, nice post.

Secondly, you are soul sick.

Married people and people who have sex are extremely soul sick. People who don’t regret all their memories in a win/lose reality are extremely soul sick.

You’re not there yet buddy.

[Peter Kropotkin]

perhaps we can think about the last two centuries in terms
of not what we gained, but what we have lost.......

we have lost the ability to think about or talk about Art, beauty,
love, truth......

the creative side of human beings is no longer aspired to... we are focused
upon the making of money, the pursuit of fame and titles.... imagination
or creativity isn't needed for such pursuits.....we have lost the
ability to dream......and in that loss comes great consequences.....

it is within our ability to dream that allows us to see beyond the
mundane, in the physical search for the lowest level of bodily consumption,
we have forsaken our dreams in this pursuit of the basic necessities of life....
because we are so focused on making money and meeting our physical needs,
we have forgotten to seek the beauty in life...

and what is the truth? something that will hopefully make us some money......
and does the truth have any other function? not that I can see in modern day
America....the truth.... I have found that whenever I have told the truth about
something, I have gotten into trouble... because people don't want to hear the truth...
because it doesn't make money or it doesn't flatter our ego's, we don't want to hear it......

when was the last time you tried to create beauty? when was the last
time you tried to create anything resembling ART? I have no artist
ability at all. I somehow missed that gene, as did my brother, but my mom
and my sisters are very artistic....... so I don't attempt to create art..
but I am creative in terms of my writings here...... so at least I am
attempting to be artistic within the confines of what is possible for me...

so in terms of being a "Modern" man, I fit quite well into our
era....... but I have lost a part of what it means to human when
I am unable to be artistic... and you have lost part of what it means
to be human if you don't practice or engage with art in some fashion......

one of the things my wife and I do, is we go to Museums... we have been to
museums all around the country and in Europe.........

and I think about the Art we see and then compare it to the Art of this moment,
this time period... and we are left in the dust compared to Art done in
earlier ages.......but Kropotkin, it has all been said and done before...
we have nothing new to say artistically... but that is the point.....art isn't
about the manipulation of physical material.... Art is about a changing
viewpoint... Art is really about what the artist sees in their head...the
viewpoint and that is why we can't succeed in art today.... we have to
to change our viewpoints to make art relevant today...

art is the way we view the world... as we cannot view the world
today, we do not see what it means to be human and thus, we cannot
create art...

the nihilism that so dominates our viewpoint also prevents us from
being able to create..

Nihilism: the negation or dehumanization of human beings and their values.......

this negation of us and our values is a viewpoint that prevents us from being
able to engage with art....art doesn't not come from depravation or being deprived
of something, Art comes from the overflow of emotions and feelings........

Artist like Goethe, they created from an overflow of emotions
and mostly an positive overflow of emotions.... they felt so much
that they had to get it out..... Goethe said that he had to kill
Werther to save his own soul... who feels that overpowering emotions
today?

but Kropotkin, you say you want to increase rationalism, deny
instincts..... but you cannot deny instincts but you can direct
instincts into being productive by engaging in Art with your
instincts.... Art isn't about being rational, Art is about an engagement
with your emotions and your feelings, which is what instincts is all about...
emotions and feelings.....

and part of why we moderns are soul sick is because we have denied
our engagement with art.... and with beauty.....

one of the ways we can cure ourselves of being soul sick is by the use of Art.....

we release our toxic and dangerous emotions and feelings into art...
thus we can purify our souls...... that is what art does... it purify...
it doesn't save or create salvation, but it does act like a water purifier...
it allows the clean water to enter our glass but purifies the water which
makes it safe to drink....ART is that water purifier... it allows us
to engage in our emotions safely without the risk of harm.....

we have no outlet, no way to clean our emotions and feelings..
so art becomes that purifier.......

the way I purify my emotions, my feelings is by my writing... I use
my writing to engage in a purification of my emotions, feelings....

after I write, I am spent, tired....and that is because the toxic
emotions I feel are written out of me...... my wife says she can tell
when I am writing and when I am not... she says, I am a much better
human being when I am writing.. and I tend to get overly frustrated
and emotional, when I am not writing.... writing cleanses who I am.....

so how do you cleans your self? do you even know?

perhaps, we can become better people and learn to cleans our soul
by the use of art.... perhaps.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

in my continuing thoughts about ART...

I was thinking about the debate between the village idiot and Biden.....
and I recognized what a shitshow it was, rather quickly...but let us
think about this...on what level did I understand this... was it
an intellectual level? or was it an psychological level? or
was it an emotional level?

I contend that we reacted to the debate on a emotional
level....that is it was very ugly...that isn't a intellectual or
a psychological level, we reacted on a emotional level...
because it was ugly.... we reacted to the debate on
an Aesthetic level... we reacted to the debate as we would
have to ART.....it looked ugly... that is an emotional/aesthetic
reaction to something.......

there was little to no intellectual content to the debate because
of all the interruptions, so we can't react to that and we can admit
that some of our reaction might have been psychological, but to be fair,
oftentimes our reaction to ART is psychological.....

not to get drawn too deep into this, but much of our interpretations
of the world, including ART, is done within on a psychological level....

Human beings react to form, which is another way of saying beauty,
we react instinctively.... we react to form, shape, color, as a matter
of instinct... look around the room in which you are reading this....
I am looking too... what do I see in regards to form, shape, color?

I see a book, which is a white color with black lettering, a pleasing shape
a rectangle... as almost all books are rectangles and thus we are very,
very familiar with the shape of books...

I see the stove which is a box shape, I see my couch which is an ugly brown
color and is also rectangle shape... I don't see anything that is jarring,
or is ugly or brings attention to itself by its incongruent shape or color in
relationship to anything else in the room......

the three rooms, the kitchen, the dinning room and the living room,
all have basic shapes and flow into each other.....they are fairly small in
size.... but nothing that shocks us or shows us anything ugly....

but the debate, that was something we can call ugly... it was three people
talking, yes, but no, they were over talking each other, they were interrupting
each other, it wasn't a conversation that we are used to... it didn't have
any flow or grace or any beauty to it....I have seen conversations that
did have flow and grace and beauty to it... and this wasn't it...

we have reacted to the debate from an Aesthetic viewpoint...
it was ugly to look at. it didn't have any form, or shape or color to it
that made it pleasing....

to compare it to a painting, it was like a live version of Picasso's
"Guernica"....which is difficult to look at and hard to comprehend
and difficult to make sense of...the painting is ugly.. because
of its shape, forms, color, within the painting.....

and so we react to the painting from a Aesthetic viewpoint,
and so we react to the debate from an Aesthetic viewpoint...

so far, I am on pretty solid ground, but now we go for it....

I have seen plenty of political speeches...I think one of the best speakers I
have ever seen is Obama... but one of the best political speech I ever saw,
was in 1984 and was the keynote speech of Mario Cuomo.. it was a speech
of grace, beauty, form...it was .. beautiful...

and words, speeches can be beautiful.. listen to the spoken word
of poems... I have heard poems spoken and they can rise to
such beauty that cannot be compare to anything else....

and we/I have reacted to words and speeches from an Aesthetic standpoint,
did it have form, grace, color, beauty... and we are pleased and we see it
as we would see a painting of beauty or a picture of something beautiful.....

and we didn't see this from the debate and we have reacted as if, as if
we saw something ugly, distasteful, hideous... and that is a instinctual
reaction.... ....

so when you react to something, see if that reaction is based upon
the content, or the form or shape or color to that something....

in other words, when we react to something, try to see/find out why
we reacted the way we did...

learn to understand why you are reacting to something,
are you reacting because of the intellectual content of something
or to the shape, form or color of something?

it is beautiful or is it ugly and why do you think so?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and we continue......as we react to things on an
Aesthetic level, we can see how our reaction
come from seeing people, words, places, things
as either being beautiful or being ugly.......

I submit that when we look at such things as politics,
political speeches, debates, we quite often react
from an aesthetic value....

now look at the village idiot, IQ45... his words are
without form, shape, color or beauty....

his speeches are not beautiful, they lack an Aesthetic quality
that makes them beautiful...they are ugly.....

but so what Kropotkin?

I hold that people react to IQ45 speeches from an visceral feeling,
not an intellectual understanding, but that this visceral feeling doesn't
come from an beautiful, graceful, attractive feelings...... there is nothing
about IQ45 speeches that is "beautiful"....

so, why the reaction to IQ45 speeches and words?

they are ugly, and that is what those who like IQ45 like about it...
the speeches and words of IQ45 are ugly, grotesque, unseemly,
unsightly, awful..... they aren't words or speeches of form and shape
that make them beautiful....it is the very ugliness of the words
and speeches that is attractive to the followers of IQ45...
they like to see ugliness and hideous looking form and features...

they like to see hate and anger and lust, greed because they are ugly
and violent forms and and shapes and colors.....

those who hold to IQ45 values are those who can't see beauty of
shape, color or form.. they don't have any aesthetic sight which
will lead them to see beauty of form, shape or color.....

that lack of ability to see beauty of form, shape or color is
noticeable in the right wing/conservative........

the right holds to the utilitarian understanding of the universe....

if it can't be monetized or turned into something useful, it has no value
to the conservative/right winger....

the idea that something might have value because it is beautiful or
pleasing in some aspect of the senses is irrelevant to the conservative/right winger....

if it doesn't have some utilitarian value, it is useless....that is the mantra
of the right... it if can't makes someone some money, it is useless....

this denial of beautiful, of denying something because it is pleasing
to the senses, either by form, shape, color is fundamental to the
conservative....... they cannot see beauty.... it is as simple as that....

and that is, in part, why they are attracted to IQ45 words and speeches...

it is ugly, devoid of form, color, shape.. the things that makes something
of value because of the fact it is, in some fashion, beautiful....

the very fact that the Republican party is the party of the
utilitarian use of people, things, objects and events and places...
makes the GOP to be of danger to us...

in those values which is favored by the GOP, we can hate that which doesn't meet
our utilitarian vision of the universe..... in other words, if it doesn't have some
utilitarian value, it is useless....

so let us understand the word,

Utilitarian: designed to be useful or practical, rather then attractive..
Practical: suitable for a particular purpose....

If something isn't suitable for a particular purpose, it has no value to
conservatives/right wingers...

thus the conservative can deny, oppose, reject, refuse something that is
beautiful or pleasing to the senses..... the conservative has no
use for something that is beautiful or pleasing to the senses....

thus the conservative see no value in or no use for love, hope, beauty,
justice, charity..... these values are not, not practical or useful for the conservative...
how do you make money or gain something from "useless" values like beauty
or love or justice or peace?

to return to an earlier idea, that of being "soul sick"...

I might suggest that we are "soul sick" because we no longer value
such basic and fundamental ideas of beauty or pleasing in form,
shape or color....we see things, especially in America in terms of
what it can do for us, we see things in a utilitarian viewpoint.....
it must be practical or useful before we will admit it to our mental
furniture....such things as beauty is rejected because it isn't
practical or useful....

and hence, why we are "soul sick"...

we have lost the ability to see things as being beautiful or
having beauty because of the form, shape or color of something....

we seek the practical instead of the beautiful...

and we are soul sick because of that.....

to ism's like capitalism or communism, we do not seek what is
beautiful or pleasing in shape, form or color.....

no, we seek that which is useful and practical.....
we seek that which is of the utilitarian purpose, not
of the beauty or pleasing to the eye....

therein, in part, the failure of such ism's and ideologies...
like Buddhism or catholicism... they seek the practical,
the utilitarianism of actions or beliefs....

to be saved, to finally come to the one in which we all began,
to gain heaven, to seek nirvana or making earthly feelings like
suffering and desire to disappear.. is practical, utilitarian...

but is it something that is beautiful, or pleasing to the senses?

and we seek the wrong thing when we seek the practical or
the useful.... we must begin to seek what is not practical,
not useful... but that which is beautiful or pleasing to the senses.....

we must no longer participate in a society that demands that we
are useful and practical...... for that is seeing people as objects
to create a utilitarian society... something that is useful or practical....

why not seek that which is beautiful?

America is, in part, soul sick because we don't seek the beautiful
or the pleasing to the senses, we seek that which is useful and practical....

if I don't contribute the GDP, then I have no value in the American
society, but I do have value.... because I can create beauty
and something that is pleasing to the senses....
and that has greater value then being practical or useful....
or contribute to the GDP......

a reevaluation of values which means we turn away from being
a utilitarian society to being a society that values the creation of
beauty and forms, shapes and colors that is pleasing to the senses....

that is one way we can be less soul sick... by seeking beauty
and or seeking what pleases to the senses....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

think of such ism's and ideologies as capitalism
and communism.... they are not Aesthetic visions of
the universe, the utilitarian vision of the universe...

it must be useful and practical to have any value....
that might the classic definition of both communism
and, and capitalism....

for something to have value, it must be practical and useful....

a hammer has more value in a capitalistic and communistic society...

where in, say Greece for example, the idea of justice
and beauty and peace has more value...

and we can see that Greece has impacted us far more then we will
impact the future because of the fact that we are engaged in
being useful or being of practical use...whereas I hold/believe
that the idea of justice can be of value to everyone and the
hammer, can only be of use to a few people....

we must pick our spots to engage with ideas that will change the
world and one of those spots must be, must be an engagement with
the "unnecessary" and "worthless" values of what is beautiful
and what is justice and what is hope..... values that don't have
any monetary value, values that aren't practical or useful,

but values that inform us what it means to be human
and what it means to become who we are by the use
of possibilities that are present within our own being.....

I have value because I have the possibility of becoming/the possibility
of being a great philosopher...not because I am a consumer or
a producer.. that doesn't create any value for me as a human being....

in a capitalistic or communistic society, my value is compared with
or seen as being equal to being a hammer.. a hammer can build houses
and build walls and build bookcases... a hammer is useful and practical,
where my possibilities are seen as vague and of no value because
it can't create anything I can see, touch, small, hear or taste....

we cannot see the future because we cannot see what the value
of possibilities is... we cannot have hope or justice or freedom
because they aren't of immediate value of being practical or useful....

if it doesn't create some positive GDP, then it has no value in America...

which leaves out the possibilities of hope, justice, love, freedom, charity,
among other values that are negated in our search to be useful
and/or practical.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and one might ask, what about Christanity?

it doesn't focus upon the practical, useful...
it seek to get human beings to think about
their eternal souls......

but that is something that is practical, useful....

to attempt to gain heaven is trying to gain something practical
and useful..... it has nothing to do with any type of search for "impractical"
matters like justice or hope or love... now one might say, the path to
heaven is paved by such things as love, hope, justice.....

but think about the goal, the goal is to reach heaven, and values
like love, justice, hope are the means to reach that end result.....
the point isn't to engage in justice or hope or love as a goal, but
to use those values as a means to get to heaven.....

the point is to get to heaven and that is the goal... and that is something
that is useful and practical... but I say unto you, we should engage
in love and justice and hope as not the means but the ends of our
actions....

we should engage in hope and justice and love as the end result of our
efforts, not as a means to get to heaven...the final result is
to reach becoming hope and becoming love and becoming justice,
not in reaching heaven...we should seek beauty not as a means to an end,
but as an end in itself....

what is your goal? and what does it take to reach your goal?

are your means to reach the goal really worth the effort, or
should your goal really be the end of your attempts..

for example, the goal should be to reach love.. and by doing so,
one seeks beauty and truth.. in that search for love...
that is the goal... to reach love as it is a goal sufficient
by itself... it doesn't need any other qualifier.. like find love
and one will go to heaven... no, the point is to seek love
as the goal itself.. to seek hope as the goal... to seek justice
as the goal... not as a means to something else.....

Kropotkin