a new understanding of today, time and space.

[Peter Kropotkin]

Sapere Aude: "dare to know"
is also loosely translated as "dare to be wise"
or perhaps even more loosely, "dare to think for yourself"

Now Kant used this as his motto.... what he meant was that a person
was to think for themselves and not allow, as previous generations did,
to allow others to think for you.. for example, authorities like Plato, the church,
documents like the bible...…. Kant wanted a person to think for themselves
and become self directed... this self directed is very important to Kant.....
we are supposed to be self directed which for Kant meant to obey one's
personal duties..... for Kant, above all other aspects, he believed in
following one's own personal duties....for example, when he said this...

"Two things awe me most, the starry sky above
and the moral law within me"

that was about one taking ownership of their own personal duties...
and the Kantian idea of

"living your life as thou your every act were
to become a universal law".....

this too is about the duties that Kant felt were a part of every human's life.....

but this self direction..... what direction was it to take?

for example, we are instructed to self direct ourselves toward
some goal, to be happy or to find wisdom or to gain knowledge
to be rich.... to discover some self directed goal which is not
based on what authorities like Aristotle or the church or the bible,
meant for you to base as personal goals......we are to discover our
own personal directions or goals, to be self directed.....

it is in this self direction that was the basis for what Kant wrote...

are you self directed or do you base your goals upon authorities
or upon the church or upon text like the bible?

now if you think about life in general, most of life is driven by
desires, wants, needs... as animals, we have drives, such as food, water, shelter, to procreate,
clothes and as human beings, we want to be social, we want love and to love,
we want freedom and some want security...… these needs are the higher needs
of being human... these drives are drives based on specific human needs
and not about the animal drives that all life has......

the forces of evolution has "created" in us, certain drives which allowed
the human species to grow and thrive....we are driven by evolution as human
beings to have certain inalienable drives....now some may differ as to what
those inalienable drives are... be it love or be it the search for god or be it
security or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...…..
we can call these drives, self directed drives.. but I am not sure they
are self directed as much as evolutionary drives which are by their very
nature, uncontrollable... for example, the drive to procreate is a strong
and powerful human drive that drives much of human behavior and goals
and energy...… much of what we do is based on this evolutionary drive we
have little or no control over...………we cannot count this as being self directed....

so what Kant is saying is that the search for freedom is one such self directed
goal which can be the basis of our actions and behaviors and energy....

we can have other drivers of behaviors and actions and we have mentioned
some of them, security and love and being social are all possible drives we
humans have.....

personally, I have a drive for understanding and wisdom.... my drive used
to be for knowledge but I learned that knowledge is not necessarily
the basis for wisdom.. we can know things, have knowledge and still not
be wise... we can have understanding which is different then knowledge...….
and I want to understand and have wisdom.....

at my age when most people are just sitting around and watching tv, I am
spending my days reading and studying philosophy in hopes of some day,
perhaps, maybe I might become just a little bit wiser and have some more
understanding... I am self directed..... to achieve a goal which most people
attempt, if at all, when they are much, much younger...…. old people like me
are suppose to be past such nonsense like philosophy.... but here I am.....
and here I shall remain...… for I am driven to pursue wisdom and understanding...

so when asked, what are you driven to do?

when challenged to "Sapere Aude".... dare to know...

what do you dare to know?

do you dare to be wise?

do you dare to think for yourself?

what have you self directed yourself to do?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

several questions are going about my head...…

if modernism, modernity is the problem, then what is the solution?

in regards to the enlightenment ideal of freeing people from
the tyranny of authorities, of the tyranny of aristotle and the
tyranny of the church.... what if, what if we have simple
replaced the old tyrannies with the new, we have the "new"
tyranny of the state, the new tyranny of the ism's/ideologies
of capitalism... of marxism, of the "modern"
upon which we sacrifice the modern man... just as the old
tyrannies were quite happy to sacrifice Bruno and socrates
upon the old ideals....

what is the question upon we must face that answers the problem
of modernity?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

after 8 straight days of work, I finally have a day off.....

I have often wondered what this is all about? you, me, everything.....

and then I think about human beings.... we see ourselves in this game,
this thing we call life and what is it all about?

This morning, while doing laundry, I was thinking about baseball....
my favorite game...... How the baseball greats were great only defined
by baseball.... for example, a truly great hitter, still only has a 320. batter
average....320, think about this, that mean a hitter only hits the ball, gets on base,
a little bit more then 3 times for every ten at bats.....so for every 1000 at bats,
a truly great hitter will hit the ball 320 times....think about it.... a hitter
is a succesful hitter by hitting the ball only about a third of the time.....
can you think of any other profession where one might be considered to be
a success with a 33% success rate? think about a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist
who only succeeded 33% of the time? that would be a really crappy doctor or lawyer
or dentist.......or a politician being successful 33% of the time......

the goal of baseball is to become a better baseball player.. either by becoming
a better hitter and has we have pointed out a truly successful player only
succeeds 33% of the time but the baseball player gets better fielding the ball,
and running the bases and getting walks and all the little things a player
can do to improve his game... to become better...…

that is the goal of baseball, to become better and in becoming better,
you help the team become better.. but first comes the part where
you must improve yourself.....you must have some value to the team..
either you are a good hitter or a good pitcher or a good fielder or a good
base stealer... there are aspects of team play that needs individual
talents in order for the team to succeed..... if you are talented in some
area, you can help the team to succeed...

now let us take this baseball analogy to life... I have a certain skill set,
I can make connections very quickly between two very different area's.....
I freely admit I cannot do math to save my life and my English skills are
ESL at best.... so if I want to become more valuable, I need to improve my
individual skills and what does that do? it helps the team to win....
and what does winning look like in our current context?

as in any team, we must have goals to achieve.... we must work at
our goals... and as with any goals, they must be clearly stated
and understood to be in the best interest of everyone playing the game.....

and so, I point out that goals and objectives of liberals make
much more sense with our current understanding of what is means to be human
then the goals and objectives of conservatives......

it is not in the interest of the individual player to pad his stats
to improve his signing bonus to the detriment of the team....
we are the solo players who must understand that we are also
part of a team... and if we want to succeed, the team must succeed..
it is as simple as that... if the team fails, we fail and if we fail, the team fails...…

conservatives don't care about the team and if the team fails, as long
as the individual player can paid his stats and get paid more... that is the goal....
for the conservative only cares about getting paid more, not if the team
succeeds...……..

but how big of a team do we actually have?

we have families and tribes and city/states and nations
and countries and races, be it white or black and religions,
be it Christian or Muslim or Hindu, we can divide human beings
into thousands of different classes depending on how you divide
human beings...… but I say, it doesn't matter how you divide the human
race, it isn't enough..... for we also belong to a bigger team than just
the human race.....we belong to the team of life.... and we must work
to promote and protect life, be it snakes or tree's or bee's or even the earth
itself..... and we must be prepared to make sacrifices to protect
the greatest team of all, that of life on planet earth.... for we may
be the only life in the universe......and we have a duty and obligation
to protect that life even if it means we must sacrifice ourselves
to protect life..... just as a teammate might sacrifice himself to
help a teammate or to help the team, we must become good teammates
to all life on planet earth.... for that is what teammates do and it doesn't
matter if the other teammates on earth know or understand what we do...
because we know.....and that is all that matters, if we know what it takes
to be a good teammate to our fellow human beings and to life...…

on a personal level, I must try to become a better human being which
in turns makes the human race a better race... it is our individual improvements
as human beings that allows our fellow teammates, our fellow human beings,
to belong to a better team... if we improve ourselves, we improve our team.....
and that is the mission of being human...… we improve ourselves to improve
the team and that team includes life, all life on planet earth...…

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Sittlichkeit: the ethical life as defined by Hegel...…

what is the "ethical life"? does a man who steal a loaf of bread
to feed his family being ethical? For isn't feeding one's family
belong to the famous "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness" of the declaration of independence.....
or does an economic system which prevents a man from feeding
his family an "unethical" system? How does a person exists in an "ethical"
life when certain basic "inalienable" rights are denied to them?

Which is more "ethical" a man who steals a loaf of bread to feed his family or, or
an economic system that prevents that man from feeding his family?

How does Sittlichkeit work in regards to the pursuit of capitalism or
communism? Individually or collectively? Now one of the key points of
Kant was that human beings were to be "self directed"... not driven by
the power and reach of authority like god, the bible, Aristotle, the church,
the state...…..and so what does it mean to have sittlichkeit in terms of
being self directed as Kant wanted? For hundreds of years, Sittlichkeit
was connected to the concept of Art.... the ethical life was directly
connected to Art... you cannot have an ethical life without Art....Kant
makes this point as does Hegel.....

so how does being self determined as defined by Kant mean in terms
of our "modern" fixation, "modern" addiction of the pursuit of profit/money?
So what does it mean to be human in light of the fact that we/society places
the pursuit of money as the "highest" ideal? Is the only value of being human,
the modern ideal of consumer/producer? and what does this idea of self determination
tell us about religion? what does Sittlichkeit have to do with religion?

"Salto Mortale" which is Jacobs leap of faith and later turns up with Kierkegaard leap of faith,
what does this have to do with Sittlichkeit? the ethical life? This "Salto Mortale" doesn't just
exists within a religious context, it is also present in how we view the ism's and ideologies
such as capitalism and communism...….for both capitalism and, AND communism at
their heart, takes a leap of faith into the impersonal forces of the invisible hand
of god/market forces in capitalism and the invisible forces of the laws of materialism which drive
communism...…. we seek refuge in these "Salto Mortale" of capitalism and communism....

we don't see self determination in either capitalism or communism because both are
driven by unseen and beyond human understanding and ability to direct.....

both capitalism and communism is to be rejected because they both, capitalism
and communism carry the modern despair and alienation and discontentment
of modern life..... because they both hold has their basic principles, impersonal forces
that exist outside of and beyond human determination...…

So what is nihilism? the holding of beliefs that forces one to have as a basic premise
"Salto Mortale" as does both capitalism and communism....
we hold to other such impersonal forces theory beyond capitalism and communism,
such as Buddhism, Christianity or any ideological that preaches about any forces
beyond our control.

Until we regain our ability to self determination, we shall continually fall
victim to such impersonal forces that we must hold by "Salto Mortale"....

and what does this mean for science and the naturalism of Newton or Einstein?

do we have self determination within science or naturalism? or must we
engage in "Salto Mortale" with science and or naturalism?

more later...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and continued:

This leap of faith, "Salto Mortale".. doesn't just exist in the impersonal
forces of capitalism or communism, no, as noted it exists in
any religion such as Buddhism or Christianity....at the very start of
the religious process... for example, Buddhism requires an immediate
leap of faith right from the start that we are reincarnated and Christianity
requires a leap of faith that there is a god... right from the get go, both
religions require a leap of faith...….

the next step is this question of science, naturalism, of evolution,
of gravity, of the natural forces that has created the universe..
how do we have self determination in light of those natural forces that have
created and dominate our natural universe? How do we understand Sittlichkeit
in light of those natural forces? How are we to have self determination
and an ethical life when we are fixed and determined by evolution
and gravity and other such forces? Can we have an ethical life given
we are created by such fixed forces as gravity and evolution?

must we make a "Salto Mortale" in the face of such forces as gravity/evolution?

we are forced to exist in a certain way because of gravity and evolution,
we must breath and eat and drink water and procreate as we are the results
of billions of years of evolution and we must obey the laws of gravity or
face rather severe consequences.....our self determination is limited
in that sense... our physical limitations are set by those forces of gravity
and evolution... but we are not bound to those forces...we can act in a
self determined fashion regardless of those physical forces that have created
and dominate us...we have choice... we can lead an ethical life because
we are not limited in that way by evolution.... we can exist in Sittlichkeit
because gravity and evolution affect us on one way, it doesn't determine
our ethical choices... gravity or evolution doesn't say or do anything to limit
our ethical choices, our ethical lives....we can act individually and/or collectively
in terms of our ethical choices...we are not limited by gravity or evolution in this
manner....we can have ethical lives because our ethical choices is not limited
by or determined by those forces of science...…

but what about those ism's and ideologies that require us to
to make a leap of faith, ism like capitalism or communism or
Buddhism or Christainity….if we make a leap of faith, are we really
leading ourselves to ethical choices? can we make ethical choices if
we have to "Salto Mortale" to make that choice? does a leap of faith allow
one to have an ethical choice? for to have an choice requires we don't
need to act in some prior manner like making a leap of faith to make
our ethical choices work....Kierkegaard is wrong... we don't need to
make a leap of faith to have ethical choices..... we just need to
choose and then act upon that choice... I can have an ethical life
if I simply self determine that I exist within a certain framework, a
framework of forces like gravity and evolution that limits
my choices, but they don't determine those choices... I do....

Today I choose to be ethical.. I will help that old women cross the street
and that is all it takes... to act to benefit others instead of myself...
but that choice Kropotkin, doesn't that choice require a leap of faith
that helping others is the ethical choice....you tell me....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I have thinking about "ART" a lot lately
and what is the connection between "ART" and our lives....

What is the value or point of "ART" in our lives?
and I was thinking about novels like those written by
Jane Austin or Tolstoy..... They are novels by virtue of having
a plot or a narrative, a story is told, a story with a beginning, middle
and end..... Now that story can be told in hundreds of different ways...
we can tell hundreds of different stories with the exact same
people and/or events...…… for example, the movie "clueless" is a
1996? movie that is an adaptation of a Jane Austin novel.... we have
a novel that has been changed but the basic features are still there if
you know the source material......In music, I have heard many different
versions of songs like "my funny valentine" and the Beatles song, "yesterday"

we can adapt and change every single story and plot to include or become
something else.....

so we have "plot" a story which every "ART" has, even painting...
has a plot as we also have plays, music, movies, all of which has a "plot"
a story to tell.....

so to return to a point raised earlier, I have noted how human beings
have become alienated, disconnected, atomized, from society and from
each other and in many cases, we have become alienated and disconnected
from ourselves.....

what if, what if we are alienated and disconnected and atomized because
we don't have a plot to follow. we don't see our lives as having a plot,
a storyline in which we can follow and be part of...….

we see this also in the massive alienation and disconnect that is within
society in individuals because of those powerful forces that are not
within our control such as exhibited by capitalism which is driven by
the "invisible hand of god" and communism which is driven by the
forces of class relations and social conflict driven by a materialistic
interpretation of historical development... this historical development is
outside of and beyond the control of individual people, just as capitalism
is driven by the invisible hand of the "market place" which is also outside
of the control of individual people..... and we have religions which are
based on the outside forces of god and within Buddhism which is the uncontrolled
forces of reincarnation which is outside the forces of individuals...

much of human ism's and ideologies are based on forces that are beyond
and outside of the control of human beings...…

when we have a "plot" we can compare and contrast our lives with the "plot"
and the storyline and we can see or compare where we are and what is our choices
in life...…

we can even have a "plot" in such modernist painting as Duchamp "Nude descending a
staircase" for which we can create an entire story around a nude descending a staircase,
a beginning or an ending or even the denouement of a story.....a plot exists within
a modern painting like "nude descending a staircase" if we are willing to create one.....

and what would the plot or story of your life look like?

we have become isolated, alienated, disconnected from our lives because
we no longer have a clear and precise story or plot we can tell about ourselves...
to ourselves and to others. think of the cave man, think of the story they
told about themselves in which they were trying to survive against incredible
odds against all sorts of adversities.....

or think of the medieval human being who had a story to tell about their
place in life and where they fit into society...…

but modern man, what is our story? what is our "plot"?
we need a story to compare and contrast where we are
and what human beings are and what is our possibilities...…..

write your own story, write you own plot... and what does it say about
you?????????????????????

we have become disconnected from the myths and superstitions that
were the stories of society and life since the beginning.....
one such story is how we are "meant" to search for god
and another story is how instead of god, we found doubt
and within that doubt, we found wisdom... not knowledge,
but wisdom.... for it is only from doubt can we begin the
story, our story of our search for wisdom...…….

so what story, what plot are you going to tell us about your life?
what story is your story about your past, present and future?

what is the plot of your life?

and that is "ART"....and if done correctly that story is also philosophy
and history and economics and biology and physics and or in fact,
any study we engage in...…. that is our story.. the study we engage with
becomes our plot, our story....I study who we are and who I am in terms
of philosophy and history but you can engage in a study of your story, your
plot by any means you wish... even "ART" can be your path to study
your story, your plot...…...so tell me?

what is your plot?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

now one of the reasons we are so atomized and alienated
is because the stories, plot we tell about ourselves is
disconnected from society... we are social creatures,
and our stories, plot must, must reflect that social nature
of the human creature.... we must acknowledge and operate within
the paramaters of social discourse of being human, being social,
we exists in the context of our social, collective being....
we cannot, cannot do anything else..... we are social and collective
beings and our stories, our plots must reflect that social and collective
nature... otherwise we become alienated, disconnected, atomized,
from ourselves and our society.......we must have a story that connects
us to a larger context that includes other human beings, other life....

perhaps the problem with modern life is we aren't connecting our stories
into an overall, social context... we have isolated our stories too much
and our plot, our story isn't wide enough or social enough to meet our needs....

we are social, collective beings and our stories, plots must reflect that.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

now part of our story, our plot is our identity....
I was homeless for a bit and that is part of my story,
part of my plot, but it isn't part of my identity...I was
born with a hearing loss, that is part of my identity,
identity must be something that is "permanent"
I am white, that is part of my identity, part of my plot...
and it is permanent.... being white tells a story.. do I have or suffer
from "white privilege"? that is part of the story, whither it is true,
is another story or plot....we each of us, have a story, a plot and some
of that story is permanent which is then identity.... but I have heard of
people say that "have an identity crisis". Well if identity comes from our story
or our plot, then to have an identity crisis would imply that I have
become alienated from or disconnected from my story, my plot.....

we do have forces like capitalism and communism which are forces that
are outside of or beyond our ability to control..... is not part of our story, our plot
is to engage with the social forces around us... for we are social creatures and any
story we have must involve other people... we must engage with, be social with
other human beings and if we are alienated from or disconnected from people
due to the forces beyond our control....then we can feel alienated, disconnected
from people due to the forces beyond our control.....alienation stems from
our disconnection to the story we have or the plot we have as human beings.....

if my life is "controlled" by forces outside of my control such as in
capitalism or communism, then we are not connected to or we are disconnected
from people.... if my life is determined by the "invisible hand of god" or the market,
then I am not connected to people.... we are atomized by those invisible forces of
capitalism or communism or Buddhism or religion....I cannot tell a story or have a plot
about invisible forces like capitalism which the invisible forces of the marketplace
have made me poor or have destroyed my life.... what is that story?
How do I turn invisible market forces into a story, a plot in which
I can maintain my identity? for identity is a permanent aspect of the story
we tell about ourselves.... and those invisible forces of ism's and ideologies,
how can I tell that story? I am not only disconnected from my fellow human
beings due to the invisible forces that dominate our lives, but I can't even tell
a story about it which doubly disconnected me or alienates me from both my self
and my fellow human beings...…

How can I tie up my story, my plot with invisible forces I can't even see
or touch? I cannot, cannot connect my story which is what we human beings do
to help us connect us to others, remember we are social beings and we must
as an condition of being human, must connect ourselves with other human beings...

the so called identity crisis of the modern age comes from our blindly following
those invisible forces which we cannot see or touch or change and those
invisible forces are inherent in all ism's and ideologies......for the basic
starting point of ism's and ideologies is within invisible forces which we cannot
touch or see or connect to.. socialism, communism, capitalism, Catholicism,
Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism.... all exist within the starting point of invisible
forces... and science? yes, science holds us to invisible starting points like
gravity and evolution and biology.. all of which have invisible forces
dominating them......how do we really solve this identity crisis?

we become connected to, part of those forces which we can see
and touch and control...…….

what is the story of human beings? our social nature and we can touch
and see and feel that social nature, every single day......and that is our
starting point of our story, our plot, our connection due
to the fact that we are social creatures and we must, must in order to survive
and prosper, connect to and become part of other human beings, both
as individuals and collectively.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

finally a day off...

I have a multitude of thoughts running through my head and I'm trying to
make sense of them in relation to our "Modern" times.....

We have the enlightenment with its emphasis on the "rational"
and the attempt to "free" man from all authority be it the bible,
or god or the Pope or Aristotle...…

and we have the next generation of belief which is the Romantic
century which is the 19 century.... from the French revolution to
the First world war...…

and we have other stray thoughts which I am trying to understand
which is the relationship of the two, enlightenment and Romanticism
with sittlichkeit: the ethical life and Art and what it means to
be "modern"?

All these random and stray thoughts and yet, and yet I cannot but
help feel that there is some strong connection between them...…
How can I connect the dots between them?

The self determination of Kant with the inner subjectivity of the Romantics
along with our public and private roles.... as citizens and producers and consumers
but we are more then that... even if our current political and economic theories
doesn't allow us to be any more then that...…

I run through my mind the history of western civilization since
roughly 1700 to the First World War and I try to compare the
intellectual history during that time to make some connections....
the goal is not some intellectual history of the west since
1700 but to say, here we are, now what? what is next?

It is never enough to just understand the past, we must use that understanding
to engage in some awareness of what is next.....

past and present must combine in some fashion to create the future...

for that is the equation.... past + present = future....

if we marry the "rationalism" of the enlightenment with the
"solipsism" of the Romantic era, we have some version
of what it means to be human today.....

but that is not enough....it is not enough...….

the quest for understanding crashes on the shores of what it means to be
human today, right now....

more thought is needed...

Kropotkin

[Meno_]

It is this in my opinion how come after the great hurrah of Allied victory and the defeat of Axis powers and the demise of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin wall, we are again hawkish like hell plus on top of that suffering social alienation and any?

Is there any hope for a common sense or is Angst keeps driving us crazier until a lunatic terrorist state will finally profit on the trillion dollars nuke industry that's due for a profit taking?


And the problem with this is, that it's really happening!


To give You an example: the German foreign minister seriously advised threateningly the Russians about the development of hypersonic weapons that it can lead to a new age revival of cold war.type weapon development again going out of control, with most of GNP going to the military.

Who ever would have thought that new reasons will be thought of.to feed the hunger of.the military industrial complex, that the late IKE warned is about c. 1957?
A declared German State warning a bearish behemoth, acting like a Ribbentrop to sign a peace treaty ?
At a time , when previously German workers were getting paid with millions of Reich marks barely fitting into a suitcase on payday?

It seems like modern man is truly living up to the warning, : those who can not learn the lessons of history.....

[Meno_]

finally a day off...

I have a multitude of thoughts running through my head and I'm trying to
make sense of them in relation to our "Modern" times.....

We have the enlightenment with its emphasis on the "rational"
and the attempt to "free" man from all authority be it the bible,
or god or the Pope or Aristotle...…

and we have the next generation of belief which is the Romantic
century which is the 19 century.... from the French revolution to
the First world war...…

and we have other stray thoughts which I am trying to understand
which is the relationship of the two, enlightenment and Romanticism
with sittlichkeit: the ethical life and Art and what it means to
be "modern"?

All these random and stray thoughts and yet, and yet I cannot but
help feel that there is some strong connection between them...…
How can I connect the dots between them?

The self determination of Kant with the inner subjectivity of the Romantics
along with our public and private roles.... as citizens and producers and consumers
but we are more then that... even if our current political and economic theories
doesn't allow us to be any more then that...…

I run through my mind the history of western civilization since
roughly 1700 to the First World War and I try to compare the
intellectual history during that time to make some connections....
the goal is not some intellectual history of the west since
1700 but to say, here we are, now what? what is next?

It is never enough to just understand the past, we must use that understanding
to engage in some awareness of what is next.....

past and present must combine in some fashion to create the future...

for that is the equation.... past + present = future....

if we marry the "rationalism" of the enlightenment with the
"solipsism" of the Romantic era, we have some version
of what it means to be human today.....

but that is not enough....it is not enough...….

the quest for understanding crashes on the shores of what it means to be
human today, right now....

more thought is needed...

Kropotkin

Peter,


The rational man is no longer rational that's what modernity has brought on us maybe punishing us for the violation of the cross that pretty much fixed the divide between those with faith , and that means to me a vestige of what has always guided us has split off , and left us believers who are still holding on for a hero.

That mysticism and clairvoyance are the only remedies to unfortunates like us, since the great schism of The Church, (over the Catholic Demonic Child Molestation ) leaving us believers destitute in spirit .

But we holders on, in the supra rational-natural are merely digging in,
in defiance of those , who wish to squash the very innards of our Soul's desire and purpose.

That is my stance on making any sense out of the Great Divide that modern man has to endure.

The Sessurian glean for any sign , has become an obsessive practice of negative reinforcement, getting comparative philosophy to further tighten the noose , until life as we know it will have its very essence driven out of the meaning of our existence.

[Peter Kropotkin]

"Fin de siècle"

often refers to the end of the 19th century where the
old Regime of thought and the political and the economic
were themselves negated by new thoughts, beliefs
and ism's...… You can take the world, the world and
divide it up into two sides, the ancient world and the modern
world with the dividing line being the French revolution...

The end of the old Regime was brought about by, in part, by the
loss of faith in the "old ways" of the political and religious and economic
and the new ways of democracy, capitalism, communism.....

but each side of the division had its fatal flaw....
both sides pre French revolution and the "Modern" world
had flaws in that the forces that control each,
are forces that we cannot see or control.....

the old way had the religious church, state, cultural
that we know of as the "age of kings" and the long disputation
between the Catholic church and the "modern" Protestant religion....

and the Modern way in which the old forces of church and state were
being destroyed by the new forces of democracy and capitalism....
but democracy and capitalism and communism are all driven by
forces beyond "people's" understand and control...…

we have capitalism which is driven by the unseen and uncontrollable
forces of the "invisible hand of god", the market forces which operate
outside of and beyond human control......and we have communism which
is driven by the forces of "historical materialism" in which economic classes
are driven to battle each other for mastery of the means of production....
and there is no room for a individual who has dreams and desires and hopes
to fit into this new world driven by forces that doesn't care about individuals
dreams and desires or hopes...….


this new age after the French revolution is a nihilistic one where both
human beings and their ideals are negated in the pursuit of profits/money....
we are still living in this age...… this age of nihilism.... which has
lasted since the French revolution....thus I say unto you..... Fin de siècle....
we have reached the end and every end is a new beginning...….

but what shall our new age look like?
what shall be its ideals and principles and philosophies?
upon what values shall we begin anew?

and that is the question.... we ever engage in changing
the values to which we live by and live under......

the values of the old regime were negated in the French revolution
and the new values created... and it is time for those values of the
French revolution be negated.... and with what values shall we negate
the values of the 19 and 20th century? what shall be the 21st century values
upon we build our society upon? that is the question... the past (values)
and the present (values) equal the future (values)……….

and herby we see the failure of Trumpism... for it has no future...
just like the Nazi values Trumpism follows, values of hate and anger
and mistrust and greed and racism, Nazism/Trumpism cannot be used to
go into the future because those values of hatred and racism and anger cannot
lead us into the future..... they are dead end values..... we must engage in
a search for values which can lead us into the future...……..not the old
Nazi/Trumpism values of the past......what are the new values that
can heal and unite us which is an escape of the Fin de siècle values of the past....

am I Jesus? no, I am merely john the Baptist.... proclaiming he/she is coming
with the new values of the coming years... values which can carry us into the future....
values which are pregnant with the new possibilities and a new understanding of
who we are...…...

here we are at the end of the old age began by the voices of war between 1914
and 1918... we are to begin anew..... with values that can take us into the future..
not just MAGA values which are empty and harmful because those values are values
of hate, violence, anger and greed and we cannot go into the future with those values....
hate can only bring us back into the past.. and not the future....

so, what are our future values?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I connect what I have written so far with the great question of our time
and it is a question that has no good answers but demands an answer....

Why does our "modern" age need or want superhero's?

what is it about this need for superhero's in our modern age?

I see the need for superhero's as the same need earlier ages
needed god and for the same reasons.....

the first superhero was Superman who was first published in a comic
book in 1938.... think about that year...we have had almost a
decade of the depression and was very close to the begining of
the second world war......the rise of superhero's coincide with
some personal need of ours to be able to combat the "forces"
of evil... we can easily substitute a superhero and god for this
need to punish evildoers...... superman and other superhero's
play god for a modern age that doesn't believe in god anymore.....
we need to find mythic means to fight off evil and...
the next great step in mankind will be the understanding that
we can fight and punish evil without any recourse to supernatural
means like god or superman......

so how do we connect this with the fin de siecle age we live in?

when we have lost the need for a god or a superhero, we are ready
for the next age to begin.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

as I attempt to understand, to know, I am increasingly
becoming isolated from our "modern" world....

"to know".... is as I am ever becoming more aware of, is an
emotional response, not an intellectual response....

My wife will often comment on things I have said with,
"I know".... and yet, I have far greater knowledge of things,
of idea's, of ism's... I am book smart, not that it counts for anything,
but she is emotionally smart...… something I have never been accused of being....

so I lack the basic emotional intelligence or skills that most people have....
so when I fail to understand why people are so invested in such things
as gods or superhero's... I can't tell if it is because I lack the emotions
necessary to understand such things or if it is really a thing that people
seem to need superhero's in the same way people need god?

my own emotional weakness seems to call into question my understanding
of the world...does my failure to understand due to my own weakness or
is it really an issue? I can't tell.... I can only report my findings and move on.....

sometimes, just sometimes, I look out at the world from my eyes...
and I know I am looking at the world from my eyes but I don't see how
I am connected to the world...In the living room I see the couch and I see chairs
and I see the kitchen with its fridge and stove and here in the dinning room, I sit at
the kitchen table with my computer writing.. I listen to the music in my ear buds,
Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm….but I am not one with all these things... I am
separated from, isolated from everything I see and touch.....I don't feel
a connection to any of this stuff I can see....and someone who is in touch with
the world, with their feelings and emotions might not be so isolated from
their environment..... the religious person, the one who believes in god/superman
might see in all those empty spaces I see, they might see how each of those items,
the couch and TV and fridge and kitchen table are connected. that their
religious feelings might be the reason they can connect these items whereas
I don't have any sort of religious feeling and so I can't connect these things....
the world is connected through some third source and that source is what
we might call the religious or god...….

our connection to the world is made via these religious feelings....
we see the our connection to the world via our connection to god....
but what if, what if there is no god....and we cannot connect to the world
as an emotional response? we stand isolated and apart from everything....
that is as good of an answer/description as to what the "modern" world is, isolated
and apart from everything...……individual atoms flying through space...…
not connected to anything...… we see from this atomization of man that
we are disconnected, alienated from the world we see in a basic and fundamental
way..... this atomization, fracturing of man comes from the acceptance of
ism's and ideologies and myths and superstitions and biases that atomized
and fracture man...….capitalism and communism doesn't unite mankind into
a united or whole.... capitalism and communism atomizes and fractures/alienate
us from each other and from ourselves.... I cannot see myself as whole because
the ism's that surrounds us like the air surrounds us or the water surrounds the fish,
no longer allows us to be whole...…. we have been negated, our values and our
very lives have been negated by unseen forces that we cannot control...……

just as gravity surrounds and binds us, but we cannot actually see this
force of gravity.... we can feel its effects but we cannot see it....
we are surrounded by forces that are unseen and uncontrollable...
the forces of capitalism, the invisible hand of god (market forces) and
communism, the dialectical materialism (also by forces outside of ourselves)

how do I connect to a world that is run by market forces or
the dialectical materialism of communism? The very existence
of these unseen and uncontrolled forces isolates and alienates
me from society and from myself...……

I am a modern man... alienated and isolated by forces that I cannot see
or control...… I see the world as isolated and alienated.... I am not
connected to the objects in my life and thus isolated from them.....

how do I reunite myself with the world? is the path to a reunification
of body and soul, my body and soul, to the world via some desperate
human need for gods/superhero's? I don't know.....
I suppose that my disconnect, alienation from the world could
come from such a small thing as becoming aware...… I am aware
of my existence and I wonder what that means..... is that awareness
enough to cause me to become isolated from or alienated from
both myself and my society or my environment? I simply don't know.....


Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Sittlichkeit: The ethical life.....

these past two days have been spent in a little town called Jackson,
in California... we were visiting friends...yesterday, we headed
down the hill to come home... we stopped at a coffee shop to
get my wife some coffee.... there the car refused to start with some
weird message about a "P" lever needing to be set.... well, we called
the friends we were staying with and Hector came down... he is
an electrical engineer.... so we tried all the tricks we could use
to start this car... as we were in the parking lot of a small church
on Sunday morning, people were coming and going.....a gentleman
came out of the church, he was tall with a shaved head and tat's
all over his arms and neck.... I instantly pegged him as a skinhead....
as over the past two days, we saw a lot, a lot of signs, t-shirts
and hats offering support for IQ45.. and so I pegged him as another one
because of his shaved head and Tattoos....but he was offering us help
and we were in no position to refuse him....it later turned out he was
a mechanic...and the tattoos he had, they said family on one arm and faith
on the other side...he stayed with us for almost 3 hours trying to start our
car.. finally before AAA got there he managed to start the car through some
hack he had found online.... we were then able to drive home never turning off
the car.... but the lessoned learned was I prejudge, I was prejudiced
against him because of his appearance... so, we return to
Sittlichkeit…. the ethical life...is my act of bigotry, of
prejudice really the ethical life? I really don't see how....
this Sittlichkeit really is about our beliefs, our actions...

how we face every single situation is another
possibility for us to act ethically.....if we prejudge,
or act upon our prejudice, we are not being ethical....
we are not engaging in an ethical life...….we can judge
ourselves in the ethical sense that we do not act or judge
based on preconceived notions of the other person, which
is based on some superficial, some accidental fact about
a person, be it the color of their skin or the clothes
they were or their age.... don't be like Kropotkin....
don't prejudge based on looks or skin color... which
means we must not judge large groups of people
any different they we judge individuals.... in fact,
the word that must be understood in terms of the ethical
life is "JUDGED" we judge all the time and mostly based
on a superficial understanding of people....we see someone
in a suit and we judge them differently then we would
judge someone in rags...…. it is in this judging that
we must learn to become ethical..... we must learn to
hold our judgements in order to avoid practicing
bigotry and prejudice.... for if we practice bigotry
and prejudice, we are not acting ethical because
bigotry and prejudice is based on a superficial
understanding of both individual and collective people,
be it white people or black people or Hispanics or
any group or individual...…..

I failed to act ethically in my prejudgment and
bigotry...… I don't throw myself off a cliff now,
no, I simply learn from this and learn not to
judge until I have actually had some contact with
or some interaction with individuals or collective
people...…

I failed to act ethically...…

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

It is thought, like Hegel, that history was
the growth of freedom... His "story" of history
is the rise of freedom... from the ancient world where
the only person who was free was the King.... then later,
freedom was (taken, given, stolen) by nobles and the church,
the history of freedom is going from the one, to the few, to
the many and where it exists today, to all...….

but other concepts can fit into Hegel's format and I think that history
can use other examples instead of freedom... we can take the concept
of awareness..... history can be said to be the story of awareness...…

how we have become aware, from the one or the few to the many and hopefully
to all.....but why awareness? Because from awareness we can better understand
our past, present and any possible future. To grow, to truly have authentic personal
growth, we must first become aware of, or have a better understanding of
those childhood indoctrinations that we were given as children...… Socrates
said, Know thyself, that can only happen if we become aware of who we are
and what is our possibilities.... if we can become aware of our personal story
in the midst of our collective story.... I have a personal story of birth, hearing loss,
moving many, many times, landing in California and staying here for over 40 years
and my soon to be turning 60... each aspect of my story is part of the collective story
of us and the collective story of us, that which we call history, is part of my
personal story..... my personal story lies within the flow of history in general.....
my personal story is impacted by our collective story of capitalism and democracy
and religion...… my personal story does not exists alone... it is included within
our collective story and the collective story is reflected within my own story.....
and it is only by becoming aware can I begin to accurately chart my own
story....I become aware of the small and I mean small role I have played
in our collective story while others have played a larger role in our collective
story.....which has impacted me and has impacted you......

our story, our collective story is made clear by our becoming aware of
our past, present and future role in our personal and, and our collective story.....

when I tell my own personal story, it has, as all stories have, many,
many other actors besides myself.... you have some leading actors in
my personal story, my mother, my father, my brother and sisters,
my wife and my daughter... each of these people have a personal story
as well as a collective story..... we name that story, family...….

at times, I have leading actors like close friends and workplace
and school, but as with all stories, actors come and go from a story...
and we have our bit players in my story... people who had some brief
impact in my life and then they disappeared...… and each person has
their own personal story in which I was a leading role or I too was a bit actor....
performing my role and then leaving the stage.....

this awareness, this understanding of our various roles, be it a
leading role or a bit role, tells us, in part, who we are and what
are our possibilities....

my role in our collective play, solely as a bit player, where I
work a minor role of a checker in a very large grocery chain
and I have had other minor roles in our very large story of
capitalism and democracy...… I can bare witness to but
have no influence upon those collective forces of the ism's
and ideologies and superstitions and biases that we collectively
have and hold...…

if I had one message to offer it would be this.....
become aware.... try to understand who you are
and what is your role in your own personal and collective
story...……

what is your story?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we have to understand that matter cannot be destroyed...
the amount of mass in a closed system must remain the same..
so we can convert matter into something else but the total
amount of mass in that closed system will remain the same...
so we can convert matter into energy and the result will leave
us the same amount of mass in our system...…

the next thing is that the matter that exists in our body
has existed since the beginning of time, since the big bang....
it has been converted endless number of times from matter
into energy and back again.... this has been going on since the
big bang.... so any given cell in my body has existed since the big bang....
I am eternal... for the cells in my body has existed since and will
continue to exist from the beginning of time to the end of time....

and you too have existed since the beginning of time and will continue
to the end of time... as each of your cells has existed since the beginning
of time...… as there is only so much matter in the universe, it is logical to
understand that our individual cells has combined again and again and again...
in the 14 billion years of the universe existence, our individual cells have
combined into various objects, tree's, grass, stars, planets, animals,
amoeba...… our individual cells have been friends, neighbors, lovers,
enemies and at times, piles of shit...………

we are transient, accidental collection of cells that
has been formed and reformed billions of times over the last
14 billion years and we will continue to be formed and reformed
over the upcoming years, until one day, billions of years from now,
time ends... and the process of our atoms, our cells can no longer
be exchanged from one to another....the process of matter and energy
can no longer be exchanged...……..

This is why we cannot longer hold that most dangerous
of thoughts, the most dangerous idea that man has ever had....
the belief, the wrong belief that there is an US versus THEM..
we can no longer this false and phony idea that there is some
validity to the notion that there is an US and that there is a THEM....

every single aspect of modern life is full of US versus THEM...
we have sports and economics and political and social themes
full of US versus THEM...….there is no such thing as US verses THEM....

as our cells have over the billions of years been exchanged and interchanged
between each other, how can their be an US versus THEM when
the reality is that there is only US...… we are connected
to everything because we can be exchanged on a cellular level
to everything..... we can eat meat and process fruits because
we are simple converting those cells into our cells and at some point
in time, our cells as matter can become animals and fruits and tree's and.....

there is no difference between any object and any other object because
we can at become or exchanged our matter into any other object....
remember matter cannot be destroyed, it can only be converted
and our cells have been converted into millions of other objects
and will continue to be converted into millions of other objects
for more billions of years...… there is not such thing as an US versus THEM....
for we are one.... we simply hold different forms today... tomorrow we
will hold different forms, our matter, our cells, our atoms will be
exchanged into some other form, maybe a tree or a dog or a star?
who knows? I for one don't know...…

so in the midst of all this constant and continually exchanged
of atoms that has lasted since the beginning of time and will continue
to last until the end of time, how can we say, US versus THEM?

that US versus THEM is constantly changing...… we are creatures that
exist within time and time is one continuous, ever changing process of
cells and atoms being converted into something else...….matter and energy
cannot be destroyed, just converted...…so how do you get US versus THEM in
light of the fact that matter and energy cannot be destroyed?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so in light of my above post about US versus THEM, how can we
have or even think about Sittlichkeit, the ethical life?

If we understand that we are ever changing and transient
beings, here today as humans, there tomorrow as a dog or
grass or another person or a pile of shit? who knows what
we will be converted to next, what our individual cells, our individual
atoms will become next, then how do we hold to the ethical life?

If we understand that there is no THEM, there is no other, there is simply
other objects that hold cells and atoms that we have been a part of
and have converted over the billions of years and they have converted
and been part of us..... there is only US...…matter that has been converted
billions of times and will continue to be converted billions of times before
it is all over (and we will be there at the end as individual atoms and cells)

if there is only US, then we must engage in Sittlichkeit, the ethical life
as if we treat matter, all matter as US.... to be ethical means we
are simply treating ourselves as best we can... for there is no other,
no object that is separate or apart from us for we can be exchanged for
any and all other objects in the universe, our separate and individual cells and atoms....

there can only be US.....so let us treat all atoms with honesty and respect
for we are part of and they are part of...…. US...….

for the old man who smells and the cute young girl and the dog who bit us,
and the tree's and the grass and the sky... we are all interchangeable....
and that atom interchangeability means there is no other, there is no THEM..
there is simply US.... The dimwit who supports IQ45 is also part of me, part
of US...for we are interchangeable in the fact their cells and atoms can
change and be part of me and I can be a part of them...…

so anyone who supports an US versus THEM mentality is simply
ignorant of what we really are... simply transient beings who happen
to hold this particular form today, maybe tomorrow we split up our
cells and atoms and become something else.. the atoms in my arms
dissolve into base atoms and then get integrated into some other collection
of atoms becoming something else...… and the cycle goes on forever.....

how can there be an US versus THEM when we are so interchangeable?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

limited time today....

The best way to describe and understand reality, especially our reality,
is to understand existence as being transient, accidental.....

which in large part why people are so insistent on looking
for certainty in existence....

we want certainty because our lives are so transient...…
here today, gone tomorrow.. could be the motto of life and the
motto of human existence....

so much of our live is not only transient but accidental...
my existence was fundamentally changed with the loss of my
hearing and it was an accident as so much of our lives is accidental...
we are born on one side of a line and we are called Americans,
born on another side of an imaginary line and we are called Mexicans,
born on one side of an imaginary line and you are French and on the other
side of the line, you could be German or Dutch or Italian... again depending
on which side of a line you can't even see...…..accidents of birth determine
what nationality you are or what is the color of your hair or if you are handicap....

we must understand this very basic nature of existence which is its transient
and accidental...…….

so this search for certainty is a search for something that in human existence
is not possible.... the very essence of human existence is transient.. both in
form, bodies and in spirit which is our laws, government, philosophy, history,
economics.... we see these things of ism's and ideologies and biases and
superstitions of being not transient.... for example, we see the ism of
democracy as being permanent, but it isn't... it too is just as transient
and as accidental as we are.....

we cannot seek our understanding of the universe, of reality as being
stable, fixed, certain... for the universe and reality is accidental
and transient...… today, the ocean is a certain color.. in the past, our ocean
was different colors because it had different elements in it... and the moon,
at one time, the moon was far closer to earth then it is today... the physical
nature of our reality today is different because of the transient nature
of physical reality.....

we see forces like gravity as being fixed and stable and ever present,
but even forces like gravity, so called laws change and flex depending
on the situation....even gravity is not absolute... it too is accidental
and transient....will gravity exists the same as it did in the beginning, during
the big bang and will gravity be the same at the end of time.... no,
the so called fixed forces like gravity and electricalomagnatism will
change over the years...…… it might be why the universe will end because
the four forces, the four laws of existence will change over the many of billions
of years...…

even the universe is accidental and transient.... if it is born, it will die..
just not today and not for billions of years, but yes, at some point, even
the universe must end......and that is the interesting part... the length
of time that an object gets is accidental... we humans get roughly 70 years,
some tree's might get 500 years, some flies last for hours and the planet
might get a billion years and the solar system might get 9 billion years....
we never know how much time, how transient matter is...… but matter
is transient...we know this, the only question is how long does that matter
exist for.....not if it will last forever...……..

that is the basic fact we must learn to come to grips with,
that we exist in and we ourselves are transient, accidental...….

begin your understanding of reality, of the universe there....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

if it is matter, it is transient....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

[quote="Peter Kropotkin"]if it is matter, it is transient...."

But Kropotkin, didn't you aready say that we have existed since
the begining of time as atoms? and that we shall continue to exist
until the end of time.... why yes, yes I did..... so what about this
contradiction?

it is a contradiction only if you don't understand that as forms, and
everything you see is a form, people, dogs, tree's, cats, the sun,
galaxies are all matter that has form..... the forms are transient,
but the underlying matter, the atoms, are forever...... so our forms
come and go at a rather rapid pace, but the atoms that make up
those forms exists forever......and so we are transient because the
forms that make up our bodies is transient.....

think of it like clay... from clay we can make a wide variety of forms
the forms made by the clay are almost countless but and this is the important
part, the clay still remains.... the atoms still remain..... just the forms
created by the atoms are transient....

this is the begining of modern philosophy... not the idea of
movement which has dominated philosophy since Newton
created his physics and for the next 200 years motion dominated
philosophy.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

here we touch upon the old themes of ours.....

What is the value of ART?

I believe that ART is a listing of human possibilities.....
through ART we see what are the possibilities for us.....
we can be smart or funny or embrace numerous emotional
possibilities that exists in ART...…..we can love and be loved
and be accepted or rejected and be brave or cowardly... in
fact the possibilities in ART are far too numerous to even
be mentioned.....

But today in the year 2019, we see ART differently.....
for some, some... ART is about the human possibilities...
but for some, ART no longer presents what is possibile for us....
we have become indifferent to the possibilities that ART gives us.....

the value of ART has been present and noted for centuries....
it is an means to escape and to titlate and to educate and
to advance answers to what it means to be human......

But ART itself suffers from the same problem that all matter
has and that is ART is transient....the most famous painting
in the world is most likely the MONA LISA... and perhaps, perhaps
in a few years the MONA LISA will no longer exist because of age...
and entropy... and recall the ART of the Greeks and Roman which
has dissappeared because of passing of centuries.....

now one might say, we still have the ART of the Greeks and Roman in
their plays and buildings and poems... but what that ART means to
the Greeks and Romans is very different then what it means to us.......
The play "Antigone" by Sophocles means something different to
the Greeks then it does to us... just as democracy meant something
different to the Greeks and Romans then it does to us...…

but upon reflection, perhaps ART as we know it, is an attempt to
understand our transient and accidental nature...…. in the play "Antigone"
by the end, everyone is dead except the "villain" Creon...…

the very nature of the play is focused upon our transient nature....

we live and we die and in the end, we hope it meant something.....

does it?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I was looking for a book, I have 5000 books scattered over
two closets and two bookcases in the living room...
and in looking in the hallway closet, I found an old notebook of mine..
not that unusual, as I have probably 100 notebooks of old writings
around here somewhere....as I knocked the notebook unto the ground
and in picking it up, I began to read its pages...…. the notebook isn't dated
and I almost never date them... I began to read and I found I recognized the
words intellectually as being concerns of mine at one point in time, but
I didn't feel any emotional connection to the words... they were empty words
on a page... a slice in time of who I was at that time..... and quite often
that is ART... a slice in time of where the author/painter/sculptors do their
work.... ART is just a moment in time in the artists life....
I can intellectually tell you about that time in my life but I can't
emotionally tell you....I have changed, evolved into someone else...
I am old now and I hold thoughts of an old person......just as I cannot
connect to the Plays or philosophy of the Greeks or Romans...
their ART is an instant in time, a moment taken...….
and my, to loosely use the term, my ART is also a moment in time,
a slice of who I am at the moment of creation..... try reading
Dickens... Charles Dickens was the most popular writer of
the 19th century... He captured a moment in time for the Victorians
and he understood what their inner quest was.... We don't have
an artist working in any medium today who speaks to our 21st century
sensibilities and needs like Dickens spoke to the Victorian age...…

we are much more fractured in our understanding, our sensibilities,
in our needs of the world then the 19 century was...….

once again, we are faced with the issue of reuniting our fractured souls....
how do we begin to cure our alienation, our disconnect from ourselves, from
our society, from the ism's and ideologies that once so formed who we were in
our childhood indoctrinations...…

How do we begin the process of becoming Catholic, which of course means
universal... how do we become universal? how am I suppose to connect to
you and to society and those ism's and childhood indoctrinations?


first of all, we must escape our romantic past that still holds
America hostage... the romance of rugged individualism, of
rages to riches stories, IQ45 is still held hostage by phony romantic
notions that prevent him from growing as a human being and as he is
held hostage, millions of Americas are also held hostage by the
demonstrably wrong ism's and ideologies of the right wing.....

wrong as they are leftovers beliefs from the Romantic era that existed
in Europe from the French revolution to World War One....read the
manifestos and writings from after the French revolution and you will
see how conservatives have based their entire prejudice on the old
romantic era......read the conservatives and the Romantics side by side
and you will see how the conservative movement is the romantic
movement carried to today....we cannot overcome 21st century
issues and problems with 19 century solutions derived from the Romantics
writers.....


one question asked is, is Marx writing also based on Romantic notions?
why yes, that is why his solutions are in dire need of being corrected
and modernized....which leads us to where we understand that
the questions and answers we have in the 21st century are not questions
or answers from the 21st century, the questions and answers we do have
are from the Romantic era, from the 19th century and that is we have
floundered in our times because we are not asking or understanding
21st century questions and answers with 21st century answers or questions..
we are grappling in the 21st century with 19 century questions and answers....

we must update our questions and answers with 21st century questions
and answers....

In one month, exactly, I shall turn 60.. I cannot ask the right questions or find
the right answers if I find myself with questions and answers based on when I was 25 or 40...
I must ask and answer with an age appropriate questions and answers.... my
25 year old self and my 60 year old self has nothing in common outside of
a body that has been battered and beaten over the years....

I must question and answer myself with questions and answers needed of a 60 year
old.... and we must question and answer ourselves with 21st century questions and
answers....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

talking with my mom... I could/should write a book titled
"talking with my mom" anyway, talking to my mom and she
was talking about my siblings, 3 sisters and one brother...
and how each was different as a child...my older sister wanted
to be in charge and my younger sister was always running away from
home, she never got past the end of the driveway in all those attempts
at running away and my brother was always and still is, by the way,
involved in his "thing"... he never paid much attention to anything that
wasn't his current passion..... as for me, my mom says, everyday when I was
4 or 5, I would come home from school, once inside the house, I would
sit on the bottom of the stairs and shake my head, saying, "I didn't learn to
read today" and repeating that, "I didn't learn to read today"...…
even as a very young child, I had a passion to learn,
to understand, to know things....

today, the only difference between me now and me then is this, today
I sit at my computer and say, "I didn't learn what it means to be human today"
and in various ways, I would repeat myself.... I haven't change much.....

my mom says that she would distract me by taking me into the kitchen
and having a bowl of Ice cream.... I think that is what I shall do right now...
then and now, my favorite ice cream is Vanilla ice cream...
I may not have found out what it means to be a human being, but
I am at least consistently.... boring.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I had a whole set piece of thought I was going to
lay down this morning....I was going to connect the Romantic
viewpoint of individualism and nationalism with the failed thoughts
of Hitler and IQ45 and conservatism... and as part of my argument,
I was going to use my friends at Wiki article on "Romanticism"...

well, this morning I started to read Jacques Barzun book, "Classic,
Romantic and Modern" and my whole plan went to hell in a handbasket...
I don't know where I will end after finishing this book, but already, I see
part of the "Modern" problem comes from the fact that we "Modern"
are so alienated and disconnected from each other and from society because
of the "fact" that we "Moderns" don't have or we haven't publicly set
out our problem to be solved... every generation has a problem to be solved,
that is what defines a generation, the question every generation must answer,
and our generation hasn't yet understood what is our questioned to be solved,
what is our problem to be solved?

Kropotkin