We can think about life and how we live it, in terms of how it
impacts our own individual needs...
So let first look at needs... and what does our handy dandy dictionary say about needs
NEED: (VERB) 1. require (something) because it is essential or very important.
2. expressing necessity or obligation.. "need I say more"
noun: 1. circumstances in which something is necessary, or that requires
some course of action; necessity. "The basic human need for food"
As I have described before, all human beings... as living creatures requires
basic necessities...and all life requires these needs... food, water, shelter,
and humans require education, health care among our physical needs,
and we have emotional/psychological needs.. among them is love,
esteem, belonging/feeling a connection, safety/security..
and in human beings, we have different amount of each of these
essential needs.. our individual needs are determined by many different
factors... social, biological, indoctrinations, childhood factors, our
socio-economic place...I grew up in a cold, distant family...and that is
how we, as a family, engaged.. no one, but no one in my family ever
says to any other person in the family, I love you.... that just wasn't done
in my family.. I can't ever recall anyone saying I love you, from my mom
down to my brother and sisters...
but that is my own personal issue.. every family has their own issue/issues...
and today, my own personal and psychological issues, my needs, dominate
what I seek in my own life... but our own personal needs influences, impacts us in
terms of our social, political, economic, and philosophical needs...
in other words, the societal, social, political, economic structures we
have, are attempts for us to meet our needs...
the political organizations of the state, monarchy, democracy, dictatorships,
republic, communism, are all attempts to meet our own personal
and collective needs.. but look at them...in a monarchy, the King,
he only has to meet his needs.. whatever needs exists in people,
individually or collectively may or may not be met by the king..
a democracy is an attempt to answer our needs collectively,
as a group... so in these terms, a dictatorship is even more
about meeting the needs of the one, the dictator, and not about
meeting our individual or collective needs.. we can rethink political
organizations in terms of what needs they meet and how many people
needs are being met by that political organization?
and we can think of economic systems in terms of how they meet the
needs of people... a corporatocracy: the system we live in right now,
is only interested in meeting the needs of the owners of the corporation
and the corporation itself.. anyone outside of the corporation is unimportant
and thus the corporation has no desire to fulfill those needs..
in other words, our social, political, economic systems are attempts
to meet our needs.. but those organizations are hijacked by others
to meet their needs..
the social, political, economic, philosophical organizations we engage
with are attempts to meet our needs..
so, given that we have created those organizations to meet our needs,
and what is the reason for our discontentment in the modern age?
The fact is that our institutions built to meet our needs have been
hijacked and thus our needs, both individually and collectively
have been unmeet... we are alienated, discontented, because our
individual and collective needs are not being met..
take every single social/political/economic organization we have,
for example, in watching sports, say football, that fulfills a need
we have, reading a book, fulfills a need, traveling.. meeting a need..
every single act or activity you do or engage with, is an attempt
to meet a need of some sort..
in other words, the world as we know it, both individually and
collectively is based on some need we have that we are
attempting to meet, either individually or collectively...
the political, economic, social and philosophical world we
have created, was created to meet one or more needs we have
as human beings..
my own personal need is to gain information or knowledge,
that has been my own personal need..
and you might be seeking safety/security or esteem or perhaps
a bodily need of food or water.. to fulfill your life.. and that is
why we clash... in our seeking our own needs, we may clash in
the fact you are searching for, safety/security and I am seeking
freedom/liberty... and that seeking of different needs creates
the clashes we see every single day, clashes both big and small,
collective involving millions and personal, between my wife
and myself.. for example....
and because of childhood indoctrinations/education, we might
be taught to think that our needs come second to the needs
of the state or capitalism....the individual needs come
after the needs of the state...
and we see that indoctrination every single day... the praise of those
who "sacrificed" for their country is one such indoctrination..
the negation of us as human beings, is another such indoctrination...
to put the almighty dollar ahead of our needs as human beings is one
such negation... the corporation and its primary mission statement
that profits come before people, is one such negation of human beings
and their values... and that negation of human beings and their values
is, by definition, nihilism...
the modern corporate state is the practice of making nihilism as
the official corporate and American policy today...
in other words, those who believe that their needs are best met by
the nihilistic belief that money/profits are more important than people..
that has turned into official American policy.. and we must return/engage
with life and people as they have the value and not money.... if people
are expendable, as I have heard my entire working life of 45 years, then
people have no value... if we value money/profits as more important
then people and their values, we too are engaging in nihilism...
and that is the modern clash... the battle of our time is this
fight between those who make money/profits more important
than human beings and their values and those who put
people ahead of money/profits... and that is also a clash
of needs.. whose needs come first?
if it is a small group of people, those who own the means of
production as Marx put it, or everyone else... and what side
must we take? and therein Marx was right... the battle is over
whose needs will prevail? the small group who own the country
or everyone else?
I know what side I stand on... do you on what side you stand on?
Kropotkin
needs and what they mean....
Re: needs and what they mean....
Human beings do NOT need nearly as much as you BELIEVE they do.