our milieu....

[Peter Kropotkin]

been busy of late.....

the topic for me has been, for decades I guess, has
been the Enlightenment..... and what it means for us.....

to become Enlightened......to discover what it means to be human.....
of all the revolutions of the last 500 years, the Enlightenment has
been, to my mind... the greatest one.... reducing the Enlightenment
goal down to one or two sentences, has been a challenge, but the
ideals most seek in the ''Age of Enlightenment'' has been twofold...
one has been individual freedom and the second has been religious
tolerance... one must recall the age of Enlightenment to keep the why
in those two ideals.... and the why we must still engage in the Enlightenment,
comes clear given the age we are in......

So, let us break down the two ideals.... first with individual freedom....
individual freedom to be or to do..... the freedom to become who you are....
the various civil rights movement of the last 60 years have been about
the becoming of one is...... the various Jim Crow laws of America were
about keeping the blacks from becoming... from the gaining of rights
that white people held.... the right to live where one wanted, to vote
as one wanted, to marry.... (recall that the law preventing whites
and blacks from marrying were enforced in my lifetime in certain states)

that the movement of women to become equal to men, legally,
economically, politically and socially, is still ongoing..... the ongoing
Abortion debate is just another ongoing attack on the rights of women....
to be in control of her own body.....

and the rights of gays and trans is just another battle for becoming who one
is...... to have the same rights as others have.... to have the individual
right to become... as others have the same rights to become.....who they are....

the so-called Culture wars of the last 40 years is just a continuation
of the Enlightenment......

next post we continue...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

the motto of the Enlightenment was this: Sepere aude....

Dare to know....

for most people around here, that is not the motto...
for most people around here engage in polemics,
to encourage others to join their viewpoint,
which is not philosophy which is an attempt to discover/find the
viewpoint......
in philosophy we are going somewhere, in polemics, we are there.....
that in a nutshell is the difference between the two....
for most around here, they believe they hold the truth, but
a philosopher is one who is looking for the truth....
and any ''truth''' we might find, is really short-lived because
any such truth must change and adapt to our changing environment.....
I hold different ''truths'' today then I did 10 years ago is because
I am in a very different place than 10 years ago....my home is the same,
my job is the same, my wife and daughter are the same, so what changed?

I did.... life at 65 looks vastly different than life looks like at 55...
and the commonality of life at 65 is simply one of the many doors
closing..... the older we get, the less possibilities we have..... I have
fewer choices at 65 then I did at 55... and with every passing day,
I have less and less possibilities.... doors closing.....
until one day, I will have exactly one possibility left to me,
and that is death.....no other choice will exist before me.......
and that is the ''wisdom'' of old age..... my choices become fewer
and fewer as I grow older.....

so, as I age, what does ''sepere aude'' mean to me?

''Dare to know'' what, when my choices become less and less?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

one of the things we must attend to, in our understanding
of our milieu... is the nature of it....
compared to other ages, this age is profoundly negative...
who today is bring us ''good news'' or anything positive for us
to think about? it's all negative, all the time...

and what we know about earlier times, they were much more
optimistic and hopeful...... think about the strength of the
of the idea of progress... that lasted for over 300 years in both
Europe and America.... the rise of this positive, hopeful nature
of the future, started to come about during the Age of Newton.....
with the idea being that future progress was not only desirable,
but inevitable.... the thought being, today may suck, but man,
wait until tomorrow... that tomorrow would be glories, wasn't
just a slogan, but something that was felt by most everyone....

read the books written from 1600 to 1914, and there was a sense
of optimism and hopefulness that couldn't be missed... that tomorrow
was going to be better than today, was a given....and it wasn't a fake
given... it was complete and certain faith that tomorrow was going to
be better than today...

and today? and today, being hopeful about the future only brings about
charges of being naive and liberal..... for when was the last time
you heard a conservative speak hopefully about the future? the only
thing that will bring a conservative to being even vaguely hopeful
is the possible second coming.... other than that, the conservative wallows
about the mud and claims to be ''real'' about it....

our milieu is dark and negative.... with nary a positive word for
or about anyone, or anything..... if there was as emotion I would
connect to our times, our milieu, it would be fear......

fear dominates conservatives..... it drives their every action and thought....
and what does the conservative fear? Practically everything....
from education to democracy to theories like Marxism and CRT...
the list of things they fear is, by far, much larger than the things
they approve of.... every single hot button topic today is driven
by conservative's fear..... from abortion to immigration to education,
to gays/trans people....all of it, ALL OF IT, driven by fear.......

I can't even see anything positive in the conservative's message....
can you?

and until we turn this around and find our way back to hope and optimism,
we cannot begin the passage into a future....
for any journey, requires, demands that we have some hope for that
journey... try taking a journey with a negative mindset and trust me,
nothing good can come out of that journey.......taking a journey, of
any kind, either mentally, spiritually or physically, requires us to
have a positive mindset.... and who today, makes it a part of
their message that we must make a journey......

What do you mean Kropotkin? Life itself, is a journey....
we are traveling from being animal, our past, to being
animal/human today and hopefully, tomorrow we become
fully human.....

being alive, that itself is a journey.... my own journey of life has
its ups and downs, but it is still a journey I am taking....
my embracing philosophy is part of my journey....
part of my becoming who I am..... notice those who practice
polemics, the attempt to convert others to a certain point of view,
polemics is not about making a journey... it is about converting others
to a point of view...whereas philosophy itself, that taking correctly
is a journey... from today being, from becoming something tomorrow....

several people here are engaged in polemics.... they are no longer
engaged in making a journey..... they have become, and are no longer
engage in the journey into becoming fully human......
they have stopped their journey...... waiting for god as it were.....
becoming human, fully human is not about finding god or praising god,
but the journey is to overcome, even the need for god......
and then we make the next step beyond even that......

I have written in another thread about utopia's....
the communism believes in their utopia, the worker's paradise,
is the final step, at least according to them.....
but there is no final step.... just the latest step....
for after the worker's paradise, come the next step...
and after that utopia is found, will come another and another
and another step/another utopia to find and fulfill....

the true understanding of what it means to be human is the
understanding that we can never stop in seeking out our utopia's....
for there is no final utopia to find... because there is another one/
another utopia just over the hill...... and we must seek out that one
and the one after that and the one after that.....

there is no final destination... just the next destination....

there has been a common refrain throughout history...
that man has attempted to become god... and I say,
that is an excellent goal, the question is not what happens
after we become god, the question becomes, what is the next
goal after that, that we must attempt?
after we become god, then what do we become?
just on the other side of that hill....... is? let's go find out.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

there is no final stop, no end... just another step along
the path to becoming.... with every step, we can see new ways, new
vista's... no places to travel to.... the human journey never ends....
it is carried along by the next guy, the next generation....
I will fail to reach my becoming, but the next guy, he might
be able to become something that I could not be....
and the next guy after that... will be able to see even further
and travel even further into what it means to be human.....
and the journey never ends.... the quest to be human never ends...
even after we reach, to become god, there is another journey to make.....
even after that.... for the human journey never ends.... generation
after generation after generation....
and when will it end, Kropotkin?

when there are no more human beings...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and what does it mean to be?

what is the meaning of life?

there is no ending, just the journey into becoming.....
with every generation we come closer to becoming....
but we never quite reach it... and that is the meaning,
the point of existence... the journey into becoming, never
actually, reaching it....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

let us work out some examples of a journey gone wrong......

let us assume, as many people do, that the journey is to find god....
and then what happens if, if we actually do find god?

therein lies the rub.... nothing..... happens.... we wait until
we die to spend eternity in gazing at god..... not much happening
there....we find god, happy, well some are happy, but the fact is
that sin is frankly more fun..... and thus the eternal struggle to
avoid sin...... and we spend our time sinning and then repenting,
and sinning and repenting and sinning some more, and repenting
some more..... so, what is actually happening? sin and repenting....
that pretty much covers our life.... not much of a journey there....
and then we are also waiting to die.... for the second chapter, for
a Christian, anyway, is far more interesting than the first chapter...
which is life... waiting for death is pretty much what a Christian does.....

to find god, is pretty much the end of the story.... there is no
more journey to engage in....but in becoming human... to journey
from animal to becoming human, the journey never ends.....
for we cannot become human without taking that next step beyond
just becoming human....... there is always another step.... past
becoming..... but not in finding god.... that is the last step....
the rest is waiting for death to fulfill that step.....

finding god is extremely limited in its journey..... find god, stop until
death..... and then one can enjoy the eternal soul.....
I am not really missing a step here... because there isn't one.....
find god, repent, eternity.... that's about it....
there is no more journey here....

but if we go past, beyond god, what a journey we can be on.....
there is no utopia to be found.... just the next stage or step in
becoming human...... the eternal journey is to become human..
and then go beyond that.....

how about them apples....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

think about all that has happened since the Enlightenment...
all the things brought about by this ''sepere aude''..
this ''dare to know''.... which is really a continuation of the
scientific revolution that had been ongoing for over 100 years.....

but think of the other revolutions... the economic revolution,
both capitalism and communism/socialism came after the
Enlightenment.... as did democracy, and the rise of modern
philosophy with Kant and Hegel and all the others after that......
but we also had social revolutions, legal revolutions and political
revolutions... or have you forgotten that both the American revolution
and the French revolution occurred after the Enlightenment.....
and of course, the rise of the modern technological world came
after ''sepere aude''......

and think of the number of ism's that have arose since the Enlightenment...
from nationalism, to theism, white is right ism, the rise of civil right movements,
liberalism and conservatism...and as previously mentioned, all the political
isms of our day.....and does any of this occur without the influence of
the Enlightenment? I doubt it...... in many ways, some even under
the radar ways, our own civilization and society are what they are because
of the Enlightenment........

now, the question becomes, do we continue to follow this
''sepere aude'', dare to know, even further? it has been my
contention that we need to continue to engage in the Enlightenment,
we need to push hard this, ''dare to know'' even further and even harder.......
I would suggest that much of the world's problems today stem from
our not following the ''sepere aude'' to the end......

for me, the motto ''sepere aude'' can be and more importantly,
should be the motto of human beings...... ''sepere aude'' must
be part of human existence if we are to work our way back to solid
ground.... you find your own existence, as many have found it,
problematic to yourself.... in other words, existence has become
a problem to people......and I suspect the reason why, is because
people stopped the Enlightenment process halfway.....

and part of knowing this comes from the fear that fills our state
and society today.......we are afraid and that fear stems from
our being in the middle of the Enlightenment process of
''daring to know''' we must push ourselves to the end of the
Enlightenment process.... we must ''dare to know'' even if,
especially if, we find that human beings are not who we thought
they were......

what are human beings? the problem stems from our inability to
reconcile who we see from who we are.....

to state this a bit differently, the cruelty and pain one
human can inflict on another is fairly apparent...

how do we reconcile the ''evil'' that human do, with the
beauty that human beings do? Less than 17 years before I was born,
was the last, and hopefully the only, World War... and with it came
the Holocaust, and I was alive during the Vietnam war, with its own
evil... the My Lai massacre, for example...... and examples
of human evil to another human is on the daily news....

and yet, we can state the mixed nature of human existence...
the My Lai massacre was in March 1968... and the Beatles, in 1968,
wrote ''While my Guitar gently weeps''... and ''Hay Jude''....

and tell me, which above example is the ''true'' ideal of human nature?

we have plenty of examples of the great beauty created by human beings...
right now, I am listening to the Band ''Chicago'' playing ''Searching for so long''......
and examples of Art, beauty that shows us the possibilities of what it means
to be human..... we can see them in any ART book..... and on the radio
and in the sculptures that exists within museums.....

and how do we reconcile these ''acts of beauty'' with Abu Ghraib or the
My Lai massacre.... given these contradictory actions, what is the true
state of being human? For most people, they reside in the vast middle
of being human...... with no desire to engage with the either extreme
side of being human...... and yet, if nothing else that the Holocaust
shows us is that even the average human being can engage in that
sort/type of horror, given the human reluctance to engage with,
to think about what it means to participate in actual evil......

most human beings just go with the flow and act with their
neighbors, the Holocaust is just another example, not the only one.....
of neighbors being good neighbors.... without any reflection
of what that means.... what does it mean to have mass evil such
as the World Wars and the Holocaust, to the average human being?
and the answer is they, the neighbors, go to war, engage with the Holocaust,
without any reflection of their true, honest beliefs......

for example, If, if I were to truly believe that ''life is sacred'' then I
cannot be ''neighborly'' and help with the ''World Wars'' or the Holocaust...

the truth is that we have divorce our beliefs from our actions....
we believe X is true, but we act as if X doesn't even matter....
''Life is sacred'' until it isn't....and we go to fight the war or we
take a job at Auschwitz.... and we get an income and we are told
and believe, that we are being productive citizens.....
what more can we ask for, as human beings to get our daily bread
and be ''productive'' citizens? For isn't that what the state tells
us all the time? Be a producer, a worker, a consumer...
and, and to be a good citizen... and under that guise,
we can easily justify working at Auschwitz or supporting
the current war.....

In our current society, state, there is no such thing as ''individual
guilt''... for we can justify any good or evil actions, as being a
''good citizen''... or a good worker, producer, or a consumer.....

what does it mean to be a human being? you don't know because
you haven't given it 2 seconds of thought.... ''Dare to know''...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

it has been asked, what made the Holocaust possible?

it is possible by people simply good citizens, and good consumers
and workers and producers.... nothing more is needed to
create Auschwitz... simply a failure to exam one's true values
makes Auschwitz possible...

If we were, as good citizens, to simply follow our programming,
our childhood indoctrinations, Auschwitz is not only possible,
but likely.....

as long as we hold to the faith of childhood, without any type
of an ''reexamination of values'' another Auschwitz is
just around the next corner....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

a longtime philosophical question has been, what is/makes
the ''good society?"" Plato engaged in this as has virtually
every other philosopher, in one form or another......

but think about capitalism...... it has been argued that somehow,
and it is never explained exactly how, but somehow, capitalism
helps create a ''good society''...

how does the pursuit of our private vices help us create
a ''good society?'' in my purchase of a new car or perhaps a
new couch, how does that help create a ''good society?''
let us follow this economic idea in terms of a ''good society?"

One of the primary ideas within capitalism is this
idea of supply and demand...... that the supply of something,
the demand of something determines its value.....and how do
we get from here, supply and demand, to their, a ''good society?"
I can't see it and neither can you.....

there is very little we can do at the microlevel that can create or
impact a ''good society?" and capitalism is about the microlevel...
but what about other economic theories, like communism?

communism is engaged in the macro theory, to have ''corporation's''
state owned.... it says very little, if anything about the capitalist's
micro level.... and how does this macro aspect help us get to
a ''good society?" Well that answer lies in the overall question
about what a ''good society'' actually is?

So, sports fans, what is a ''good society?"

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

is this question of what is a ''good society'' economic as
the defenders of capitalism claim? I think not... but
then is it legal, or social, or political or philosophical?
I think the answer is yes, it is all of the above.....

A good society cannot exist just within an economic system
but it also must include the legal, social, political and philosophical.....

and what of the long-standing debate between the one, the individual
and the state? where do we mark that line in terms of a ''good society?".....
How much do we need to engage the one into a ''good society" to become
a ''good society?" and how much does the macro, the large must be
engaged with, to create a ''good society?" and what mixture needs to
occur between the two to create this ''good society?" we need what
% of an individual engagement to create a ''good society?"
if one has been paying any kind of attention to my writings over
the last couple of years, you will know that I don't believe
in a universal, where we have a defined, set engagement with
a universal law or rule... as there is no such thing as a universal,
set understanding of the universe....for the universe itself,
our environment changes every single day.... and twice on Sundays....
(that's a joke, son)

if there is no universal, set for everyone understanding of the universe,
then clearly for the one, the individual, there cannot be a set, universal
understanding...

and as they say in the philosophy biz....... now what?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

much of the world's reaction today can be summed up
by a saying that was very big 40 years ago....

''I have abandoned my search for truth and now I am looking
for a good fantasy'''

this pretty much sums up most people lives in these modern times.....
the search for the trinkets of existence is just a search for
a good fantasy.... the search for wealth and fame and titles
and power and material possessions..... they lead nowhere,
do nothing, answer nothing, become nothing...... they
are just a good fantasy.... nothing more.....

and what is the ''truth?" lost in the shuffle of seeking the
trinkets of existence..... people would rather seek out
a fantasy then seek out the truth.... and why?
Because it's a lot less work to seek out a fantasy then
the ''truth''......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

One of the important aspects of the Enlightenment was its
emphasis on education.....not the state sanctioned education,
which was, and is, state sanctioned indoctrinations.....
that there is a god and that capitalism defeated communism
and the capitalism reigns supreme.... and where the myth of
democracy is taught, not the actual practice of democracy......

one of the themes of the Enlightenment as in its seeking, seeking
the truth......and not accepting the state sanctioned indoctrinations
that pose as the truth...

there are some around here who proclaim the truth of god
and of religion... and in doing so, they have stopped seeking...
once one has the truth, there is no point to seeking the truth
anymore.... but both education and the Enlightenment are about
seeking the truth.... and this question of education is one that
should, should engage one all their life......the interesting thing,
in America, anyway, is that the seeking of truth is found within
the trinkets of existence..... the seeking of the false
gods of wealth, fame, power, titles and of course material possessions......
we seek out those things as if, as if they were the truth.......
something worth having..... but what we have done is replace
honest seeking with a false seeking that leads us nowhere...

for in seeking, in honest seeking, lies a lack of a goal......
in honest seeking quite often, we lack a true goal....
for we are often not quite sure what we are seeking in
true, honest seeking..... in honest seeking, we are lead
there by doubts, and uncertainty, confusion, apprehension.....
it is a nagging doubt in the back of our minds that leads us to
the true seeking........ not in certainty, or unquestioning,
or holding to the absolute that brings us to seeking...

that is how I know that those who proclaim in their belief
in god, have stopped their seeking the truth....
we don't seek within certainty....

and this modern milieu in which we have plenty of ism's and ideologies
in which we can find certainties and the ''truths'' have stopped what
is essential in our lives.... that of seeking.......for the truth is,
that the one and only goal of human life is to die.... we die....
and the question becomes, what is to be done while we are alive?
and for many, that question involves the belief in the certainty
of isms and ideologies..... nationalism is about seeking out a truth
that one can believe in..... and then holding to that truth, come
hell, or high water.... but that misses the reality of our lives....
a reality that comes with age... we change our values and beliefs
as we grow older.... and we change because our environment has
changed...what was a ''truth'' when we are twenty is no longer
a ''truth'' when we are forty or fifty...and what was ''true''
for me at 55, is no longer true for me at 65... the very act of
growing older changes our truths.... and the ''truths'' we hold dear
today, will change if for no other reason than we are growing old....
and because of these life changes, changes that we have no control
over, means that what we believe to be ''truths'' change as we age,
thus, we can no longer hold to the certainty of ''truths''
life itself makes that impossible.... so, what is left,
if not certainty?

seeking..... that is all that is left... the seeking....
until we can no longer seek anymore.... and on that day,
we die.... it matters not if the physical body still lives,
if we no longer seek, we have died......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so, what does ''sepere aude'' mean to us in this modern age?

that because we age and in doing so, our own personal ''truths''
change, we can use ''sepere aude'' as an understanding to what life
is...... not to accepting the pretend certainties of isms like
god or nation or being white..... but the uncertainties of
seeking... ''daring to know''... that become the one and true
goal of existence.... ''daring to know''

what do you or should you seek today? that is the only goal worth
living....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and Kropotkin, prove your point?

do you still hold onto your childhood beliefs of there being
a Santa Claus or an Easter Bunny or a tooth fairy?
or do you still hold onto your beliefs of the teen years....
(mind you, I am a father of a former teen girl)
teenagers, full of piss and vinegar and hatred of everyone....
are you still that child?

or have you ''graduated'' to ''adult' values... of chasing the
trinkets of existence... and at every change in our environment,
getting married for example, our values, our beliefs change...
and having children, our values change again....with each new
stage, we change our ''truths'' to match the reality of our lives....
a look at, say Santa Claus as an adult, shows that the belief
in Santa Claus, is really just a technique at controlling
childhood behavoir..... my parents used it as such,
and as parents ourselves, we also use these beliefs
to help in controlling children....consciously or unconsciously....

but as our children age and change in their beliefs, we, as parents,
must change and adapt our values and techniques... what worked
on a child at age 3, will not on a child at age 13 and certainly won't
work on a 16 year old...

let us change the argument a bit..... we have seen,
on this very website, claims that others hold beliefs that
make them liberals, or terrorist or anarchist or traitors
or Atheist or at the very least, stupid.... and yet, this argument
requires that the person making the charge, is holding to
the ''right'' beliefs...you cannot call someone a traitor
unless you yourself hold to the ''correct'' beliefs.....

which leads us to a problem... which set of beliefs, you know,
the ones that change as we age and come into different environments,
change, which one of those changing beliefs, are the actual ''correct''
beliefs? Am I a ''true'' American at age 16 are the ''correct'' beliefs,
but as I grow older, and those ''correct beliefs'' change,
am I no longer a ''true'' American?

let us say, for the sake of argument, that I suddenly convert to
being Christian.... am I now in the midst of being in the ''truth?""
and what does this ''truth'' look like? The Christians on this site
would shout about how great Kropotkin is.... and why?
the basic truth here is because I have converted to their ''truths''
and therein lies the idea of one being a liberal or a traitor or
an Atheist... that charge comes from those believers because
I have changed my belief into hold their beliefs....

a traitor is simply one who doesn't hold the same beliefs as I do.....
the many names we hear around here come from this notion
that the one calling another names, comes from this notion
of either they hold my beliefs, friend and a fellow holder of my values...
or they don't.. evil traitors, liberals, communist, atheists...
and why? because they don't hold to MY values...that is the entire
basis of calling another names... they don't hold to my values,
to my belief systems...and thus they are stupid, communist..etc, etc....

and this is done without the recognition that our values, beliefs change
as we change, age, come into any new environment......the values we hold
are ''ad hoc'' of the moment... and when the moment changes, we change
our values, our beliefs... we just don't see it as such.... we are
blind to the changing nature of our values/beliefs...

Nietzsche once pointed out that we tend to forget ''inconvenient'' truths...
that to confirm our current ''identity'' we tend to forget any ''truths''
that, in the past, denied our current identity... former anarchist tend to
''forget'' they were anarchists if they are now bankers or lawyers...

so, our ''truths'' change our entire life.... so, what ''truths''
do or have we hold/held that are actually the
''whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me god"

if our ''truths'' change, how do we pin down what ''truths''
are really our truths and thus allow us to call other names,
based on us holding to the ''real truth''......

I know, dam inconvenient truths I proclaim...

so, go back to the old standard and just call me a name to
hide behind your failure of having a
'truth'' that is anything but ''ad hoc''

Kropotkin

[Iwannaplato]

for most people around here engage in polemics,

Well, it's great that your threads avoid polemics.