the questions of Kropotkin
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:07 pm
Having spent 40 plus years reading, thinking, writing, I have
questions that I call my Kropotkin questions.. (mostly stolen from Kant)
"What am I to do?" and note that every single individual question can
be expanded to the communal.. so, the question "What am I to do?"
is expanded into "What are we to do?" Every single personal question
"What am I... " can be turned into a communal question, "What can we...."
and it is important to consider human beings, both individual and collectively.
we tend to think of human beings as a single being... but the fact is we are social,
collective creatures...and we cannot think about ourselves individually,
for we are collective creatures, social creatures that must, MUST engage with
other human beings.. the social aspect of human existence is not engaged with
as often as it should be... or to put it another way, we exist collectively, as
part of one group or another.. and human existence must be accounted for
collectively, as well as individually.. so the question, "What am I to do?" is
really an engagement with the collective... or said another way, "What am
I to do'' in regard to a collective understanding.. how do I fit into society/ the state
as an individual? The question "What am I to do?" is a question about what my place is
in the society/state?
The next Kantian question is "What am I to believe in?" or said another way,
what values should I be holding and why those values and not other values?
Again, this is not just an individual question but a collective question,
"What are we to believe in?" What values should we collectively hold,
as a society, state, civilization? And why those values and not another set
of values? I have worked for over 40 years and one of the collective values
I was supposed to hold is the capitalistic value of profits... as a worker,
I am supposed to put that value first before all other values, profits before
human lives.. is the capitalistic motto... to put profits before people,
as capitalists do, is nihilism, pure and simple... and what is nihilism?
(I must admit I have modified the term nihilism from its original definition)
Nihilism: is the negation and dehumanization of human beings by holding
onto values such as profits and money over human beings....read the mission
statements of most companies, and they state the search for profits
is their priority, not the people who work for them or the customers, but
profits, and this is pure nihilism...the search for profits/money before human
values like love, hope, peace, charity, and human lives...and that is nihilism....
but other values also engage with nihilism... putting country before human beings is
also nihilism... putting god before people is nihilism... the act of putting something
before human beings and their values is an act of nihilism...
one of my goals is to return human beings and their values as a priority,
as a purpose for human existence... another example is the conservative/GOP
motto of "god, country, guns" I reject as putting other values before human
existence, before human values... just like putting money/profits before
human beings and before human values.. they are no different in my mind...
put the human beings before other values and then ask, How do I fit into
the society/state? or to put in other words, to go from inside out, not
from outside in...from the individual to the society/state, not from
the society/state to the individual...
and the last Kropotkin/Kantian question is "What can I/we know?"
and that is a straight forward epistemological question... how can
we know in regards to the methods, validity and scope of our "knowledge"..
about human existence.. I might hold that "god exists" by what methods,
and how do we decide if our answer is valid and the scope of our answers...
so let us take a "common" problem, that the last election was stolen?
and the answer for some, might be yes, and the answer for most,
was no... and so we engage in epistemology to understand the answer...
the method, scope and validity of finding out if the last election was stolen...
(spoiler alert, it wasn't) we can take a "common" problem or question
and we can use epistemology to answer that question..
so, what can we know? That answer has an individual and collective
aspect to it... that there are other so called, Kropotkin questions,
should be noted, but we can start small and work our way into them...
"What am I/we to do?" seeking that answer has taken me a lifetime to
understand and now I seek to answer that question....what question/questions have
you engaged with?
Kropotkin
questions that I call my Kropotkin questions.. (mostly stolen from Kant)
"What am I to do?" and note that every single individual question can
be expanded to the communal.. so, the question "What am I to do?"
is expanded into "What are we to do?" Every single personal question
"What am I... " can be turned into a communal question, "What can we...."
and it is important to consider human beings, both individual and collectively.
we tend to think of human beings as a single being... but the fact is we are social,
collective creatures...and we cannot think about ourselves individually,
for we are collective creatures, social creatures that must, MUST engage with
other human beings.. the social aspect of human existence is not engaged with
as often as it should be... or to put it another way, we exist collectively, as
part of one group or another.. and human existence must be accounted for
collectively, as well as individually.. so the question, "What am I to do?" is
really an engagement with the collective... or said another way, "What am
I to do'' in regard to a collective understanding.. how do I fit into society/ the state
as an individual? The question "What am I to do?" is a question about what my place is
in the society/state?
The next Kantian question is "What am I to believe in?" or said another way,
what values should I be holding and why those values and not other values?
Again, this is not just an individual question but a collective question,
"What are we to believe in?" What values should we collectively hold,
as a society, state, civilization? And why those values and not another set
of values? I have worked for over 40 years and one of the collective values
I was supposed to hold is the capitalistic value of profits... as a worker,
I am supposed to put that value first before all other values, profits before
human lives.. is the capitalistic motto... to put profits before people,
as capitalists do, is nihilism, pure and simple... and what is nihilism?
(I must admit I have modified the term nihilism from its original definition)
Nihilism: is the negation and dehumanization of human beings by holding
onto values such as profits and money over human beings....read the mission
statements of most companies, and they state the search for profits
is their priority, not the people who work for them or the customers, but
profits, and this is pure nihilism...the search for profits/money before human
values like love, hope, peace, charity, and human lives...and that is nihilism....
but other values also engage with nihilism... putting country before human beings is
also nihilism... putting god before people is nihilism... the act of putting something
before human beings and their values is an act of nihilism...
one of my goals is to return human beings and their values as a priority,
as a purpose for human existence... another example is the conservative/GOP
motto of "god, country, guns" I reject as putting other values before human
existence, before human values... just like putting money/profits before
human beings and before human values.. they are no different in my mind...
put the human beings before other values and then ask, How do I fit into
the society/state? or to put in other words, to go from inside out, not
from outside in...from the individual to the society/state, not from
the society/state to the individual...
and the last Kropotkin/Kantian question is "What can I/we know?"
and that is a straight forward epistemological question... how can
we know in regards to the methods, validity and scope of our "knowledge"..
about human existence.. I might hold that "god exists" by what methods,
and how do we decide if our answer is valid and the scope of our answers...
so let us take a "common" problem, that the last election was stolen?
and the answer for some, might be yes, and the answer for most,
was no... and so we engage in epistemology to understand the answer...
the method, scope and validity of finding out if the last election was stolen...
(spoiler alert, it wasn't) we can take a "common" problem or question
and we can use epistemology to answer that question..
so, what can we know? That answer has an individual and collective
aspect to it... that there are other so called, Kropotkin questions,
should be noted, but we can start small and work our way into them...
"What am I/we to do?" seeking that answer has taken me a lifetime to
understand and now I seek to answer that question....what question/questions have
you engaged with?
Kropotkin