Philosophy Now Forum

One of the "Kantian" questions is this,

"What am I to do?"

There are two aspects of human existence, one is being part of
"human beings" and the other aspect is being "human" in the midst of other
human beings.. How do juggle these two sides of human existence?

One side is to be true to thine own self... To become who you are, as
there is tremendous pressure to be part of the crowd, to be a human being,
not in the individual sense, but in the collective sense.. and most people succumb
to that pressure to conform and be part of the crowd even if their own
needs and wants desires require them to seek out an individual engagement
with existence....

It is a complex and troublesome effort to balance the needs of the many
vs the needs of the few or the one...How are we to balance our own
individual needs against the needs of the many, the society at large?
How are we to hold onto our individual self in the face of tremendous
pressure to become part of society or state... even to the determent of
our own individual selves...

How are we to engage in our own needs if we are forced to engage in
the state's/society needs before our own needs?

and let us put this into context... During World War Two, millions of men
were drafted to "serve" their country... put their lives on the line for
a cause that they might not believe in...(for whatever reason)
and which side do we favor, the individual side, the "human" side
or do we rule for the collective side, for the "human beings" side....
and as always, why? Why this value as opposed to the other value?
The collective needs vs the individual needs?

I have argued, both here and elsewhere, that the needs of the many
overwhelm the needs of the few or of the one... and yet, given
this statement, I can still make a very strong argument for the
rights/needs of the one to be superior to the needs of the many or of all....

and where do I find my solution? As always, I find it in the situation,
within the context of what is happening...
The context can quite often, but not always, give us an answer
to the question, do I stand with the human or with human beings?

Kropotkin

Existence, at least for human beings, has two parts, one
the individual, to be true to oneself, and the second part/aspect is
the collective aspect... to "serve" the whole, even at the risk of
hurting or dying for that collective whole...
And our modern-day understanding fails to give us any insight into
which aspect we should hold to, honor, the one, us or the many,
us collectively....

But why do our modern-day insights fail to answer this crucial question?

In part, I suspect, is because we don't have any sort of telos or goal/meaning
to our lives.... We are just floating free with nothing to tether us to the
ground/reality.... our goals, our purpose lies in some far off land of
gaining money, power, material goods, titles.... reaching for the
baubles of existence... nothing that is concrete or real...of the earth...
to seek out the baubles of existence, be it fame or money or
titles or power, leaves us with no other telos or meaning other
than that bauble.......if we seek out money or power, that is all
we will find, there is no other point or purpose to making money other
than to make more money and there is no point to seeking out
fame or titles then gaining fame or power...the telos in making money
or in seeking fame is in seeking more of the same and nothing beyond that...
and therein lies the failure of our modern capitalistic age..

There is no telos or goal/meaning in our society/state because it
doesn't take us anywhere outside of just seeking more of the same....
it has no deeper or more profound meaning other than seeking more
baubles to fill our souls.... in other words, in our souls, we are starving to
death in our souls because there is no nothing to fill up our souls...
our souls are empty, barren because we don't seek anything outside
of empty baubles like wealth and power and titles...

Now some believe that they can feed their souls with god or prayer,
but that ship has sailed...heaven and god are just two more empty
promises in our modern land....

and what of the other fulfillment ism's like nationalism and antisemitism
and bigotry and sexism and of course the ever-popular ism meant to
give a goal/purpose to empty souls, prejudice and bigotry to gays and trans people...

if our souls are empty and barren, why not try to fill it with nonsense like
hatred and bigotry and prejudice.. that is the conservative answer to
having an empty, hollow soul... to fill it with hate and anger...

Listen, truly listen to a conservative and listen, truly listen to
a liberal... and listen to the darkness and despair and dystopian universe
that the conservative lives in.....in a conservative's words, there is no talk
about beauty, or love or hope or confidence in the future or even in
today's world....it is all doom and gloom.... how do we find the human
factor in a world so dark and dreary?

finding the human in human beings can be a dark and depressing picture,
if, if we let it be...... but I am not about the doom and gloom...
I choose to paint a more possible future, possibilities for all of us...
that can feed the soul and bring about the lightness of who we are,
not the blackness of our imagined life's...

which reality do you choose to believe in?
the doom and gloom of conservatives or the more
positive, upbeat values of the liberals?

Kropotkin