Philosophy Now Forum

one of the questions/problems of the modern age,
has been this question of being autonomous....
it is one of the major points of Kant and the German idealists
thereafter... and of course, it is a theme within Existentialism...
how to become an autonomous person in this modern day and age?

and given the ism's that deny that being autonomous is
a desirable thing, isms like Catholicism, and Buddhism
and Capitalism....and how do we find being autonomous
given the restraints on who we are, by a society bent
on taking away any possibility of being an autonomous
person.....

autonomous person: is one who makes their own decisions
rather than being influenced by someone else....

and that sounds like a nice definition...but it doesn't deal
with the reality of our lives...we are impacted, influenced
by all kinds of modern reality....take your job for example,
how much autonomy do you have in your job? I am guessing not
much.... and how autonomy do you have in your life with
a democracy? and how much autonomy do you have within
your own legal system? in fact, we can see our autonomy
being limited by many, diverse factors.. science itself
with it limits of gravity and evolution and the laws of physics
and thermodynamics... all are limiting factors in our lives..

and within evolution, we are limited by our being
social creatures... we cannot exist outside of being
social, outside of being within society...
for to be outside of society is to invite death...
and the greatest punishment we can inflict on any person,
is to be isolated, in solitary confinement... that can damage
a person beyond medical help...so given all these limitations
on our being an autonomous being, how do we become autonomous?

I think the first step is to understand what exactly is being
autonomous about?... why is being autonomous such a great thing?

as noted before, being autonomous is to court death because
we must engaged within a society to exists, to live is to live
within a society/state.... and it is very difficult to be autonomous
within a state, a society...so what does being autonomous
entail while still being a member, in good standing, of a
society/state?

we have both biological and psychological needs...
as human beings, we must have food, water, shelter,
education, health care, and we must have our psychological
needs of love, esteem, safety and security, of belonging..
all of these needs, must be met, for us to be psychologically
fit.... most damaged people are damaged because they
are lacking in some fashion, their psychological needs..
failing to met our psychological needs is more damaging than
failing to met our bodily needs..

and the path to meeting both our bodily and psychological needs
is best met through a society, the state, the culture and a civilization....
that is the point of those things, to meet our needs.. and without
the state or society, we cannot, cannot meet our bodily needs
or our psychological needs......and so with that a given,
how do we become an autonomous person, given that we
must have our needs met and that is only possible
within a society/state/culture/civilization.....

being autonomous is about the best way we have, individually
to met our needs... that is by making choices, we can meet
our needs...both bodily and psychologically... which then
ask, which political and economic system, that we know
of, that can best meet our needs....

as I have already previously stated, I believe
that capitalism is a failed system that cannot meet our needs...
it cannot meet our bodily needs, (look at the millions who
are only two weeks away from being homeless, to the
millions that already homeless world wide) to failing to
meet our psychological needs.. capitalism doesn't care
if you find or don't find your psychological needs...
it has no interest in your needs at all.... capitalism is
about profits, and nothing more... the meeting of needs
is irrelevant to capitalism...for it is the meeting of needs
that fund profits... the needs are a means to an end and that
end is profits....not needs...

and what about the political? the various political systems
care little or not at all about one's needs... does a monarch
care if you are homeless or without food? does a dictator?
or in a democracy, it is only by some sort of notice
by a number of people that can deal with homelessness...
one or two people cannot change the homelessness in America..
but millions acting in concert can end homelessness...
but that is the point within a democracy, it takes
millions to get anything done...

and the question that stops any helping of homelessness is
the modern day question, "what is in it for me?'' why should
I help the homeless is it doesn't personally benefit me?
what do I care? I have my own problems...but then they
ask, why doesn't someone do something about the homeless problem
in America? I wonder why?

so we make choices every single day.. on what basis do we make
those choices? that is another aspect of being autonomous...

now that I have laid out the outlines of being autonomous,
let us take a deeper dive into the nature of being autonomous...

Kropotkin

the question of being autonomous is what are we
being autonomous about? In what regards can we
be autonomous?

Think about religion... is the religious bent about
being autonomous? Nah, the entire point of religion
is to be dutiful son.. as it were.. to follow the,
without complaint, the rules/laws of the father....

to disobey the rules of the father is to be in hell...
literally...to be sent out of paradise as it were...
if were to name the greatest crime listed in the bible,
that crime would be disobedience.... and that was
Adams crime, disobeying the father....

and the next point is what of the son who is torn
between obeying the father and following one's heart....
this stress and it is stress, can cause neurosis in one....
a neurosis that is a comparable version of PTSD..
in my readings, PTSD was compared to having a neurosis...
and one of the symptoms of neurosis is OCD...
obsessive-compulsive disorder... and to my way of thinking,
the pursuit of money, is just another version of OCD...
it is a neurosis... people are compelled to pursuit money,
no matter what the cost is, either professionally or personally.....
and that is not being autonomous... seeking out money no matter
what is the cost, is anything but autonomous....

the entire point of being autonomous is to be able to make
choices.... if one can't make a choice, then one is not
autonomous...simple as that....

the entire capitalistic system is designed to prevent people
from making choices.... from the collage loan that forces
people to work for decades to pay off their collage loan is one
such way/means of forcing people into capitalism.....
hence the real anger at the plan to eliminate collage loans...
it allows people a choice at what kind of life they can have...
and those who benefit from the lack of autonomy in the U.S,
are the ones who protested the most at the elimination of collage loans....

to be a doctor or to be a lawyer or to be a grocery clerk..
those are not real choices because they still force one
into the capitalistic system...where we have no choice but
to accept this capitalism....

capitalism a system about having choices that leaves no choice
about capitalism...

now one may ask, what alternatives do you offer Kropotkin?
Alternatives, really, we can't even agree on there being a problem,
little less having some agreement on the solutions....until
there is some understanding of their being a problem, we can't even
begin to discuss solutions....

so in the political.. we have the choice, to be autonomous in
our voting, but we all realize by now that democracy has
been overthrown into a corporatocracy.... the corporations
own and run, everything right now... there is no such thing
as a democracy in the world today.... it has been bought
and sold, like some cheap soda pop....

but one of the answers to our question of being autonomous lies
in the return of democracy into the world at some point in
the future....and until we have democracy, we cannot have
political autonomy... and so two types of autonomy is lost to us...
the economic and the political... and what about the third?

what about the legal autonomy? we know, know that justice in America
today is a two track system.. one track is for the rich, powerful...
they can pretty much commit murder and they can get away with it...
an example is the fact that IQ45 has committed treason by his
taking top secret documents from the government... an act that
done by anyone else would have already resulted in their being
in prison... but not IQ45.. justice delayed is justice denied...
the very act of his taking those top secret documents
and not suffering the consequences, is to point out
this two track judicial system in America....which means,
if we are wealthy enough, powerful enough, with a big enough title,
we can create our own choices, we have autonomy if, if we are
powerful enough.... the 99% of people in America, they don't have
the autonomy of the IQ45's of the world... the ones who can flout
the rules and laws without any consequences...whereas the
average person has no choice in which rules/laws they can follow....

having autonomy in America today, is a two track system..
some have autonomy and most have none... so how do
we carve out autonomy in the world today?

I would suggest in two area's we can carve out autonomy...
first in the area of aesthetics and the second in the area of
ethics and morals...

first, the act of creation, the act of creating ART is an act of creation,
that is autonomous.. ART by its very nature is autonomous...
we make the choices as to the form and format and the content
of the ART work... we decide what content goes into what format
with what material... we can complete it or leave it unfinished,
as to the choices we make...

In ART, we can be completely autonomous... now we may
be censored afterwards, but that is afterwards... during
the creation of ART, we are making choices all the time
as to the nature of the ART in question....
and choices is at the heart of being autonomous....

now the second point is we can become autonomous by
our choices in the ethical or moral? but Kropotkin, that
doesn't make sense if we have already admitted that
we have little or no choice in obeying the laws/rules
of a society/state....

but ethics and morals are not the law...
we have legally had slavery, women as property,
the holocaust was legal, and hiding people from going
to the concentration camps was illegal.. the law
has no sense of morality or ethics.. the law is about
what is the short term way of keeping the order in
a society/state... the law is what is convenient...
not what is right, moral or ethical....

is the law about being moral or ethical? not at all....
the law is about keeping the order for the ones
who profit from order... the wealthy, powerful
the ones with titles and fame...the law keeps
the order for them, not for the rest of us.....
for they have autonomy, and we do not...
they can make choices and we cannot....
they can buy their way out of the consequences of
their actions and we cannot....

so, given this, what is the ethical, the moral in our day and age?
not what is convenient for those who can afford to have autonomy....
but the rest of us....

the law, instead of being for the order and perservation of
the state/society for the wealthy, is really supposed to
be able to allow us to become who we are.....
in other words, the law is supposed to allow us the room
and time, to make our own choices as to who we are..
not what is convenient for society, which is to make
the 99% just workers, producers and consumers....
that what point of the law today... to force us into
being what is convenient for the state/society...
not for benefit, not for what works for us, but
what works for the 1%....

my goal, my own personal goal is to achieve, if possible
greatness in being a philosopher... I want to be mentioned
in the same breath as Kant or Nietzsche... (whither I make
it or not, is actually irrelevant.. it doesn't matter... the point
is the goal, to reach for the stars, greatness as a philosopher..
if I make it, great, and if I don't, oh well... I would rather fail
reaching for the stars then succeed at a minor task of being
a thinker about today)

I am an outcast in society today because I am not interested in
being a worker, or a producer or a consumer... I am interested
in an engagement with what it means to be human...
with "what am I to do?" "what can I know?" ''What can I hope
for?" the Kantian questions are my questions....and as
I don't increase the GDP, my questions are of no interest
to the state or society....and that is a neurosis...
to have an interest that completely overwhelms all other
interest... to focus on making money above all other interests
is to have a neurosis...

and with this thought in mind, I believe that this neurosis
of the entire focus of a state/society to be on making money,
is to spread that focus, that neurosis onto the state/society...
in other words, this focus, is a neurosis that has infected
the state and society of ours... is not the definition of
nihilism the devaluing, dehumanizing of human beings
and their values, isn't that just another definition of
a neurosis... seeking profits to the exclusion of all
other values.. that is a one sentence description of
capitalism....and a one sentence description of
a neurosis...

to recover from this neurosis, we must reject the
seeking of money/profits before all other values...
including human beings...to become sane again, we
must reject capitalism as being a creator of our current
mental illness.. the neurosis that dominates our times...
and gives people a reason to kill for even small amounts of
money.... because we value money over the lives of people...
and that neurosis has twisted and dominated America...
into a society where mass murder doesn't even make the news
anymore... indeed many on the right fight for the ones
who commits mass murder instead of trying to stop it....
the right believes in and fights for the modern neurosis,
that makes money/profits more important than people's lives....

Kropotkin

the modern question is this, how do we escape the
modern neurosis of capitalism?

we can use another method that is by replacing an habit,
not wanted, by another habit, one that is better for one...
so, instead of our focusing on making money/profits
24/7, we change our focus to the practice of values..
to live our values as a "way of life"... for me,
the value I use, as the primary value, as ''a way of life"
is justice... to practice justice/equality ''as a way of life"
and by doing so, I escape the damaging neurosis that
is capitalism...of seeking of profits at all costs...

but there is nothing that says the value of justice, has
to be your value.. you can choose, have autonomy about
dozens, in fact, hundreds of values we can choose...
and that is what autonomy means, to choose...
and we can choose to follow values and to live
our lives based on values we choose for ourselves,
not chosen by a state/society that has no interest in
us in any case... to choose love before the damaging
neurosis of seeking profits, leads us to having a more
autonomous and, AND a more balanced life...
the person who is "normal" is the one who doesn't focus
on just one aspect of life, but has a ranged of interests...

truth be told, our neurosis is created by us not having
a balanced life that has interest in many things...
the more interest one has in things, the more
balanced one is and the less likely one has neurosis...

the answer to a balanced life is the number of interest
one has... and the answer to overcome our modern neurosis,
is to lead a balance life... we can cure ourselves by becoming
interested in, well everything....

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 8:18 pm one of the questions/problems of the modern age,
has been this question of being autonomous....
it is one of the major points of Kant and the German idealists
thereafter... and of course, it is a theme within Existentialism...
how to become an autonomous person in this modern day and age?

VERY EASILY and VERY SIMPLY.

And, if 'you' do NOT YET KNOW HOW, then 'you' need to take a serious LOOK AT "your" 'self'.

I suggest 'you' LEARN WHY 'you' have become a "robot" and WHY 'you' remain one.

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 8:18 pm and given the ism's that deny that being autonomous is
a desirable thing, isms like Catholicism, and Buddhism
and Capitalism....and how do we find being autonomous
given the restraints on who we are, by a society bent
on taking away any possibility of being an autonomous
person.....

autonomous person: is one who makes their own decisions
rather than being influenced by someone else....

and that sounds like a nice definition...but it doesn't deal
with the reality of our lives...we are impacted, influenced
by all kinds of modern reality....take your job for example,
how much autonomy do you have in your job? I am guessing not
much.... and how autonomy do you have in your life with
a democracy? and how much autonomy do you have within
your own legal system? in fact, we can see our autonomy
being limited by many, diverse factors.. science itself
with it limits of gravity and evolution and the laws of physics
and thermodynamics... all are limiting factors in our lives..

and within evolution, we are limited by our being
social creatures... we cannot exist outside of being
social, outside of being within society...
for to be outside of society is to invite death...
and the greatest punishment we can inflict on any person,
is to be isolated, in solitary confinement... that can damage
a person beyond medical help...so given all these limitations
on our being an autonomous being, how do we become autonomous?

I think the first step is to understand what exactly is being
autonomous about?... why is being autonomous such a great thing?

as noted before, being autonomous is to court death because
we must engaged within a society to exists, to live is to live
within a society/state.... and it is very difficult to be autonomous
within a state, a society...so what does being autonomous
entail while still being a member, in good standing, of a
society/state?

we have both biological and psychological needs...
as human beings, we must have food, water, shelter,
education, health care, and we must have our psychological
needs of love, esteem, safety and security, of belonging..
all of these needs, must be met, for us to be psychologically
fit.... most damaged people are damaged because they
are lacking in some fashion, their psychological needs..
failing to met our psychological needs is more damaging than
failing to met our bodily needs..

and the path to meeting both our bodily and psychological needs
is best met through a society, the state, the culture and a civilization....
that is the point of those things, to meet our needs.. and without
the state or society, we cannot, cannot meet our bodily needs
or our psychological needs......and so with that a given,
how do we become an autonomous person, given that we
must have our needs met and that is only possible
within a society/state/culture/civilization.....

being autonomous is about the best way we have, individually
to met our needs... that is by making choices, we can meet
our needs...both bodily and psychologically... which then
ask, which political and economic system, that we know
of, that can best meet our needs....

as I have already previously stated, I believe
that capitalism is a failed system that cannot meet our needs...
it cannot meet our bodily needs, (look at the millions who
are only two weeks away from being homeless, to the
millions that already homeless world wide) to failing to
meet our psychological needs.. capitalism doesn't care
if you find or don't find your psychological needs...
it has no interest in your needs at all.... capitalism is
about profits, and nothing more... the meeting of needs
is irrelevant to capitalism...for it is the meeting of needs
that fund profits... the needs are a means to an end and that
end is profits....not needs...

and what about the political? the various political systems
care little or not at all about one's needs... does a monarch
care if you are homeless or without food? does a dictator?
or in a democracy, it is only by some sort of notice
by a number of people that can deal with homelessness...
one or two people cannot change the homelessness in America..
but millions acting in concert can end homelessness...
but that is the point within a democracy, it takes
millions to get anything done...

and the question that stops any helping of homelessness is
the modern day question, "what is in it for me?'' why should
I help the homeless is it doesn't personally benefit me?
what do I care? I have my own problems...but then they
ask, why doesn't someone do something about the homeless problem
in America? I wonder why?

so we make choices every single day.. on what basis do we make
those choices? that is another aspect of being autonomous...

now that I have laid out the outlines of being autonomous,
let us take a deeper dive into the nature of being autonomous...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 8:18 pm

autonomous person: is one who makes their own decisions
rather than being influenced by someone else....

The desire to be autonomous is a self-centered desire. It's a sign of immaturity.

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:17 am

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 8:18 pm

autonomous person: is one who makes their own decisions
rather than being influenced by someone else....

The desire to be autonomous is a self-centered desire. It's a sign of immaturity.

K: I completely disagree with you... to be autonomous is a
major sign of maturity.. to follow the rules and behave as one
is expected without challenging the rules/laws is a sign
of immaturity.... to think about what is best for oneself is
the very essence of democracy... the need for autonomy is
the very heart of democracy...to be told what to do,
what to think, how to act... children need that, not
adults... and certainly not adults who practice autonomy...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 2:24 am

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:17 am

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 8:18 pm

autonomous person: is one who makes their own decisions
rather than being influenced by someone else....

The desire to be autonomous is a self-centered desire. It's a sign of immaturity.

K: I completely disagree with you... to be autonomous is a
major sign of maturity.. to follow the rules and behave as one
is expected without challenging the rules/laws is a sign
of immaturity.... to think about what is best for oneself is
the very essence of democracy... the need for autonomy is
the very heart of democracy...to be told what to do,
what to think, how to act... children need that, not
adults... and certainly not adults who practice autonomy...

Kropotkin

A rapist challenges the rules/laws. Thinks about what is best for themselves. Sign of maturity?
A pedophile challenges the rules/laws. Thinks about what is best for themselves. Sign of maturity?

Think perhaps you're mistaken in your view of maturity?

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 2:44 am

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 2:24 am

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:17 am

The desire to be autonomous is a self-centered desire. It's a sign of immaturity.

K: I completely disagree with you... to be autonomous is a
major sign of maturity.. to follow the rules and behave as one
is expected without challenging the rules/laws is a sign
of immaturity.... to think about what is best for oneself is
the very essence of democracy... the need for autonomy is
the very heart of democracy...to be told what to do,
what to think, how to act... children need that, not
adults... and certainly not adults who practice autonomy...

Kropotkin

A rapist challenges the rules/laws. Thinks about what is best for themselves. Sign of maturity?
A pedophile challenges the rules/laws. Thinks about what is best for themselves. Sign of maturity?

Think perhaps you're mistaken in your view of maturity?

K: and in fact, a rapist or a pedophile is not practicing autonomy...
they are a slave to their emotions and their desires.. real autonomy
means to have control over one's emotions and one's desires...
an adult who is in control over their emotions and desires,
that is the essential quality of being an adult..
as a parent, I had to put my child needs before mine...
and I gladly did so... that is autonomy.. to be able
to make choices.. choices is what autonomy all about...
a rapist or a pedophile has no control over their actions
or behavior.. and that means that they are not acting
autonomously...

Kropotkin

Autonomy? Mirabile dictu that the branch of science that raises our hopes also dashes them to pieces. Aaah! Sic vita est.

The focus of philosophers have been on certain aspects of our psyche from the very beginning and for good reason. What matters to autonomy has been stated so often that it's been etched into our memories for good most probably. In a sense autonomy's indistinguishable from a certain facet of reality that no one, per Wikipedia/SEP/IEP/etc., has ever really studied to the extent necessary to shed much needed light on the issue.

Then there's maya to deal with.

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 3:02 am

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 2:44 am

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 2:24 am

K: I completely disagree with you... to be autonomous is a
major sign of maturity.. to follow the rules and behave as one
is expected without challenging the rules/laws is a sign
of immaturity.... to think about what is best for oneself is
the very essence of democracy... the need for autonomy is
the very heart of democracy...to be told what to do,
what to think, how to act... children need that, not
adults... and certainly not adults who practice autonomy...

Kropotkin

A rapist challenges the rules/laws. Thinks about what is best for themselves. Sign of maturity?
A pedophile challenges the rules/laws. Thinks about what is best for themselves. Sign of maturity?

Think perhaps you're mistaken in your view of maturity?

K: and in fact, a rapist or a pedophile is not practicing autonomy...
they are a slave to their emotions and their desires.. real autonomy
means to have control over one's emotions and one's desires...
an adult who is in control over their emotions and desires,
that is the essential quality of being an adult..
as a parent, I had to put my child needs before mine...
and I gladly did so... that is autonomy.. to be able
to make choices.. choices is what autonomy all about...
a rapist or a pedophile has no control over their actions
or behavior.. and that means that they are not acting
autonomously...

Kropotkin

A rapist has no control over their actions or behavior? They have no choice? That's absurd. Of course they have a choice:
They choose to "challenge the rules/laws".
They choose "what's best for themselves".
The above fits YOUR definition of maturity. By the definition YOU gave earlier they are mature. Tacking on stuff like the following doesn't change those facts:
" a rapist or a pedophile is not practicing autonomy...
they are a slave to their emotions and their desires.. real autonomy
means to have control over one's emotions and one's desires...
an adult who is in control over their emotions and desires,
that is the essential quality of being an adult.."
In your attempt to save your position, you've added a layer of complexity in an attempt to hide the shortcomings of your position.

As I've pointed out to you before, you seem to understand many things better than most. The problem is that after you've put it all together, there's an incoherency and a Rube Goldberg aspect to your position. At its essence, maturity is NOT about "challenging the rules/laws" and doing "what's best for oneself".

I'll give you an analogy. A chess player analyzes a complex position. Identifies most of the key aspects of the position. But not all of the key aspects of the position. He sees the moves required for a mate in seven. Double checks. Triple checks. Confidence is high. Gets mated in five. While the moves he identified were all correct, he played them in the wrong order.

While this isn't chess, there are signs that you don't fully understand the position. The signs are that there is an incoherency and a Rube Goldberg aspect to your position. Go back. Reevaluate. Move the pieces around. If you correctly identify all of the key aspects and put them together in the correct order, you'll end up with a coherent and relatively simple position.

as many of us do, I come from family of addicts...
and I know the addicted mind... there is no difference
that I can tell, from an addiction to drugs and the addiction
to raping others or being a pedophile... the base symptoms
are the same... and in that, there is no choice..
one must take the drugs or drink, just as one must
rape or abuse children...
So, I disagree with your base premise...
they don't have a choice... and it isn't about "breaking
the law", nope, it is about the actual act itself in which
they have no choice but to do... they can't stop themselves
any more than a drug addict or an alcohol addict can stop themselves..

(yes, I am aware of addicts being able to break free from their addiction,
family of addicts, remember, but the AA thing about once an addict,
always an addict is true... all you can say is, today, today I won't drink
or today I won't do drugs or today I won't rape a person...
its all the same thing)

until we understand that, we won't have any sort of meeting of the minds...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 3:02 am K: and in fact, a rapist or a pedophile is not practicing autonomy...
they are a slave to their emotions and their desires.

They are a slave to some of their emotions and some of their desires AND thoughts. Thoughts about women, about life, about themselves, what is possible, what women are like, what they deserve and so on.

And when I say some of their emotions, they are certainly not, when they are about to rape, in much contact with their fear. They've let their rage run them sure, but cut off and/or converted other emotions into rage and action.