Philosophy Now Forum

one of the major modern topics to date is the
fundamental need of ours to integrate our various
world views...you have the religious crowd preaching
one world viewpoint, (notice I didn't say living a religious
life but preaching a religious life)

and another group is engaged in the work of science,
logic, rationality, reason....

and we have another group focused on the trinkets of
existence, that of money, power, fame, titles and material
possessions..

and then you have the vast majority of humanity waiting
for some sort of direction in which to go....

all of these diverse and separate viewpoints have
us suffering from whiplash from being jerked around
by the various viewpoints....

ask someone the Kantian question, "What are we to do?" will
have dozens if not hundreds of answers... depending on
the agenda being followed, be it religious, scientific,
trinkets or waiting for some clues as to which way to go....

but in all the white noise being created, one viewpoint is
rarely ever promoted... that of the whole... that of
the "what am I/we to do?" is to bring about a better
future for ALL OF US...it isn't about getting my due or
making bags, but getting our species to a point where
we are abiding for the need for peace and prosperity..
not war and chaos and danger... but order and freedom..
in which those two values, order and freedom actually
complement each other and move us toward a future
whereas we can become human, and not just animal/human
like today...

to goal of existence is not an individual goal, to make money
or to get famous... those are worthless trinkets that
have no value...

the goal of existence is to bring about a society where we
are able to meet our needs, our bodily needs
and our psychological needs along with meeting
the needs of our state/society/culture....

for the truth is individually, we don't count for anything..
I could die today and be forgotten by the end of the day..
as you will be.....this is a basic and fundamental fact of life...
for the few that are remembered, millions if not billions
are forgotten...

and that fact forces me to shift my focus on not what I can
achieve, as in the trinkets of existence, but
what I can help make society turn into...

the goal, as Marx said it was is,

"It is not enough to understand the world,
but to transform it"

and that is the goal or point of existence... to transform
the world... from where we stand today, violent,
chaotic, addicted to the trinkets of existence...
my own self will end shortly, but I can help the society/state
to complete its transformation into being a safe, honest,
peaceful place that values both order and freedom
and as I have noted, my own individual value is
the value of Justice... to hold everyone accountable
before the law, before the political process and before
each other... accountability, responsibility,
equality... are all virtues we should be fighting for, not
wealth or fame or material possessions...

it is the future of the state/society that we are engaged with,
not our own future... as that future will include a grave site..
but collectively, together we can bring about a society/state
that provide for everyone, that engages in freedom for everyone,
that offers everyone justice, which is also equality before all..

well, Kropotkin, that all sounds very vague... not vague,
not vague at all.. in fact, it is far more specific than
any goal you might be reaching for...individually..
any goal must be a goal in which the state/society
comes first for the very simple reason that they
will last and go beyond you... if the human race ends
today, it will have lived and died for nothing.. it will
mean nothing and it will stand for nothing....
all those lives wasted and for what?

no, the only goal worth achieving is the goal of creating,
transforming into a better society/state....where
we can achieve our collective goal of justice, freedom
and order... it takes more than a village, it takes an entire
society/state for us to build, to transform our world today,
into a place worth living in tomorrow...
and that will take all of us today to reach in some distant future..
a future will not see, but it doesn't make the goal any less
worth achieving...

what journey are you on? is it a journey in which we leave
our society/state better off than we were born into?

Kropotkin...

historically, one of the major problems facing
a society/state is the question of income inequality...
in reading history, one can see that income inequality
has been a problem since the Ancient Greeks... at various
times and various places in Greece, there have been
revolts with the poor and displaced trying to overcome
the wealthy and powerful... and that has also created
the two main revolutions in modern times, the French
and the Russian... both were the result of massive
income inequality... the French revolution succeeded far
better than the Russian one...and why? Because the goals
were much clearer and achievable...

I read the other day that in the county of San Francisco,
San Mateo and Marin, in California, where I live,
in San Mateo County, that to be considered to be
"low income" means you make less than 105,000 dollars...
that is "low income" in these three counties...
the wife and I make around 75,000 and we can attest
to the fact that it is "low income" to be making less
than 105,000 around here...
but that points out the fact that we are creating
a two state America...one state the poor, middle class,
the working poor and the other state, the wealthy..
and we cannot survive as a country, if we have a two
state America....that SF is here means that the two state
America is either already here or is coming to a neighborhood
near you... several cities are already there, New York,
Boston, LA, Miami, Chicago... and that two state America
will quickly reach the other cities in America..
and with it, will come a new and dangerous place,
where the have's and the have not's will have a hot war,
as oppose to the cold war they are having now.....
and that war, that civil war, that revolution is much
closer to fruition than the war between the conservatives
and the Liberals... all it needs to heat up is a leader for
the lower classes and it is on... the rich and wealthy
will win, but at what cost?

Kropotkin

we might call this post,

a modern topic: the future...

and what future can we expect? given the nihilism of
today, in terms of the devaluation of human beings, via
capitalism, via the negation of humans in our daily lives,
in the attacks on the rights of blacks, the poor, minorities,
of the gay and trans population... these attacks on the rights
of people to be and to love who they want and to become
who they are... these attacks are eroding the people's faith
and belief in the state and the society....
with every attack and law attacking the rights of gays, trans,
the young, the poor, minorities, we are causing fundamental
damage to America... with each attack, we are telling people
that they have no worth, no value in modern day America...
so, why should we be so surprised when people return the
favor and tell others they have no worth, no value...
the fact is that poverty is a cycle of issues that last for generations,
and that addictions are a cycle that last for generations,
and that cycle also includes us negating, treating people
negatively... we wonder why people use drugs and use violence
to target others.. when we ourselves, are much of the cause
of violence and disturbance in America today.....
when we denigrate others for our own personal
profits, we give them permission to do the same to others...
and to us too....the increase of violence in
America stems from our callus disregard of others..
and the societies disregard of others...

there is a price to be paid for using people the way we use
people... and we are seeing that price in the increase in drug use,
the massive homeless problem, violence in schools and against
schools.. the massive shoplifting problem in America... all of
these stem from people feeling used and abused from the society,
the state, their work, their environment..

wonder about out of control children? they were taught to be
that way by their parents....to a large extent, we teach
children who they are and what is possible for them in life..
if we teach them that the society/the state will use them,
abuse them, as it surely will, then why would you expect
them to do anything but react in kind?

remember Maslow... we must feed not only the physical side
of existence, but we must take care of the emotional, psychological
side as well....you want people to care and to come to work and be
nice and kind, well, you have to treat them that way first...
and in America, we treat our workers and citizens like crap...
we mistreat them, we abuse them, we endanger them and all for
profits/money... and so don't you ever wonder why America is going
to hell in a handbasket... we set it up that way...
we designed it that way with the social system we have,
with the political system we have and with the economic
system we have....all designed to abuse and mistreat
anyone who is forced to work for a living...
and it even has invaded our schools when the only value
for schools, for education is to be a feeder system into
our economic system...to train workers, producers
and consumers... that is the only use for education,
schools these days...

feeling like our country is going to hell in a handbasket?

congrats... you have a hand in that when you give your
consent to a system that denigrates and dehumanizes
human beings for profits...

Kropotkin