Philosophy Now Forum

We see in America several major problems that
have been years in the making... and now coming back to haunt us...
(and in no particular order)

one such question is this question of goal or purpose of us, individually
and collectively.. having a means only has value if there is a goal or
purpose we are aiming for...and today, we have means, the search for
the trinkets of existence... but we have no goal or purpose that those
means aim for.. to seek out wealth only has wealth as its goal.. to seek
out material possessions only have material possessions has its goal/purpose....
there is no other point or meaning to seeking out wealth or fame or titles..
just more of the same..... and that is one of the major problems today...

and there are some who claim, (even around here, that the goal/purpose
of existence is to seek out god or some equivalent... the problem with that,
is that ship has sailed) I see now that we are at the end of the theological age...
we have had ages.. the first age was the age of magical thinking.. where there
was no sense of cause and effect... think about the child who when sitting
on the ground suddenly finds a chair next to them.. an adult put that chair there..
the child however doesn't connect the actions of putting the chair there
with any cause or effect.. it is just there... and the child goes on.. not
thinking about it.. it is just there.. and that was human thinking for
most of the first age of man.. the hunter-gatherer age..

the second age was when human beings became aware of cause and effect..
If I sacrifice an animal or human, god will reward me... that is the next
age.. which I call the theological age...if I pray, god will reward me...
if I believe, god will reward me... cause and effect...this is the theological
explanation of reality/existence...and millions are still caught in the
way of thinking... and if they only had eyes to see, they would know
that they are behind the times...

the third age of human beings began with the scientific revolution of
human beings.. that we sought out cause and effect in terms of nature..
the ball fell.. in the first age, there wouldn't even think about how that
ball fell.. in the second age, they would think that the ball fell because
that is what god wanted... and in this third age, we seek out
a naturalistic reason for the ball falling.. perhaps a bird dropped it,
perhaps it fell from an airplane, perhaps a nearby tornado picked it up
and then flung it away.. whatever reason for that falling ball, there is
a natural and explainable reason for it...

is this the final age of human beings? I can't say as we have just begun
this new age of natural explanations of being...

but we have many, many people who are still stuck on past thinking..
if we are thinking, that thinking must be supernatural... no,
we just don't have a natural explanation for it yet... and there
are some subjects that we may never have a natural explanation for..
an example of this, is the question of how life began? we may never
know exactly how life, as we know it began... and that is ok....
and that is not supernatural, but as yet, unexplainable...
and being unexplainable is ok... we don't have to answer all the
questions of existence... its ok to have natural unexplained questions..
but we have no need for supernatural questions or answers..
for we get cause and effect well enough to know that sometimes,
you don't get answers to every single question...and leaving some
mystery in life is ok...

one of the most important things that has determined human existence,
has been evolution... the process of being able to adapt to new environments
and situations...but we have made the mistake of thinking that
evolution only works for our bodies... evolution is also a process
for the mind, for our thinking... we have adapted our thinking from
magical thinking to theological thinking to our new way, which
is natural thinking.... we have evolved in our perspective of
the world... of how we perceive cause and effect...

if you perceive the hand of god in everything, you are still caught in
the old way of thinking, if you see the laws of nature, evolution
or gravity or entropy.. you see the natural laws of cause and effect...

and next time, on this same bat time and bat channel, I shall
further explore other idea's connected to our modern times...

Kropotkin

the next step is to work out or understand what is
the modern world....

In many ways, we see the falling or collapse of the modern world...
and in a large way, this falling of the modern world comes from
the tension between the old way of thinking, the theological
and the new way, natural... we are between ages.. we just haven't
figured it out yet...

we can see this tension and battling in this time with the many
failures that we see around us... it is no surprise that we see
the collapse of the conservative party in America...it is the
conservative who is unable to adapt and change in a changing world...
but the liberals.. our party is structurally fine.. namely because
adapting and change in built into our DNA... our party...our
way of life.... we don't look to the past for answers, we look
forward...and that makes all the difference in the world....

the civil war within the GOP/MAGA party has all but destroyed the
house side of congress.. there is by all explanations, a house full
of chaos and failure... the civil war within the conversative party
will be fully exposed during the upcoming battle for the speaker
of the house... the problem I see is this... America was built with
this idea of two parties... what happens if one party is fully engulfed
in a civil war to the death? It means that until one part of the
conservative party wins, America is now ungovernable...to work,
to function, we either need two fully operational parties or
as we have in California, one party, the democrats running
everything.. that is really, at this point, the only options we have....

we also see the crisis within religion going on today...
where large parts of the believers, no longer believe in
the words of Jesus... that they call the words, the very
words of Jesus, ''WOKE" and liberal.... the very process
of religion is now about to have a civil war...
and the civil war will be between the ones who still believe
in the words of Jesus, the sermon on the mount, for example...
and those who reject the words of Jesus, reject the
''sermon on the mount" as being ''WOKE" and liberal...

the new religion is called ''Masculine Christianity''
part of the Masculine Christianity belief is that the
Western church has gone feminist.. that men in particular,
for men are the focus of this new faith, that men hold to
such beliefs as patriotic duty, discipline, self-sacrifice,
masculinity and the moral and physical beauty of athleticism....

and the rise of this new faith comes from the anxiety of men
from the rise of feminism and the rise of alternative lifestyles like
homosexuality and trans people... men who are unable to adjust
or adapt to the new ideals... they still pine for the old values
that put men and masculine values as the highest values possible...
much of American values are based on this Masculine values...
look at how much America is always proclaiming the values
of war, of self-sacrifice, of duty to the state....the new age is
a clash of values... as we are, as suggested, now in a time between
the old values and the new values..

this battle between the old values and new values is what is at heart
within the current civil war in the conservative parties... which values
to follow? as a liberal, I stand with the new values, the new ''faith''
of allowing other values beside masculine values to dominate...

and next, we explore the soul in regard to the new age...

Kropotkin

the soul....
( this is why I introduce the idea of soul in one of my threads,
to prepare for this thread...and it is irrelevant to me what
Hume believed in regard to the soul...that is a fact and facts are
of no importance in our conversation... what matters is values...
what values should we hold, and it matters not what facts we hold to)

the soul has been thought of as being in the realm of religious thoughts..
how to improve our soul to get to heaven... that was the point of religions,
how do we find salvation in a religious sense?

but as we now belong to the secular age of cause and effect without
religion, we can keep the idea of soul and lose its relationship
with theology....

this battle was originally begun by Socrates.. read Plato and see
how often Socrates talks about soul and its improvement....
but we have ''forgotten" Plato and Socrates.. and only think of the
soul in religious terms... and that is a mistake...

I would suggest that part of the civil war we are having today,
in so many spheres, come from our failure to take our soul
into consideration and without any religious context...

the conservative civil war comes, in part, from their pursuit of
the trinkets of existence... they don't think about or care about
the soul.. the conservatives are focused on acquiring the trinkets
of existence...money, fame, titles, material possession, power....
and therein lies the civil war going on right now in the conservative
party... they are fighting over the spoils of those trinkets...
the idea of being good or evil has no bearing on their civil war..
what counts is how much money or power or material possessions
one can get in congress... and it is easy to fall into civil war when
the battle is over the trinkets of existence as the current conservative
civil war is all about who controls the gold and who gets the gold..
and not about what is right or wrong, good or evil or the state
of one's soul... that is clearly irrelevant in today's conservative party...

if the goal is to gain power or money or material possessions,
then the question of good or evil is unimportant...

and the failure of the new religion, Masculine Christianity, comes
from the focus of making it masculine, not a focus on good or evil,
but on the masculinity of beings... we can begin to see the failure
in modern day America... it is focused on the wrong set of values...

the objective of Modern day America is not on seeking out what is
good or evil or what is the right thing to do, or what set of values
we should have, but to gain wealth, or power or titles or material possessions....
and we see that clearly in politics and within religion today....

the solution as I see it, comes from thinking about the soul and what
it takes to do the ''right thing" and not think of it, within religious
values, but think about it within the idea of an engagement with
with right or wrong.. but as it often been asked, what is right or wrong?

right depending on, or wrong depending on? what does it mean to
seek out what is right?

and that is my next post...

Kropotkin

the American ideal of right or wrong is basically whatever
benefits me is right and whatever hurts me is wrong.....
with no considerations of others...

but we are social creatures.. we can only live and survive
with others... we cannot survive without others.. it is really
as simple as that... and so, given our need for others, for
our need for a state/society, we must include our understanding
of right and wrong to other people and even the state/society....

and therein lies the clash... which has priority? the state/society or the
individual? therein lies much political science and philosophy and economics....

or as been said, which needs are we to meet, our individual
needs or our collective needs and just as importantly, why those
needs and not other needs?
and how does this include our understanding of right and wrong?

think about that famous sailor, Robinson Crusoe.... when he was on
his island, alone... did he have any need for morals or ethics?
no, ethics, morals only exists within a group of people... one who
exists alone has no need for ethics or morals...

so, we can already see that ethics/morals are collective...
held by two or more people.. and this question of right and
wrong is also a collective one...what is right is a collective
question.. what is right for us... collectively...

and we return to the question of the point or goal of existence?
what is right or wrong pertains to the goal or point of existence...
one of the fundamental goals of existence is survival...
if the human race dies out, there was no point to existence...
thus, there was no point to say, dinosaurs as they died out....

but as usual, there is rarely ever one point or goal of something...
and what is another point or goal of existence?

as we have rejected the past ways of consciousness, that of magical thinking
and that of theological thinking...we enter the age of naturalism...
everything is naturalism... the point of existence is through materialism
or improvement of the soul (without any theological excuses)
that we hold to cause and effect having a natural point...
that we can, if we search long enough, to find everything in
the universe is natural, nothing is supernatural or outside of
our understanding.....

and so morals/ethics too have a natural understanding...
that right and wrong are about us as a collective and
as individuals...with no supernatural or outside the understanding
of human beings....

for most of us, ethics/morals are really situational ethics..
the situation dictates the ethics...which is that bad but
it is ''ad hoc" of the moment without any thought to
creating a universal rule or law.... situational ethics is
of the moment... with no collective thinking involved...
and that is the problem with situational ethics...
it cannot be included into an overall, universal
ethics or morality.... but in thinking about it,
even situational ethics is, in part, already included
into the rules, laws of human beings... we can be charged
with various laws depending on the motivation of the agent
involved...was the act premeditated, was the act
from anger or lust or was the act from greed and desire of wealth?
the law itself acts on the knowledge that accidents happen...

so, is it possible to design or create a universal, overall ethical theory
that includes all of us, collectively, that isn't situational ethics?

everyone can agree that murder is wrong and yet, depending on
the situation, murder is not only considered to be right, but
to be celebrated and rewarded...

one possibility of thinking about right and wrong maybe to think
of right and wrong in a collective sense, not an individual sense..
does this action help or hinders the state/society?

ethics/morals based on how it helps or hinders the state or society,
can become a more universal, overall thinking about morals, ethics..
but that means we must think about what the state/society is about...
what is the goal or point of the state/society? is it to aid the individual
or is it to aid the universal? I suspect that the state/society can aid
both the individual and the community... it doesn't have to be one or
other...and where the conservative seems to miss is that
we cannot, cannot devote ourselves exclusively to individual
pursuits... to seek out the trinkets of existence to the exclusion
of other values is to harm and hinder the state/society.....
so the conservative valuing the ''taxpayer" over the state/society
is to harm the state/society.... for what is good for the taxpayer
isn't necessarily good for the state/society.... but what is good
for the society/state is good for the ''taxpayer''... and the ''taxpayer''
can only survive and prosper with a strong state/society..
for a weak state/society threatens not only the ''taxpayers"
but everyone within that state/society....

our collective strength and survival depends on a strong state/society..
even a modest look at societies/states that are strong and that are weak,
tell us that the individual requires a strong state to survive and prosper....

and conservatives argue for a weak state, a weak society in favor of
strong individuals... and that is the path to failure...as our current
collapse of the house of representatives has shown us...
and the current and ongoing collapse of capitalism....
the pursuit of individual goals over the health of the
state/society has led us to our many ongoing problems in
today's society.... we cannot, if we want to survive and
prosper, put the individual needs before the states/society
needs...

now many may argue that that is communism, that is collectivism,
and how is that wrong?

the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or so
I have heard...and it is true....and is there some danger in
putting the needs of the many ahead of the needs of the few?
yes, there is clearly some danger... but there is danger on
any path we take... waking up in the morning is a path to
danger... that goes with the territory of being alive...
every single path of existence has some dangers involved
with it... the question is, what dangers are acceptable and
what dangers are not?

and I would put the danger to the individual lower than
the danger to the state/society.... because we cannot exist
the state/society whereas the state/society can exist without
anyone individual....

whereas the conservatives put the danger to an individual higher
than any such danger to the state/society.... and that is, for lack
of a better term, ego at work....much of what we do, we do because
of ego at work...individually, we believe ourselves to be of greater
importance than the collective...then the state or society...
and this is not true.. for we cannot individually survive without
the state/society...

now do I hold as Kant did that we have a ''duty" to the state/society?
Now I am not sure that duty is the right word... we do hold something
to the state/society, but is ''duty'' the right word? I don't think so....
perhaps, perhaps the right word is ''responsibility?'' or perhaps
having an ''obligation'' is the right word?

I am not sure... it is possible that we don't even have the right word today...
a word that is somewhere between duty and responsibility?
and I can see some even objecting to my words, the
word ''duty'' and ''responsibility'' might be, to some, be the exact same word...

in which case, we still need a word that covers what I am talking about...

Kropotkin

*slams buzzer*

Least resistance!?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 6:57 pm *slams buzzer*

Least resistance!?

K: I would answer this if I even knew what this meant...

Kropotkin

now some may see my thoughts as being completely with the
state/society and thus a ''communist" but recall, I was an
anarchist for over a decade... and I have no great love for the
state/society... but I do value what is needed for us as human beings,
to succeed and survive.. and that path is better served through
a state/society then any sort of anarchists society/state....
at least for now.....

but the point of this thread is nihilism.... and what have I defined
''nihilism'' as? the devaluation of human beings and their values....
an example of this is within capitalism... which devalues, dehumanizes
us in the pursuit of money/profits....human lives and values are
devalued for the pursuit of profits/money...what comes first in
the business world, money or people lives? and the answer to that
question is quite obvious... money/profits before lives.. every single time...
and some of the things that America has done right is within the bill of rights...

for example, the American right to free speech and the right of religion,
is fundamental in America.. it has put values before the trinkets of
existence... the right to be who you are is the battle before us..
to be gay or trans or even in the eyes of the conservative, black or
minorities is suspect in the GOP/MAGA party..

but that is nihilism, as I have defined it... to devalue or dehumanize others
because their values or person are different than yours is nihilism...


now some may say I am engaged in nihilism by my statements...
but that would devalue/deny all criticism and free speech
of all people and values... so we have a quandary...
free speech and criticism or we engage in a devaluation/dehumanizing
of others?

what is the answer?

Kropotkin

let us talk a bit more about the relationship between the
state and the individual...

and to do so will require some understanding of relationships...
I have been married for 27 years... now in my relationship as with
all other relationships, it requires give and take.. and the primary
idea of the right is a zero-sum game... in which one person wins
and the other loses... it is an absolute game... where only one person
can win... now let us reexamine a marriage... will a marriage survive
if the two people within it play the zero-sum game?

and the answer to this can be answered by anyone who has been married..
no... a zero-sum game cannot be played within a relationship... one side
will soon give up.. a game that cannot be won by one side or the other
has no interest to the losing side...and this is true of any relationship...
a zero-sum game has no interest to the losing side.. and at some
point, the losing side will leave, give up...and the same is true within the
relationship between the individual and the state/society.... if the state
always wins, the individual questions the value of being in that relationship..
and here we are... many individuals within America, question the value
of being in a relationship with the state/society.....

the entire MAGA movement is based on this notion of questioning
the entire relationship between the individual and the state...
one cannot underestimate the hatred that the MAGA crowd hates
American institutions like congress or the IRS, the FBI or the
White house... and that hatred is manifested by the BS of
IQ45, every single time he questions American institutions like
the FBI or the IRS or even congress...
and that devaluing of American institutions devalues the country itself...

if, and some say when, America fails, it will not be because
of the gays or trans or liberals, it will because of the right wing
devaluation of American institutions....  the destruction of
American institutions, has brought us to a near fatal point,
where we are close to the end of America as we know it...

the endless pursuit of private values like money and fame and power,
also help in this destruction of America and its values.... to pursue
this goal of gaining the trinkets of existence, will help bring about
the end of the American state... for that is nihilism, to put personal
goals ahead of the state/society........

Kropotkin

"I would answer this if I even knew what this meant..."

U should be able to infer from the context of these three facts that i must have made a funny, keter. Or tried to make a funny, anyway.

1. Prom75 very frequently tries to make a funny.

2. The title of the thread is in the form of an incomplete sentence and/or question much like the questions read by the host on jeopardy.

3. My reply resembles a caricature of a gameshow contestant answering a question.

The problem is you're too fuckin smaht keter. Like one of those serious smaht dudes who have no time to fuck around. You're with friends at the Applebee's and somebody cracks a joke and u don't even notice becuz you're in deep contemplation of what it means to value, to be a productive part of one's community, to uphold the principles of our founding fathers and what it means to reexamine Descartes' meditations.

U even look like Stephen King man. The scarily serious lookin type of dude.

That's no bullshit u guys keter looks like Stephen King and Clark Kent in the same body. I seen a picture of him once u would fuckin spill your drink if u saw him. That's some funny shit. He totally looks like a dude who would post like he does.

thanks prom.. I think....

part of why I think America is having the issues that it is, is
because what we are doing different... the churches failures has
come since they have gotten involved in politics... the churches
have gone seeking power in a secular way when it has gotten
away from seeking out our spiritual needs... the churches are
seeking to gain power to dictate policy as they are so doing and in
doing so, they have lost followers...

the churches have lost interest in their primary goal which is to heed
to our spiritual needs.. to sooth the soul and churches no longer do that..
nowadays churches are about politics... and that isn't what a church is about...

and why is the democratic party much more solid than the GOP/MAGA party?
the democrats are engaged in a coherent policy and operational place and
the GOP/MAGA party are not...all the GOP/MAGA party is engaged with is
seeking power, just as the churches are.. and that isn't what governance is
about... the GOP/MAGA party are clearly unable to govern.. they are in charge
of the house and that place is a shitshow.. but the democrats are in charge
of the senate and the white house.. and see how smoothly those two
institutions run.. meanwhile the GOP/MAGA party is in the midst of a nasty
civil war...which is making the house of representatives in crisis mode
and basically ungovernable...

in other words, the two institutions are engaged in actions that are not
in their best interest of having the institutions working...they are moving outside
of what they are supposed to do.. the house is simply playing power politics
as is the churches... and that is not what they are supposed to do... and it
has cost them the ability to function...

for example, the house is engaged in a silly attempt to impeach Biden
and on what grounds? hell, they don't even know.. they just want to play
the tit for tat game.. and that has created their inability to function...
instead of doing their actual work.. which is to create the conditions
in which Americans can do their own thing...governance is about
creating the conditions for the average American to fulfill their
own needs.. the actual role of government is to allow people to fulfill
their needs... by taking care of tasks that allow Americans to meet their
own needs...if the government is taking care of taking away the garbage,
or taking care of the roads or having libraries.. then I don't have to do
that... and in doing so, I can meet my own needs of having food, water,
shelter, health care, and my psychological needs of love, esteem,
safety/security.... by the government taking over the basic jobs, I can
become who I am... and that is the role of government...
that isn't what the house is doing... they are playing power politics for
the win.. and that isn't helping Americans achieve their goals...
and the churches are not helping people meeting their spiritual needs,
they too are playing power politics and in doing so, they have failed
their constituents... and the response by the people have been to
walk away... the demand to turn American into Iran west is killing
the churches.. to turn America into a theological state
in which the word of god is running the government.. that has no place
for the simple reason, that people have moved into a place where religion
is no longer is important to them because, because of the actions of
the churches.. which have no interest in their role of healing the souls
of people...

why should I belong to a church that is only interested in power politics,
when it should be about my spiritual needs...there is no reason to
belong to a church today because they no longer care about my spiritual needs,
but they sure do care about politics.. and that is the reason for their failure...

Kropotkin