Philosophy Now Forum

is not individually induced but is socially, collectively induced...

let us create a small sample size... we have a classroom of 10 people...
if one of those ten people become a drug addict or drinks heavily,
or engages in other such behaviors, we can state that it is an
individual problem.... but let us say, we have 5 people in that
classroom who takes drugs or drinks excessively...
at what point in time can we pass from believing that it
is an individual problem to a collective problem?
what would make that percentage of a classroom,
50% turn to drugs? it is no longer an individual issue,
but somehow is a collective issue that has connected
50% of the classroom....

if you have some people getting the flu or Covid, it is not a big deal,
people get the flu.... but at what point does this individual aspect
become a collective spread of the flue? at what point does illness go
from being an individual thing, to a collective, outbreak of the disease?
when did Covid go from an individual thing to a pandemic? something
that impacted large numbers of people?

and Covid offers us some answers in regard to my question......
we have some people express great dissatisfaction with modern life...
at what point does that pass from an individual discontentment to
a social, widespread problem? at what point does a state or society need
to address this question? we have widespread unhappiness and individual
discontentment in what America is and does, at what point does it become
a collective problem?

I suggest that clues to this ''winter of discontentment'' is all around us,
we just have to see them...... I would suggest that the widespread drug
problems in America is a sign of this discontentment..... I would suggest
that the widespread unhappiness within America stems from a set of problems
that have, to today anyway, been ignored... and these problems threaten
to undo America today..... for they have gone from an individual response,
drug use, drinking, the ''feeling'' that people don't want to work anymore...
the loss of connection to state, community, religions, institutions of America,
all of these I hold are connections to a larger problem in America today....
all of these are symptoms of larger systemic problems in America today....

if you want to solve the rampant drug use in America, we need to rethink
what ails America today.... if you want to reengage Americans into America,
you have to rethink what is making America sick......

so, ask yourself, what is the ''illness'' that has made Americans sick?

and what is the cure for this ''illness?"

Kropotkin

what is the issue that drives much of the American ''angst?"
what is driving the dread and misgiving that is such a part of
the American experience today?

As usual, there is rarely ever one issue or problem that drives
all the rest.... we have several different issues that exemplify the
American experience......(and in no particular order)

we have no control over our lives....
politically, socially, economically.....
and it doesn't matter if it is true or not, we believe
it to be true, thus it becomes true......

we believe that big business has captured the modern state....
as far as big business goes, for example, Exxon Mobil,
it believes that the United States congress
is a well paid subdivision of Exxon-Mobil.....
that our government is owned lock, stock and barrel by big business
is no longer a fringe belief, but a basic bedrock belief of most
American's....that the government is bought and sold is not news,
to anyone.... and it doesn't surprise anyone.... which is the first brick in
our wall.... that the government no longer works for us, but works for
big business... we no longer have a voice in the state/in government.....
that is a common belief in America today....

that corporations simple do what they want, and we have no voice or say
in the matter.... but corporate America has two sides to it, the worker
side, the production side and the consumer side... what we buy.....
and do Americans have a say, a voice on ether side of big business?

The answer is clearly no.... let us work out the employment side of
corporations.... it has been said, that roughly half of all Americans
work in medium size corporations... but the big corporations drive what
happens in the medium size corporations.... let us take a car company like
Ford.... a rather big car company.... but literally hundreds of small/medium
corporations depend on Ford for their remaining in Business.... it is
the massive supply chain that allows a business like Ford to do make
its cars.... a strike at Ford doesn't just idle Ford, it idles hundreds
of smaller businesses that depend on Ford for business.... for example,
a change in the drive shaft of a car can bring a company to become larger
and alternatively, drive another company or dozens, out of business....

and the number of people that Ford itself employs... and what voice or
say does those people have on the day-to-day business of Ford?
As an individual worker working within a corporation, we have
very little, well frankly, no impact on the corporation......
I myself, work for a fairly large grocery store company....
my own voice, my say in the company is negligible... I have
worked there for 17 years, as of August 9th, and I have no
say in any aspect of how the business is run.. I have no role
of any kind in the decision making process.... my job is to
make the decisions work, I have no say in those choices....
told to jump and I am to ask, how high?

that is one side of the big business side... where big business
uses their power to enforce the worker to do their bidding.....
and there are no choices in this matter...

but we also have big business on the consumer side of existence....
I am also a consumer.... I buy goods at my store....and we have
very little impact on that side of a big corporation....

the theory is that because of competition, we have choices, don't
like the way that business works, we can simply go to the competition...
but again, that fails the test of reality..... there is very little competition
in the grocery business or in any other business for that matter.......

in grocery stores, one of the big sellers is cereal.. and every single
grocery store sells cereal..... and one would think that fact produces
competition and choices..... but that is a lie..... we have just
4 major cereal companies... you have in America, Post, General Mills,
Kellogg, Pepsico, Nestle.... 95% of all cereal in America is by one of these
companies.... and what choices does one have when 95% of all cereal is
made by one of these companies? So, go into a grocery store and you still
face, basically 5 choices....so, we might have Target, and Walmart,
as choices, as well as Krogers, Costco, Sam's club, Smart and Final, Winco,
Hy-vee, Meijer... to name a few grocery chains.... but given how few choices
actual exists on the shelf, what choices do you really have?

on the buying, consumer side of big business, you have very few choices....
we have no real say in our work environment and no real say in our consumer
choices..... so, economically, we are very limited in having a voice in
our lives..... this is the dominant theme of America today....

Our lives are not our own..... we are told in quite diverse sectors,
that we have no choice and no possibilities..... so, I have covered
two such aspects, politically and the economic, both in working/employment
and consuming goods..... and we have no choice legally either......
that the law, justice is no longer justice because it is no longer equal...
for that is what justice means, to be equal.... and we see because
of wealth or titles or fame, that we have a two tiered system....
the wealthy, powerful, the famous have one justice system
and the rest of us have another..... which is the complete opposite
of what justice is actually supposed to be..... justice is to be treated
equally regardless of who you are or what you own.....

but there is another area of having no voice in our existence,
and that is within culture, the ARTS..... mass produce culture
has no need for the individual input for it to do its thing.....
the MCU universe has no need or desire to seek out what the
average person wants to see and hear..... we are told what
is on the TV and what music is being played on the Radio
and what books are in the bookstores.... we have no voice
or say in the creation of culture, the ARTS today......

So, given all of the different ways that we have no voice, no input
into, one isn't left to wonder why people take to such actions
as drugs or the current state of apathy, and despair that litters
the streets of America today....

we take drugs because we have no say or voice in our lives today....
we self isolate simply because there is no place for us in the life
of America today.....we have no input or ability to impact our lives
in a wide number of ways.... we are silent.... and thus taking drugs
makes complete sense..... it is not an isolated, individual thing,
but a response driven by the lack of say or voice in our own lives....
it is a collective thing because so many millions of American's are
reacting in the exact same way.....

we have rejected the search for the truth and now looking for a
good fantasy to believe in....

the problem within America today is a collective problem,
and thus needs a collective solution....

the question is simple, how do we reclaim our voices in
the modern world? How do we, once again, have some impact
on our own lives? We have been excluded in our own lives,
in virtually every way..... how do we become part of our own lives?
and in so doing, we can reduce the drug use in America, we can reduce
the violence in America today, we can return to a stronger America,
if, if we actually give people a say, a choice in their lives......
much of the problems in American today will slow down and even
end if, if we were to give people a say in their own lives.....

Kropotkin

another point to consider is that capitalism, as a group,
has no use for the workers working within it....
workers, employees are simply an ends to the means,
the means to create profits, for that is the goal in business,
not the workers, but the creation of profits....
if monkeys could work, we would all be out of a job.....
or if machines could take over, they would....

that is another brick in the wall in this feeling in America....
that we are, and businesses makes sure we know, that
we are expendable......... and another could easily replace
us tomorrow..... hence the need for millions of unemployed
people....

and this leads us to the question of investement....
why should I or we, invest in America, if America
and the businesses that run America, don't value us....
consider us expendable....

Why should I invest in, take pride in, hope for an America that
has no use for me outside of the creation of profits?
and we see this in the rise of Trumpism..... they are anarchists
that want to destory everything.... and at this point, they
have a point.... they want to destroy the ''deep state'' whatever
that means.... to dismantling the IRS, FBI, Department of Interior,
the education department, any federal angency involved in worker
safety or health...... and all of this stems from a feeling
that the individual has no value or worth in America today....
The average MAGA type has no investment in America today....
but being conservatives, they can only express themselves
in a negative fashion...... they are unable to act in a positive
fashion in a response to any kind of action....

the entire MAGA movement is a response to the feeling of
having no value or worth in America today.....but as mentioned,
they respond with fear, they take the negative approach to
actions, instead of seeking out a positive approach....
instead of demolishing the IRS or the FBI, how about
reform? Let us make it better..... but that answer is refused
because the MAGA type believes that the institutions of America
are beyond reform, beyond help..... the only path left is the
path of destruction..... demolish everything and so what?
that is the part the MAGA type never quite get to, ok, let us
take this think apart, lets us blow the government sky high,
now what? what is the step after that? There isn't a MAGA type
that can answer that because they have no idea what it next.....
blow up all up and that is it.... we have a utopia.... that is at least
what the MAGA idiot thinks....not much different than the Russian
communist before 1917... blow it up and we become a worker state,
a paradise, a utopia.... it didn't exactly work out that way, did it?

if you are going to blow it up, great, but at least show me a plan
for what happens afterward.... the MAGA party doesn't have that.....
if you destroy the FBI, at least have a plan for what happens after.....
and the MAGA party, nor the conservatives have a plan for that...
all they have is fear and from fear, you cannot conceive of a future
that is worth having....

a positive future must come from a positive plan for the future....
where is the positive plan for the future from the conservatives/MAGA?
I have never seen, nor do I expect to see a positive plan for the future from
conservatives or MAGA..... they don't believe in positive...
they believe in hate, anger, prejudice, bigotry and of course, fear.....
listen to them.... do they offer us a positive future?
do they give us plans for the next step, in what America is supposed to be?

NO, you only hear about the negative, get rid of the blacks, get rid of
''WOKE'', get rid of CRT, get rid of Education, get rid of democracy,
get rid of... so on and so forth...... and ask them, what is to replace these
things? You don't get an answer because they have no answer for you......

and this is part of the American crisis.... what is next? ask conservatives
and they say, get rid of... and any liberal answer is rejected as ''WOKE""
whatever the hell that means.......

No answer is good enough for the right.. because they are negative
24/7/365..... and there is no possibility for some positive answers,
because it is automatically rejected by the conservative.....

and this is just another brick in the wall... that any answer is
automatically rejected because it is positive... and god forbid
we endorse anything positive....and thus America sinks into further
and further into a malaise and despair...... and why not?
any positive answer is rejected......

live in the negative long enough and one can only see the negative....
as the MAGA/conservatives can only see the negative today.....

Kropotkin