Note Books Continued

April 1, 2011

Consciousness is struggling conflicted, wroth with tensions undermining what is true, and new truths replace older ones.

Existentialism or what can a Classical Marxist borrows of from Existentialism? Existentialism? Stressing the individual's exclusive understanding as a self-determining agent responsible for the legitimacy because of the freedom of her choices. One of the first principles of Existentialism is that of Freedom. Freedom stands as the greatest of all human virtues and its most tragic fear. Because of this Existentialism is more of a life style than a philosophy. Existentialism is also the expression of that way of life. It is coming to terms with our inescapable Freedom. How we deal with our Freedom clearly indicates how we live our everyday life. We can say the Existentialist is primarily concerned with the individual and her life in society.

Because we are always free, even if we are set up in a historical and cultural location, and we all exist in the world of everyday life there can never be a universal essence of being Human accepted by all people and all times. We live as material beings first and there is no real meaning in life. The meaning of our lives is our own creation and our choice. We define our own meaning and that remains our own creation. This defines how we live in the world. Existentialist is aware that she is the author of her own life. Her essence is only what she says it is. The only Human Nature is what each individual says it is in relation to herself. We create our own Nature and we can change if we prefer. I choose Rebellion and it becomes a way of life. Existentialism offers an opportunity to more than just exist, but to become aware of how we exist.

We become the authors of our self-consciousness. Because we are free to create “Ourselves”, we can accept and celebrate our creation or change that we are. This means we recreate ourselves everyday. How I exist and who I say I’m is important to me.

I am more than just existing; I am constantly defining who I am. I can do this because I am aware that I exist and I am my own creation. I create my own Nature by being conscious of myself, the world around me and am the choices I have before me. I can make myself by using what exist now. However, I must become aware of what my real options are, and learn the differences between this and pure fantasy. To be free requires not only choices, but also both what is possible and impossible.

April 4, 2011

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was Murdered in Memphis TN. 1968. One year to the day after his Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence.

April 5, 2011

Logic is the study of how we think. There is an objective world around us that is interpreted by us and through thinking about it makes sense. If there is close match between what we think is real and the material reality independent of our consciousness than possibly our logic is sound.

History follows certain patterns the Now or what currently exists no matter stable it seems it is always changing. We have something that now exists (being) it is in fact unstable. Because of this it is breaking down (nothing), as it breaks down the materials left over is forming something new (becoming).  At some point we are looking at something new, which in turn is already breaking down and form something new all over again.

This is how evolution works in the Universe, Nature, biology, and cultural history and how our mind works and develops over time.

Consciousness comes to awareness this way. It can almost be described as conflict and tensions undermine what is true as new truths replace older ones.

There is set human nature, but this constantly evolving human history. The very foundation of the human condition is interpreted through the lenses of a specific historical and cultural venue. Philosophy, ideology or cultures are terms used to understand this continually evolving setting. This frame of references sooner or later fails because a new social setting is forever emerging. This is changing in a social scene that has already passed away.  There are always new problems that we must meet and these require new innovative solutions. This requires continual reinterpretation of traditions until we have a new worldview as our frame of reference.

April 8, 2011

People are fashioned by and in part create their ever-changing historical environment that is continuously refined by their continually evolving culture. Cultures exist before individuals are born, but in turn are daily redefined by the living individuals in their everyday lives. The past is continuously projected into the future by living and participating in the culture any individual lives in. History as it is retold is changed by the historians of the ever-changing present.

April 11, 2011

Humans are a product of their social upbringing all right. But, they are an active part that imperfectly formed by that environment. They behave in away that would seem that they are making choices and these in turn become a part of a changed environment. The fact that the cultures we are born into have an effect on whom and what we are does not the fact we constantly change, arbitrate and modify existing cultural understandings the life that experience does not change we are the active component in our lives. Existence is experiencing the external environment and interpreted by our cultural heritage.

Humans are animals who often believe they are not, because they can define their own animal nature. People exist in the world and each individual is part of a larger social network or society and as such part of a larger eco-system. Thus the individual through this complex interaction is something more than the self.  Each individual is a self, interacting with what goes beyond the self. The Beginning of Philosophy is always set in an ever-changing history. Each new school builds on what went before, but is always just the beginning.

Consciousness is experiential and can be communicated through the abstract generalization of language. This communication allows for historical evolution of culture. My direct is always filtered and clouded by culture and my personal biography. This is always changing and rewriting itself. The Self is a part of this renewing of the Self through the replenishing of the Ethos of Culture.  The human environment is based upon understanding even if misinterpreted.

April 12, 2011

Humans live in a material world modified by a culture and a society that existed before the birth of the Individual. This is the raw material that existed outside of my consciousness. This defines the facts of life. This material reality limits my options, yet options remain making choices inescapable. It is through choice we become who we are. It is through choice we help change our environment.  Humans exist without any unity or universal human nature. All individuals are missing a single human nature, but all people are part of human history. From the past we draw the elements to create a future. From the past we draw the elements to create a future. Because we are dealing with a changing environment in which we are altering ourselves, human nature and culture be we collectively and individually we are coming to terms the changes all around us. There is always an uncertainty about the future. We try to lessen as much as we can the anxiety that goes with uncertainty never completely successfully. To minimize dread or even angst in the face of hesitancy of doubt that is always there. We seek to control what we can and avoid that which we cannot hope to overcome. We make choices that will either increase or decrease our chances.

We embrace our lives as it unfolds. We need to embrace lives as if we had a say in who and what we are. In this way our lives are our own. Death becomes the deep meaning in life. Even before we are born we are old enough to die. This ever-present despair becomes the source of our greatest hope, the source of our strength, and our deepest personal meaning. Death is so final and is our constant companion. Because when we die it is as if we were never born, each moment of life is charged with an intensity that that makes each moment filled to its capacity. If it were not for death our lives would be filled with boredom and mundane compliancy. Because Death is always facing us at every moment we face life at its fullest. We become aware of the choices we face everyday anew. Each moment being potentially our last becomes the source of our greatest joy even in our pain. Because Death is a constant in our lives we have for the moment we realized this fact we have already transcended fear to fully embrace the responsibility of choosing each day the further embracing of the choices that maximizes our full potential.

April 13, 2011

The individual can and will make choices. These choices set into motion a whole series of events, some of which are not expected. Much of what happens is what are hoped for, yet at the same time further on there are unanticipated consequences that become a part of the environment the individual must deal with.

The issue of human nature becomes a false dilemma. Human nature is something created and not pre-existing. We create our nature out of cultural and historical specifics. Yet we are not completely determined by our past.  Some individuals choose to reject the cultural answers they were born with. We can choose to accept how we were raised or we can protest the status quo.

We exist and act within a world we were born into. But we can act freely within that environment with a limited number of options before us. In this way we become some one new, we create ourselves out of what we once were. The future is created out of the past, but always a different something than what went before. In this process were if we are making choices the options often are predetermined. Using the concept laid out by Sartre we are free, but free in a determined way.

Even if we are the authors of our own lives, things rarely turn out the way we have planed. We make decisions that change things, and this changes the environment in many ways. There are some changes we anticipated, some that not quite how we planned. There are many others that are quite a surprise.  Once make a choice however this becomes a new objective environment that will work in the future.

Humans make choices daily. Once we become aware of the fact that choice is always there maybe an individual will in a better position to make the choices we want to. This is the freedom we fight for, we have choice we cannot escape making choices not always are there the options we want however. Freedom what a sweet word, freedom is our highest desire yet because with freedom comes responsibility and freedom become our greatest fear. Freedom would mean taking responsibility for the choices we make, even if things do not turn out as we have planned.  Security is really more important than freedom to many people. Because freedom carries with responsibility often we lie to ourselves calling ourselves while escaping freedom.

This weakness allows people to give up their freedom freely to people to make decisions for them. Loyal citizens can avoid responsibility because their leaders know best.  Any and all evil can be justified because the leaders will absolve the citizens of their crimes. Security became the savior of humanity and freedom is the threat at the front door. This is the origin of bad faith Sartre talks about. To be rally free it would seem that a person must accept responsibility. The sad fact is no matter how hard we try we cannot avoid that we are responsible for our choices, and therefore accountable to who lives it affects. Thus bad faith is all we have to protect us from our actions.

Each person lives in a social world that existed before she was born, will continue after she dies. In this world certain facts continue after she dies. In this world certain facts continue to present through our lives. In turn because of our awareness we can use these facts to make decisions on how to live our lives.

Because we both think and act because of our awareness we can use these facts to make decisions on how to live our lives. What we experience is life set in an environment that we live in; the better we understand how it is constructed the more likely our decisions will be what we expected. Because we live in a material world that is moving through time, the decisions we make affect not only this world but also future generations. We are given the material we need to deal with from a real lived history, what we do today is the history for people in the future.

By looking at intensions rather than behavior we can perjure ourselves to keep secret our quilt. Innocence is our creative fiction. On some level we know if we are fakes or not. To fully enjoy life we should celebrate life at the fullest and realize we have the potential to rebel.

April 14, 2011

When we make choices ultimately we are the one’s responsible for those choices and there out comes. Apathy and sloth and trying not to think too much because thinking can be painful, thus we lie to ourselves. It takes a special kind of moral courage to accept responsibility. Security, happiness or mind deadening activities helps us avoid facing up to our responsibility as having to make choices daily. We come to believe the lies we tell ourselves and never fully accept that we cannot avoid choices. Often followers never question the leaders and the leaders often fully believe their crimes will lead to a greater good someday. Freedom is a feeling even a slave can lie to themselves and come to believe they are free. The pain and oppression becomes hidden threatening to appear at any moment. By telling our selves it is not important this is not real we create delusions that are never exposed. To really be free beyond simply be beyond simple belief and beyond our lies people must accept responsibility for our choices and accept responsibility and accept the consequences.  More often than not these choices lead to unforeseen consequences the results are unplanned for. Thus choices change the environment constantly, the results now become a part of the startling objective reality. From then on it is material reality. It changes for everyone.

April 15, 2011

To survive we accept there is an external world. We react to that world in a way as if we believe the external world is fact real. Therefore I will assume there is a material reality independent of our consciousness and we can understand that world or at least part of it through observation. Skepticism about reality is an intellectual exercise that really leads nowhere.  To survive I assume reality is real, and wasting my time in actuality does not change either my attitude or my behavior while reacting to the material environment around me. What I do not have a clear understanding is of other individuals in my life. Each person has their own consciousness and makes choices in their lives. I drop a rock and it falls to earth that much is clear. Other people have the potential to behave in ways I did not expect. Science is a way of studying the world around me. In Chemistry when presented with the same or similar conditions I get the same or similar results. All though I make Predictions about other people and act on them, there is always the possibility that sometimes the Other will behave differently.

I have direct knowledge of my own thoughts and ideas. Mind is tied closely to my body and I directly experience my body and I think about my mind and body. I refer to myself as if my mind and body are one; I have real reason to doubt this. I do not have the same clear knowledge of other people. The Other is clearly a part of my external environment and I experience the Other in much the same way as I experience the weather. My experience tells me the Other is not I.  Through experience, interpretation and imagination I develop a sympathetic understanding. I both care for the Other and claim I understand how she feels, but sometimes I am surprised. 

April 18, 2011

Existentialism: Freedom and Alienation Life has no preexisting meaning. Each individual defines life’s essence. It is entirely arbitrary the meaning one individual may chose. The ongoing life there is a constant, at any point we have choices whether to rebel or accept our fate with apathy.

Anarchist Syndicalism

The world as a whole from the shop floor to the entire globe is under the administration of One Big Union. Rank and File operated, beginning at the local and federated carefully at each level to protect the authority of the lower levels. The One Big Union should replace other forms of government Worldwide. The unions own, control and run all industry through self-management councils, councils, working groups, local council or soviet.

Anarchist Communism (Anarchist Socialism) (Libertarian Communism)

Advocating liberation through Communism

This happens as the movement for a process by which groups of people make collective decisions in order to establish a society that is with out classes and this should also be a stateless society that is structured with both the base and superstructure built upon common control and ownership of the means of production, guaranteed access to needed necessities and objects of use, distribution, consumption bringing an to end of wage labor and private property in the means of production and landed property. The work councils of soviets are free associations. There is a deep commitment to maximizing individual freedom with in the group by celebrating eccentricities   Equal distribution of resources and the requirements and of the assurance that the necessities of life are without difficulty accessible to any and all who need them. It is not right that a person or corporate entity can deny access to the necessities of life to those who need them through private ownership of land, money or the resources themselves.