political philosophy

Politics is a form of blindness to the truth. The polarity is incredibly stark. All the hope is placed on ideologies that don’t hold up. They use grand terms like a utopic future that a good leader will create.  But that isn’t how power works in this world. Democracy has already been dismantled. There is a wealthy elite that is ruling the rest of us.  I think we are blind leading the blind. We are stuck in this weird system run by pieces of paper. We live like we have unlimited resource. The population is unsustainable. We are ruining the planet, our only home. The Earth is being ravished with climate change.

These belief systems haven’t been in place that long, but we continue to feed the system and are stuck in these backwards ways. People don’t take responsibility for their actions. We are too busy dealing with many other problems and live in survival mode, with little time for contemplation. We are self-serving and have no regard for others and future generations.  Victor Lebow wrote an essay that talked about how we find our “ego satisfaction” in shopping. Climate change disasters will probably make things more competitive, and stringent. The competition will increase. Perhaps working on a local level, creating communities and inclusion could help rebuild a new world. We do have responsibilities especially to the Earth and our local communities.

How do we work around the sheer numbers of people that are ignorant or would prefer to stay ignorant? We don’t need more successful people, we need more collaboration, peacemakers etc. I think leading by example is one answer. When you are in the dark, maybe you are the light. It would take a lot of intention to be able to create more localized communities. I think the fact that there are so many people losing their jobs, allows a new design. I’ve heard of people suggesting that we all get a base income, as in socialism.

There is a lot of chaos in our world.  Truths are drowned out by fake news, and our value systems are falling apart. I propose we reinforce positive ideas and I believe that starts with education. Most of our value systems are contingent upon our formative years. I do think we are living through a “rebirth” of sorts. And with that rebirth, we have to leave a lot of our pasts behind. I do believe there is a spiritual awakening happening gradually, and right now we are learning what doesn’t work. I think starting anew will be very interesting and I think that the coming years are going to change a lot. A final thought is that fear-based living is less sustainable. That it isn’t a permanent solution in any sense.

 

 

 

 

The scientific viewpoint is limited, though. There is extreme progress and new things are discovered all the time, but we still fail to acknowledge that fact. We believe our current understanding is “the absolute truth.” We need proof to believe in anything else, such as other belief systems.

 

The convergence of ideas is interesting. I’ve noticed that the more knowledge we glean, the more the different subjects overlap. In the sciences, biology, chemistry and physics become more connected. There are plenty of other examples. The interconnectivity is so complex. I liked one of the conversations from the group about how the natural world inspires awe. I think it is something to marvel over and not take from granted.

 

Philosophy is mainly about deconstructing ideas into their fundamental parts. I like learning about consciousness in particular. There are different aspects of cultural identity that are infused in the narratives we think. I believe that our thoughts are pivotal in developing our identities, and I think that our choices matter- that they are there to help us evolve and grow.

Religions can nicely complement each other. I think “tradition" is not something to be discarded, there are merits to this stuff. Eastern tradition dictates awareness and acknowledgement of suffering. It also stresses the interconnectedness between all of us. Western tradition on the other hand has more acknowledgement of being at the mercy of a higher power. It also has a lot of traditions, around it. There are different branches of Buddhism, some with more magical aspects like different characters bodhisattvas and then Zen which is so contemplative you leave common sense at the door. but I think that Eastern brings awareness of self and that we are fairly small in the "vast arena" state of events. 

The sense of awe does go beyond intellectualizing. Intuition is also important because human beings actually have a lot of depth of emotions that are quite impressive. Our intuition and appreciation of aesthetics in the realm of ideas are powerful. True creativity is in experimentation: thinking about ideas and playing with them.