Contents
Chapter 1: A perspective, it’s not about us humans.
Scientific theory vs. opinion.
The barrier we lean against comforts us.
Anarchy, why not?
I write almost every day and do so with pleasure. I could have written everything just for myself, but posting it on a blog forces me to write with the understanding that it might be read. What you find on this page is my first attempt to turn my writings into a book. This will be challenging because I usually write without knowing where I’m headed. That’s why I’m trying this format; I hope it helps me focus on a goal beyond the vague sense of the day. I write about anarchism not because I am particularly passionate about it, but because it serves as a way to discuss the underlying chaos in the world and our attempts to cover up that uncomfortable truth. It’s an experiment, and I hope I have the patience to revise chapters and paragraphs when necessary and the skill to impose some order on the chaos… that is my mind.
I have many notes underneath each “chapter.” The notes, especially the links to websites, aren’t really useful in an actual book, but they serve more as personal reminders for when I want to explore a topic further. Some of these notes link to pages where you could spend hours reading. I mostly read the introduction and conclusion, assuming the rest is just explanation that won’t change the main message significantly. I have a full-time job, which means I don’t always have the time to do proper research on every statement I make. I also try to write based on knowledge I’ve gathered over the years. For example, in the second chapter, I write about DNA or genes that follow their own plan and don’t care much about the host they inhabit. I remembered reading about that idea somewhere, searched for it online, and eventually came across Richard Dawkins’s famous book, The Selfish Gene. Like many books, this one is also a reworking of older ideas. I just hope that my approach is at least somewhat unique, and who knows what conclusions I might reach.
Introduction
First, some thoughts on anarchy. When most people hear about anarchy, they think of chaos and political disorder. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy1, you can read in the introduction: “Anarchism is a political theory, which is skeptical of the justification of authority and power, especially political power. Anarchism is usually grounded in moral claims about the importance of individual liberty. Anarchists also offer a positive theory of human flourishing, based upon an ideal of non-coercive consensus building. Anarchism has inspired practical efforts at establishing utopian communities, radical and revolutionary political agendas, and various forms of direct action…” At this moment, I am not so interested in the political side of anarchism. There are countless forms of anarchism, sometimes also called libertarianism, and like with all political tastes, they all claim some unique knowledge on how the world should be organized based on their conception of what the world is.
Where does the word anarchy come from? The word originates from ancient Greek anarchos and means “without a ruler.” The terms anarchy and anarchism are more commonly used in modern times to describe chaotic situations in societies, such as during wars, revolutions, and protests. In the early nineteenth century, anarchy mainly referred to chaos, but as various political groups formed, anarchists were among them. They adopted the name anarchy because they sought a form of government without a ruler or ruling group.
Anarchy is still mainly linked to chaos in society today. If you say you are an anarchist, you should explain that you aim for a community where people govern themselves and share a mutual understanding of life’s goals. You could also say that you are a libertarian; it’s a synonym for anarchist3. However, in the United States, the libertarian party has hijacked that name for their laissez-faire4 capitalism and lack of social responsibility. There are many forms of anarchism, and although I don’t want to align myself with any particular one, stating my goals automatically places me, if only in the camp of the non-aligned. I don’t call myself an anarchist unless someone asks, and I do this to surprise them or just to be honest. What I want to argue is that we all live in chaos and thus in anarchy. The universe began 13 billion years ago5 with chaos as one of its main driving forces, which still influences us and our society.
My goal is to argue that we live in a chaotic world, and we need to find a new way to live with this reality. One thing we all are “forced” to do is to live within a box of values and opinions. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t want to align myself with any particular group, but because I live in society, I will automatically be categorized as part of the non-aligned if I stubbornly refuse to choose, whether I like it or not. I believe that this habit of ours (or our society’s) to combat the underlying chaos by overlaying a layer of order and organization deserves some examination.
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anarchism/
- Libertarianism is a family of views in political philosophy. Libertarians strongly value individual freedom and see this as justifying strong protections for individual freedom.From:https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/
- 1530s, “absence of government,” from French anarchie or directly from Medieval Latin anarchia, from Greek anarkhia “lack of a leader, the state of people without a government” (in Athens, used of the Year of Thirty Tyrants, 404 B.C., when there was no archon). From:https://www.etymonline.com/word/anarchy
- Laissez-faire, (French: “allow to do”) policy of minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society.From:https://www.britannica.com/topic/laissez-faire
- The universe was in chaos after the Big Bang kick-started the cosmos, a new study suggests. While one might expect the explosion that began the universe to wreak some havoc, scientists mean something very specific when they refer to chaos. In a chaotic system, small changes can cause large-scale effects: From:https://www.space.com/9255-big-bang-moment-pure-chaos-study-finds.html
Chapter 1: A perspective, it’s not about us humans.
Scientific theory vs. opinion.
First, something about science: many people get confused when they read about the “theory” of evolution or the “theory” of gravity; some think it’s just an idea held by scientists and that it’s okay to disagree with them. This is a common misunderstanding between scientific theories and the theories we all have about everyday matters. You might have a theory about why milk spilled on the floor or who was responsible for a car accident, but that is more like an opinion. A scientist can have opinions, but their theories are tested by others, and until another scientist, using the scientific method1, can disprove them, they are considered for all practical purposes the truth.
Gravity is a good example. Everyone already knew that objects fall downward, and over time, people speculated about it, with many opinions that could not be tested yet. In the 16th century, Galileo disproved ancient beliefs that objects of different weights fall at different speeds. He devised a thought experiment and tested it in the real world by dropping different objects simultaneously from a tower to observe what happens. This experiment can easily be repeated, but it does not prove gravity itself; it only showed that all solid objects hit the ground at the same time regardless of weight. Later, scientists calculated these forces more precisely and started making predictions; they formed a hypothesis2 in which they predicted the positions of certain planets using their calculations. If these planets appear in a specific place at a certain time according to the hypothesis, you can see that as proof that their calculations are correct. Other scientists can use the same methods to see if they get the same results; this way, they can ensure no mistakes were made in the initial tests. In short, this is an example of the scientific method.
You can now see that your theory or hypothesis about why the milk was spilled is different from a scientific theory about gravity. The main difference is that you can never test who spilled the milk during the night; you can only assume that it was the cat. This example isn’t so dangerous, but if you look at medicine tested by different scientists (peer review) and so-called alternative medicine that is only based on the opinion that it works and anecdotal evidence4, not because it is tested independently. A side note: many people distrust so-called “big pharma” because they are in it for the money. I agree that these big companies are doing their capitalistic duty slavishly by making as much profit as possible, but so do all these alternative medicine producers. Selling snake oil is big business too.
If I now tell you that the Big Bang5, where our observable universe was “born,” happened 13.8 billion years ago, you have to understand that this number is the one most scientists agree on. The simplest way I can explain what scientists did is that they measured the speed and direction of the stars you see in the sky. If you calculate these directions, including acceleration and speed, you can then reverse these motions, and you will discover where every star started. It’s like filming a ball rolling on the floor and playing it backward; you will see that it ends where you pushed the ball. It turned out that all the stars also started at the same time and from the same point, which was the Big Bang.
Start of “life.”
After the Big Bang, everything started to move and keep moving. It took billions of years before our sun, a small star, formed around 4.6 billion years ago. Due to gravity and its effects on everything, our sun gathered large amounts of fuel and debris that orbit it. This debris begins to attract more debris, and this process gradually forms the planets in our solar system. It only took about a hundred million years for Earth to take its current shape. The debris turned into rock was still uninhabitable, but after another five hundred million years, early life appeared on planet Earth. What I’ve written now in a few sentences is much more complex and endlessly fascinating; I recommend reading about it yourself.
Scientists have spent many years exploring how life could have originated. There is some agreement but no definitive answers; lab tests have shown that what could be called life can spontaneously emerge in the atmosphere of an early planet or in hydrothermal vents in the ocean. However, life did begin, and one essential thing it needs is a form of an archive that records what that particular life form has accomplished up to that point. This “archive” is necessary for future lifeforms because it guides them on what to do, like growing a limb here or an eye there. We now call this archive DNA7, but you also have RNA8 and genes; there is much more to learn about this than I can ever explain.
Calling DNA just an archive is an oversimplification, of course, but I do it to make my point. You can find DNA from the beginning in all living things, and through natural selection, it spreads itself, which is how it eventually ended up in us. DNA is the one constant, and if one host disappears, it has already embedded itself in many others. Our DNA contains traces of ancestors who lived millions of years ago, and through us, we pass their “knowledge” forward. DNA is not a living being; if you laid DNA on a table, it wouldn’t move away or start inventing things.
Suppose that life started, as I suggest, not with a plan but simply because circumstances made it possible. What then is the purpose of life? We as humans have all sorts of religious and philosophical ideas about that, but try to step into the shoes of the first tiny cells that appeared to live in our ancient atmosphere. These cells just showed up, and they didn’t desire anything; they simply multiplied repeatedly until they became like us—a thinking collection of cells and DNA. You can think of humans as you wish, but they are probably the best hosts for DNA. The world will someday end along with all the DNA attached to it, but these humans, as hosts for the “smartest” DNA, are already planning to leave this planet and search for other places—so their DNA, in a way, can thrive more, far from a swollen sun9. I guess the DNA in a kangaroo might be pretty jealous of that.
The idea that genes (DNA) have their own “plan” is not new. One of the most influential books of the 20th century, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, covers this topic much more thoroughly and with greater authority than I ever could.
“Individuals are not stable entities; they are fleeting. Chromosomes are also shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over; they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators, and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose, we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever.” Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
- scientific method, mathematical and experimental technique employed in the sciences. More specifically, it is the technique used in the construction and testing of a scientific hypothesis. From:https://www.britannica.com/science/scientific-methodSee also: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/
- A hypothesis is an assumption, an idea that is proposed for the sake of argument so that it can be tested to see if it might be true. Fromhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypothesis#note-1
- Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work. From:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review
- Anecdotal evidence is a factual claim relying only on personal observation, collected in a casual or non-systematic manner. From:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidenceor from: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anecdotal%20evidence evidence in the form of stories that people tell about what has happened to them.
- The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with an infinitely hot, infinitely dense singularity, then inflated — first at unimaginable speed, and then at a more measurable rate — over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos that we know today. From:https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html
- In 1929 Hubble published his first paper on the relationship between redshift and distance. He tentatively concluded that there is a linear redshift-distance relationship; that is, if one galaxy is twice as far away as another, its redshift is twice as large. Two years later Hubble and Humason presented what astronomers and cosmologists widely judged to be very convincing evidence that the relationship is indeed linear and hence that a galaxy’s redshift is directly proportional to its distance. From:https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edwin-Hubblesee also: Hubble provided evidence that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the Earth, a property now known as “Hubble’s law”, despite the fact that it had been both proposed and demonstrated observationally two years earlier by Georges Lemaître. The Hubble–Lemaître law implies that the universe is expanding. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble
- DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA)… From:https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/basics/dna/and: The chemical DNA was first discovered in 1869, but its role in genetic inheritance was not demonstrated until 1943. In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick, aided by the work of biophysicists Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, determined that the structure of DNA is a double-helix polymer, a spiral consisting of two DNA strands wound around each other. The breakthrough led to significant advances in scientists’ understanding of DNA replication and hereditary control of cellular activities. From: https://www.britannica.com/science/DNA
- Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a molecule similar to DNA. Unlike DNA, RNA is single-stranded. From:https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/RNA-Ribonucleic-Acidand: All living things reproduce, copying their genetic material and passing it on to their offspring. Thus, the ability to copy the molecules that encode genetic information is a key step in the origin of life — without it, life could not exist. This ability probably first evolved in the form of an RNA self-replicator — an RNA molecule that could copy itself. From: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/side_0_0/origsoflife_04
- The most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years, after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded beyond the planet’s current orbit. From:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth
Why meaning.
Evolution theory significantly influences why we seek meaning. A key principle of evolution is the survival of the fittest. Sometimes, “fittest” is also called the strongest, which is a mistake made by Darwin. For predators, being fit and strong can be advantageous, and the same applies to gazelles, but most gazelles probably survive because they are skittish. You could say that most animals’ best survival strategy is to run away at the first sign of danger; even the lion would be wise to run once it knows about the threat a person with a gun poses. Darwin should have named his theory: survival of the scariest.
The earliest multicellular organisms probably already fled at the first sign of danger, leading to the evolution of birds that still fly away when they hear a sound they can’t identify. It is an evolutionary advantage for animals to run away when they sense danger. If they were curious, they risked being caught and eaten; this exploratory behavior is likely to die out. Only animals that react to strange noises by fleeing are more likely to survive and reproduce. Over time, this reaction to noises, smells, and sights developed into specific patterns. For example, when a twig breaks, the underbrush moves, a dark shadow appears, or a predator’s eyes open, a pattern is formed: broken twig = uncertainty = predator. In reality, the sound of a broken twig was rarely followed by a predator, but the scared animal still reacted as if a predator was present because it responded to a learned and inherited pattern.
This habit of translating more complex circumstances, like living in constant danger in a jungle, into simpler patterns is the reason why the earliest humans started to believe that there were “Gods” in the sky. They thought that lightning striking a tree was similar to them making a spark with flint to light a fire. This is because the simple pattern is: I hit a flint, and a spark follows when you then see lightning coming from the sky, and it makes a fire; the simple pattern tells you that someone strikes a flint in the sky and makes a fire. We now know why there is lightning, and we can also describe in minute detail how an arm works, how it moves, and how it grips a flint, etc., etc. We now understand, or we can learn to understand if we want to, a lot of forces in nature and the reasons why things happen, but we also still have this pattern-seeking habit in us.
So, we know that we live in a complicated world where we try to find meaning, like a bird in a thick, overwhelming jungle. Because it is hard to see the meaning in this overload of information, we break it down into easier-to-understand pieces and translate that into patterns we can handle. This process of dissecting reality happens without us thinking about it; it just happens, just like a bird flees when it hears a noise. The truth is that we all “simplify” the world around us, not because we are ignorant, but because it is our natural first reaction to life.
We observe patterns because animals that don’t take the time to identify where a sound comes from but instead run away will survive and pass this habit to their offspring. We, as more modern humans, haven’t evolved much beyond that instinctive reaction, but when the first philosophers in India and Greece became conscious, human life took a turn. These philosophers were curious and went out searching for that proverbial dangerous sound they heard. They discovered that their society had become so advanced that they were essentially safe from predators outside the gates. Over time, these philosophers gradually dethroned many gods in the sky until modern scientists no longer need supernatural explanations for what happens in nature.
But scientists can explain more and more reasons “how” we are here, but they still have a problem with “why” we are here. This is not a problem for most scientists because when you can look past the fear that comes with searching for a why and start seeing how wonderful nature works, you will realize that you don’t need this “why.” The reality is that there is no reason why we are here; life has no meaning besides the one we give it ourselves.
Does beauty need a reason?
You jump up and quickly swipe your hands where you felt it crawl; a tiny, harmless spider scurries away1, and you wonder why this made you scared. This reaction to spiders and snakes is a classic example of a fear inherited from our ancient ancestors. It can still be useful if you find yourself in a tropical jungle, but for most people living today in cities and urban areas, this fear of harmless spiders and other small insects is not rational.
Evolution and adjustments to new circumstances take time. On an evolutionary time scale, humans have only recently arrived and are still relatively new. Our brain, how we think, and what we need have changed little in roughly 3 million years, starting from when our closest ancestors began reflecting on their thoughts. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) are descendants of these first humanlike apes, such as Australopithecus africanus. The span from these initial transitional species to today is about 3 million years. For most of this period, our ancestors were not at the top of the food chain as we have been only for the last few thousand years. For millions of years, life was dangerous and difficult, and feeling fear played a crucial role in our development from one human species to another.
I previously concluded that one of the side effects of this “old brain” is the belief in Gods and other supernatural forces; this belief seems to be a necessary tool to suppress the nagging feeling of a life with no structure, patterns, and purpose. My answer to the disappearance of a reason for life is that life is beautiful in itself, and the need for purpose no longer needs to be fulfilled.
Let’s suppose that life began when the Big Bang occurred. There are many debates about how the Big Bang started or even if it is the cause of everything; that is beside the point. I am attempting a philosophical experiment, and the details are not very important for such an experiment. For now, we assume it started, and most likely, it did so not deliberately, but necessarily. Some say that the laws of nature as we understand them today were not yet in place, so perhaps saying it started in chaos is an understatement. This moment of chaos or unpredictability is hard to imagine, but I can give an example to illustrate how I see it. If I go outside in light rain and hold out my hand with my palm facing up, I expect some raindrops to hit my open hand. But if I focus on where the first drop lands, I wonder. This one droplet hits me out of a million others, and I stand somewhere outside with my hand in that spot, while the droplet that has been falling for kilometers strikes me. Think also about where that one droplet came from—the journey these water molecules make repeatedly. As far as I know, some of them fell on Galileo when he was looking in the direction from which these molecules originally came.
This is how I understand life began billions of years ago; all the ingredients were present until one atom collided with another at the right angle and spot, triggering the chain reaction we call the big bang.
- –Once an evolutionary benefit that helped keep our ancestors alive, cortisol, the hormone that triggers our fight-or-flight response, may now be doing more harm than good.From:https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/fight-or-flight-why-our-caveman-brains-keep-getting-confused — –Why in a modern world do more people believe in ESP, ghosts and angels than in scientific theories such as evolution? A University of Guelph psychology professor tackles this question and others in a new book, Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World. “We’re trying to get by in our modern world using a Stone-Age mind,” said Hank Davis, a specialist in evolutionary psychology. From: https://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2009/06/human_brain_stu_1.html
–During the talk, Lieberman described some of the ways that instincts humans inherited from the Stone Age — also known as the Paleolithic Period, stretching from between 2.6 million to about 10,000 years ago — now conflict with modern life From: https://www.livescience.com/41146-cavemen-choices.html
Unsorted notes
Butterfly
I am an idealist, and as such, I feel out of place in this time and world. Politically speaking, in my ideal world, everyone understands themselves and, consequently, the world around them, in a way that makes it clear to everyone where to go and who should lead. I don’t claim to know everything that fits within my ideal vision, but I do know that many people in the past had ideals and tried to force the world to follow them. For example, think of the Khmer Rouge 40 years ago in Cambodia. Pol Pot had an idea of how people could live together. He studied in France and probably had some lofty ideas and ideals, but he never realized that history teaches us we can’t force a society in a certain direction. He convinced his followers to kill millions of people in the name of progress, in an entirely idealistic world.
The list of dictators who have led entire societies to ruin is long, and even our democracies foster ideas and ideals that bring destruction; consider the waste we produce and the hatred many hold for each other. People are, for the most part, good, but once they become part of a statistic, they reveal a different side, and in modern democracies, statistics dominate.
So, I consider myself a revolutionary who doesn’t believe in revolutions. Someone once told me that if you want to catch a butterfly, you can run around trying to grab it, or you can find the best place to sit, raise your hand, and wait. The point isn’t to catch the butterfly but to be there when it lands and to enjoy the spot where you sit in the meantime.
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
*“That Anarchist world, I admit, is our dream; we do believe – well, I, at any rate, believe this present world, this planet, will some day bear a race beyond our most exalted and temerarious dreams, a race begotten of our wills and the substance of our bodies, a race, so I have said it, ‘who will stand upon the earth as one stands upon a footstool, and laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars,’ but the way to that is through education and discipline and law. Socialism is the preparation for that higher Anarchism; painfully, laboriously we mean to destroy false ideas of property and self, eliminate unjust laws and poisonous and hateful suggestions and prejudices, create a system of social right-dealing and a tradition of right-feeling and action. Socialism is the schoolroom of true and noble Anarchism, wherein by training and restraint we shall make free men.”*H.G. Wells, New Worlds for Old
Idea
I’m still searching for a subject I can sink my teeth into and write about. Today, I had another idea; it came to me while I was making a fancy molding. I do this on a milling machine, and for these complicated moldings, you need to use several differently shaped cutters and figure out when and how to use them. It can be tricky deciding which one to start with, and we have nearly 100 different cutters, but it’s not always clear if we have the one we need. Knowing this, you can approach the job in different ways; you can try to figure out exactly which cutters to use and in what order, making sure you have all the necessary tools. This requires a lot of preparation, and the end result is not always guaranteed; there are almost always surprises along the way. I usually work by finding one cutter that shapes one part of the design I need, then look for the next cutter after I finish with the first. This is like choosing a route without knowing where it will lead.
The strange thing is that I also like order. On my computer, you won’t find a single folder with all the pictures; everything is stored in a specific folder, making it easy to find. I do this in other areas as well. My toolbox is well-organized, and when I rebuild my computer and need a particular cable, I don’t have to untangle a mess of cables; each cable has its own spot in a special box. I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, probably to create some kind of order in a chaotic world. The odd thing is that I don’t organize as much when I start a project, as I explained earlier with the molding, even though there’s some expectation of chaos.
I have known for years that searching for a tool in a disorganized toolbox is a waste of time; that’s why I keep my tools organized. I also learned that planning a job is important, but many factors can’t be planned for, so I plan as much as I can. When you’re starting out in a particular career, it’s always stressful not knowing what to expect. I started working with wood twenty years ago, and in the beginning, I tried to plan everything, but I almost always ran into problems and had to improvise. After a couple of years, I realized less planning was needed; I learned that improvising and reacting to the situation isn’t so hard, and I almost always find a solution.
The reason I share this is because, while I was making this molding, I was listening to a lecture about economics. The professor talked about different systems, how many people attempt to predict and plan the economy, and how this rarely succeeds. He also shared an anecdote you might have heard before; it is quite famous. The story goes that monkeys can choose stocks in the stock market as well as, or even better than, professional advisers. (search “monkeys choose stock” in a search engine, and you can read all about it)
The point is that people generally like to plan, probably because they hope it will confirm that there is order in the universe. Order is comforting; think of all the religions that establish order or all the isms like liberalism, communism, capitalism, etc. If the universe is in chaos, you can’t rely on planning, and you have to learn how to deal with the chaos.
This also reminded me of a conversation I had with a colleague last week. We discussed politics, and he wanted to know who I would vote for if I were allowed to vote here in Norway. I told him I had never voted in my life. He asked why, and I explained that at first, I was always in another country when it was time to vote, but later I began questioning our form of democracy and decided I didn’t want to participate until I figured out if it was any good. I also mentioned that I see myself more as an old-school anarchist rather than a modern capitalist. He was a little surprised when I mentioned anarchism, but I encouraged him to look it up; political anarchism has nothing to do with literal chaos, I clarified. I used an example: we work for a company that aims to make a profit, and some structure is necessary for that. Interestingly, when I receive a new assignment, I get a piece of paper with some numbers from my boss, or it’s taped to an old window. That’s all the communication; the rest is up to me. This illustrates how an anarchistic society can function. For example, if there’s a job to do—like repairing this 90-year-old window—my “boss’s” role is to assign these jobs, and my responsibility is to complete them. He doesn’t tell me how to do my work, and I’m free to choose how I accomplish it within the job’s parameters.
For people here in Norway, and probably for many others, it’s very important to leave them alone while they do their jobs. I learned this the hard way when I was a project leader: don’t micromanage. Everyone understood the common goal, and my job as a manager was to ensure all resources were where they needed to be at the right time. This is a form of anarchy; no single person has control over everything. Basically, a few people come together to do a job, and in our current society, they get paid in return. In a utopian society, you do the same thing but without exchanging time for money. I call it a Utopia because I’m not naïve; the world is too divided, and why would you work for “free” in a world you don’t care about.
“Human nature is so constituted that the propensity for evil is always intensified by external circumstances, and the morality of the individual depends much more on the conditions of his existence and the environment in which he lives than on his own will. ”
― Mikhail Bakunin
“The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that is has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history.”
― Peter Kropotkin
The barrier we lean against comforts us.
After nearly 15 years of staying away from much of society, our move to the city was both a welcome change and a pleasant surprise. Before relocating to North Norway, I lived in Holland, where you can meet all kinds of people if you want to, and I did. I’ve had many good conversations. I was already interested in philosophy, psychology, and more, and I always tried to discuss these topics, but overall, with little success. Most people have some interest in subjects like philosophy, but only up to a point. It’s similar to talking about your train collection, you get initial enthusiasm, but if you keep talking about the different train tracks you can buy, after 20 minutes, you start to see in their faces that you’ve gone too far. So, my move to Norway, and the lack of social contact, was not a big problem because I could do without the disappointment of people losing interest when I wanted to go deeper and I mean philosophy and not trains.
I never really missed the times when I could talk with people about what mattered to me. But I never dozed off, and every time I got the slightest hint that someone was interested, I jumped on it like a hungry tiger. As someone interested in philosophy, I intentionally stayed away from politics in the sense that I learn about different systems and ideologies. I didn’t ignore it out of lack of interest, but because of limited time. I can only read and learn so much, and philosophy and psychology already consume most of my “reading time.” Politics is interesting, but to really do it justice, I would have had to set aside one of my passions. However, there is such a thing as Anarchy, which can be considered a… for now: a political orientation.
Anarchy is different from other political ideas, like Harry Potter’s story… Who got pushed into a house where he didn’t fit, the grown-ups treated him like crap, and he had to live under the stairs where everyone could trample him. But Harry had some secret powers, and even though he didn’t realize it at the time, he already bore the mark that he was special. (couldn’t resist)
So, anarchism. I hope the reader has an idea and opinion about it; I certainly do, but it is a premature one. I am not going to talk about what anarchism means for me today, I can tell you that my first word associated with anarchism is freedom, and not the kind of freedom where you can do whatever you want, but freedom from… anchors. You can live a rigid life with many fixed ideas and still demand freedom, but I seek the kind of freedom where you try to evict those internal demands, so to speak. I want to learn more about anarchism and free myself of any misconceptions, but in the meantime, I will use my knowledge of Nietzsche to find aphorisms and other texts from him that support my idea of “anarchism in your mind.”
First of all, I often use Nietzsche in my conversations. I don’t do this because I worship him or anything like that; I use him more as a symbol of critical thinking. Nietzsche was also very talented at what he did, so there’s nothing wrong with admiring his skills. There were probably many people who had similar thoughts and ideas, but Nietzsche was able to use our limited language in a way that made these ideas clear for others to understand. He wasn’t a saint; he was just very good at expressing his thoughts, like Mozart was with music or Rembrandt with paint. We all can pick up a pencil and paint, but not like Rembrandt, and we can all think like Nietzsche, but few can write it down as he did.
I was planning to start writing and searching for texts today, even though it is too hot here. But I was lucky. Like most times, I begin with Human all to Human, and in the preface on paragraph two, he started talking about the free spirit.
Thus when I needed to I once also invented for myself the ‘free spirits’ to whom this melancholy-valiant book with the title Human, All Too Human is dedicated: ‘free spirits’ of this kind do not exist, did not exist- but, as I have said, I had need of them at that time if I was to keep in good spirits while surrounded by ills (sickness, solitude, unfamiliar places, acedia, in activity): as brave companions and familiars with whom one can laugh and chatter when one feels like laughing and chattering, and whom one can send to the Devil when they become tedious – as compensation for the friends I lacked. That free spirits of this kind could one day exist, that our Europe will have such active and audacious fellows among its sons of tomorrow and the next day, physically present and palpable and not, as in my case, merely phantoms and hermit’s phantasmagoria: I should wish to be the last to doubt it. I see them already coming, slowly, slowly; and perhaps I shall do something to speed their coming if I describe in advance under what vicissitudes, upon what paths, I see them coming?—
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human all to human, preface 2, page 6, Hollingdale translation
There is not much to “explain” about this text, but it touches on a hope I have that if more people become “free spirits,” the need for an organized society would gradually disappear, along with a large part of the problems tied to these organizations. On a personal note: I can relate to Nietzsche’s experiences of feeling alone in your thoughts and the need to create a “voice” in your head that is unaffected by your problems and acts as a counterbalance.
Building yourself.
- Against visionaries.—The visionary denies the truth to himself, the liar only to others
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human all too human, Part I. Miscellaneous Maxims And Opinions.
In my search for interesting aphorisms and other texts from Nietzsche about some kind of anarchism in your mind or thinking, I only had to turn a few pages in the book I started with yesterday, Human, All Too Human.
In some sense, you might say that the world is ruled by visionaries, and it’s indeed hard to imagine an honest visionary who knows that he or she is lying. But when we think about ourselves, who we are, what we want, or even expect in life, are we then liars to ourselves or are we visionaries? Recognizing whether you act like one of these liars or visionaries to yourself is important if you want to be freer, free from yourself.
There have been many studies in the last 30 years that have tried to understand how we see the world, how we internalize it, and how we process it. The results are sometimes quite confronting, the idea that your worldview might be just that: your worldview can call into question everything you believe.
In future texts about Nietzsche, I plan to incorporate more recent research findings to complement his ideas. Like many thinkers from the past, Nietzsche also anticipated, in rough outlines, many modern concepts that were later ‘collected’ using tools like brain scans and research methods.
Stale
I can not open
the window
from where I sit
~
I can see
some horizon
but it is the smell
that I think
I miss
~
I can get up
but it is still
not to stale
where I sit
I sometimes wonder why I write these poems. I don’t think I do it for attention. They are posted on my blog, and I get a notification if someone presses the like button. I’ve never met a stranger in the real world who told me they liked my poetry, besides my family, and they don’t really have a choice. It’s just a notification on my phone, and as far as I know, these likes are some kind of Pavlovian reaction from people who also get a notification. I’m sorry if I offended anyone, but from where I stand, this is one of the conclusions.
Imagine that we all live on a big dusty rock, and that the time this rock exists is just a blink of an eye in cosmic time. There’s no rhyme or reason to all of this. You could, of course, invent a God, become a Buddhist, or just not care. Or maybe you never ask these questions because you like the answers you already have.
As long as I can remember, I have never liked answers. As a sensitive person, I always felt the uncertainty and chaos in the world I encountered. If the grown-ups in your world are inconsistent, or if your father and mother say yes for life and then divorce, I learned very young that no one truly knows, but at most pretend.
So why do I write these poems? Mankind has been telling each other how to live for countless millennia. Thousands of well-known thinkers have written numerous books explaining how we work and/or should work. All this knowledge has made the world more peaceful, but I fear we have only just begun this journey. It is habit, conformism, and law that keep us from the destructive kind of anarchism that is now spilling over the boiling pot.
So why do I write these poems? I don’t even realize that I’m writing poems. I create a picture every day and use my limited knowledge of philosophy as fertilizer to cultivate a clever mix of words that make me think and smile. I call it poetry because that’s the word we use for these kinds of word plays. It makes me feel good and gives me hope that someone might ask me what it means, and then you can make something meaningful while we sit on this rock — a good conversation and the best way to grow until the end.
Geist
- The Pessimist of the Intellect.—He whose intellect is really free will think freely about the intellect itself, and will not shut his eyes to certain terrible aspects of its source and tendency. For this reason others will perhaps designate him the bitterest opponent of free thought and give him that dreadful, abusive name of “pessimist of the intellect”: accustomed as they are to typify a man not by his strong point, his pre-eminent virtue, but by the quality that is most foreign to his nature.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human all too human, Miscellaneous Maxims And Opinions.
If you read books about free will, you get the impression that you have to perform a very special dance to navigate all the contradictions, paradoxes, and dead ends. With Nietzsche, you must always be careful and never assume he made a mistake; he often writes intentionally. In this text, he states: the “really free will thinks freely about the intellect itself,” and then he suggests that there are “terrible aspects of its source and tendency.” In this 1913 translation, Nietzsche appears to question the source of the intellect, but if you read a more modern translation by Gary Handwerk, for example, “-Anyone who is truly free in spirit will think freely even about spirit itself and not conceal from himself certain dreadful facts,” you will see that Nietzsche talks about spirit, not intellect. (The other modern translator, R.J. Hollingdale, also translates the word Geist as spirit, and in the Dutch version, we use the word “geest,” which looks and sounds the same as the German word “geist,” and they mean the same.)
Here you can read the German text: Der Pessimist des Intellectes. — Der wahrhaft Freie im Geiste wird auch über den Geist selber frei denken und sich einiges Furchtbare in Hinsicht auf Quelle und Richtung desselben nicht verhehlen. Desshalb werden ihn die Andern vielleicht als den ärgsten Gegner der Freigeisterei bezeichnen und mit dem Schimpf- und Schreckwort „Pessimist des Intellectes“ belegen: gewohnt, wie sie sind, Jemanden nicht nach seiner hervorragenden Stärke und Tugend zu nennen, sondern nach dem, was ihnen am fremdesten an ihm ist.
“Geiste” in German can be translated into English as both spirit and intellect. This is a good example where you, as the reader, need to be careful when reading a translation or when translating the German text yourself because it’s up to the translator to interpret Nietzsche. In my view, there is a difference between where the “source and tendency” of your intellect and spirit originate from.
Intellect: the ability of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially concerning abstract subjects.
Spirit: the dominant or typical characteristic, mood, or attitude of a person, group, or era.
It is easier to see the intellect resulting from our brain functions, chemistry, DNA, schooling, and background. Intellect is something we might take pride in and receive praise for, but for the most part, it is something you “inherit.”
For spirit, you can say the same as I did for intellect, but spirit is harder to grasp, so to speak. You cannot measure spirit in a person; on the other hand, intellect is easier to measure through tests, for example.
The goal of this small exercise isn’t to figure out what Nietzsche meant with this aphorism. Instead, it’s about understanding that you can’t read a book by Nietzsche or most other philosophers without realizing enough that you’re reading a And if you read, for instance, German as a second language, you have to ask yourself whether you can do a better job translating German into your language than the professionals can. I mainly read the translations from 1908 or 1913 because they are freely available, and I don’t have to worry about quoting the entire book on my blog. Another benefit is that these translations are often so…clunky…that I usually compare one of the modern translations and the original text, like I did today.
Regarding my project “anarchy in the mind” (or is it spirit… intellect…), if you want to free yourself from some of the anchors that hold you to certain behaviors, you first need to understand what these anchors are. Reading a book and mindlessly “reading what you want” is “anchoring” yourself to your preconceived opinions and not being open to other interpretations.
Nochrisis 