In trying to decide what to repost, it's much easier to just grab something at random from one or two years ago. This one is from last September, with many new reflections and refractions added. Irony alert: the title of the post is not ironic but 100% literal.
I'm afraid that some readers -- probably for perfectly understandable reasons -- don't fully understand my point about spiritual evolution. I am not attempting to "Aurobindo-ize" Christianity." Rather, it's just that I see some rather obvious and fascinating parallels. Furthermore, I think a kneejerk anti-evolutionary stance is merely "customary" rather than intrinsic to Christianity. In fact, I believe it can be shown that the idea of a static universe is at the "human margin" of Christian theology, as opposed to evolution, which is at the heart of the divine revelation and intrinsic to a created world.
The concept of evolution is a key that unlocks countless mysteries, whereas the idea of a static universe only puts in place numerous impasses to our reason. And since God addresses himself to human reason, I have a hard time accepting any theology that insists that we must bypass our God-given reason to "understand" the divine memo.
Remember, whenever I use the word "evolution," it is never in the watered-down Darwinian sense of random "natural selection," but in a much grander cosmic sense, of which Darwinism can only be a small subset. Darwinists quite clearly abuse the plain dictionary definition of the term, and whenever someone redefines a word in order to make their theory work, you should be suspicious, for that's not science, only semantics or some other evasion. You can't define something by redefining it out of existence. Science naturally does this for methodological reasons, but then supernaturally conflates method and ontology, which is -- to use the technical term -- "stupid."
For example, my dictionary says that evolution is "a process of change in a certain direction", i.e., "a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state." Being that the essence of spirituality involves changing into a higher and better state, whereas Darwinism merely involves intrinsically meaningless change, it is actually religious believers who accept evolution and Darwinists who don't. For a strict Darwinist, nothing can be intrinsically "better" or "higher" on pain of undermining the whole theory. Organisms can only be relatively better adapted to their environment and therefore reproduce more successfully.
It doesn't take a genius to notice that Darwinism violates this straightforward definition of evolution, since it cannot speak of directionality, lower and higher, or better and worse, being that these categories can only be located on a vertical plane that transcends the flatland Darwinism of random mutation.
Even if a Darwinist argues that his theory is superior to yours, he has taken himself out of Darwinism, and is making an appeal to criteria that quite obviously transcend Darwinism. Why do you think that contemptuous Darwinists always want to prove that they are so much smarter than you are, hmm? Suffice it to say that the answer will not be found in Darwinism but psychoanalysis.
Ironically, you could even say that Darwinists specifically do not believe in evolution, being that they reject its very possibility (i.e., directional change into an intrinsically higher state). Rather, they believe in change, a very different thing. In this regard, they are very much like progressives, who also believe in change, but not genuine progress, since their metaphysic abolishes any absolute standard by which real progress can be measured. Indeed, progressives must generally abolish permanent truths in order to facilitate the changes they seek.
Again, one of our central ideas is that, specifically because this is a creation, it must also evolve and burst forth with creative novelty. The cosmos is permeated with meaning, and meaning has no meaning outside teleology, or final causes. In other words, the meaning is the cause.
Or, put it this way: if this weren't a creation, then we would have no trouble explaining why the cosmos has no creativity, novelty, or progressive development. We certainly wouldn't have any difficulty explaining the absence of the human intellect. But this is not a single level creation. Rather, it contains implicit degrees of being that serially unfold within time. This is a living cosmos; or let us say that it is infused with the life principle of "dynamic interior wholeness," which is why biology is even possible. Such a principle could never occur in a cosmos where it wasn't already implicitly present.
And it is also composed of Truth, which is why truth may call out to truth in the human subject. Only like may know like. We can know of no cosmos other than a cosmos capable of self-revelation and self-knowledge. But a cosmos capable of self-knowledge is an astonishing thing to contemplate. Here again, there is no Darwinist who doesn't suffer from a severely constrained imagination, thereby foreclosing the very space of vertical recollection.
In an "evolutionary creation" (which is again a redundancy), time will not be reducible to mere physical duration. Rather, it is the essence of creative transformation, which was one of Whitehead's central principles. He was one of my early guiding lights in these matters. Here, let me drag out my dog-eared copy of Adventures of Ideas. There he writes that "The creativity of the world is the throbbing emotion of the past hurtling itself into a new transcendent fact." His point is that each moment represents an instance of the cosmos transcending itself like a "flying dart hurled beyond the bounds of the world."
Hmm, let's see what else we have in here. Although I am not a full-blown Whiteheadian, he is nevertheless one of those people whose ideas have long since blended with my own psychic substance, so it's interesting to go back and look at some of my highlights and marginalia from 25 years ago. "This notion of... history devoid of any reliance on metaphysical principles and cosmological generalizations, is a figment of the imagination. The belief in it can only occur to minds steeped in provinciality -- the provinciality of... minds unable to divine their own unspoken limitations." Ho! Whitehead wasn't the most coherent or linear writer, but his books are filled with barbed little zingers like that.
Although Whitehead obviously accepted Darwinism as far as it goes, he wrote that, as applied to the human realm, it posed "a challenge to the whole humanitarian movement" and "weakened the Stoic-Christian ideal of democratic brotherhood." Who could argue with that? "For two thousand years philosophy and religion had held up before Western Europe the ideal figure of man, as man, and had claimed for it supreme worth." But two thousand years of accumulated divine-human wisdom can be wiped away with a single book of anti-intellectual Darwinist barbarism.
Just poking around at random now. Here's another good one: modern scientism canalizes "thought and observation within predetermined limits, based upon inadequate metaphysical assumptions dogmatically assumed. The modern assumptions.... exclude from rationalistic thought more of the final values of existence," circumscribing reason "by reducing its topics to triviality, for example, to bare sensa and tautologies.... The world will again sink into the boredom of a drab detail of rational thought, unless we retain in the sky some reflection of light from the sun of Hellenism." All men will be as repetitive, narrow and tedious as Charles Johnson.
Ah, here is Raccoonish sentiment: "We speak in the singular of The Universe.... There is one all-embracing fact [O] which is the advancing history of the one Universe." This is the "community of the world, which is the matrix of all begetting, and whose essence is process with retention of connectedness..." Indeed,
"We habitually speak of stones, and planets, and animals, as though each individual thing could exist, even for a passing moment, in separation from an environment which is in truth a necessary factor in its own nature. Such an abstraction is a necessity of thought.... But it also follows that, in the absence of some understanding of the final nature of things... all science suffers from the vice that it may be combining various propositions which tacitly presuppose inconsistent backgrounds. No science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics which it tacitly presupposes." Ho!
The point is -- now confirmed by quantum physics -- everything participates in everything else in ways that are far beyond the ken of 19th century atomistic science. Furthermore, in a post-relativistic cosmos, both space and time are nonlocal, so things are also temporally connected in ways that materialistic science cannot disclose.
This led Whitehead to the inevitable conclusion that each moment had a subjective and objective component, of which you might say that our minds are the individualized beneficiaries. In other words, the process of our very own mind reveals something intrinsic about the way the cosmos evolves. Scientistic materialists believe the same thing -- that the mind mirrors reality -- except that they only consider things from the linear/left brain point of view, instead of from the synthesis of the "higher third" that comes into view in the integral evolution of what Grotstein called the "transcendent position."
To say that God "participates" in the world, or that the divine is immanent within the creation, is another way of acknowledging this reality. This is the reason why the world is so full of beauty, truth, novelty, delight, surprise, -- and evolution. Evolution can occur because the cosmos is shot through with implicit divine potential to be realized in time: "The creativity is the actualization of potentiality, and the process of actualization is an occasion of experiencing." Thus, you might say that true creativity represents the quintessence of God "experiencing" his creation through us. Which is why it is a sin to bore God in the manner of a Queegian liztard.
The matrix of the world is the mother of our becoming -- the mamamatrix of evolution. But this matrix must be fertilized by the divine seed in order for things to grow and develop. Truly, our vertically challenged materialistic brethren are suffering from a spiritual (second) birth defect.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Why Obama's Opponents are Racists
The left obviously values a certain kind of freedom. It's just not the American kind. When you think about it -- and this was a central point of both Mises and Hayek -- the majority of our "lived freedom" is in the economic arena. Especially prior to the advent of the internet, our political freedom consisted of, what, voting every two years and an occasional letter to the editor?
But economic freedom affects most every decision we make in the world. It is specifically this kind of freedom that the left undermines. However, in so doing, they erode the very foundation of liberty. As Hayek explains, we have "progressively [!] been moving away from the basic ideas on which Western civilization has been built" and slowly abandoning "the freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past."
And "Although we had been warned by some of the greatest thinkers... that socialism means slavery," we have nevertheless "steadily moved in the direction of socialism." Truly, it is like a kind of ineradicable mind parasite that must be confronted anew by each generation. We give vaccinations to children for other deadly diseases. Why don't we vaccinate them against socialism?
Oh. Right. The left controls education. Don't expect mind parasites to eradicate themselves. It's not in their economic interest, to say the least.
This, I think, is the objection people had to Obama beaming into the classroom and asking children to write a letter about how they plan to help him achieve his goals. Out of the mouth of an American president this would be a platitude, but from an un-American president it becomes sinister.
And please, when I say "un-American" I am being literal, not inflammatory. Dennis Prager says the same thing. He merely means that Obama -- or any leftist -- comes from an intellectual tradition that does not find its roots in America but Europe. It doesn't necessarily mean "anti-American," although I certainly believe it's no coincidence that the further left you go, the more hatred of America -- and of course, Israel -- you see.
When some moonbat says that the world hated America because of President Bush, what they mean is that the international left hated America, which is no doubt true. It's just that there are many more leftists than classical liberals in the world, and obviously not a single other Judeo-Christian country. Ask the Poles how they feel about Obama. He has been going about alienating governments that most share our values, such as Israel and India, while coddling and appeasing those that do not share our values.
Consider again that little graph I came up with the other day, with the vertical y-axis running from worldly to spiritual, the horizontal x-axis from collectivism to individualism. This graph will show you exactly where I differ with the left, but also with Schuon and the traditionalists, who are ultra-conservative in the European (not American) sense. Thus, we are dealing with two varieties of un-Americanism.
For me, the quintessence of Americanism -- the ideal person, as it were -- is located in the upper right quadrant, the "spiritual individual." This was so beautifully laid out by the founders, that there is no reason for me to try to surpass them. Just sample some of their theo-political reflections in Novak's On Two Wings. I remember Dennis Prager saying at the time the book came out, that he had brought it with him to sabbath services, because it's that sacred.
Here, let me see if I can dig out a representative sample without losing my momentum. There are really too many to choose from. Here -- John Adams: "I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
Talk about a pure Raccoonish sentiment! Do you think I care what the ignorant slaves and slavers of the international left think about America? Ho! Our values are antithetical. Of course they hate us. We are "un-European." We are liberal. We are not collectivists. We remain the last best hope for mankind moving into the space of the Upper Right.
Alexander Hamilton (and again, bear in mind that this self-evident truth would be "unteachable" and therefore unthinkable in a leftist-controlled school, even though it was said by one of our most important founders): "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
Those are the words of a real UpRight man. Now, you may disagree with Hamilton, and that is your prerogative. Just don't kid yourself into thinking that your values are "American," because they're not. No one had your values at the American founding, except perhaps in France.
James Madison, perhaps the most important "doctor of liberty" at our founding: "The belief in a God All Powerful, wise, and good, is so essential to the moral order of the World and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it."
Again, an UpRight man of the first rank. Does this mean that our founders didn't care about the collective, i.e., the left hand side of our political graph? Hardly! This was one of the things that most caught Tocqueville's attention, that is, the spontaneous emergence of civil society, of people taking care of one another. When the state takes over this function, it not only diminishes the domain of the Upper Left, but replaces it with the lower left, the fascist/socialist space of the magical collective, impervious to the light of reason.
I'm currently reading Mises' Human Action, and he says what amounts to the same thing. Amazing that he wrote this in the 1940s, because he does a spot-on analysis on the leftist attack on logic that we see today with multiculturalism, deconstruction, and political correctness. These cognitive pathologies are not just peripheral but central to leftist thought, because they undermine reason itself. That is, if different races, classes, cultures, and ethnicities all have their own distinct modes of thought, then western logic is no better than any other form of logic.
Thus, DownRight, or LowDown man inevitably becomes Lower Left man, i.e., the infra-logical and magical collective. This is again why I would hesitate to assume that the Obamanians are trying to be so illogical in attacking the opposition. Again, the absence of logic is not a bug, it's a feature of leftist thought. They have no idea how to respond to an actual argument.
Indeed, just a couple of days ago there was a lengthy piece in the Washington Post -- can't find the link -- about how the White House was trying to come up with a coherent strategy for dealing with the opposition. Fascinatingly, not a single one involved simply "responding to the arguments." For to respond to the arguments would immediately pull them up into the space of logic and evidence, which is precisely where they don't want to be.
Here is how Mises describes the historical emergence of the leftist attack on logic: "The economists had entirely demolished the fantastic delusions of the socialist utopias [read: the lower left, or infralogical collective].... The communist ideas were done for. The socialists were absolutely unable to raise any objection to the devastating criticism of their schemes and to advance any argument in their favor. It seemed as if socialism was dead forever."
So, what do you do if logic is not on your side? "Only one way could lead the socialists out of this impasse. They could attack logic and reason and substitute mystical intuition for ratiocination." The DownRight men of the neo-Marxist left argued that there is no universally valid form of logic or truth, and that to even think so is "oppressive," especially toward minorities. Rather, your so-called truth is merely a reflection of race, or class, or gender, interests.
And this is why if you oppose Obama you are a racist, but if you oppose Michael Steele or Thomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas you can't be. In the perverse cognitive world of the left, the former is "inevitable," the latter "impossible."
*****
Happy birthday to Mommy!
But economic freedom affects most every decision we make in the world. It is specifically this kind of freedom that the left undermines. However, in so doing, they erode the very foundation of liberty. As Hayek explains, we have "progressively [!] been moving away from the basic ideas on which Western civilization has been built" and slowly abandoning "the freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past."
And "Although we had been warned by some of the greatest thinkers... that socialism means slavery," we have nevertheless "steadily moved in the direction of socialism." Truly, it is like a kind of ineradicable mind parasite that must be confronted anew by each generation. We give vaccinations to children for other deadly diseases. Why don't we vaccinate them against socialism?
Oh. Right. The left controls education. Don't expect mind parasites to eradicate themselves. It's not in their economic interest, to say the least.
This, I think, is the objection people had to Obama beaming into the classroom and asking children to write a letter about how they plan to help him achieve his goals. Out of the mouth of an American president this would be a platitude, but from an un-American president it becomes sinister.
And please, when I say "un-American" I am being literal, not inflammatory. Dennis Prager says the same thing. He merely means that Obama -- or any leftist -- comes from an intellectual tradition that does not find its roots in America but Europe. It doesn't necessarily mean "anti-American," although I certainly believe it's no coincidence that the further left you go, the more hatred of America -- and of course, Israel -- you see.
When some moonbat says that the world hated America because of President Bush, what they mean is that the international left hated America, which is no doubt true. It's just that there are many more leftists than classical liberals in the world, and obviously not a single other Judeo-Christian country. Ask the Poles how they feel about Obama. He has been going about alienating governments that most share our values, such as Israel and India, while coddling and appeasing those that do not share our values.
Consider again that little graph I came up with the other day, with the vertical y-axis running from worldly to spiritual, the horizontal x-axis from collectivism to individualism. This graph will show you exactly where I differ with the left, but also with Schuon and the traditionalists, who are ultra-conservative in the European (not American) sense. Thus, we are dealing with two varieties of un-Americanism.
For me, the quintessence of Americanism -- the ideal person, as it were -- is located in the upper right quadrant, the "spiritual individual." This was so beautifully laid out by the founders, that there is no reason for me to try to surpass them. Just sample some of their theo-political reflections in Novak's On Two Wings. I remember Dennis Prager saying at the time the book came out, that he had brought it with him to sabbath services, because it's that sacred.
Here, let me see if I can dig out a representative sample without losing my momentum. There are really too many to choose from. Here -- John Adams: "I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
Talk about a pure Raccoonish sentiment! Do you think I care what the ignorant slaves and slavers of the international left think about America? Ho! Our values are antithetical. Of course they hate us. We are "un-European." We are liberal. We are not collectivists. We remain the last best hope for mankind moving into the space of the Upper Right.
Alexander Hamilton (and again, bear in mind that this self-evident truth would be "unteachable" and therefore unthinkable in a leftist-controlled school, even though it was said by one of our most important founders): "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
Those are the words of a real UpRight man. Now, you may disagree with Hamilton, and that is your prerogative. Just don't kid yourself into thinking that your values are "American," because they're not. No one had your values at the American founding, except perhaps in France.
James Madison, perhaps the most important "doctor of liberty" at our founding: "The belief in a God All Powerful, wise, and good, is so essential to the moral order of the World and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it."
Again, an UpRight man of the first rank. Does this mean that our founders didn't care about the collective, i.e., the left hand side of our political graph? Hardly! This was one of the things that most caught Tocqueville's attention, that is, the spontaneous emergence of civil society, of people taking care of one another. When the state takes over this function, it not only diminishes the domain of the Upper Left, but replaces it with the lower left, the fascist/socialist space of the magical collective, impervious to the light of reason.
I'm currently reading Mises' Human Action, and he says what amounts to the same thing. Amazing that he wrote this in the 1940s, because he does a spot-on analysis on the leftist attack on logic that we see today with multiculturalism, deconstruction, and political correctness. These cognitive pathologies are not just peripheral but central to leftist thought, because they undermine reason itself. That is, if different races, classes, cultures, and ethnicities all have their own distinct modes of thought, then western logic is no better than any other form of logic.
Thus, DownRight, or LowDown man inevitably becomes Lower Left man, i.e., the infra-logical and magical collective. This is again why I would hesitate to assume that the Obamanians are trying to be so illogical in attacking the opposition. Again, the absence of logic is not a bug, it's a feature of leftist thought. They have no idea how to respond to an actual argument.
Indeed, just a couple of days ago there was a lengthy piece in the Washington Post -- can't find the link -- about how the White House was trying to come up with a coherent strategy for dealing with the opposition. Fascinatingly, not a single one involved simply "responding to the arguments." For to respond to the arguments would immediately pull them up into the space of logic and evidence, which is precisely where they don't want to be.
Here is how Mises describes the historical emergence of the leftist attack on logic: "The economists had entirely demolished the fantastic delusions of the socialist utopias [read: the lower left, or infralogical collective].... The communist ideas were done for. The socialists were absolutely unable to raise any objection to the devastating criticism of their schemes and to advance any argument in their favor. It seemed as if socialism was dead forever."
So, what do you do if logic is not on your side? "Only one way could lead the socialists out of this impasse. They could attack logic and reason and substitute mystical intuition for ratiocination." The DownRight men of the neo-Marxist left argued that there is no universally valid form of logic or truth, and that to even think so is "oppressive," especially toward minorities. Rather, your so-called truth is merely a reflection of race, or class, or gender, interests.
And this is why if you oppose Obama you are a racist, but if you oppose Michael Steele or Thomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas you can't be. In the perverse cognitive world of the left, the former is "inevitable," the latter "impossible."
*****
Happy birthday to Mommy!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Jimmy Carter: Miserable Failure, Vicious Anti-Semite, or Just Plain Stupid?
Is the Obama administration's refusal to honestly engage the arguments of its critics a conscious strategy or simply an artifact of being among the Anointed? After all, if one is by definition generous, decent, and compassionate, then one's critics must be the opposite. Thus, the demonization of critics as racists, nazis, and thugs may not be a conscious strategy. If it is, it's an appallingly stupid one.
Do they really think it's a good idea to trot out the worst president of the 20th century to viciously slander over half the population? I mean, if it weren't for Carter's little pills, we wouldn't even be having to deal with this Iran problem. I suppose it's possible that his vile message is being orchestrated by the White House, but I like to think that liberals really believe the things they say, and that in their minds, their motives are pure. It's enough just to deal with the substance of their ideas. There's no need to assume bad motives.
For example, I am quite sure that state-mandated racial discrimination is a bad thing, and that it is harmful to its so-called beneficiaries. Thus, one can say that it's a racist policy, but there is no need to impute racist motivations to this or that individual. I know lots of people who are in favor of state-enforced racial discrimination, but they aren't racists as we usually define the term. Condescending toward blacks, yes. Infantilizing, yes. But in their minds, they're trying to do good. They're just misguided, that's all.
This is why Hayek emphasizes over and over that in economics, intentions don't matter, only incentives. Thus, we know that Obama intends to provide universal health care that is cheap, plentiful and of high quality. I don't doubt that. I just know that it's impossible, because he will set up a system of incentives that makes it so. The incentives will immediately swamp the intentions as soon as the system moves from idea to reality, because economics does not lie.
The identical thing happened with the Great Society, which was intended to reduce dependency but only increased it to unprecedented levels. Now if you try to scale it back, you are "cruel" and "heartless."
So the left is full of good people with good intentions, excluding that truly nasty contingent of hardcore leftists which probably constitutes only a quarter to a third of the Democrat party. Unfortunately, those people tend to be the most visible, as they are the activists, intellectuals, and prominent bloggers -- AKA, the ignorantsia.
But for those of you with liberal neighbors and relatives, you know that they are just decent people who have never given much thought to their ideas, especially if they've had the misfortune of attending graduate school. In fact, they are the ones who are most impervious to novel information, due to the element of intellectual pride. Give me ten minutes with my pool man, and I could convert him to conservatism (if he isn't conservative already). But I couldn't change some of my educated relatives in 50 years. No way. They literally don't hear what I'm saying.
Liberals have a hard time understanding that good will ≠ good results. Worse yet, leftist intellectuals can't seem to wrap their minds around one of the founding principles of classical liberalism, that what they think of as "bad intentions" routinely give birth to good results.
But in reality, of course, the bad intentions are not really bad; they only become so in the leftist's mind, because they convert self-interest into selfishness, two very different and often antithetical things. For a self-interested person is rational, predictable, responsible, stable, future-oriented, and deeply interconnected with a small circle that he especially cares about and which cares about him.
In contrast, collectivism erodes self-interest and replaces it with raw selfishness. Once the state is powerful enough to dole out favors to particular groups and interests, everyone is in competition to gain the favors in exchange for propping up the state and giving it even more power. This is why the huge federal bureaucracy initiated by FDR became the metastasizing autopoietic monster it is today. No one can control it because of the system of incentives it has instantiated.
In turn, as Mark Steyn has argued, this is perhaps the greatest existential danger of Omamacare, because government-controlled medicine changes a people forever. Once we cross that rubicon-job, our very lives are intertwined with the State in the most intimate manner.
I don't know if this is a conscious strategy on the part of the left -- I'm sure that for some of them it is -- but socialized medicine may be the death blow to classical liberalism and to any semblance of the founding vision of the United States. From then on, every political battle will be fought on leftist turf.
Can you imagine? Every national election will be about greedy Republicans trying to take away your healthcare. Democrats will simply replicate their longstanding strategy toward Social Security, only on a mass scale. To be conservative will be to touch the Third Rail of "free" healthcare and thereby go up in flames. In this new context, a garden variety conservative will sound as extreme as, say, a Bircher or Paulian today. That's how it is in Western Europe, where their "conservatives" are just leftist-lite.
Hayek makes the important point that when the outcome deviates from the noble intentions of the left -- which it virtually always does -- they never return to first principles and inquire as to whether perhaps there's a bug in the system. Rather, they usually jump to the conclusion "that sinister forces must have foiled our intentions, that we are the victims of some evil power which must be conquered...." Our intentions are good. Our ideas cannot have been wrong.
This is where the inevitable demonization and conspiratorial thinking come in. People don't want nationalized medicine? They must be racists! War going badly? Bush lied us into it! Worst hurricane in history? Bush hates black people! Doubt the significance of manmade climate change? You're a Holocaust denier! Etc.
Leftists "are ready to accept almost any explanation of the present crisis of our civilization except one: that the present state of the world may be the result of genuine error on our part and that the pursuit of some of our most cherished ideals has apparently produced results utterly different from those which we expected" (Hayek).
Could it be that the War on Poverty results in only more poverty? Or that government discrimination does not end discrimination? Or that military weakness is provocative to the enemies of liberty? Or that aid to Africa freezes it in a state of dysfunction? Or that pouring more money into a bad educational system makes it worse? Or that subsidizing college increases the cost of tuition?
This is why I don't agree with, say, Rush Limbaugh, who believes that Obama is following the tried-and-true Marxist strategy of intentionally making things worse in order to justify a more massive power grab. I don't see any real need to go there and to attack motivations, as does the left.
Again, it is enough to address their bad ideas, which Limbaugh already does so well. Then again, since so few people engage the ideas, one can well understand the strategy of personalizing the debate and demonizing the opponent. Who knows. Maybe all is fair in this kind of Cosmic War, since the future of civilization hangs in the balance.
*****
O, just like I pictured it. You gots to have freedom:
Do they really think it's a good idea to trot out the worst president of the 20th century to viciously slander over half the population? I mean, if it weren't for Carter's little pills, we wouldn't even be having to deal with this Iran problem. I suppose it's possible that his vile message is being orchestrated by the White House, but I like to think that liberals really believe the things they say, and that in their minds, their motives are pure. It's enough just to deal with the substance of their ideas. There's no need to assume bad motives.
For example, I am quite sure that state-mandated racial discrimination is a bad thing, and that it is harmful to its so-called beneficiaries. Thus, one can say that it's a racist policy, but there is no need to impute racist motivations to this or that individual. I know lots of people who are in favor of state-enforced racial discrimination, but they aren't racists as we usually define the term. Condescending toward blacks, yes. Infantilizing, yes. But in their minds, they're trying to do good. They're just misguided, that's all.
This is why Hayek emphasizes over and over that in economics, intentions don't matter, only incentives. Thus, we know that Obama intends to provide universal health care that is cheap, plentiful and of high quality. I don't doubt that. I just know that it's impossible, because he will set up a system of incentives that makes it so. The incentives will immediately swamp the intentions as soon as the system moves from idea to reality, because economics does not lie.
The identical thing happened with the Great Society, which was intended to reduce dependency but only increased it to unprecedented levels. Now if you try to scale it back, you are "cruel" and "heartless."
So the left is full of good people with good intentions, excluding that truly nasty contingent of hardcore leftists which probably constitutes only a quarter to a third of the Democrat party. Unfortunately, those people tend to be the most visible, as they are the activists, intellectuals, and prominent bloggers -- AKA, the ignorantsia.
But for those of you with liberal neighbors and relatives, you know that they are just decent people who have never given much thought to their ideas, especially if they've had the misfortune of attending graduate school. In fact, they are the ones who are most impervious to novel information, due to the element of intellectual pride. Give me ten minutes with my pool man, and I could convert him to conservatism (if he isn't conservative already). But I couldn't change some of my educated relatives in 50 years. No way. They literally don't hear what I'm saying.
Liberals have a hard time understanding that good will ≠ good results. Worse yet, leftist intellectuals can't seem to wrap their minds around one of the founding principles of classical liberalism, that what they think of as "bad intentions" routinely give birth to good results.
But in reality, of course, the bad intentions are not really bad; they only become so in the leftist's mind, because they convert self-interest into selfishness, two very different and often antithetical things. For a self-interested person is rational, predictable, responsible, stable, future-oriented, and deeply interconnected with a small circle that he especially cares about and which cares about him.
In contrast, collectivism erodes self-interest and replaces it with raw selfishness. Once the state is powerful enough to dole out favors to particular groups and interests, everyone is in competition to gain the favors in exchange for propping up the state and giving it even more power. This is why the huge federal bureaucracy initiated by FDR became the metastasizing autopoietic monster it is today. No one can control it because of the system of incentives it has instantiated.
In turn, as Mark Steyn has argued, this is perhaps the greatest existential danger of Omamacare, because government-controlled medicine changes a people forever. Once we cross that rubicon-job, our very lives are intertwined with the State in the most intimate manner.
I don't know if this is a conscious strategy on the part of the left -- I'm sure that for some of them it is -- but socialized medicine may be the death blow to classical liberalism and to any semblance of the founding vision of the United States. From then on, every political battle will be fought on leftist turf.
Can you imagine? Every national election will be about greedy Republicans trying to take away your healthcare. Democrats will simply replicate their longstanding strategy toward Social Security, only on a mass scale. To be conservative will be to touch the Third Rail of "free" healthcare and thereby go up in flames. In this new context, a garden variety conservative will sound as extreme as, say, a Bircher or Paulian today. That's how it is in Western Europe, where their "conservatives" are just leftist-lite.
Hayek makes the important point that when the outcome deviates from the noble intentions of the left -- which it virtually always does -- they never return to first principles and inquire as to whether perhaps there's a bug in the system. Rather, they usually jump to the conclusion "that sinister forces must have foiled our intentions, that we are the victims of some evil power which must be conquered...." Our intentions are good. Our ideas cannot have been wrong.
This is where the inevitable demonization and conspiratorial thinking come in. People don't want nationalized medicine? They must be racists! War going badly? Bush lied us into it! Worst hurricane in history? Bush hates black people! Doubt the significance of manmade climate change? You're a Holocaust denier! Etc.
Leftists "are ready to accept almost any explanation of the present crisis of our civilization except one: that the present state of the world may be the result of genuine error on our part and that the pursuit of some of our most cherished ideals has apparently produced results utterly different from those which we expected" (Hayek).
Could it be that the War on Poverty results in only more poverty? Or that government discrimination does not end discrimination? Or that military weakness is provocative to the enemies of liberty? Or that aid to Africa freezes it in a state of dysfunction? Or that pouring more money into a bad educational system makes it worse? Or that subsidizing college increases the cost of tuition?
This is why I don't agree with, say, Rush Limbaugh, who believes that Obama is following the tried-and-true Marxist strategy of intentionally making things worse in order to justify a more massive power grab. I don't see any real need to go there and to attack motivations, as does the left.
Again, it is enough to address their bad ideas, which Limbaugh already does so well. Then again, since so few people engage the ideas, one can well understand the strategy of personalizing the debate and demonizing the opponent. Who knows. Maybe all is fair in this kind of Cosmic War, since the future of civilization hangs in the balance.
*****
O, just like I pictured it. You gots to have freedom:
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
This Post is Dedicated to the Socialists of All Parties, Newspapers, and Cable Stations
Jimmy Carter is right. I refuse to accept a black president... who isn't Thomas Sowell. Actually, I refuse to accept a black socialist. Or white socialist. Or Jewish socialist. Or Asian socialist. But I'd vote for Thomas Sowell if he were a transgendered Guatemalan poetess who thought that shaving his legs was a form of oppression.
Speaking of Obama, Road to Serfdom is actually dedicated to him and to his parents, not to mention the group that nurturted his political sensibilities, ACORN. (Have you noticed that the treasonous don't fall far from the ACORN?)
Yes, Hayek dedicated the book -- without irony or malice -- "to the socialists of all parties." He did so because he knew that the vast majority of socialists were not evil, just misguided (despite the respect not being mutual; Hayek was treated with contempt by his Anointed contemporaries).
Again, back then there was an excuse for being a socialist, just as we can excuse someone for having been a slaveholder back when the practice was universal, or racist when no one knew any better. But now there is no excuse. So this post is dedicated with irony and malice to the socialists of all parties, newspapers, and cable stations.
As I mentioned yesterday, the kooks of the mainstream left will not engage our arguments. Instead, their first and last resort is name-calling of the most vile sort. Again, the proof that they do not take racism seriously is that they throw out the charge so lightly and irresponsibly. If I am a racist, then there's nothing wrong with being one.
But things were no different in the 1940s, since one of the appeals of leftism is that it renders one virtuous in one's own eyes, so that people who don't share your ideals are worthy of the most intolerant scorn and ridicule. As Hayek writes in the preface, the very people who could most benefit from the book "rejected it out of hand as a malicious and disingenuous attack on their finest ideals. They appear never to have paused to examine its argument."
This column from the blessedly soon-to be-extinct LA Times is typical: "the right-wing anti-Obama movement in the U.S. these days is overpopulated with nuts, fundamentalists and paranoids who won't be easily stopped by a few congressional reprimands." You don't say! (Interestingly, just as the previous dinosaurs, the MSM is becoming extinct due to a comet -- the blazing comet of the internet and of citizen journalism.)
In fact, this idiotorial claims that you and I don't even actually believe what we believe. You know, the old Marxist idea of "false consciousness." Rather, we're just being manipulated by a conspiratorial political action committee called Our Country Deserves Better. Never heard of them? They're the ones who have convinced us of the "fundamentalist" and "unintelligible" idea that the Constitution actually means what it says. How primitive! Everyone knows that the Constitution means what the left wishes it to mean.
Have you ever wondered why two economists can believe things that are diametrically opposed to one another? This leads to a kind of cynicism and confusion that paves the way for the left. In other words, if both Thomas Sowell and Paul Krugman are "economists," then the word "economist" has no real meaning, so a politician can go ahead and do what he wants, knowing that some gliberal quackademic has his back. It is analogous to calling both an astronomer and astrologer "scientists."
Then again, Van Morrison and Kanye West are both "musicians." That being the case, one is unable to evaluate music in the absence of values. The same holds true of economics. The reason why a Hayek and Krugman or Robert Reich differ so sharply is because they start with an entirely different set of values, which are "non-negotiable." For a variety of reasons we will get into, Hayek starts with the individual in general and with liberty in particular (which one might say is the field of the individual's freely chosen action), while the socialist -- by whatever name -- begins with the collective.
Many people wonder why conservatism embodies the sometimes uneasy coalition of libertarians and serious religious seekers, and this is why, for both, in their own way, regard the individual as sacred, inviolable, and absolute (i.e., the image of the Absolute). "We are endowed by our Creator," etc.
In contrast, the fascist/socialist always begins with the we. For example, in Nazi Germany, the state was simply the reflection of the fundamental reality of the nation, or "volk." The individual is meaningless in the absence of his devotion and subordination to this higher body. For this reason, the Nazis embarked on an all-out assault on the liberal values of the Anglo-Saxon world (including the Christian metaphysics underlying them).
The same principle applies to our contemporary socialists, including Obama. "Yes we can." Higher taxes are our patriotic duty. I want to take your income and "spread it around." I don't want to hear any talking from you. I want you to get out of the way, you bunch of selfish racists. If you challenge these assumptions, you trigger the same kind of visceral reaction you would if you had attacked a religious icon, the reason being that socialism is a religion. Take away its ideals, and these people have nothing to believe in.
So although Road to Serfdom is an economics book, there's not a single equation in it (except for the equation of socialism and serfdom). Rather, it begins and ends in ultimate values -- although he then proceeds to demonstrate how the nurturing of these values leads to human progress, development, and increased wealth. For the secret power of the free market is that it unleashes the almost infinite potential of the creative and motivated individual -- a potential that was quashed for most of human history, and is vitiated under any socialist system.
Again, rather than engage these ideas, the left always attacks motivations -- for example, that classical liberalism is simply a self-serving doctrine of The Rich. But I am not rich, nor was Hayek, nor are most of the tea partiers. (And I assume you're not, but if you are, how would you like to send a generous Love Offering my way?) The left has it precisely backward. If I were self-serving, I would be a leftist in order to get more free stuff from the government, and maybe even a lifetime commitment to a major looniversity bin. I would work toward that glorious day when 51% of the population pays no taxes and lives off the 49% who do -- the revolt of the takers over the makers.
As Hayek explains, "I am as certain as anyone can be that the beliefs set out in [the book] are not determined by my personal interests. I can discover no reason why the kind of society which seems to me desirable should offer greater advantages to me than to the great majority of the people in my country."
Same with me. I am sure that Omamacare will include mandated mental health coverage. Therefore, it is like free money for me. My pool of potential victims will increase exponentially. But I am adamantly opposed to the idea that the government should pay for people to talk about their problems to some unhinged psychologist.
Hayek goes on to say that "I have every reason for not writing or publishing this book. It is certain to offend many people with whom I wish to live on friendly terms." Again, I couldn't agree more. I too have in-laws, co-workers, and neighbors.
Believe it or not, I have no desire to be hated by people, which is precisely why I try to limit my exposure. I really don't want to put a big target on myself. Those folks are spooky, in case you haven't noticed. And since the main purpose of this blog is spiritual, I can't be at my best in that arena if I am having to deal with the psychotic crosscurrents of the left. I prefer to leave that to others who thrive on that sort of thing.
Speaking of Obama, Road to Serfdom is actually dedicated to him and to his parents, not to mention the group that nurturted his political sensibilities, ACORN. (Have you noticed that the treasonous don't fall far from the ACORN?)
Yes, Hayek dedicated the book -- without irony or malice -- "to the socialists of all parties." He did so because he knew that the vast majority of socialists were not evil, just misguided (despite the respect not being mutual; Hayek was treated with contempt by his Anointed contemporaries).
Again, back then there was an excuse for being a socialist, just as we can excuse someone for having been a slaveholder back when the practice was universal, or racist when no one knew any better. But now there is no excuse. So this post is dedicated with irony and malice to the socialists of all parties, newspapers, and cable stations.
As I mentioned yesterday, the kooks of the mainstream left will not engage our arguments. Instead, their first and last resort is name-calling of the most vile sort. Again, the proof that they do not take racism seriously is that they throw out the charge so lightly and irresponsibly. If I am a racist, then there's nothing wrong with being one.
But things were no different in the 1940s, since one of the appeals of leftism is that it renders one virtuous in one's own eyes, so that people who don't share your ideals are worthy of the most intolerant scorn and ridicule. As Hayek writes in the preface, the very people who could most benefit from the book "rejected it out of hand as a malicious and disingenuous attack on their finest ideals. They appear never to have paused to examine its argument."
This column from the blessedly soon-to be-extinct LA Times is typical: "the right-wing anti-Obama movement in the U.S. these days is overpopulated with nuts, fundamentalists and paranoids who won't be easily stopped by a few congressional reprimands." You don't say! (Interestingly, just as the previous dinosaurs, the MSM is becoming extinct due to a comet -- the blazing comet of the internet and of citizen journalism.)
In fact, this idiotorial claims that you and I don't even actually believe what we believe. You know, the old Marxist idea of "false consciousness." Rather, we're just being manipulated by a conspiratorial political action committee called Our Country Deserves Better. Never heard of them? They're the ones who have convinced us of the "fundamentalist" and "unintelligible" idea that the Constitution actually means what it says. How primitive! Everyone knows that the Constitution means what the left wishes it to mean.
Have you ever wondered why two economists can believe things that are diametrically opposed to one another? This leads to a kind of cynicism and confusion that paves the way for the left. In other words, if both Thomas Sowell and Paul Krugman are "economists," then the word "economist" has no real meaning, so a politician can go ahead and do what he wants, knowing that some gliberal quackademic has his back. It is analogous to calling both an astronomer and astrologer "scientists."
Then again, Van Morrison and Kanye West are both "musicians." That being the case, one is unable to evaluate music in the absence of values. The same holds true of economics. The reason why a Hayek and Krugman or Robert Reich differ so sharply is because they start with an entirely different set of values, which are "non-negotiable." For a variety of reasons we will get into, Hayek starts with the individual in general and with liberty in particular (which one might say is the field of the individual's freely chosen action), while the socialist -- by whatever name -- begins with the collective.
Many people wonder why conservatism embodies the sometimes uneasy coalition of libertarians and serious religious seekers, and this is why, for both, in their own way, regard the individual as sacred, inviolable, and absolute (i.e., the image of the Absolute). "We are endowed by our Creator," etc.
In contrast, the fascist/socialist always begins with the we. For example, in Nazi Germany, the state was simply the reflection of the fundamental reality of the nation, or "volk." The individual is meaningless in the absence of his devotion and subordination to this higher body. For this reason, the Nazis embarked on an all-out assault on the liberal values of the Anglo-Saxon world (including the Christian metaphysics underlying them).
The same principle applies to our contemporary socialists, including Obama. "Yes we can." Higher taxes are our patriotic duty. I want to take your income and "spread it around." I don't want to hear any talking from you. I want you to get out of the way, you bunch of selfish racists. If you challenge these assumptions, you trigger the same kind of visceral reaction you would if you had attacked a religious icon, the reason being that socialism is a religion. Take away its ideals, and these people have nothing to believe in.
So although Road to Serfdom is an economics book, there's not a single equation in it (except for the equation of socialism and serfdom). Rather, it begins and ends in ultimate values -- although he then proceeds to demonstrate how the nurturing of these values leads to human progress, development, and increased wealth. For the secret power of the free market is that it unleashes the almost infinite potential of the creative and motivated individual -- a potential that was quashed for most of human history, and is vitiated under any socialist system.
Again, rather than engage these ideas, the left always attacks motivations -- for example, that classical liberalism is simply a self-serving doctrine of The Rich. But I am not rich, nor was Hayek, nor are most of the tea partiers. (And I assume you're not, but if you are, how would you like to send a generous Love Offering my way?) The left has it precisely backward. If I were self-serving, I would be a leftist in order to get more free stuff from the government, and maybe even a lifetime commitment to a major looniversity bin. I would work toward that glorious day when 51% of the population pays no taxes and lives off the 49% who do -- the revolt of the takers over the makers.
As Hayek explains, "I am as certain as anyone can be that the beliefs set out in [the book] are not determined by my personal interests. I can discover no reason why the kind of society which seems to me desirable should offer greater advantages to me than to the great majority of the people in my country."
Same with me. I am sure that Omamacare will include mandated mental health coverage. Therefore, it is like free money for me. My pool of potential victims will increase exponentially. But I am adamantly opposed to the idea that the government should pay for people to talk about their problems to some unhinged psychologist.
Hayek goes on to say that "I have every reason for not writing or publishing this book. It is certain to offend many people with whom I wish to live on friendly terms." Again, I couldn't agree more. I too have in-laws, co-workers, and neighbors.
Believe it or not, I have no desire to be hated by people, which is precisely why I try to limit my exposure. I really don't want to put a big target on myself. Those folks are spooky, in case you haven't noticed. And since the main purpose of this blog is spiritual, I can't be at my best in that arena if I am having to deal with the psychotic crosscurrents of the left. I prefer to leave that to others who thrive on that sort of thing.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
About Those Right Wing Fascists
In order delegitimize the tea party movement, the MSM -- abetted by kooks such as Charles Johnson -- is highlighting the people who brought signs linking Obama to fascism. Again, is this my style? No. But is it my substance? Let's find out.
Of course, if one is remotely balanced -- let alone charitable -- one will acknowledge that both sides have their crazies, and leave it at that. For every moonbat there's an equal and opposite wingnut, and all that. In fact, for every gay-hating Fred Phelps there must be a dozen God-hating Charles Johnsons. But the science of natural selection is not discredited just because people such as Queeg turn it into a religion, nor should marriage be redefined just because Phelps thinks it shouldn't be.
Let's face it: there are only two main parties, but millions of emotionally disturbed people. What are they supposed to do, form their own party? Some of them do, but you have to be both crazy and stupid to think that the Green Party or Reform Party will ever go anywhere.
There are not too many things that really bother me about politics, politics being what it is. But one thing that does is when people condemn one side for doing exactly what the other side does. This is why you will never see me get excited by a commonplace political scandal. Of course politicians are corrupt. That's why I am a conservative. I want fewer of them, with less power over me.
One way to avoid dealing with the substance of an argument is to simply caricature your opposition by focusing on its extreme elements. This is intellectually dishonest. As far as I am concerned, it is not necessary to highlight the true crazies of the left -- Moveon.org, Code Pink, environmental terrorists, PETA, etc. -- because the mainstream is already so nuts. It's a full time job just dealing with the New York Times, CNN, Keith Olbermann, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Van Jones, ACORN, etc.
I've read any number of mainstream analyses of the tea party movement, and not one of them dispassionately discusses the substance of the arguments, i.e., out of control government spending, socialized medicine, legislation to forbid the climate from changing, etc.
Now, back to those "crazies" who think that Obama is a fascist. First of all, you have to understand that genocide is not intrinsic to fascism. In a way, Hitler spoiled a perfectly useful word by forever associating it with the Holocaust. So now we have no name for a certain enduring political phenomenon, just because the name for it has been tainted.
To be honest, this post is just an excuse for me to review and assimilate Hayek's Road to Serfdom, which I finished yesterday. Although originally published in 1944, it is as timely as ever, given the events of the day.
I had already read some of Hayek's other books, not to mention a couple of recent biographies, but this is considered his most accessible work. There was nothing in it that was new for me, but it certainly reinforces the fact that there isn't anything the least bit controversial about linking Obama and fascism. Indeed, Obama is simply acting from a script that was written (and discredited) long ago. It's timeless, really.
Again, at the time it was published, Hayek was trying to make the then-controversial point that communism and fascism were not opposites, but two consequences of the same underlying assumptions. These assumptions are profoundly illiberal, which is why, if you want to reduce it to a linear map, both socialism and fascism are on the left, while classical liberalism is on the right. But this is not really a useful distinction. I much prefer the four-quadrant graph I discussed yesterday, which distinguishes collectivism from individualism and the worldly from the spiritual.
A classical liberal of the American type believes first and foremost in liberty. But not the unconstrained horizontal liberty of the radical secularist. Rather, it can only be understood in a spiritual context, which is why the Founders wanted a secular state but a religious society infused with Judeo-Christian principles and values. None of them imagined that democracy would work in the absence of a virtuous population (although I am quite sure that our trolls can find the stray comment by a Jefferson or Paine justiying their own hatred of God).
It is important to point out that while critics of the tea party movement will cherry-pick some of the signs to focus on, they object just as much to the intellectual substance. The signs just give them a convenient way to avoid debate.
Thus, when The Road to Serfdom was published in the 1940s, it was greeted by the liberal ignorantsia exactly as if Hayek were holding up a sign of Roosevelt with a Hitler moustache. He was dismissed not just as wrong, but sinister (again, without ever engaging the substance of his ideas). This is because virtually all intellectuals at the time were unquestioned socialists. Of course, they accused Hayek of being "reactionary," which was transparent projection, just as today.
As I've said before many times, I don't necessarily blame someone for being a socialist in the 1930s or 1940s, before economics was the science it is today. Socialism has an intrinsic appeal, especially to intellectuals who believe that irreducibly complex problems are susceptible to easy solutions if we just apply enough brain power. This is one of the reasons the left is so enamored of Obama. For whatever reason, they all think he's "brilliant," so that he can "solve our problems." The same things were said of Clinton. But as Milton Friedman famously remarked, no one has all the knowledge necessary to produce even a single pencil, let alone "control healthcare."
Nevertheless, one of the reasons Hayek doesn't appeal to the left wing ignorantsia is that he renders them not just superfluous, but demonstrates how dangerous they are -- not necessarily because of any bad intentions on their part. To the contrary. It is nearly always with the best of intentions. It is just that they are attempting to control reality before having understood it. The grandiose visions of the left are just fairy tales by another name.
But what is worse, they cannot understand the realities they presume to control, not in fact, nor in principle. Can't be done. A free market economy, for example, consists of millions of people making billions of spontaneous decision based upon a practically infinite amount of knowledge, information, and wisdom dispersed throughout the system. Furthermore, it is non-linear, so that if you tinker with one variable, it will have unforeseen -- and unforeseeable -- consequences that will reverberate throughout the system.
Let's take the simple example of Roe v. Wade. Any intellectually honest person knows that this decision was unconstitutional. Be that as it may, one of the ideas was to prevent all of those deaths resulting from back alley abortions -- all six of them, or however many it was (don't believe anyone who gives you a statistic, because they're making it up).
But what were the actual consequences of Roe v. Wade? Being that there have been -- what 50 million? -- abortions since 1973, and thousands a day, I am quite sure that more women have died as a result of legal abortions than the illegal ones. This is because Roe v. Wade incentivized abortion, and with it, promiscuity and general sexual irresponsibility.
In a way, it's similar to the HIV virus, which incentivised homosexuals to refrain from certain activities, such as having thousands of anonymous partners in a bathhouse. But if a cure is ever found, then you can be quite sure that the same culture will flourish. Incentives matter. Intentions don't.
But the left is always blind to the consequences of their policies. And because they are rooted in emotion, not thought, they will simply vilify you if you disagree with them, as they did with Hayek.
The other day, Tom Friedman removed the mask and argued that China was a good country for the United States to emulate, because only with an authoritarian state would it be possible to impose Friedman World on the rest of us. In this regard, Hayek wrote that, once one concludes that central planning is necessary, this leads to "the demand that the government, or some single individual, should be given power to act on their own.... It becomes more and more the accepted belief that... the responsible director of affairs must be freed from the fetters of democratic procedure" (emphasis mine).
Not only has every liberal commentator (including the President) taken Sarah Palin's "death panels" comment out of context, but they refuse even to acknowledge that the responsible director of medical affairs must be freed from the fetters of democratic procedure in deciding how medical resources will be allocated. How is this belief controversial?
In his introduction to the book, Caldwell notes that Hayek's ideas are not just a kind of "lightning rod," but a Rorschach test that reveals "as much about the reader's prior commitments as it does about Hayek's ideas." Both the ideas and the reaction to them are timeless, man being what he is. After all, slavery and serfdom are the rule in human history, not the exception. Therefore, it is not as if these were simply accidental developments in human history. To the contrary, the culture of liberty is clearly the exception.
But the leftist believes to his core that liberty is possible in a culture of servitude. Apparently, he never pauses to think that for a third or half the year he is in bondage to the state. In my case, there is federal tax, state tax, property tax, payroll tax, sales tax, gas tax, beer tax, and more, not to mention various licenses and fees. And the government is still bankrupt!
Does the leftist really not put two and two together and understand that for the government, it always equals five? Does he really believe that there is no justification for anger at the size and scope of government? Does he really believe that it is somehow "liberal" to want to work even more for an even larger state? Does he really not acknowledge his bottomless greed and sense of entitlement for the fruits of our labors?
To be continued....
Of course, if one is remotely balanced -- let alone charitable -- one will acknowledge that both sides have their crazies, and leave it at that. For every moonbat there's an equal and opposite wingnut, and all that. In fact, for every gay-hating Fred Phelps there must be a dozen God-hating Charles Johnsons. But the science of natural selection is not discredited just because people such as Queeg turn it into a religion, nor should marriage be redefined just because Phelps thinks it shouldn't be.
Let's face it: there are only two main parties, but millions of emotionally disturbed people. What are they supposed to do, form their own party? Some of them do, but you have to be both crazy and stupid to think that the Green Party or Reform Party will ever go anywhere.
There are not too many things that really bother me about politics, politics being what it is. But one thing that does is when people condemn one side for doing exactly what the other side does. This is why you will never see me get excited by a commonplace political scandal. Of course politicians are corrupt. That's why I am a conservative. I want fewer of them, with less power over me.
One way to avoid dealing with the substance of an argument is to simply caricature your opposition by focusing on its extreme elements. This is intellectually dishonest. As far as I am concerned, it is not necessary to highlight the true crazies of the left -- Moveon.org, Code Pink, environmental terrorists, PETA, etc. -- because the mainstream is already so nuts. It's a full time job just dealing with the New York Times, CNN, Keith Olbermann, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Van Jones, ACORN, etc.
I've read any number of mainstream analyses of the tea party movement, and not one of them dispassionately discusses the substance of the arguments, i.e., out of control government spending, socialized medicine, legislation to forbid the climate from changing, etc.
Now, back to those "crazies" who think that Obama is a fascist. First of all, you have to understand that genocide is not intrinsic to fascism. In a way, Hitler spoiled a perfectly useful word by forever associating it with the Holocaust. So now we have no name for a certain enduring political phenomenon, just because the name for it has been tainted.
To be honest, this post is just an excuse for me to review and assimilate Hayek's Road to Serfdom, which I finished yesterday. Although originally published in 1944, it is as timely as ever, given the events of the day.
I had already read some of Hayek's other books, not to mention a couple of recent biographies, but this is considered his most accessible work. There was nothing in it that was new for me, but it certainly reinforces the fact that there isn't anything the least bit controversial about linking Obama and fascism. Indeed, Obama is simply acting from a script that was written (and discredited) long ago. It's timeless, really.
Again, at the time it was published, Hayek was trying to make the then-controversial point that communism and fascism were not opposites, but two consequences of the same underlying assumptions. These assumptions are profoundly illiberal, which is why, if you want to reduce it to a linear map, both socialism and fascism are on the left, while classical liberalism is on the right. But this is not really a useful distinction. I much prefer the four-quadrant graph I discussed yesterday, which distinguishes collectivism from individualism and the worldly from the spiritual.
A classical liberal of the American type believes first and foremost in liberty. But not the unconstrained horizontal liberty of the radical secularist. Rather, it can only be understood in a spiritual context, which is why the Founders wanted a secular state but a religious society infused with Judeo-Christian principles and values. None of them imagined that democracy would work in the absence of a virtuous population (although I am quite sure that our trolls can find the stray comment by a Jefferson or Paine justiying their own hatred of God).
It is important to point out that while critics of the tea party movement will cherry-pick some of the signs to focus on, they object just as much to the intellectual substance. The signs just give them a convenient way to avoid debate.
Thus, when The Road to Serfdom was published in the 1940s, it was greeted by the liberal ignorantsia exactly as if Hayek were holding up a sign of Roosevelt with a Hitler moustache. He was dismissed not just as wrong, but sinister (again, without ever engaging the substance of his ideas). This is because virtually all intellectuals at the time were unquestioned socialists. Of course, they accused Hayek of being "reactionary," which was transparent projection, just as today.
As I've said before many times, I don't necessarily blame someone for being a socialist in the 1930s or 1940s, before economics was the science it is today. Socialism has an intrinsic appeal, especially to intellectuals who believe that irreducibly complex problems are susceptible to easy solutions if we just apply enough brain power. This is one of the reasons the left is so enamored of Obama. For whatever reason, they all think he's "brilliant," so that he can "solve our problems." The same things were said of Clinton. But as Milton Friedman famously remarked, no one has all the knowledge necessary to produce even a single pencil, let alone "control healthcare."
Nevertheless, one of the reasons Hayek doesn't appeal to the left wing ignorantsia is that he renders them not just superfluous, but demonstrates how dangerous they are -- not necessarily because of any bad intentions on their part. To the contrary. It is nearly always with the best of intentions. It is just that they are attempting to control reality before having understood it. The grandiose visions of the left are just fairy tales by another name.
But what is worse, they cannot understand the realities they presume to control, not in fact, nor in principle. Can't be done. A free market economy, for example, consists of millions of people making billions of spontaneous decision based upon a practically infinite amount of knowledge, information, and wisdom dispersed throughout the system. Furthermore, it is non-linear, so that if you tinker with one variable, it will have unforeseen -- and unforeseeable -- consequences that will reverberate throughout the system.
Let's take the simple example of Roe v. Wade. Any intellectually honest person knows that this decision was unconstitutional. Be that as it may, one of the ideas was to prevent all of those deaths resulting from back alley abortions -- all six of them, or however many it was (don't believe anyone who gives you a statistic, because they're making it up).
But what were the actual consequences of Roe v. Wade? Being that there have been -- what 50 million? -- abortions since 1973, and thousands a day, I am quite sure that more women have died as a result of legal abortions than the illegal ones. This is because Roe v. Wade incentivized abortion, and with it, promiscuity and general sexual irresponsibility.
In a way, it's similar to the HIV virus, which incentivised homosexuals to refrain from certain activities, such as having thousands of anonymous partners in a bathhouse. But if a cure is ever found, then you can be quite sure that the same culture will flourish. Incentives matter. Intentions don't.
But the left is always blind to the consequences of their policies. And because they are rooted in emotion, not thought, they will simply vilify you if you disagree with them, as they did with Hayek.
The other day, Tom Friedman removed the mask and argued that China was a good country for the United States to emulate, because only with an authoritarian state would it be possible to impose Friedman World on the rest of us. In this regard, Hayek wrote that, once one concludes that central planning is necessary, this leads to "the demand that the government, or some single individual, should be given power to act on their own.... It becomes more and more the accepted belief that... the responsible director of affairs must be freed from the fetters of democratic procedure" (emphasis mine).
Not only has every liberal commentator (including the President) taken Sarah Palin's "death panels" comment out of context, but they refuse even to acknowledge that the responsible director of medical affairs must be freed from the fetters of democratic procedure in deciding how medical resources will be allocated. How is this belief controversial?
In his introduction to the book, Caldwell notes that Hayek's ideas are not just a kind of "lightning rod," but a Rorschach test that reveals "as much about the reader's prior commitments as it does about Hayek's ideas." Both the ideas and the reaction to them are timeless, man being what he is. After all, slavery and serfdom are the rule in human history, not the exception. Therefore, it is not as if these were simply accidental developments in human history. To the contrary, the culture of liberty is clearly the exception.
But the leftist believes to his core that liberty is possible in a culture of servitude. Apparently, he never pauses to think that for a third or half the year he is in bondage to the state. In my case, there is federal tax, state tax, property tax, payroll tax, sales tax, gas tax, beer tax, and more, not to mention various licenses and fees. And the government is still bankrupt!
Does the leftist really not put two and two together and understand that for the government, it always equals five? Does he really believe that there is no justification for anger at the size and scope of government? Does he really believe that it is somehow "liberal" to want to work even more for an even larger state? Does he really not acknowledge his bottomless greed and sense of entitlement for the fruits of our labors?
To be continued....
Monday, September 14, 2009
Mapping the 4-Dimensional Soul Space of Politics
Not sure if this will go anywhere, but yesterday while reading Hayek's Road to Serfdom I had a little brainwave, or an idea for an idea.
Actually, it began with a crack by Schuon, to the effect that there are really only two kinds of people. Here. Let me find it. It's from a chapter called The Problem of Qualifications, and it goes a little like this:
"If one insists on making a fundamental distinction between men, it should be between the worldly and the spiritual."
To place the statement in context, Schuon was speaking of the charge that esoterism or gnosis is only intended for a kind of intellectual elite, when intelligence as such is not the most important qualification.
Given the staggering amount of intelligent stupidity on our college campi and among the tenured, this should be obvious. As often as not, a certain kind of intelligence forms a barrier to higher worlds. It is a wall, not a window, much less a bridge or door. Not all of our trolls are stupid. I would say that perhaps half are "stuck on smart." In other words, they are condemned to the closed world of vulgar rationalism.
In order for the intelligence to become operative on the spiritual plane, several other factors are necessary. Grace is one, and although we obviously cannot create grace, we most certainly can get out of its way. For some this comes naturally -- it is a reflection of their temperament -- while for others, they must work harder at it.
Thus, we are ultimately talking about a moral qualification, "which involves the fundamental virtues," especially humility and charity. Why humility? Because the assimilation of a spiritual truth is a little death to the ego. The ego lives primarily in, and is nurtured by, the world of appearances. In order to pass from appearance to reality, the ego must be left behind.
And why charity? Because up here, truth and love converge, so there is no impulse to cling to knowledge as if it is one's personal possession. Therefore, to be precise, one could think of charity as an effect, not a cause. It's like tapping into a geyser, and then the geyser gives the water away freely. This is what our trolls never understand: I already realize what I say is worthless to you. That's why I'm giving it away.
We're getting a little far afield here. I just wanted to establish this notion that there are two general types of men, the worldly and the spiritual. However, this is not strictly an either-or proposition; rather, this duality exists on a vertical continuum. Let's call this the y-axis.
With this in mind, we need to immediately amend our definition, since there exist "infrahuman" states that are spiritual in the negative sense. As such, the saint would be situated at the top of the y-axis, whereas the common man would be at the zero point. The real evildoers are situated in the minus space below the horizontal axis. More on which later.
Spiritual Man
Infrahuman Man
Now, later in the day I was reading The Road to Serfdom, which is all about... well, about the left-wing collectivist road to serfdom. I don't think there's any need to rehearse all of his arguments here, because if you don't already understand them, you probably never will.
At the time Road to Serdom was published, it was still thought that fascism and socialism were somehow opposites rather than two forms of the same underlying assumptions. To place these on the horizontal continuum is pure nonsense -- as if fascism is somehow an extension of the classical liberalism of the free market!
No. The only logical way to understand the horizontal continuum -- and to chart "progress" -- is to place "collectivism" and "individualism" on the x-axis; conveniently, collectivism (and serfdom) is to the left, while individualism (and liberty) is to the right.
And supplemented with our y-axis, we are now in a much better position to understand "political space," which will have at least four main areas, but actually more like six if we take into consideration the nether regions below the x-axis.
Let's begin with the lower left hand side of the graph. This would be both collective and "infraspiritual." This type of collectivism is fueled by unconscious magical tendencies. It is the area of fascism, for above all else, fascism is a political religion.
There is also a healthy kind of socialism in the upper left quadrant. This would be, for example, the corporatism of the Catholic Church. Critically, this type of socialism is freely given, not coerced and backed by the violence of the state. In the lower left quadrant of bad socialism, the person is merely a means to the ends of elites, whereas in the upper left quadrant, the person is an end in himself. No one is forced to do anything.
As Hayek points out, bad socialism is morally self-refuting, because it inevitably arrives at intolerable outcomes that deviate from the original aims. For example, no matter what Obama says, socialized medicine will lead to rationing, to illegals being covered, to lower quality healthcare, to less innovation, etc. One way to test the intellectual honesty of a leftist is to ask what the tradeoff will be in Obamacare. If he says "nothing," then you know he's either a fool or a liar.
Looked at in a certain way, both the x-axis and y-axis are "evolutionary," for, taken together, they chart man's soul development. For example, primitive religion is largely collectivist -- which is appropriate, since man started out as a collective being, and only discovered his individuality quite recently, especially on a mass scale. The upper right quadrant is the area of saints, mystics, seers, and visionaries. In the final analysis, a religion is operative if it is producing these kinds of people.
But what about the lower right quadrant? This would be the unhealthy combination of individualism and worldliness. When people talk about the vacuity of consumer culture, this would be the area to which they are referring. It is a kind of egoic "individualism for individualism's sake," bearing upon no higher meaning. I also think of a Bill Maher or Charles Queeg, who deploy worldly reason toward plainly irrational ends.
Again, as we descend down the y-axis, individualism partakes of unconscious and infrahuman forces, and we end up with the cult of personality and the gallery of "unique monsters" -- the triumph of the personal will as embodied in beasts such as Castro, Mao, Stalin, etc.
This is why I am not offended by the signs depicting Obama as a fascist. That would not be my style, nor do I believe that it is strategically prudent. Nevertheless, such a person probably has an accurate intuition about Obama that he cannot symbolize in any other way. He knows that Obama is a creature of the lower right quadrant, and that he wishes to plunge America into the lower left. How low depends upon a number of other variables.
Let's just say that with Democrat majorities in both the house and senate, they can go as low as they wish, and conservatives alone cannot stop them. Let me be clear: both fascism and socialism result in a tyranny of elites of the lower right over the masses of the lower left. Call them Death Panels if you like. (Or, in Lenin's two word formulation, "Who and Whom.")
Socialism is always authoritarian, and therefore fascist. And fascists always place themselves above -- actually, below -- The Law that enshrines our liberty.
Actually, it began with a crack by Schuon, to the effect that there are really only two kinds of people. Here. Let me find it. It's from a chapter called The Problem of Qualifications, and it goes a little like this:
"If one insists on making a fundamental distinction between men, it should be between the worldly and the spiritual."
To place the statement in context, Schuon was speaking of the charge that esoterism or gnosis is only intended for a kind of intellectual elite, when intelligence as such is not the most important qualification.
Given the staggering amount of intelligent stupidity on our college campi and among the tenured, this should be obvious. As often as not, a certain kind of intelligence forms a barrier to higher worlds. It is a wall, not a window, much less a bridge or door. Not all of our trolls are stupid. I would say that perhaps half are "stuck on smart." In other words, they are condemned to the closed world of vulgar rationalism.
In order for the intelligence to become operative on the spiritual plane, several other factors are necessary. Grace is one, and although we obviously cannot create grace, we most certainly can get out of its way. For some this comes naturally -- it is a reflection of their temperament -- while for others, they must work harder at it.
Thus, we are ultimately talking about a moral qualification, "which involves the fundamental virtues," especially humility and charity. Why humility? Because the assimilation of a spiritual truth is a little death to the ego. The ego lives primarily in, and is nurtured by, the world of appearances. In order to pass from appearance to reality, the ego must be left behind.
And why charity? Because up here, truth and love converge, so there is no impulse to cling to knowledge as if it is one's personal possession. Therefore, to be precise, one could think of charity as an effect, not a cause. It's like tapping into a geyser, and then the geyser gives the water away freely. This is what our trolls never understand: I already realize what I say is worthless to you. That's why I'm giving it away.
We're getting a little far afield here. I just wanted to establish this notion that there are two general types of men, the worldly and the spiritual. However, this is not strictly an either-or proposition; rather, this duality exists on a vertical continuum. Let's call this the y-axis.
With this in mind, we need to immediately amend our definition, since there exist "infrahuman" states that are spiritual in the negative sense. As such, the saint would be situated at the top of the y-axis, whereas the common man would be at the zero point. The real evildoers are situated in the minus space below the horizontal axis. More on which later.
Spiritual Man
Infrahuman ManNow, later in the day I was reading The Road to Serfdom, which is all about... well, about the left-wing collectivist road to serfdom. I don't think there's any need to rehearse all of his arguments here, because if you don't already understand them, you probably never will.
At the time Road to Serdom was published, it was still thought that fascism and socialism were somehow opposites rather than two forms of the same underlying assumptions. To place these on the horizontal continuum is pure nonsense -- as if fascism is somehow an extension of the classical liberalism of the free market!
No. The only logical way to understand the horizontal continuum -- and to chart "progress" -- is to place "collectivism" and "individualism" on the x-axis; conveniently, collectivism (and serfdom) is to the left, while individualism (and liberty) is to the right.
And supplemented with our y-axis, we are now in a much better position to understand "political space," which will have at least four main areas, but actually more like six if we take into consideration the nether regions below the x-axis.
Let's begin with the lower left hand side of the graph. This would be both collective and "infraspiritual." This type of collectivism is fueled by unconscious magical tendencies. It is the area of fascism, for above all else, fascism is a political religion.
There is also a healthy kind of socialism in the upper left quadrant. This would be, for example, the corporatism of the Catholic Church. Critically, this type of socialism is freely given, not coerced and backed by the violence of the state. In the lower left quadrant of bad socialism, the person is merely a means to the ends of elites, whereas in the upper left quadrant, the person is an end in himself. No one is forced to do anything.
As Hayek points out, bad socialism is morally self-refuting, because it inevitably arrives at intolerable outcomes that deviate from the original aims. For example, no matter what Obama says, socialized medicine will lead to rationing, to illegals being covered, to lower quality healthcare, to less innovation, etc. One way to test the intellectual honesty of a leftist is to ask what the tradeoff will be in Obamacare. If he says "nothing," then you know he's either a fool or a liar.
Looked at in a certain way, both the x-axis and y-axis are "evolutionary," for, taken together, they chart man's soul development. For example, primitive religion is largely collectivist -- which is appropriate, since man started out as a collective being, and only discovered his individuality quite recently, especially on a mass scale. The upper right quadrant is the area of saints, mystics, seers, and visionaries. In the final analysis, a religion is operative if it is producing these kinds of people.
But what about the lower right quadrant? This would be the unhealthy combination of individualism and worldliness. When people talk about the vacuity of consumer culture, this would be the area to which they are referring. It is a kind of egoic "individualism for individualism's sake," bearing upon no higher meaning. I also think of a Bill Maher or Charles Queeg, who deploy worldly reason toward plainly irrational ends.
Again, as we descend down the y-axis, individualism partakes of unconscious and infrahuman forces, and we end up with the cult of personality and the gallery of "unique monsters" -- the triumph of the personal will as embodied in beasts such as Castro, Mao, Stalin, etc.
This is why I am not offended by the signs depicting Obama as a fascist. That would not be my style, nor do I believe that it is strategically prudent. Nevertheless, such a person probably has an accurate intuition about Obama that he cannot symbolize in any other way. He knows that Obama is a creature of the lower right quadrant, and that he wishes to plunge America into the lower left. How low depends upon a number of other variables.
Let's just say that with Democrat majorities in both the house and senate, they can go as low as they wish, and conservatives alone cannot stop them. Let me be clear: both fascism and socialism result in a tyranny of elites of the lower right over the masses of the lower left. Call them Death Panels if you like. (Or, in Lenin's two word formulation, "Who and Whom.")
Socialism is always authoritarian, and therefore fascist. And fascists always place themselves above -- actually, below -- The Law that enshrines our liberty.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Talkin' Charles Johnson Paranoid Blues
Charles the Queeg has now banished PowerLine due to their well-known fascist associations. This follows the de-linking of other smear merchants and fascist sympathizers such as Ace of Spades, Iowahawk, Gateway Pundit, Jammie Wearing Fool, American Thinker... Who's left to sap and impurify Queeg's precious bodily fluids? It all reminds me of Bob Dylan's Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues:
Well, I was feelin' sad and feelin' blue,
I didn't know what in the world I was gonna do,
Them creationists they wus comin' around,
They wus in the air,
They wus on the ground.
They wouldn't gimme no peace...
So I waited most patiently
'Til I could register with the Lizard Society,
Got me a password and on I logged,
And started off a-postin' on Charles' blog.
Yee-hoo, I'm an LGFer now!
Look out you creationists!
Now we all agree with Kos's views,
Even though he does hate all them Jews.
Sure, he thinks AmeriKKKa's imperialistic,
But at least he ain't creationistic.
Well, I wus lookin' everywhere for them theo-crats.
Inside my gee-tar 'n' under my hat,
Looked in the sink, behind my bike,
Looked everywhere for the dang Fourth Reich.
Couldn't find it...
I wus lookin' high an' low for them ID'ers but to no avail,
I even looked inside my ponytail.
I hunted down every creationist troll,
Finally found one inside my toilet bowl.
He got away...
Well, I wus sittin' home alone an' started to sweat,
Figured they wus all over the internet.
Peeked behind my big mainframe,
Got a shock from my feet right up to the brain.
Them creationists caused it!
I know they did.... them hard-core, Discovery Institute ones!
Well, I quit my job so's I could stay indoors,
And spend all day a-postin' in my drawers.
Followed some clues from an Air America station
And discovered there wus God in the Declaration!
Dang that ol' Jefferson...
Well, I investigated all the blogs in my sidebar,
But ninety-nine percent was to the right of Bill Maher!
I banished all them bloggers that I used to link,
'Cause they was about as kosher as Colonel Klink!
Now Gagdad, he's a fascist tool,
Iowahawk, Ace, and them PowerLine fools.
To my knowledge there's just one man
Who's a real and true American: Charles Darwin!
Maybe Keith Olbermann too...
Well, I fin'ly started thinkin' straight
When I run outa bloggers to investigate.
Couldn't imagine doin' nothin' else,
So now I'm sittin' home investigatin' myself!
Found out Charles Johnson's been makin' me look like a kook....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Theme Song
