PJ O’Rourke – “Bipartisan Consensus,” in World Affairs Winter 2008
Foreign policy has been divided, conceptually, between the “realists” and the “idealists.” The idealists who have no idea what reality is. And the realists who just plain have no idea.
There are the foreign policy experts who refuse to play the game because the quarterback on the other team wasn’t democratically selected. And there are the foreign policy experts who are eager to run with the ball but don’t know which end zone they’re supposed to be headed toward.
Ideas aren’t real. You can’t eat an idea. But you can’t deliver a beefsteak with no idea of what a cow is.
Idealists produce bad foreign policy. On the other hand, realists produce bad foreign policy. But the worst foreign policy is produced by realists and idealists working together. This is called bipartisan consensus. Those are the two most frightening words in Washington. Bipartisan consensus is like when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.
World Affairs won’t be a “realist” publication, because we intend to find the facts rather than pretend that we know them already. And World Affairs won’t be an “idealist” publication, because we intend that our arguments will lead to your conclusions, not that our conclusions will lead to a bunch of arguments with you.
Alan Weisman – The World Without Us – Harper Perennial, Toronto, 2007 – pg 87 – “certain persistent species of plants and animals typically survived periods of climatic and geologic upheaval. One of these was us....whenever climate and environmental conditions grew unruly, early species of Homo outnumbered, and finally displaced, even earlier hominids. Adaptability is the key to who is fittest, one species’ extinction being another’s evolution HUMAN EVOLUTION - ADAPTABILITY
Mayans – pg 291 – Did mounting populations exhausting the land, tempting Petexbatun rulers to seize their neighbors’ property, leading to a cycle of response that spiralled into cataclysmic war? If anything...it was the other way around: An unleashed lust for wealth and power turned them into aggressors, resulting in reprisals that required their cities to abandon vulnerable outlying fields and intensify production closer to home, eventually pushing land beyond its tolerance. “society had evolved too many elites, all demanding exotic baubles.” He describes a culture wobbling under the weight of an excess of nobles, all needing quetzal feathers, jade, obsidian, fine chert, custom polychrome, fancy corbelled roofs, and animal furs. Nobility is expensive, non-productive, and parasitic, siphoning away too much of society’s energy to satisfy its frivolous cravings. MAYAN STATUS SEEKING AND DOWNFALL
Monday, November 16, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
He became an editor of Je suis partout, a fascist paper founded by dissidents from the Action française and led by Pierre Gaxotte. [Robert] Brasillach was attracted to the fascistic Rexist movement in Belgium, and wrote an article and later a book about the leader of the movement, Leon Degrelle. Brasillach admired what he perceived to be Degrelle's youth and charisma and Degrelle's insistence on being neither left nor right, supporting striking workers, encouraging love of the King, family and God and desiring to see the establishment of an anti-Communist and anti-Capitalist Christian-influenced corporate state.[7] Degrelle went on to collaborate with the German occupation of Belgium and served in Waffen SS.
In his A Defence of Aristocracy (1915), [Anthony] Ludovici defends aristocracy against government in popular control. In The False Assumptions of "Democracy"(1921), he attacked the democratic idea and the liberal attitude in general, as having originated in specious philosophy, wholly opposed to nature. A Defence of Conservatism (1927) defends tradition as not only a policy of preservation, but of discernment in change, writing "Man is instinctively conservative in the sense that probably millions of years of experience have taught him that a stable environment is the best for peace of mind, present and future security, automatism of action…and a ready command of material and artificial circumstances. It is the repeated introduction of new instruments, new weapons, new methods, and needs for fresh adaptations, that makes automatism impossible. And it is the complication of life by novel contributions to life's interests and duties that makes a ready command of circumstances difficult."
Ludovici's doctrines were nationalist, traditionalist, and centrally concerned with a form of eugenic reasoning. He argued that heredity can yield strong family lines, group values, and national and racial characteristics. Politicians should not only be individuals of intelligence, and knowledgeable of mankind, but also of the same stock as those they lead.
It is in the interest of the nation to maintain unique characteristics by safeguarding a native and particular potentiality of success and opportunities for self-expression and expansion. This includes a concern for the health of one’s people, that ill-health not only leads to maladaptation, but also to the decay of the strength capacity and character of the nation. "To be a good forester, a man must know how to give trees their proper health conditions, and must also know how to chop and prune them."
National prestige means power, power is safety, and safety is security. Since the conservative politician is concerned with the security and extension of his own nation’s power, he cannot tolerate anything that jeopardizes its position. In dealing with a vis major, he acts firmly and quickly; using the full might of his nation against any enemy that threatens it.
The conservative is naturally suspicious of change. He must know enough about his nation's character and potentialities, of mankind in general, and be able to judge whether new tendencies are desirable, in keeping with the eternal nature of men, or fatalistic, when they apply "only to angels, goblins, fairies or other harebrained fictions".
The conservative is concerned with the happiness of his people. When examining unhappiness amongst his people he differentiates between the type of maladaptation that arises from injustice and oppression, and that which is resultant from degeneracy or morbidity. He can meet the demands of the former easily and accomplish improvement, but in taking on the later he will only penalize the nation.
Ludovici summed up his definition: (esoteric) conservatism "is the preservation of the national identity throughout the process of change by a steady concern for the whole of the nation's life." He opposed Jews, foreigners, and 'odd people' — eccentrics, cranks and fanatics — having anything to do with government.
William Luther Pierce described his form of panentheism as being based on "[t]he idea of an evolutionary universe … with an evolution toward ever higher and higher states of self-consciousness," and his political ideas were centered on racial purity and eugenics as the means of advancing the white race first towards a superhuman state, and then towards a personal godhood. In his view, the white race represented the pinnacle of human evolution thus far and therefore it should be kept genetically separate from all other races in order to achieve its destined perfection in a collective personal godhood.
Pierce believed in a hierarchical society governed by what he saw as the essential principles of nature, including the survival of the fittest. In his social schema, the best-adapted genetic stock, which he believed to be the white race, should remain separated from other races; and within an all-white society, the most fit individuals should lead the rest. He thought that extensive programs of "racial cleansing" (mass expulsion) and of eugenics, both in Europe and in the U.S., would be necessary to achieve this socio-political program.
In his A Defence of Aristocracy (1915), [Anthony] Ludovici defends aristocracy against government in popular control. In The False Assumptions of "Democracy"(1921), he attacked the democratic idea and the liberal attitude in general, as having originated in specious philosophy, wholly opposed to nature. A Defence of Conservatism (1927) defends tradition as not only a policy of preservation, but of discernment in change, writing "Man is instinctively conservative in the sense that probably millions of years of experience have taught him that a stable environment is the best for peace of mind, present and future security, automatism of action…and a ready command of material and artificial circumstances. It is the repeated introduction of new instruments, new weapons, new methods, and needs for fresh adaptations, that makes automatism impossible. And it is the complication of life by novel contributions to life's interests and duties that makes a ready command of circumstances difficult."
Ludovici's doctrines were nationalist, traditionalist, and centrally concerned with a form of eugenic reasoning. He argued that heredity can yield strong family lines, group values, and national and racial characteristics. Politicians should not only be individuals of intelligence, and knowledgeable of mankind, but also of the same stock as those they lead.
It is in the interest of the nation to maintain unique characteristics by safeguarding a native and particular potentiality of success and opportunities for self-expression and expansion. This includes a concern for the health of one’s people, that ill-health not only leads to maladaptation, but also to the decay of the strength capacity and character of the nation. "To be a good forester, a man must know how to give trees their proper health conditions, and must also know how to chop and prune them."
National prestige means power, power is safety, and safety is security. Since the conservative politician is concerned with the security and extension of his own nation’s power, he cannot tolerate anything that jeopardizes its position. In dealing with a vis major, he acts firmly and quickly; using the full might of his nation against any enemy that threatens it.
The conservative is naturally suspicious of change. He must know enough about his nation's character and potentialities, of mankind in general, and be able to judge whether new tendencies are desirable, in keeping with the eternal nature of men, or fatalistic, when they apply "only to angels, goblins, fairies or other harebrained fictions".
The conservative is concerned with the happiness of his people. When examining unhappiness amongst his people he differentiates between the type of maladaptation that arises from injustice and oppression, and that which is resultant from degeneracy or morbidity. He can meet the demands of the former easily and accomplish improvement, but in taking on the later he will only penalize the nation.
Ludovici summed up his definition: (esoteric) conservatism "is the preservation of the national identity throughout the process of change by a steady concern for the whole of the nation's life." He opposed Jews, foreigners, and 'odd people' — eccentrics, cranks and fanatics — having anything to do with government.
William Luther Pierce described his form of panentheism as being based on "[t]he idea of an evolutionary universe … with an evolution toward ever higher and higher states of self-consciousness," and his political ideas were centered on racial purity and eugenics as the means of advancing the white race first towards a superhuman state, and then towards a personal godhood. In his view, the white race represented the pinnacle of human evolution thus far and therefore it should be kept genetically separate from all other races in order to achieve its destined perfection in a collective personal godhood.
Pierce believed in a hierarchical society governed by what he saw as the essential principles of nature, including the survival of the fittest. In his social schema, the best-adapted genetic stock, which he believed to be the white race, should remain separated from other races; and within an all-white society, the most fit individuals should lead the rest. He thought that extensive programs of "racial cleansing" (mass expulsion) and of eugenics, both in Europe and in the U.S., would be necessary to achieve this socio-political program.
fun with wikipedia
"[Alain] Soral's analysis of society focuses on what he terms "desire society",[5] promoted by the media and the cult of celebrity[citation needed]. He has especially criticised monthly women's publications, which he believes alter the conscience and relegate women to the status of "objects".[6]
As part of the debate on 'laïcité' in French schools, Soral claimed to prefer the Muslim veil to thong underwear.[7]
Soral defined himself as a Marxist, and was a member of the French Communist Party in the early 90's. He left the PCF because of his opposition to the party's renunciation of revolutionary content[citation needed]. Soral supported left-wing dissident candidate Jean-Pierre Chevènement during the 2002 presidential election[citation needed].
In 2005, Soral turned to the far-right, joining the National Front's campaign committee; he was given responsibility for social issues and for the suburbs under the authority of Marine Le Pen. Soral's personal journey has led some to compare him with Jacques Doriot, one of the neo-socialists in the early 1930s and Collaborationist under Pétain.[8] He supported the Bloc identitaire's distribution of food in January 2006.[8]"
Nick Griffin:
"Membership of the National Front declined significantly following the election of the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher. As a result the party became more radicalised, and a dissatisfied Griffin, along with fellow NF activists Derek Holland and Patrick Harrington, began to embrace the ideals of Italian fascist Roberto Fiore (Fiore had arrived in the UK in 1980). By 1983 the group had broken away to form the NF Political Soldier faction, which advocated a revival of country "values" and a return to feudalism with the establishment of nationalist communes.[20] Writing for Bulldog in 1985, Griffin praised the black separatist Louis Farrakhan,[21] but his comments were unpopular with some members of the party.[22] He also attempted to form alliances with Libya's Colonel Gadaffi and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini,[23] and praised the efforts of Welsh nationalist movement Meibion Glyndŵr.[24]"
Duke describes himself as a racial realist asserting that "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage".[9] He speaks in favor of voluntary racial segregation and white separatism.[10][11][12]
Duke wrote a self-help book for women to raise money under the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt and James Konrad, titled Finders-Keepers - Finding and Keeping the Man You Want which contains sexual, diet, fashion, cosmetic and relationship advice, published by Arlington Place Books in 1976. Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who read a rare copy of the book given to him by Patsy Sims, wrote that it includes advice on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex.[71][72][73] The book is out of print and difficult to find; however, according to Tyler Bridges, The Times-Picayune obtained a copy and traced its proceeds to Duke[74] who compiled the information from women's self-help magazines.[14]
Tyndall spent much of the 1960s developing his ideological programme. He published the book The Authoritarian State in 1962, in which he claimed that liberal democracy was a Jewish tool of world domination that needed to be replaced by authoritarianism.
Later, [John] Tyndall continued to develop his ideological programme and produced Six Principles of Nationalism (1966) which appeared to break with the neo-Nazi NSM and, instead, looked to electoral paths to government, which would be characterized by leadership, corporatism and racial purity and would be regularly ratified by referendums, bringing to mind the earlier calls of Sir Oswald Mosley who, along with his mother, Tyndall deeply respected. He would spend hours in front of a mirror perfecting Mosley's gestures. Tyndall’s new work impressed A. K. Chesterton, who at the same time was helping to reorganise the demoralised far-right.
As part of the debate on 'laïcité' in French schools, Soral claimed to prefer the Muslim veil to thong underwear.[7]
Soral defined himself as a Marxist, and was a member of the French Communist Party in the early 90's. He left the PCF because of his opposition to the party's renunciation of revolutionary content[citation needed]. Soral supported left-wing dissident candidate Jean-Pierre Chevènement during the 2002 presidential election[citation needed].
In 2005, Soral turned to the far-right, joining the National Front's campaign committee; he was given responsibility for social issues and for the suburbs under the authority of Marine Le Pen. Soral's personal journey has led some to compare him with Jacques Doriot, one of the neo-socialists in the early 1930s and Collaborationist under Pétain.[8] He supported the Bloc identitaire's distribution of food in January 2006.[8]"
Nick Griffin:
"Membership of the National Front declined significantly following the election of the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher. As a result the party became more radicalised, and a dissatisfied Griffin, along with fellow NF activists Derek Holland and Patrick Harrington, began to embrace the ideals of Italian fascist Roberto Fiore (Fiore had arrived in the UK in 1980). By 1983 the group had broken away to form the NF Political Soldier faction, which advocated a revival of country "values" and a return to feudalism with the establishment of nationalist communes.[20] Writing for Bulldog in 1985, Griffin praised the black separatist Louis Farrakhan,[21] but his comments were unpopular with some members of the party.[22] He also attempted to form alliances with Libya's Colonel Gadaffi and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini,[23] and praised the efforts of Welsh nationalist movement Meibion Glyndŵr.[24]"
Duke describes himself as a racial realist asserting that "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage".[9] He speaks in favor of voluntary racial segregation and white separatism.[10][11][12]
Duke wrote a self-help book for women to raise money under the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt and James Konrad, titled Finders-Keepers - Finding and Keeping the Man You Want which contains sexual, diet, fashion, cosmetic and relationship advice, published by Arlington Place Books in 1976. Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who read a rare copy of the book given to him by Patsy Sims, wrote that it includes advice on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex.[71][72][73] The book is out of print and difficult to find; however, according to Tyler Bridges, The Times-Picayune obtained a copy and traced its proceeds to Duke[74] who compiled the information from women's self-help magazines.[14]
Tyndall spent much of the 1960s developing his ideological programme. He published the book The Authoritarian State in 1962, in which he claimed that liberal democracy was a Jewish tool of world domination that needed to be replaced by authoritarianism.
Later, [John] Tyndall continued to develop his ideological programme and produced Six Principles of Nationalism (1966) which appeared to break with the neo-Nazi NSM and, instead, looked to electoral paths to government, which would be characterized by leadership, corporatism and racial purity and would be regularly ratified by referendums, bringing to mind the earlier calls of Sir Oswald Mosley who, along with his mother, Tyndall deeply respected. He would spend hours in front of a mirror perfecting Mosley's gestures. Tyndall’s new work impressed A. K. Chesterton, who at the same time was helping to reorganise the demoralised far-right.
Richard Bernstein - Dictatorship of Virtue - 1995 version
pg 355 - "the point is that multiculturalism as an adversary culture remains dominant within the elite institutions. its assumptions are unchanged: that there is no single national culture but several cultures defined by race and ethnicity; that all cultures are equal and all cultures made equal contributions to American civilization; that the ineradicable ingredient of American life is its oppressiveness and unfairness to women and minorities; that the country is changing its nature and we must make radical changes to be prepared for the new "diversity"; that instilling ethnic and racial self-esteem is the main task of education; that the remediation of attitudes about race and gender (and sometimes the prosecution of those attitudes) should be ever more important goals of our society.
multiculturaism in this sense is an ideology that is unaware of itself as an ideology. it is presumed to embody virtue, and virtue needs to brook no opposition. in reality, however, multiculturalism is not virtue. it is a new entitlement, being presented as virtue as a way of forestalling opposition
pg 355 - "the point is that multiculturalism as an adversary culture remains dominant within the elite institutions. its assumptions are unchanged: that there is no single national culture but several cultures defined by race and ethnicity; that all cultures are equal and all cultures made equal contributions to American civilization; that the ineradicable ingredient of American life is its oppressiveness and unfairness to women and minorities; that the country is changing its nature and we must make radical changes to be prepared for the new "diversity"; that instilling ethnic and racial self-esteem is the main task of education; that the remediation of attitudes about race and gender (and sometimes the prosecution of those attitudes) should be ever more important goals of our society.
multiculturaism in this sense is an ideology that is unaware of itself as an ideology. it is presumed to embody virtue, and virtue needs to brook no opposition. in reality, however, multiculturalism is not virtue. it is a new entitlement, being presented as virtue as a way of forestalling opposition
Monday, October 12, 2009
READ/FIND - ELLIOT WHITE - THE BALKANIZED GLOBAL VILLAGE: A PSYCHOGENETIC PERSPECTIVE, IN RESEARCH IN BIOPOLITICS V. 5
RESEARCH IN BIOPOLITICS 2 - J.C. DAVIES - INNATE ROOTS OF REVOLUTION
P. 192 - it is a psychological truism that perception is functionally selective: that people see things which are relevant to what they want. it is perhaps equally as true that people remember things that are relevant to basic desirves, without themselves being aware of the link between memory and desire. one of these desires is to maintain a good image of oneself in one's own mind: that is, to maintain one's dignity. this requires the suppression and repression of a wide variety of stimuli that do not fit one's preconceptions of self
p 194 - biological research on power has perhaps most often dealt with interaction in which one part to an interaction is more powerful than the other: power in the observed interaction is assymetrical. organic correlates of this asymmetry appear in two major kinds of hormones: steroids (mainly testosterone, estrogen, and cortisol) and catecholamines, including dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenalin), and epinephrine (adrenalie)
males tend to be more seertive than females and to have higher testosterone levels. relatively high catecholamine levels tend to be associated with stress and threat: if an organism is threatened, its norepinephrine and epinephrine levels tend to rise and to produce aggresive or defensive action against the threat. after the threat is passed, catecholamine levels tend to fall. individuals in whom steroid and catecholamine levels are chronically higher tend to be dominant
195 - the thesis that dignity and power are innately rooted drives....environmental factors have hormonal consequences: the establishment of hierarchy changes thelevelsof this hormone
196 - research in changes in behavior...do suggest that an innate inferiority in strength, assertiveness, and aggresiveness, and also lower hormone levels are associated with these attributes. that is, the defeated animals did not welcome defeat but accepted it because they could do no better. their subordination appears to be a secondary product, a derivation not of an innate desire to be subordinate but of innate inability to be dominant.
197 - cortisol (hydrocortisone_ levels tend to be higher in subordinate than in dominant male vervet monkeys (mcguire, 1982). and the level of seratonin...tends to be higher among dominant individuals (both vervet monekys and humans) than among subordinates. when an individual loses dominance, his serotonin level goes down (McGuire, 1982; Madsen, 1985). once an animal has established or at least accepted its power position, threats are likely to dominish, from both the winner and the loser in the struggle for food or sex or whatever is the object of conflict
we prime primates are born with brains that have the enormous potential to process information and make decisions. we are blessed and cursed with an extraordinary desire to understand - and necessarily to form complex (198)abstractions in the process
201 - however, once survival has become relatively assured and face-to-face groups have been re-formed out of the chaotic struggle of each against all, violence does not necessarily cease: it may even intensify, because with the establishment of physical security and of group solidarity, people are nw free to pursue together and politically the satisfaction of their individually felt and now socially supported metasurvival needs, including the needs for dignity and power. interindividual violence may be replaced by intergroup and international violence
202 - physical deprivation was among the causes of these uprisings, but black people in america were surviving better when they did rebel in 1965 than in they were in 1965, when they don't. the most active Arab rebels in the 1988 intefadeh were better off than their parents
what is noteworthy about these recent and current uprisings is that they have been instigated by people who rebelled not just in order to eat but also in order to gain increased dignity and a larger share of power than they had experienced previously. it is not that they had hitherto enjoyed substantial amounts of deference and power but that they had hitherto been so intently, so totally preoccupied with staying alive and well, that they could not concern themselves with anything else
RESEARCH IN BIOPOLITICS 2 - J.C. DAVIES - INNATE ROOTS OF REVOLUTION
P. 192 - it is a psychological truism that perception is functionally selective: that people see things which are relevant to what they want. it is perhaps equally as true that people remember things that are relevant to basic desirves, without themselves being aware of the link between memory and desire. one of these desires is to maintain a good image of oneself in one's own mind: that is, to maintain one's dignity. this requires the suppression and repression of a wide variety of stimuli that do not fit one's preconceptions of self
p 194 - biological research on power has perhaps most often dealt with interaction in which one part to an interaction is more powerful than the other: power in the observed interaction is assymetrical. organic correlates of this asymmetry appear in two major kinds of hormones: steroids (mainly testosterone, estrogen, and cortisol) and catecholamines, including dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenalin), and epinephrine (adrenalie)
males tend to be more seertive than females and to have higher testosterone levels. relatively high catecholamine levels tend to be associated with stress and threat: if an organism is threatened, its norepinephrine and epinephrine levels tend to rise and to produce aggresive or defensive action against the threat. after the threat is passed, catecholamine levels tend to fall. individuals in whom steroid and catecholamine levels are chronically higher tend to be dominant
195 - the thesis that dignity and power are innately rooted drives....environmental factors have hormonal consequences: the establishment of hierarchy changes thelevelsof this hormone
196 - research in changes in behavior...do suggest that an innate inferiority in strength, assertiveness, and aggresiveness, and also lower hormone levels are associated with these attributes. that is, the defeated animals did not welcome defeat but accepted it because they could do no better. their subordination appears to be a secondary product, a derivation not of an innate desire to be subordinate but of innate inability to be dominant.
197 - cortisol (hydrocortisone_ levels tend to be higher in subordinate than in dominant male vervet monkeys (mcguire, 1982). and the level of seratonin...tends to be higher among dominant individuals (both vervet monekys and humans) than among subordinates. when an individual loses dominance, his serotonin level goes down (McGuire, 1982; Madsen, 1985). once an animal has established or at least accepted its power position, threats are likely to dominish, from both the winner and the loser in the struggle for food or sex or whatever is the object of conflict
we prime primates are born with brains that have the enormous potential to process information and make decisions. we are blessed and cursed with an extraordinary desire to understand - and necessarily to form complex (198)abstractions in the process
201 - however, once survival has become relatively assured and face-to-face groups have been re-formed out of the chaotic struggle of each against all, violence does not necessarily cease: it may even intensify, because with the establishment of physical security and of group solidarity, people are nw free to pursue together and politically the satisfaction of their individually felt and now socially supported metasurvival needs, including the needs for dignity and power. interindividual violence may be replaced by intergroup and international violence
202 - physical deprivation was among the causes of these uprisings, but black people in america were surviving better when they did rebel in 1965 than in they were in 1965, when they don't. the most active Arab rebels in the 1988 intefadeh were better off than their parents
what is noteworthy about these recent and current uprisings is that they have been instigated by people who rebelled not just in order to eat but also in order to gain increased dignity and a larger share of power than they had experienced previously. it is not that they had hitherto enjoyed substantial amounts of deference and power but that they had hitherto been so intently, so totally preoccupied with staying alive and well, that they could not concern themselves with anything else
pg 185 Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly
"within something's very eyes within the sight of some thing. which, unlike little dark-eyed Donna, does not ever blink. what does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me - into us - clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong to"
"within something's very eyes within the sight of some thing. which, unlike little dark-eyed Donna, does not ever blink. what does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me - into us - clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong to"
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
pg 196 2000 version of Gibson's Neuromancer:
"Power, in Case's world, meant corporate power. the zaibatsus, the multinationals that shaped the course of human history, had transcended old barriers. viewed as organisms, they had attained a kind of immortality. you couldn't kill a zaibatsu by assassinating a dozen key executives; there were others waiting to step up the ladder, assume the vacated position, access the vast banks of corporate memory. but Tessier-Ashpool wasn't like that, and he sensed the difference in the death of its founder. T-A was an atavism, a clan. he remembered the litter of the old man's chamber, the soiled humanity of it, the ragged spines of the old audio disks in their paper sleeves. one foot bare, the other in a velvet slipper"
"wintermute and the nest. phobic visions of the hatching wasps, time-lapse machine gune of biology. but weren't the zaibatsus more like that, or the Yakuza, hives with cybernetic memory, vast single organisms, their DNA coded in silicon?"
"Case had always taken it for granted that the real bosses, the kingpins in a given industry, would be both more and less than people. he'd seen it in the men who'd crippled him in Memphis, he'd seen Wage affect the semblance of it in Night City, and it had allowed him to accept Armitage's flatness and lack of feeling. he'd always imagined it as a gradual and willing accomodation of the machine, the system, the parent organism. it was the root of street cool, too, the knowing posture that implied connection, invisible lines up to hidden levels of influence."
"Power, in Case's world, meant corporate power. the zaibatsus, the multinationals that shaped the course of human history, had transcended old barriers. viewed as organisms, they had attained a kind of immortality. you couldn't kill a zaibatsu by assassinating a dozen key executives; there were others waiting to step up the ladder, assume the vacated position, access the vast banks of corporate memory. but Tessier-Ashpool wasn't like that, and he sensed the difference in the death of its founder. T-A was an atavism, a clan. he remembered the litter of the old man's chamber, the soiled humanity of it, the ragged spines of the old audio disks in their paper sleeves. one foot bare, the other in a velvet slipper"
"wintermute and the nest. phobic visions of the hatching wasps, time-lapse machine gune of biology. but weren't the zaibatsus more like that, or the Yakuza, hives with cybernetic memory, vast single organisms, their DNA coded in silicon?"
"Case had always taken it for granted that the real bosses, the kingpins in a given industry, would be both more and less than people. he'd seen it in the men who'd crippled him in Memphis, he'd seen Wage affect the semblance of it in Night City, and it had allowed him to accept Armitage's flatness and lack of feeling. he'd always imagined it as a gradual and willing accomodation of the machine, the system, the parent organism. it was the root of street cool, too, the knowing posture that implied connection, invisible lines up to hidden levels of influence."
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDNmZWFhN2ZjYTg3NzRhZjg3ZThkYjhjYmQ1MzRiMTI=
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/preston200510050823.asp
http://www.reason.com/news/show/32972.html
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28899.html
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDM2ZGUxOGZhMjdkMWZmNjAzYWZlNDQ5MmRjZDIwMGU=
http://www.whedon.info/Serenity-on-Nationalreview-com.html
http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html?page=1%23comments
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/preston200510050823.asp
http://www.reason.com/news/show/32972.html
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28899.html
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDM2ZGUxOGZhMjdkMWZmNjAzYWZlNDQ5MmRjZDIwMGU=
http://www.whedon.info/Serenity-on-Nationalreview-com.html
http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html?page=1%23comments
Saturday, August 22, 2009
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”
—Margaret Thatcher
"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies," wrote C.S. Lewis, a man who knew a thing or two about religion. "The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
pg 20/21 - Candide: "one day Cunegonde was waling near the house in a little coppice, called 'the park,' when she saw Dr. Pangloss behind some bushes giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother's waiting-woman, a pretty little brunette who seemed eminently teachable. Since Lady Cunegonde took a great interest in science, she watched the experiments being repeated with breatheless fascination. she saw clearly the Doctor's 'sufficient reason,' and took note of cause and effect. then, in a disturbed and thoughtful state of mind, she returned home full of desire for loearning, and fancied that she could reason equally well with young Candide and he with her"
of other people’s money.”
—Margaret Thatcher
"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies," wrote C.S. Lewis, a man who knew a thing or two about religion. "The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
pg 20/21 - Candide: "one day Cunegonde was waling near the house in a little coppice, called 'the park,' when she saw Dr. Pangloss behind some bushes giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother's waiting-woman, a pretty little brunette who seemed eminently teachable. Since Lady Cunegonde took a great interest in science, she watched the experiments being repeated with breatheless fascination. she saw clearly the Doctor's 'sufficient reason,' and took note of cause and effect. then, in a disturbed and thoughtful state of mind, she returned home full of desire for loearning, and fancied that she could reason equally well with young Candide and he with her"
Saturday, August 8, 2009
https://faculty.washington.edu/modelski/index.html - Evolutionary World Politics
http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/ess/ess.htm - European Sociobiological Society
http://www.adamsmith.org/ - Adam Smith Institute
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/ - Adam Smith Institute blog
http://www.independent.org/ - Independent Institute
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/ - World Affairs Journal
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/ - Foreign Policy
http://agenda.nationalreview.com/ - Salam's The Agenda
http://www.irtheory.com/know.htm - IR Theory
http://www.evolutionary-philosophy.net/library.html - Evolutionary Philosophy
http://www.toddseavey.com/ - todd seavey
http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.woa?bigideas - TVO's big ideas
http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/ - front porch republic
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/ - league of ordinary gentlemen
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/ - standpoint
http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk - uncommon knowledge
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/danielhannan/ - dan hannan
http://www.econtalk.org/ - econtalk
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/ - point of inquiry
http://www2.macleans.ca/category/blog-central/national/andrew-coynes-blog/ - coyne
http://www2.macleans.ca/category/blog-central/national/inkless-wells/ - wells
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/andrew-steele/ - andrew steele
http://www.cato.org/podcasts/ - CATO podcasts
http://reason.tv/podcast - Reason podcasts
http://app2.capitalreach.com/esp1204/servlet/tc?cn=aei&c=10162&s=20271&e=5115&&du=/a/aei/feed.jsp&fn=un - AEI podcasts
http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/ess/books1.htm - MASSIVE AWESOME BOOK LIST
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rmasters/ - masters
http://dss.missouristate.edu/bthayer.htm - thayer
http://www.niu.edu/polisci/faculty/profiles.shtml#arnhart - arnhart
http://www.personal.psu.edu/sap12/home/ - steven peterson
http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/dennen/dennen.htm - van der dennen
albert somit
vincent falger
robert h. blank
samuel m. hines
http://www.complexsystems.org/bio.html - peter corning
http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/researcher/person140813.html - ralph pettman
elliot white
dead: glendon schubert and thomas wiegele
http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/ess/ess.htm - European Sociobiological Society
http://www.adamsmith.org/ - Adam Smith Institute
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/ - Adam Smith Institute blog
http://www.independent.org/ - Independent Institute
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/ - World Affairs Journal
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/ - Foreign Policy
http://agenda.nationalreview.com/ - Salam's The Agenda
http://www.irtheory.com/know.htm - IR Theory
http://www.evolutionary-philosophy.net/library.html - Evolutionary Philosophy
http://www.toddseavey.com/ - todd seavey
http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.woa?bigideas - TVO's big ideas
http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/ - front porch republic
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/ - league of ordinary gentlemen
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/ - standpoint
http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk - uncommon knowledge
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/danielhannan/ - dan hannan
http://www.econtalk.org/ - econtalk
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/ - point of inquiry
http://www2.macleans.ca/category/blog-central/national/andrew-coynes-blog/ - coyne
http://www2.macleans.ca/category/blog-central/national/inkless-wells/ - wells
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/andrew-steele/ - andrew steele
http://www.cato.org/podcasts/ - CATO podcasts
http://reason.tv/podcast - Reason podcasts
http://app2.capitalreach.com/esp1204/servlet/tc?cn=aei&c=10162&s=20271&e=5115&&du=/a/aei/feed.jsp&fn=un - AEI podcasts
http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/ess/books1.htm - MASSIVE AWESOME BOOK LIST
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rmasters/ - masters
http://dss.missouristate.edu/bthayer.htm - thayer
http://www.niu.edu/polisci/faculty/profiles.shtml#arnhart - arnhart
http://www.personal.psu.edu/sap12/home/ - steven peterson
http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/dennen/dennen.htm - van der dennen
albert somit
vincent falger
robert h. blank
samuel m. hines
http://www.complexsystems.org/bio.html - peter corning
http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/researcher/person140813.html - ralph pettman
elliot white
dead: glendon schubert and thomas wiegele
Monday, July 20, 2009
http://www-app.igb.uiuc.edu/ibpsi/index.html - Illinois Biology and Politics Summer Institute
http://www.aplsnet.org/ - Association for Politics and the Life Sciences website (see: research - links + bibliography + course syllabi (esp. Strate's Biopolitics)
http://politicsandthelifesciences.org/ - Politics and the Life Sciences
http://www.ajps.org/ - American Journal of Political Science
http://www.apsanet.org/content_3222.cfm - American Political Science Review
http://ips.sagepub.com - International Political Science Review
http://www.polisci.niu.edu/polisci/graduate/politics.shtml - Politics and the Life Sciences Masters Degree
http://www.catooncampus.org/tag/show/639.html - Cato internships, etc
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/education_programs/forstudents/internship_program - Fraser Internships
http://www.theihs.org/ - IHS
http://www.theihs.org/ContentDetails.aspx?id=704 - IHS Internship lsit
http://fee.org/ - Foundation for Economic Education
http://www.heritage.org/about/internships - Heritage
http://www.aei.org/basicPages/20038142214000059 - AEI
http://www.hbes.com/ - Human Behavior and Evolution Society
http://evolution.binghamton.edu/evos - EvoS/Binghamton
http://www.evolutionsociety.org/resources.htm - society for the study of evolution
http://www.epjournal.net Evolutionary Psychology Journal
http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/anthropology+and+archaeology/journal/12110- Human Nature
http://politicsandlifesciences.wordpress.com/- PLS blog
http://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/- Larry Arnhart
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/postmodernconservative
http://www.aldaily.com/- Arts and Letters Daily
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb- Claremont Review of Books http://toddseavey.com/
http://www.newcriterion.com/
http://www.c2cjournal.ca/
http://secularright.org/ - secular right
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex - Jonah Lehrer
http://www.brainandevolution.blogspot.com - EvoPsych blog
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp- Gene expression
http://meaningoflife.tv/- Meaning of Life tv
http://www.templeton.org/evolution- Evolution at Templeton
http://www.edge.org/- Edge
http://www.corante.com/brainwaves/ - brain waves
http://www.newpaltz.edu/evos/seminar.html
http://www.bec.ucla.edu/BECSpeakerSeries.htm
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/polsci/information/graduate/graduate_information.htm - Toronto Graduate Studies
http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/graduate/index.html - York Graduate Poli Sci
http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/polisci/Webpages/Prospective%20Students/Graduate%20Students/home.html?../Webpages/Prospective%20Students/Graduate%20Students/about.html=gold --> McMaster Graduate Poli sci
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/evpsychfaq.html - Evopsych FAQ
http://www.human-nature.com/darwin/index.html - Darwin database
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/ - Center for Evolutionary Psychology
http://www.mercatus.org/ - Mercatus Center
http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/ishe/ - International Society for Human Ethology
http://www.une.edu/nei/ - New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Studies
http://www.sealsite.org/ - Society for Evolutionary Analysis in Law
http://www.aplsnet.org/ - Association for Politics and the Life Sciences website (see: research - links + bibliography + course syllabi (esp. Strate's Biopolitics)
http://politicsandthelifesciences.org/ - Politics and the Life Sciences
http://www.ajps.org/ - American Journal of Political Science
http://www.apsanet.org/content_3222.cfm - American Political Science Review
http://ips.sagepub.com - International Political Science Review
http://www.polisci.niu.edu/polisci/graduate/politics.shtml - Politics and the Life Sciences Masters Degree
http://www.catooncampus.org/tag/show/639.html - Cato internships, etc
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/education_programs/forstudents/internship_program - Fraser Internships
http://www.theihs.org/ - IHS
http://www.theihs.org/ContentDetails.aspx?id=704 - IHS Internship lsit
http://fee.org/ - Foundation for Economic Education
http://www.heritage.org/about/internships - Heritage
http://www.aei.org/basicPages/20038142214000059 - AEI
http://www.hbes.com/ - Human Behavior and Evolution Society
http://evolution.binghamton.edu/evos - EvoS/Binghamton
http://www.evolutionsociety.org/resources.htm - society for the study of evolution
http://www.epjournal.net Evolutionary Psychology Journal
http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/anthropology+and+archaeology/journal/12110- Human Nature
http://politicsandlifesciences.wordpress.com/- PLS blog
http://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/- Larry Arnhart
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/postmodernconservative
http://www.aldaily.com/- Arts and Letters Daily
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb- Claremont Review of Books http://toddseavey.com/
http://www.newcriterion.com/
http://www.c2cjournal.ca/
http://secularright.org/ - secular right
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex - Jonah Lehrer
http://www.brainandevolution.blogspot.com - EvoPsych blog
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp- Gene expression
http://meaningoflife.tv/- Meaning of Life tv
http://www.templeton.org/evolution- Evolution at Templeton
http://www.edge.org/- Edge
http://www.corante.com/brainwaves/ - brain waves
http://www.newpaltz.edu/evos/seminar.html
http://www.bec.ucla.edu/BECSpeakerSeries.htm
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/polsci/information/graduate/graduate_information.htm - Toronto Graduate Studies
http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/graduate/index.html - York Graduate Poli Sci
http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/polisci/Webpages/Prospective%20Students/Graduate%20Students/home.html?../Webpages/Prospective%20Students/Graduate%20Students/about.html=gold --> McMaster Graduate Poli sci
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/evpsychfaq.html - Evopsych FAQ
http://www.human-nature.com/darwin/index.html - Darwin database
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/ - Center for Evolutionary Psychology
http://www.mercatus.org/ - Mercatus Center
http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/ishe/ - International Society for Human Ethology
http://www.une.edu/nei/ - New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Studies
http://www.sealsite.org/ - Society for Evolutionary Analysis in Law
Sunday, February 24, 2008
"This fissure had many philosophical names: soul versus body - mind versus heart - liberty versus equality - the practical versus the moral. But all of these false dichotomies are merely secondary consequences derived by the mystics from one real, basic issue: reason versus mysticism- or, in political terms, reason and freedom versus faith and force."
Ayn Rand- The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age
Ayn Rand- The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age
Saturday, February 23, 2008
"However, we live in an increasingly censorious age. By this I mean that the broad, indeed international, acceptance of First Amendment principles is being steadily eroded. Many special-interest groups, claiming the moral high ground, now demand the protection of the censor. Political correctness and the rise of the religious right provide the pro-censorship lobby with further cohorts. I would like to say a little about just one of the weapons of this resurgent lobby, a weapon used, interestingly, by everyone from anti-pornography feminists to religious fundamentalists: I mean the concept of “respect.”
On the surface, “respect” is one of those ideas nobody’s against. Like a good warm coat in winter, like applause, like ketchup on your fries, everybody wants some of that. Sock-it-to-me-sock-it-to-me, as Aretha Franklin puts it. But what we used to mean by respect- what Aretha meant by it; that is, a mixture of good-hearted consideration and serious attention- has little to do with the new ideological usage of the word.
Religious extremists, these days, demand respect for their attitudes with growing stridency. Very few people would object to the idea that people’s rights to religious belief must be respected- after all, the First Amendment defends those rights as unequivocally as it defends free speech- but now we are asked to agree that to dissent from those beliefs- to hold that they are suspect, or antiquated, or wrong; that in fact, they are arguable- is incompatible with the idea of respect. When criticism is placed off limits as “disrespectful,” and therefore offensive, something strange is happening to the concept of respect. Yet in recent times both the American National Endowment for the Arts and the very British BBC have announced that they will use this new version of “respect” as a touchstone for their funding decisions.
Other minority groups- racial, sexual, social- have also demanded that they be accorded this new form of respect. To “respect” Louis Farrakhan, we must understand, is simply to agree with him. To “diss” him is, equally simply, to disagree. But if dissent is also to be though a form of “dissing,” then we have indeed succumbed to the Thought Police. I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow citizen’s opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impassioned and untrammeled. A free society is not a calm and eventless place- that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create. Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreement. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked; and it is the skepticism of journalists, their show-me, prove-it unwillingness to be impressed, that is perhaps their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world. It is the disrespect of journalists- for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors- that I would like to celebrate this morning, and that I urge you all, in freedom’s name, to preserve."
Salman Rushdie
April 1996
“Farming Ostriches” Originally delivered as a keynote address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors
On the surface, “respect” is one of those ideas nobody’s against. Like a good warm coat in winter, like applause, like ketchup on your fries, everybody wants some of that. Sock-it-to-me-sock-it-to-me, as Aretha Franklin puts it. But what we used to mean by respect- what Aretha meant by it; that is, a mixture of good-hearted consideration and serious attention- has little to do with the new ideological usage of the word.
Religious extremists, these days, demand respect for their attitudes with growing stridency. Very few people would object to the idea that people’s rights to religious belief must be respected- after all, the First Amendment defends those rights as unequivocally as it defends free speech- but now we are asked to agree that to dissent from those beliefs- to hold that they are suspect, or antiquated, or wrong; that in fact, they are arguable- is incompatible with the idea of respect. When criticism is placed off limits as “disrespectful,” and therefore offensive, something strange is happening to the concept of respect. Yet in recent times both the American National Endowment for the Arts and the very British BBC have announced that they will use this new version of “respect” as a touchstone for their funding decisions.
Other minority groups- racial, sexual, social- have also demanded that they be accorded this new form of respect. To “respect” Louis Farrakhan, we must understand, is simply to agree with him. To “diss” him is, equally simply, to disagree. But if dissent is also to be though a form of “dissing,” then we have indeed succumbed to the Thought Police. I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow citizen’s opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impassioned and untrammeled. A free society is not a calm and eventless place- that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create. Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreement. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked; and it is the skepticism of journalists, their show-me, prove-it unwillingness to be impressed, that is perhaps their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world. It is the disrespect of journalists- for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors- that I would like to celebrate this morning, and that I urge you all, in freedom’s name, to preserve."
Salman Rushdie
April 1996
“Farming Ostriches” Originally delivered as a keynote address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors
"Conservatism favors the restraint of government. A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. Also, conservatism is, at least in its American form, a philosophy that relies upon personal responsibility and promotes private liberty. It is an ideology of individuals. Everyone with any sense and experience in life would rather take his fellows one by one than in a crowd. Crowds are noisy, unreasonable and impatient. They can trample you easier than a single person can. And a crowd will never buy you lunch.
"But although this is a conservative book, it is not informed by any very elaborate political theory. I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.
God is an elderly, or, at any rate, a middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material weel-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club.
Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. He’s nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and how’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus."
PJ O'Rourke
Road to serfdom pg 19-
"But while the progress toward what is commonly called “positive” action was necessarily slow, and while for the immediate improvement liberalism had to rely largely on the gradual increase of wealth which freedom brought about, it had constantly to fight proposals which threatened this progress. It came to be regarded as a “negative” creed because it could offer to particular individuals little more than a share in the common progress- a progress which came to be taken more and more for granted and was no longer recognized as the result of the policy of freedom. It might even be said that the very success of liberalism became the cause of its decline. Because of the success already achieved, man became increasingly unwilling to tolerate the evils still with him which now appeared both unbearable and unnecessary."
Road to serfdom pg 25-
"Nobody saw more clearly than De Tocqueville that democracy as an essentially individualist institution stood in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, “ he said in 1848; “socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”"
-Hayek
"But although this is a conservative book, it is not informed by any very elaborate political theory. I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.
God is an elderly, or, at any rate, a middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material weel-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club.
Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. He’s nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and how’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus."
PJ O'Rourke
Road to serfdom pg 19-
"But while the progress toward what is commonly called “positive” action was necessarily slow, and while for the immediate improvement liberalism had to rely largely on the gradual increase of wealth which freedom brought about, it had constantly to fight proposals which threatened this progress. It came to be regarded as a “negative” creed because it could offer to particular individuals little more than a share in the common progress- a progress which came to be taken more and more for granted and was no longer recognized as the result of the policy of freedom. It might even be said that the very success of liberalism became the cause of its decline. Because of the success already achieved, man became increasingly unwilling to tolerate the evils still with him which now appeared both unbearable and unnecessary."
Road to serfdom pg 25-
"Nobody saw more clearly than De Tocqueville that democracy as an essentially individualist institution stood in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, “ he said in 1848; “socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”"
-Hayek
Sunday, September 16, 2007
I love Lubor Zink
"Some people maintain that Canada's basic and overriding interest is national sovereignty. Others are convinced that what really
matters is economic growth. Still others give basic priority to social justice. There are also those who believe that all
effort should be concentrated on transformation of the UN into a world government. Yet another view holds that the most
urgent problem we must tackle is pollution of natural environments. It is not difficult to find arguments in support of every
one of these positions. But that does not mean that any one of them qualifies as indisputable number one priority.
That place surely must be reserved for the historical priority of free men throughout the ages, namely preservation of freedom.
Without freedom there can be no national sovereignty, no social justice, no economic growth worth working for, no peace
and no enjoyment of life even in the cleanest natural environment. That fact that from time immemorial people have valued
freedom above life itself attests that there is no higher priority in the scale of human values. Doubts on this score can
only come from those who have inherited the blessings of freedom, take them for granted and have no notion what loss of freedom means."
"The intimate spiritual and material bonds between Canada and the US grew out of shared concepts of human life within the
framework of the highest degree of individual and political freedom ever attained anywhere in the world. No one maintains
that the socio-politico-economic system of North America, as practiced with minor variations in Canada and the US, is perfect.
Perfection in the sense of idealistic abstractions is beyond the grasp of human nature. But with all its obvious shortcomings our social
system provinces a flexible structure of unparalleled liberty and unparalleled affluence.
The Soviet system of coercive messianism, spawned by contempt of what Marx called "the miserable individual," and fueled
by organized hate, has produced a rigid totalitarian structure that cannot tolerate any of the expressions of freedom we take
for granted. At the same time, while building and enormous military machine and providing material privileges for the
upper crust of its self-appointed ruling clique, it maintains a low general standard of living in what is in effect an archaic police
state. It takes a peculiar mind to seek cordial relations with the rulers of such a society. And it takes a streak of
perversion (or perhaps, blindness) in that peculiar mind to set as a national goal the same type of intimate relations
with a totalitarian state that we have enjoyed, until recently, with the congenial democracy south of the border.
Mr. Trudeau has such a a peculiar mind. While he was exercising it in the ivory tower of the academe, the harm he could do,
though not negligible, was fairly limited. As Prime Minister, who commands a rubber-stamping majority in Parliament, he is in a position to put the country on collision course
with its vital interests. "
matters is economic growth. Still others give basic priority to social justice. There are also those who believe that all
effort should be concentrated on transformation of the UN into a world government. Yet another view holds that the most
urgent problem we must tackle is pollution of natural environments. It is not difficult to find arguments in support of every
one of these positions. But that does not mean that any one of them qualifies as indisputable number one priority.
That place surely must be reserved for the historical priority of free men throughout the ages, namely preservation of freedom.
Without freedom there can be no national sovereignty, no social justice, no economic growth worth working for, no peace
and no enjoyment of life even in the cleanest natural environment. That fact that from time immemorial people have valued
freedom above life itself attests that there is no higher priority in the scale of human values. Doubts on this score can
only come from those who have inherited the blessings of freedom, take them for granted and have no notion what loss of freedom means."
"The intimate spiritual and material bonds between Canada and the US grew out of shared concepts of human life within the
framework of the highest degree of individual and political freedom ever attained anywhere in the world. No one maintains
that the socio-politico-economic system of North America, as practiced with minor variations in Canada and the US, is perfect.
Perfection in the sense of idealistic abstractions is beyond the grasp of human nature. But with all its obvious shortcomings our social
system provinces a flexible structure of unparalleled liberty and unparalleled affluence.
The Soviet system of coercive messianism, spawned by contempt of what Marx called "the miserable individual," and fueled
by organized hate, has produced a rigid totalitarian structure that cannot tolerate any of the expressions of freedom we take
for granted. At the same time, while building and enormous military machine and providing material privileges for the
upper crust of its self-appointed ruling clique, it maintains a low general standard of living in what is in effect an archaic police
state. It takes a peculiar mind to seek cordial relations with the rulers of such a society. And it takes a streak of
perversion (or perhaps, blindness) in that peculiar mind to set as a national goal the same type of intimate relations
with a totalitarian state that we have enjoyed, until recently, with the congenial democracy south of the border.
Mr. Trudeau has such a a peculiar mind. While he was exercising it in the ivory tower of the academe, the harm he could do,
though not negligible, was fairly limited. As Prime Minister, who commands a rubber-stamping majority in Parliament, he is in a position to put the country on collision course
with its vital interests. "
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
"One of Cromwell's Parliaments proposed burning all state records so that, having effaced all official memory of the past, life could begin afresh. Disavowel of antecedents is the quintessential revolutionary act, as Napoleon, too, understood.
When shown a genealogy of the Bonaparte family, Napoleon brushed it aside, remarking: "Je suis mon propre ancetre" (I am my own ancestor. Considering the scale of Napoleon's vanity, and the nature of that genealogy, his rejection of it was understandable. But his rejection also reflected the modern disdain for history as "the dead hand of the past."
Napoleon is the archetypal modern man of action, a bloody nuisance ricocheting around civilization, making history and orphans. He made so much history because he knew so little. He traveled fast because he traveled little, unencumbered by an educated person's sense of limitations, the sense that is the bittersweet fruit of historical understanding. Such people are tolerable, if you like history as made by Corsican bridgards and other modern world-shakers.
...
Many historians, like many other intellectuals, long to be "relevant" to the specific problems of today. Thy flinch from acknowledging that the most useful lesson of history is highly general. It is: things have not always been as they are, and will not always be as they are. This is an especially important insight for Americans, who take for granted freedom and abundance, both of which are, considered in the sweep of history, rare and shortlived phenomena.
History contains more sadness than gladness, more dreams frustrated than fulfilled. But this means that the study of history is, for many historians, unacceptably unfun and unheroic. Like many other intellectuals, many historians want to believe that they are pregnant with the future. They want to dissolve the distinction between thought and action. They are, they think, deliverers: history will yield highly practical "lessons" that will propel manking to the uplands of happiness.
Many modern intellectuals, like optimists through the ages, recoil from this truth: the best use of history is as an inoculation against radical expectations, and hence against embittering dissapointments.
Optimists as different as Marxists and Americans believe in History- Americans call it Progress- as a linear process leading inexorably to higher stages of life. But if historians and other intellectuals were free from Promethean pretensions, young people at school would learn the unfun, unheroic truth that history is circular, like a maelstrom."
-George Will, "Inoculation by History"
"FDR's New Deal broke with nineteenth-century liberalism (which is what passes for conservatism today) by abandoning the premise that society, as distinguished sharply from government, produces the elements of happiness in life, and that government's role is merely to maintain a framework of order in which people pursue happiness. What was new about the New Deal was the notion that government had a duty to provide people with some, and more and more, of the tangible elements of happiness.
Long and forever gone are the days when it was thought that well-bring, economic and otherwise, should be solely the result of the individual's ability to cope with society, with social forces that government could not or should not regulate. The New Deal changed, irreversibly, Americans' expectations, and the legal and psychic relationship of Americans to their government.
This year some GOP conservatives seem to be trying, again, to turn an election into a referendum on the propriety of those expectations and that relationship. It is unclear how the GOP can benefit from so straight-on a challenge to the settled habits of mind of the American majority, which accepts the Rooseveltian premise that government should supply crucial elements of happiness.
The GOP challenge is a risky tactic against Carter, who calls to mind Disraeli's recommendation: Tory men and Whig measures. Carter is an unmistakably conservative person. The values he obviously cherishes and repeatedly invokes- piety, family, community, continuity, industriousness, discipline- are the soul of conservatism, The appeal of Carter to conservatives is in his aspiration to use government vigorously in the service of conservative values."
-George Will, "Odd Man In"
"Most UN members are police regimes. Many of these regimes rule over ersatz nations. Many use their energies to pound together human elements that lack cultural affinities. To such regimes Israel, a real nation, is either unintelligible or a reproach. Regimes resting on force are bound to find fault with the rich legitimizing sources of Israel's nationhood.
Israel became a nation after the United Nations was born. But in a sense Israel is one of the oldest nations (with Egypt and China) represented there. One hundred years hence, if historians bother to remember the UN at all, they may remember it as a mob of regimes representing force without legitimacy, all power and no authority, venting their rage against one of the few nations truly represented there."
-George Will, "Zionism and Legitimacy," 1975
"As Czechoslovakia, a democratic country, was accused of mistreating the German minority in the Sudeten region, so Israel, also a democratic country, is accused of mistreating the Arab minority within Israel itself and also, of course, in the occupied territories. As the creation of the Czechoslovak state after WW1 was called a mistake by Hitler and Chamberlain, so the creation of the Jewish state after WW2 is called a crime by contemporary totalitarians and their appeasers. The insistence by the Czechs that surrendering the Sudeten regions to Hitler would leave Czechoslovakia hopelessly vulnerable to military assualt was derided, especially on the Left, as a shortsighted reliance on the false security of territory and arms; so a similar insistence by the Israelis with regard to the occupied territories is treated today with lofty disdain by contemporary descendants of those believers in the irrelevance to a nation's security of territorial buffers and arms."
-Norman Podhoretz
"In Cambodia the Communists, running true to form, are concentrating their fury on the ultimate enemy of any Communist regime, the people. The Communists have emptied the cities, driving upwards of four million people- young and old, childing mothers and newborn babies, the healthy, halt and lame- on a forced march to nowhere, deep into the countryside where food is scarce and shelter is scarcer still. Even hospitals have been emptied, operations interrupted at gunpoint, doctors and patients sent packing. The Communists call this the "purification" of Cambodia.
This forced march will leave a trail of corpses, and many more at its destination, wherever that is. But that is, according to the Communists, not an atrocity, it is a stern "necessity."
The Detroit Free Press containted a droll (I hope it was meant to be droll) sub-headline on events in Cambodia: "Reds Decree Rural Society." If one kind of society offends you, decree another. Communism, like its totalitarian sibling, fascism, is the culmination of a modern heresy: people are plastic, infinitely malleable under determined pounding. And society is a tinker toy, its shape being whatever the ruling class decrees.
To create a New (Soviet, Chinese, German, Cambodian) Man- and what totalitarian would aim lower?- you must shatter the old man, ripping him from the community that nourishes him. Send him on a forced march into a forbidding future. He may die. If he survives he will be deracinated, demoralized, pliant.
There is no atrocity so gross that American voices will not pipe up in defense of it. Today they say: it is "cultural arrogance" for Americans to call this forced march an atrocity, when it is just different people pursuing their "vision."
This is the mock cosmopolitianism of the morally obtuse. Such people say: only "ideologically blinkered" Americans mistake stern idealism for an atrocity just because it involves the slaughter of innocents. Such people will never face the fact that most atrocities, and all the large ones, from the Thirty Years War through Biafra, have been acts of idealism.
Of course, one must not discount sheer blood lust, and the joy of bullying. Totalitarian governments rest on dumb philosophy and are sustained by secret police. But they are a bully's delight. Totalitarians have never been without apologists here, people who derice vicarious pleasure from watching- from a safe distance, of course; from the meadow, with ice cream bars, if possible- other people ground up by stern "necessities." Apologists say that totalitarians only want totalitarianism for the sake of the revolution. The apologists, being backward, have got things backward.
-George Will, "Famous Victory"
It's always good to be smacked back to reality by the consummate Tory.
"The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposted on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings."
-Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, XV"
"In retrospect there is a quality of inevitability about the course he did puruse. But historians insist that the inevitable is inevitable only after man have made it happen."
-Teddy White, "The Making of the President, 1964"
"I just want to remind you, ladies and gentleman, of one proven fact in history, because we conservatives are always blamed for wanting to go backwards. That is not true. We just want to take a look at what has happened before we try it again. Because everything that this administration is trying today has been tried not by just our own government, but in other governments of the history of the world, and I remind you, they have never succeeded. A government that is big enough to give everything that you need and want is also big enough to take it all away."
-Barry Goldwater, 1964 campaign
"[Grits are] men...who tremble with anticipation because they have seen the rouged face of power."
-Pierre Trudeau
"But the Liberal Party is the greatest whorehouse in the western world and you know what happens when you try playing piano in the parlor of a place like that. Pretty soon, you're in the thick of the fray upstairs."
-Rene Levesque
"Quebec politicians have never been either Liberal or Conservative. They have always been simply and wholeheartedly French."
-Frank Underhill
"The philosophy of the Liberal Party is very simple- say anything, think anything, or better still, do not think at all, but put us in power because it is we who can govern you best."
-Pierre Trudeau
"The Liberal Party has no dogma. Its creed is unity- national unity and party unity."
-Michael Pitfield
"The Liberal Party is like a high-powered fraternity. It rushes the most promising young men in every generation. And then it demands their absolute loyalty."
-Wilson Parasiuk
""It's the League for Social Reconstruction all over again," they would say. "Those people will get sick of it, always sitting there on the Opposition benches yelling across the floor. There's a limit to altruism. If you can't win, you can't get any policies effected, no matter how high-minded or well-meaning they are.""
-Christina McCall
When shown a genealogy of the Bonaparte family, Napoleon brushed it aside, remarking: "Je suis mon propre ancetre" (I am my own ancestor. Considering the scale of Napoleon's vanity, and the nature of that genealogy, his rejection of it was understandable. But his rejection also reflected the modern disdain for history as "the dead hand of the past."
Napoleon is the archetypal modern man of action, a bloody nuisance ricocheting around civilization, making history and orphans. He made so much history because he knew so little. He traveled fast because he traveled little, unencumbered by an educated person's sense of limitations, the sense that is the bittersweet fruit of historical understanding. Such people are tolerable, if you like history as made by Corsican bridgards and other modern world-shakers.
...
Many historians, like many other intellectuals, long to be "relevant" to the specific problems of today. Thy flinch from acknowledging that the most useful lesson of history is highly general. It is: things have not always been as they are, and will not always be as they are. This is an especially important insight for Americans, who take for granted freedom and abundance, both of which are, considered in the sweep of history, rare and shortlived phenomena.
History contains more sadness than gladness, more dreams frustrated than fulfilled. But this means that the study of history is, for many historians, unacceptably unfun and unheroic. Like many other intellectuals, many historians want to believe that they are pregnant with the future. They want to dissolve the distinction between thought and action. They are, they think, deliverers: history will yield highly practical "lessons" that will propel manking to the uplands of happiness.
Many modern intellectuals, like optimists through the ages, recoil from this truth: the best use of history is as an inoculation against radical expectations, and hence against embittering dissapointments.
Optimists as different as Marxists and Americans believe in History- Americans call it Progress- as a linear process leading inexorably to higher stages of life. But if historians and other intellectuals were free from Promethean pretensions, young people at school would learn the unfun, unheroic truth that history is circular, like a maelstrom."
-George Will, "Inoculation by History"
"FDR's New Deal broke with nineteenth-century liberalism (which is what passes for conservatism today) by abandoning the premise that society, as distinguished sharply from government, produces the elements of happiness in life, and that government's role is merely to maintain a framework of order in which people pursue happiness. What was new about the New Deal was the notion that government had a duty to provide people with some, and more and more, of the tangible elements of happiness.
Long and forever gone are the days when it was thought that well-bring, economic and otherwise, should be solely the result of the individual's ability to cope with society, with social forces that government could not or should not regulate. The New Deal changed, irreversibly, Americans' expectations, and the legal and psychic relationship of Americans to their government.
This year some GOP conservatives seem to be trying, again, to turn an election into a referendum on the propriety of those expectations and that relationship. It is unclear how the GOP can benefit from so straight-on a challenge to the settled habits of mind of the American majority, which accepts the Rooseveltian premise that government should supply crucial elements of happiness.
The GOP challenge is a risky tactic against Carter, who calls to mind Disraeli's recommendation: Tory men and Whig measures. Carter is an unmistakably conservative person. The values he obviously cherishes and repeatedly invokes- piety, family, community, continuity, industriousness, discipline- are the soul of conservatism, The appeal of Carter to conservatives is in his aspiration to use government vigorously in the service of conservative values."
-George Will, "Odd Man In"
"Most UN members are police regimes. Many of these regimes rule over ersatz nations. Many use their energies to pound together human elements that lack cultural affinities. To such regimes Israel, a real nation, is either unintelligible or a reproach. Regimes resting on force are bound to find fault with the rich legitimizing sources of Israel's nationhood.
Israel became a nation after the United Nations was born. But in a sense Israel is one of the oldest nations (with Egypt and China) represented there. One hundred years hence, if historians bother to remember the UN at all, they may remember it as a mob of regimes representing force without legitimacy, all power and no authority, venting their rage against one of the few nations truly represented there."
-George Will, "Zionism and Legitimacy," 1975
"As Czechoslovakia, a democratic country, was accused of mistreating the German minority in the Sudeten region, so Israel, also a democratic country, is accused of mistreating the Arab minority within Israel itself and also, of course, in the occupied territories. As the creation of the Czechoslovak state after WW1 was called a mistake by Hitler and Chamberlain, so the creation of the Jewish state after WW2 is called a crime by contemporary totalitarians and their appeasers. The insistence by the Czechs that surrendering the Sudeten regions to Hitler would leave Czechoslovakia hopelessly vulnerable to military assualt was derided, especially on the Left, as a shortsighted reliance on the false security of territory and arms; so a similar insistence by the Israelis with regard to the occupied territories is treated today with lofty disdain by contemporary descendants of those believers in the irrelevance to a nation's security of territorial buffers and arms."
-Norman Podhoretz
"In Cambodia the Communists, running true to form, are concentrating their fury on the ultimate enemy of any Communist regime, the people. The Communists have emptied the cities, driving upwards of four million people- young and old, childing mothers and newborn babies, the healthy, halt and lame- on a forced march to nowhere, deep into the countryside where food is scarce and shelter is scarcer still. Even hospitals have been emptied, operations interrupted at gunpoint, doctors and patients sent packing. The Communists call this the "purification" of Cambodia.
This forced march will leave a trail of corpses, and many more at its destination, wherever that is. But that is, according to the Communists, not an atrocity, it is a stern "necessity."
The Detroit Free Press containted a droll (I hope it was meant to be droll) sub-headline on events in Cambodia: "Reds Decree Rural Society." If one kind of society offends you, decree another. Communism, like its totalitarian sibling, fascism, is the culmination of a modern heresy: people are plastic, infinitely malleable under determined pounding. And society is a tinker toy, its shape being whatever the ruling class decrees.
To create a New (Soviet, Chinese, German, Cambodian) Man- and what totalitarian would aim lower?- you must shatter the old man, ripping him from the community that nourishes him. Send him on a forced march into a forbidding future. He may die. If he survives he will be deracinated, demoralized, pliant.
There is no atrocity so gross that American voices will not pipe up in defense of it. Today they say: it is "cultural arrogance" for Americans to call this forced march an atrocity, when it is just different people pursuing their "vision."
This is the mock cosmopolitianism of the morally obtuse. Such people say: only "ideologically blinkered" Americans mistake stern idealism for an atrocity just because it involves the slaughter of innocents. Such people will never face the fact that most atrocities, and all the large ones, from the Thirty Years War through Biafra, have been acts of idealism.
Of course, one must not discount sheer blood lust, and the joy of bullying. Totalitarian governments rest on dumb philosophy and are sustained by secret police. But they are a bully's delight. Totalitarians have never been without apologists here, people who derice vicarious pleasure from watching- from a safe distance, of course; from the meadow, with ice cream bars, if possible- other people ground up by stern "necessities." Apologists say that totalitarians only want totalitarianism for the sake of the revolution. The apologists, being backward, have got things backward.
-George Will, "Famous Victory"
It's always good to be smacked back to reality by the consummate Tory.
"The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposted on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings."
-Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, XV"
"In retrospect there is a quality of inevitability about the course he did puruse. But historians insist that the inevitable is inevitable only after man have made it happen."
-Teddy White, "The Making of the President, 1964"
"I just want to remind you, ladies and gentleman, of one proven fact in history, because we conservatives are always blamed for wanting to go backwards. That is not true. We just want to take a look at what has happened before we try it again. Because everything that this administration is trying today has been tried not by just our own government, but in other governments of the history of the world, and I remind you, they have never succeeded. A government that is big enough to give everything that you need and want is also big enough to take it all away."
-Barry Goldwater, 1964 campaign
"[Grits are] men...who tremble with anticipation because they have seen the rouged face of power."
-Pierre Trudeau
"But the Liberal Party is the greatest whorehouse in the western world and you know what happens when you try playing piano in the parlor of a place like that. Pretty soon, you're in the thick of the fray upstairs."
-Rene Levesque
"Quebec politicians have never been either Liberal or Conservative. They have always been simply and wholeheartedly French."
-Frank Underhill
"The philosophy of the Liberal Party is very simple- say anything, think anything, or better still, do not think at all, but put us in power because it is we who can govern you best."
-Pierre Trudeau
"The Liberal Party has no dogma. Its creed is unity- national unity and party unity."
-Michael Pitfield
"The Liberal Party is like a high-powered fraternity. It rushes the most promising young men in every generation. And then it demands their absolute loyalty."
-Wilson Parasiuk
""It's the League for Social Reconstruction all over again," they would say. "Those people will get sick of it, always sitting there on the Opposition benches yelling across the floor. There's a limit to altruism. If you can't win, you can't get any policies effected, no matter how high-minded or well-meaning they are.""
-Christina McCall
Friday, June 1, 2007
Antipathy to capitalism is of legendary proportions, especially among the classes whose status is higher under aristocracies and dictatorships: aristocrats, clergy, scholars, artists, and of course government officials. Working people tend to prefer democratic capitalism which, as the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci pointed out, quickly raises them into the middle class. Thus, even now that Marxism has been discredited as a social ideal, we may expect new forms of anticapitalism to appear. Eric Voegelin once pointed out that Marxism is a species of gnosticism, that is, a perfectionism (“the paradise of the proletariat”) access to which depends upon a privileged form of knowledge (gnosis, in this case “scientific socialism”) that makes a certain elite superior to everybody else. Gnosticism also implies a certain impatience with the human body, with imperfections, with democratic politics and the slow procedures of persuasion, with compromise, and (in short) with the human condition. Now that Marxism is no longer a credible vehicle for this underlying passion, what will replace it?
In 1990, it seems already clear that antimodern passions run high; even a passion for primitivism is again in evidence. Similar signs were present in the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century, notably in the operas of Richard Wagner. In the origins of totalitarianism, especially in Italy and Germany, the call of the primitive was quite important, including the cult of unspoiled nature. No doubt, the passions of National Socialism are as dead as the passions of communism. But the underlying sensibility is still very much alive. Capable of assuming a great many shapes, perhaps the cult of nature will be put to creative use in the environmental movement. That movement, however, has already shown many signs of hatred for business corporations, industry, property, and even- on a different plane of reality- the idea of “progress.” Its tendency to turn on the power of the state to enforce its own passions is also manifest. One can predict with some certainty that environmentalism is likely to replace Marxism as the main carrier of gnosticism (and anticapitalism) in the near future.
This is not, of course, inevitable. Environmentalists could conclude that the new forms of awareness they are teaching the public can best be served by a free and inventive economy. Whatever the public wants, industry has an incentive to invent a way of supplying. Given the widespread desire for environmental protection now growing in the public mind, a shrewd investor might even anticipate on the part of business corporations an outpouring of new technologies, approaches, products, and processes, around which entire new environmental-minded industries may come into existence. As the public becomes willing to pay for environmental enhancement, ways to achieve it will be swiftly invented. That is already happening. The newer the factory, the cleaner in tends to be; the more recent the product, the more “environment friendly.” Meanwhile, the public as a whole will not wish to abolish the benefits of modernity- the medical benefits especially- even though some extremists might. Environmental activists will want television for their messages and please, and airplanes to carry them to international conferences. An environmentally conscious industry will thus have plenty to do; the question is only whether environmentalists will perceive it as an ally or not.
Many environmentalists are, of course, conservatives quite committed to the capitalist economy, but many others are hostile to capitalism. The latter might wish to consider two points: First, the dire state of environmental protections both in socialist and in traditionalist (third world) countries; and second, the fact that no other system is as likely to produce the wealth necessary for environmental protections as democratic capitalist systems.
Another frequently overlooked source of the anticapiatlist leaning is the ancient and medieval experience of wealth as a zero-sum game: what some gained, others lost. Wealth was then thought to lie solely in land and gold coin and precious objects, and was usually acquired by plunder, conquest, or favor. In this context such aphorisms arose as Radix malorum est cupiditas (“Cupidity is the root of evils”); “Property is theft”; and “The rich get richer, the poor poorer.”
A third strain of this anticapitalist leaning is communicated through illusions about the precapitalist system. Not much has changed in the harsh life of the poor from the time of Christ until the realities of France as described by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables. Similarly, before 1989 critics of capitalism seldom counted the moral and economic costs of socialism; they gave it the benefit of their dreams. Admittedly, the morality of democratic capitalism is low when compared with the supernatural standards of Christianity and other codes of spiritual perfection. But its daily practice in supplying opportunity to the poor is superior to the daily practice of any other historical system, traditional or socialist. It does not pretend to offer a moral paradise, only greater liberties and more flexible supports for moral living than any other system. It brings temptations, but also incredibly high moral possibilities. That is why people migrate in such numbers and with such passion toward it.
A fourth source of anticapitalist leaning is to associate capitalism solely with material things, with commodities, with objects. This is the usage of Karl Marx; it is also the usage adopted by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Laborem Exercens. To take this approach, however, is to overlook the spirit of capitalism, its dynamic principle, its central commitment to practical intellect: to invention, discovery, reasoned cooperation, and the intellectual and moral virtue of enterprise. Were the impulse of capitalism solely materialistic, the system would have long since fallen into narcissism, hedonism, and death. This was the theory of Marx; namely that the alienation inherent in the system would drive the workers to “narcissism” or, in the current Marxist lingo, “consumerism.” Instead, the spirit of capitalism seems constantly to reinvigorate itself, to work revolution after revolution in technological possibility (mechanical, industrial, and electronic), and to inspire creativity in every sphere of life. It is a system designed to arouse and to liberate, no the body, but the creative soul. It arouses even the high ideals of those who disdain the “consumerism” they think affects others.
Communism taught citizens to respect one moral principle alone: total subjection to the power of party rule. Nothing else mattered, neither truth nor fairness nor competence. However lazy, incompetent, immoral, or even criminal one’s behavior might be judged under other systems, under communism no burden of guilt had to be borne for it, so long as one was recognized as a loyal, obedient follower of the party. The polluting of the natural environment of Eastern Europe, the corruption of the moral ethos, and the relentless spending down of the capital stock of communist countries has left behind a wasteland- except for one thing. Somehow the love for liberty survived. Human nature has asserted itself, like green shoots at the end of winter. How to give moral nurture to those shoots is now on the world’s agenda. A huge moral task lies before us.
-Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
In 1990, it seems already clear that antimodern passions run high; even a passion for primitivism is again in evidence. Similar signs were present in the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century, notably in the operas of Richard Wagner. In the origins of totalitarianism, especially in Italy and Germany, the call of the primitive was quite important, including the cult of unspoiled nature. No doubt, the passions of National Socialism are as dead as the passions of communism. But the underlying sensibility is still very much alive. Capable of assuming a great many shapes, perhaps the cult of nature will be put to creative use in the environmental movement. That movement, however, has already shown many signs of hatred for business corporations, industry, property, and even- on a different plane of reality- the idea of “progress.” Its tendency to turn on the power of the state to enforce its own passions is also manifest. One can predict with some certainty that environmentalism is likely to replace Marxism as the main carrier of gnosticism (and anticapitalism) in the near future.
This is not, of course, inevitable. Environmentalists could conclude that the new forms of awareness they are teaching the public can best be served by a free and inventive economy. Whatever the public wants, industry has an incentive to invent a way of supplying. Given the widespread desire for environmental protection now growing in the public mind, a shrewd investor might even anticipate on the part of business corporations an outpouring of new technologies, approaches, products, and processes, around which entire new environmental-minded industries may come into existence. As the public becomes willing to pay for environmental enhancement, ways to achieve it will be swiftly invented. That is already happening. The newer the factory, the cleaner in tends to be; the more recent the product, the more “environment friendly.” Meanwhile, the public as a whole will not wish to abolish the benefits of modernity- the medical benefits especially- even though some extremists might. Environmental activists will want television for their messages and please, and airplanes to carry them to international conferences. An environmentally conscious industry will thus have plenty to do; the question is only whether environmentalists will perceive it as an ally or not.
Many environmentalists are, of course, conservatives quite committed to the capitalist economy, but many others are hostile to capitalism. The latter might wish to consider two points: First, the dire state of environmental protections both in socialist and in traditionalist (third world) countries; and second, the fact that no other system is as likely to produce the wealth necessary for environmental protections as democratic capitalist systems.
Another frequently overlooked source of the anticapiatlist leaning is the ancient and medieval experience of wealth as a zero-sum game: what some gained, others lost. Wealth was then thought to lie solely in land and gold coin and precious objects, and was usually acquired by plunder, conquest, or favor. In this context such aphorisms arose as Radix malorum est cupiditas (“Cupidity is the root of evils”); “Property is theft”; and “The rich get richer, the poor poorer.”
A third strain of this anticapitalist leaning is communicated through illusions about the precapitalist system. Not much has changed in the harsh life of the poor from the time of Christ until the realities of France as described by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables. Similarly, before 1989 critics of capitalism seldom counted the moral and economic costs of socialism; they gave it the benefit of their dreams. Admittedly, the morality of democratic capitalism is low when compared with the supernatural standards of Christianity and other codes of spiritual perfection. But its daily practice in supplying opportunity to the poor is superior to the daily practice of any other historical system, traditional or socialist. It does not pretend to offer a moral paradise, only greater liberties and more flexible supports for moral living than any other system. It brings temptations, but also incredibly high moral possibilities. That is why people migrate in such numbers and with such passion toward it.
A fourth source of anticapitalist leaning is to associate capitalism solely with material things, with commodities, with objects. This is the usage of Karl Marx; it is also the usage adopted by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Laborem Exercens. To take this approach, however, is to overlook the spirit of capitalism, its dynamic principle, its central commitment to practical intellect: to invention, discovery, reasoned cooperation, and the intellectual and moral virtue of enterprise. Were the impulse of capitalism solely materialistic, the system would have long since fallen into narcissism, hedonism, and death. This was the theory of Marx; namely that the alienation inherent in the system would drive the workers to “narcissism” or, in the current Marxist lingo, “consumerism.” Instead, the spirit of capitalism seems constantly to reinvigorate itself, to work revolution after revolution in technological possibility (mechanical, industrial, and electronic), and to inspire creativity in every sphere of life. It is a system designed to arouse and to liberate, no the body, but the creative soul. It arouses even the high ideals of those who disdain the “consumerism” they think affects others.
Communism taught citizens to respect one moral principle alone: total subjection to the power of party rule. Nothing else mattered, neither truth nor fairness nor competence. However lazy, incompetent, immoral, or even criminal one’s behavior might be judged under other systems, under communism no burden of guilt had to be borne for it, so long as one was recognized as a loyal, obedient follower of the party. The polluting of the natural environment of Eastern Europe, the corruption of the moral ethos, and the relentless spending down of the capital stock of communist countries has left behind a wasteland- except for one thing. Somehow the love for liberty survived. Human nature has asserted itself, like green shoots at the end of winter. How to give moral nurture to those shoots is now on the world’s agenda. A huge moral task lies before us.
-Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
"The universe is very, very big. It also loves a paradox. For example, it has some extremely strict rules. Rule number one: Nothing lasts forever. Not you or your family or your house or your planet or the sun. It is an absolute rule. Therefore when someone says that their love will never die, it means that their love is not real, for everything that is real dies.
Rule number two: Everything lasts forever. For example, George was made up of billions of atoms, some of which had, at various times, been parts of, among other things, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a red felt hat, and some porridge. In a staggering coincidence, Claudette had a few atoms of that same bowl of porridge in her system. It had been served to Alexander the Great during his campaign in Afghanistan. He loved porridge.
Perhaps that was the key to the attraction between George and Claudette- their shared porridge molecules. It makes as much sense as anything else that goes on between men and women."
-Craig Ferguson, pg 108 "Between the Bridge and the River"
Rule number two: Everything lasts forever. For example, George was made up of billions of atoms, some of which had, at various times, been parts of, among other things, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a red felt hat, and some porridge. In a staggering coincidence, Claudette had a few atoms of that same bowl of porridge in her system. It had been served to Alexander the Great during his campaign in Afghanistan. He loved porridge.
Perhaps that was the key to the attraction between George and Claudette- their shared porridge molecules. It makes as much sense as anything else that goes on between men and women."
-Craig Ferguson, pg 108 "Between the Bridge and the River"
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