John C. Wright's Journal
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| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 | | 11:04 am |
Call your Senetors, Write your Congressmen
The sovietization of the American health care system, currently the best in the world, soon to be on par with that of Yugoslavia, continues without effective opposition by the Republican Party leadership. One or two Republicans have spoken out, but there is no strategy, no coordinated effort to stop this monster. It is not as if the defenders of the bill even have the slightest idea what they are talking about, or what they are voting into place. Your representatives in Congress, dear voters, have not read this thousand-page bill any more than they read the bill for the stimulus package: so while hacks for Big Brother continue to claim that private insurers will not be crowded out of the market, Investor's Business Daily reports that on page 16 of the bill there is a provision which will make private insurance illegal. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states: "Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
Only if you, dear voter, take the time and effort to call or write to your representatives is there any chance of derailing this juggernaut. The purpose of this legislation, no matter what it supporters say, is not to lower your health care costs. Their purpose is permanent control over your decisions. They want a trillion dollars industry under their control. I would not be surprised to find out they want to ration the care by race and minority categories, like college admissions, by quotas. They want to be in a position to reward their friends and punish their enemies. They want to put in place a permanent bureaucracy, permanently loyal to them, so that the Dems will be running the country no matter who wins or loses elections. Sound paranoid? Perhaps. But I cannot shake the suspicion that, if its supporters really wanted to lower health care costs, they would look at the chain of cause and effect, look at the problem, and direct their attention to the causes of the problem. They would at least have a Freshman Econ 101 level of knowledge as to what sets the height of prices for goods and services. If the mechanic never once looks under the hood, you can be damn sure he does not really want to fix the car engine. If all he does is ask you for your car keys, and tell you to sit in the back, but gives you no honest answer when you ask him why, you can be damn sure the mechanic is really after one thing: he wants you out of the driver's seat. He wants to take you for a ride. Nothing even remotely like a rational analysis is being done, either by the administration, their chattering fellow travelers in the media, or even among the private opinions of those who support this bill. Instead the Administration talks nonsense, on the order of: "We will lower taxes while increasing government services without running up the national debt!" The politicians promise “If you like your private insurance you can keep it; if you don't like it, we provide you another option; if you currently have no option, we will provide one for you.” Well, well. How generous with our children's money you are being. Why not follow the wise policies of His Most Catholic Majesty Fruvous Moxy , king of Spain, make Friday part of the weekend, and give every new baby a chocolate eclair? Providing public health insurance will crowd out private insurance, and even if the competition between a publicly-subsidized market and a private market does not kill off the private market, the government tightly regulations the private market now, and can simply render the publicly-subsidized insurers immune from any regulations or immune from lawsuits, which can target the private market to strangle and destroy it. Come now: let us reason together. If Medicaid and Medicare actually lowered costs, improved service, or provided more abundantly than private medicine, why do those on these programs inevitably purchase supplemental private insurance? Why are ever more doctors and hospitals refusing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement? If it is such a great system, why is it failing? Since it is failing system, why are we contemplating expanding it to cover everyone? Write or call. Do it today. Make your voices heard, I beg you. | | Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | | 8:21 pm |
A Thought Experiment in Rationed Food
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dirigibletrance upbraids me when I point out that a health care system run by self-interested politicians invites corruption. Only those who make contributions to the Party will get their liver transplant when Big Brother rather than Marcus Welby decides who gets treatment. He thunders (or perhaps giggles playfully. On the Internet one never knows): "Mr Wright, you need to look past the ideologies for a second a realize this: People just want affordable health care."My dear sir, you need to look into ideologies for a moment to discover which of two competing theories of political economics delivers more and better health care to more people. Stripped of non-essentials, there are only two alternatives: liberty and tyranny. Tyranny is always, always more popular. Caesar is always a Populist, not an Optimate: Big Brother is always for the Little Guy, the Forgotten Man. Hitler is always for the Volk; Stalin is for the Proletarians; Napoleon is for the Citizen. "People would not be crying out for a socialist system if the privatized system actually worked."It is to laugh. I would answer that Canadians would not be streaming over the borders into America if their socialist system actually worked, nor would patients be dying of bedsores and bedlice, nor would SARS swell to an international scare. Likewise, I would answer that people would not be crying out for Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin to lead them in revolution, glorious revolution, if the previous system, the Monarchy, the Wiemar Republic, or the Czarist system actually worked. However, the fact that what followed was far worse than what came before it could perhaps be excused by the ignorance of the people doing the crying. We Americans have no such excuse: the facts about the European, Canadian, and Soviet models of public health care are unambiguous. But perhaps that answer would be flip. That answer would assume we are distinguishing between two alternatives. We are not. We are distinguishing between reality and a rosy-colored daydream. Discontent is caused by a difference between current circumstances and imagined alternatives. If the imaginary alternative is rosier, and yet false, they will be discontent. You perhaps assume people are not being mislead by false and extravagant promises. Instead of assuming that artificially-inflamed popular discontent necessarily means that rationing a scarce good will make it more abundant, I suggest we analyze the causes of the perceived problem, and look at the costs and benefits of the alternatives. Have you analyzed why the current system is underperforming? I suggest a thought experiment to you. ( Read more... ) | | 12:51 pm |
| | Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | | 4:55 pm |
Infinite Regress
In reference to the Scholastic argument about an uncaused first cause, I have heard it claimed that infinite regression (while it may offend the laws of physics) does not violate the laws of logic. In rebuttal, I would argue that infinite regress does indeed violate the laws of logic, on the grounds that it postulates, first, that every cause in the chain of cause and effect was set in motion by a prior cause, and then, second, that no first cause set the chain of cause and effect in motion. If it is moving when nothing set it in motion, this contradicts the first sentence, which says every cause has a prior cause. But if it was at one time set in motion, then there is a first cause for which there is no prior cause, in which case, again, the first sentence, which says every cause has a prior cause, is contradicted. In either case, the principle that every cause has a prior cause contradicts itself. There is no third possibility. ( Read more... ) | | 11:21 am |
Answering a Question or Two about the Seldon Plan
"Mr. Wright, my questions were quite real--" I apologize for assuming otherwise, and ask you to forgive me. "When you disparage people who claim to know the future, and who are True Believers, why does it not occur to you that your own views fall within those characterizations?" Because I am a Christians as well as logician. The Seldon Plan as outlined in the Book of the Apocalypse, if taken literally, foretells tribulation, war, famine, plague, earthquake, darkness, woe, horror, deception, anguish and near-extermination for the faithful and everything we hold dear. It is only the very end, after time itself halts, that a victory will be known. If not taken literally, or if taken to refer only in elliptical language to the events of First-Century Syria, it offers even less clear a picture of Things to Come. Perhaps it is God's will to destroy the West for her sins; perhaps He shall preserve it. Any Christian who thinks he knows the plan of God is a fool. ( Read more... ) | | 9:47 am |
Obama Nationalized Health Care Plan!
In order to simplify matters and deter unnecessary and wasteful medical procedures, from now on, whenever a patient in the Nationalized Institute for Care Expenditures needs a liver transplant, or other expensive procedure, rather than going to a doctor of his own choosing, he merely makes a large donation to the Democratic National Committee, or to the reelection campaign of the well-connected Democrat pol of his choice, and if he selects a winning pol, one with friends and influence in Washington, the patient's need will be met. Everyone else will suffer and die in lingering pain from easily treatable ailments while waiting on a purely fictitious waiting list, and so decrease the surplus population on the world. Under the new plan, blue collar workers, Negros, Jews, Republicans, and Christians will receive the level of care currently enjoyed by the subjects of the People's Soviet Democratic Republic of Canada, as part of the ongoing ethnic cleansing and eugenics project of our modern Progressives and their plans for a rational, scientifically-managed Wilsonian state: whereas donors to the DNC and their Party apparatchiks will receive a level of care only slightly below what we currently enjoy here in America. Because the Democrat Party are in tune with the latest and most cutting-edge scientific theories of Eco-Mysticism, one proposal being debated is to allow females (as carriers of the Sacred Female Grail Mystery are called) will be given special privileges on the DNC list for DemoCare (as it will be called) if they sacrifice one of their children to Baphomet, or have an abortion, or engage in ritual temple-prostitution with Bill Clinton glorifying Gaia and the Dark Mother goddess, and perform abominations in the sacred groves of the High Places. This will decrease the production of human life, which has been redefined by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a greenhouse gas. In order to calm the panicked public and silence the slander of reactionary elements disloyal to the People's Revolution, the Obama Nationalized Institute for Care Expenditures controlling commissariat, known informally as the Health Care Czar, will consist of public figures whose principles, integrity, honesty, and judiciousness are utterly beyond question: William J Clinton, Richard M Nixon, Warren G. Harding, Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed, G. Gordon Liddy, James Carville, Boss Hogg of Hazard County, Wesley Mouche, Lex Luthor, and His Honor Richard Wilkins, mayor of Sunnydale, also known as Marchosias of the Pit. He is a Great and Mighty Marquis, appearing at first in the Form of a Wolf having Gryphon's Wings, and a Serpent's Tail, and Vomiting Fire out of his mouth. But after a time, at the command of the Exorcist he putteth on the Shape of a Man. And he is a strong fighter. He was of the Order of Dominations. He governeth 30 Legions of Spirits. He told his Chief, who was Solomon, that after 1,200 years he had hopes to return unto the Seventh Throne. So there is no reason not to trust great Marchosias, and these other noble and mighty overlords and potentates who will be in control of whether we live or die, or our wives and children and aged parents. Have an ailing loved one? Mail in your campaign contributions early! | | 1:04 am |
And now, for your listening entertainment
A scene from Alexander Nevsky directed by Sergei Eisenstein, music by Sergei Prokofiev. Practically the only thing the nightmarish empire beyond the Iron Curtain ever produced worth remembering with admiration, aside from a manned spaceshot or two. AH! The heart thrills to see the Crusaders, Hosptiller crosses emblazoned on their cloaks, rushing forward toward the boyars of Russia... ( Read more... ) | | Monday, July 13th, 2009 | | 11:54 am |
The Retrograde Reading Skills of a Progressive
In reference to this article, "The Seldon Plan", a reader (I withhold his name out of courtesy) writes in with some snarky questions. "Mr. Wright, you only reveal your opposition to what you think stupid and sinister people must think." Oddly enough, I said the exact opposite. My exact words were "First, it hypothesizes the existence of a Leftist who is not stupid or brainwashed. While I have met any number of Leftists who were stupider than they thought they were (of course, they usually think of themselves as geniuses), I have not noticed any remarkable difference in IQ." "That scarcely broaches the subject with a wink."
This line is cryptic. If this is a coy way of accusing me of being coy, the accusation is a lie (not to mention being hypocrisy). "Are you willing to tell us how you think righteous people should respond to an implacable paynim menace?"
Willing? WILLING? You make it sound as if I am reluctant to speak, rather than overeager. Here are some of my previous posts on the subject. They have titles like DUES LO VEULT and ISLAM IS A BARBARIC RELIGION. I am not exactly hiding my opinions under a basket. ( Read more... ) | | Friday, July 10th, 2009 | | 7:24 pm |
NEW SPACE OPERA TWO!
I just today received a courtesy copy of the mass market edition of NEW SPACE OPERA TWO edited by Strahan and Dozois. What I did not know is that they gave my story, ' Far End of History: A Tale of the Eighth Mental Structure' (takes place in my Golden Oecumene background--all for you, Atkins fans) the anchor position. The anchor position! By ancient custom among anthologists, the biggest draw is usually the first story in the table of contents, to get the reader to pick up the book, and the second best is the last story to get the reader to keep reading till the end. This is a signal honor that will almost make up for my mad grief at not winning the Prometheus Award. Now I am sorry I tore my garments and poured all these ashes in my hair. If I did not know better, I would say my excessive yet unmanly wailing might make me, at first glance, seem a little shallow. Besides, now my frail yet fickle ego can be propped up by this transitory dignity! Frail egos are wonderful things, are they not--serving one is sort of like being the slave of a half-insane but half-drunken werewolf overlord on a planet with multiple moons. Often I wonder why bondage to the ego is considered by modern philosophers to be the paramount of liberty. But no matter! Release the pigeons of happiness! Reduce the Agonizers to half-voltage! Allow the workers a half-cup of watered-down grog! For I am slobbery with happiness! The anchor position is mine! Mine, I say! Command the stonecutters to erect my monument of green iridium next to the Pharaoh, but bigger, and with a neon nimbus crowning my pshent! Nay, larger still! Where is Lens Larque, the Demon Prince of Dar Sai? Perhaps he will sculpt for me a monument of equal size and dignity to his own. Send Kerth Gersen to look for him. .... Unless Strahan and Dozois just put the authors in alphabetically, in which case my story got last position because the volume contains no reprints from Zelazny or Zindell. Hmph. In any case, it is a good story, one of the ones I am least discontented with, so I hope some kind reader somewhere will read and enjoy it. | | 1:00 pm |
The Prometheus Award
Well...THE GOLDEN AGE did not win the Prometheus award it was up for...but neither did the other books I was expecting. Instead, LORD OF THE RINGS won the coveted prize.
http://sfscope.com/2009/07/2009-prometheus-award-winners.htmlFunny that a tale of mystical Norse-medieval sentiment would win out over an openly pro-Libertarian morality play about individual effort. Gee, I even had a scene where one character lectures another on Ricardo's principle of comparative advantage, and in the appendix I mention the drawbacks of allowing a central bank to interfere with the credit market. Whether it is good or bad storytelling to mention Ricardo in an SFF book, I would have thought this was the sort of thing pro-free-market readers would rejoice to read. Ah well, maybe artistic merit counts for more than partisan ideological purity after all. So I dare not complain. However, this means I will not be writing that science-fictionalized version of F. A. Hayek I had been planning: THE GALACTIC ROAD TO STAR SERFDOM, in which R. John Galt, a golden robot programmed with the Three Laws of von Mises, together with space-outlaw Santiago and the smart-alec detective "Win" Bear Kropotkin, matches wits with the evil parallel-universe version of Hari Seldon who, just as the Galaxy is breaking free of Imperial dominion from the planet Splendid Wisdom, uses Cleometry, the predictive science of history, to attempt to smother cosmic freedom once more into a single Second Empire, by means of credit and currency manipulation. Hijinks abound when robot Galt falls in love with the fierce yet lovely space-locomotive magnate Dagny D'Anconia. You'll be breathless with boredom at the fifty-page long speech the superrobot gives over galactic radio, explaining his metaphysics, epistemology, and economic theory! Instead I will write something staring a space princess. I mean, if Tolkein can win the Prometheus Award by portraying a divinely sanctioned monarch like Aragorn (Elessar I to historians) I should be able to do the same with my Princess Aura-Leia. | | 11:52 am |
On Writing -- Thinking Inside the Box
Let me recommend this article from Russ Dvonch in his 'Heroic Hollywood' series THINKING INSIDE THE BOX. It proposes no novel theory of writing, merely that craft needs structure. But what makes the article readable and interesting (to me, at least) was the observation of how deeply and completely thematic elements pervade the writing. In his case, he is talking of screenwriting, but the general point is valid for loftier types of writing, such as world-wrecking space operas about space princesses, which all here know is the paramount and culmination of Western Art since Homer. The example he uses is the James Bond flick GOLDFINGER, and he notes how one thematic element is repeated in the advertising, plot, dialogue, imagery, costumes, and props. He carefully notes how the three elements that make a Bond film memorable -- sex appeal, violent conflict, the dashing spy -- are firmly tied back into the one image of Gold. http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rdvonch/2009/07/06/heroic-hollywood-thinking-inside-the-box( Read more... ) | | 9:37 am |
The Seldon Plan
genesiscount boldly ventures to answer some of my pointed questions about the Leftist plan for dealing with an implacable Jihadist enemy. He writes: Not really being leftist this answer may be invalid, but my guess is that the likely answer would be as follows. My presumption here is of a sane, highly idealistic person who believes several things I consider incorrect, but who does not have to be presumed to be either stupid or brainwashed to do so.
This hypothetical sane and honest Leftist might simply claim that the problem is just not as acute as the more fearful might want to paint it, bringing up a couple of points that seem not unreasonable:
- Due to basic human apathy the jihadists will never be more than a minority within Islam; more importantly, it seems very unlikely they will ever be a *unified* force. Jihadist organizations have a demonstrable inability to keep from turning on each other or on their own host populations and governments (Islam's fundamental disunity as a religion being a significant factor here). There is no Saladin in today's Muslim world, nor any new prospective Caliph on the horizon, and the likelihood of either arising soon seems remote.
- Moreover, it seems unlikely that Islam will be immune to the near-universal downward demographic trend of wealthy societies; as Muslim societies grow wealthier their birth rates will fall just as Western society's has fallen, and the expected demographic "swamping" is not likely to occur. Historically, religious fanaticism has seldom coexisted with significant wealth and luxury, and Wahhabi jihadism (a movement only decades old, after all, and born out of a post-Ottoman collapse from the reactionary ravings of an anti-American cleric) is likely to lose its appeal as social stability and security expands. Fanatical movements within religions are nothing new; yes, some have turned the world upside down, but the catastrophes are outnumbered by the historical ashheaps.
The leftist, in essence, I think is not so much likely to propose a solution to the threat as simply to argue that the threat is nowhere near as dangerous as believed, and therefore safely ignoreable. While there may be truth to this idea of overstatement, I think it betrays the leftist tendency to aggregate, dehumanized thinking: any damage less than nuclear war is "safely" ignoreable... especially if the people harmed all work in a high-finance tower in New York. ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | | 1:19 pm |
Every storm begins with a single drop of rain
Several nations in Europe are cowed by the threats and menace of the paynim, and are even now dhimmi in everything but name; Canada likewise, as the Mark Steyn case indicates. Radio talkshow hosts and Dutch PM's are barred from Great Britain. Statues of pigs and dogs are removed. The Muslims control who may enter the country, and what may be published or discussed in public. There have been small outbreaks of dhimmitude in America, but they are growing larger. You see, it is as predictable as anything in this unpredictable world can be: Western culture may be devoted to religious freedom, but the counterculture (who now rule us) is devoted to freedom from Christianity, and tolerates only inoffensive and non-demanding beliefs, New Age blither, or theosophic or bogus versions of Oriental religions we might call McBuddhism. The hostility of the counterculture toward Christianity has become more open in recent years, but they have never pretended anything but contempt for the opiate of the masses. Since the Mohammedans also wish to reduce the Christians to death or dhimmitude, they are the natural allies of the counterculture--despite that sexual liberated potheads, perverts, orgiasts, adulterers, panderers and pornographers (all the folk the Larry Flint generation calls heroes) are the first to be buried up the waist and pelted to death with stones under Sharia law. A chaste and temperate Christian or Jew runs afoul of no commandment of the Prophet, if he pay his dhimmi tax. In other words, the barbarians within the gates are the natural allies of the barbarians without the gates, before the gates are opened. And after? I recall reading -- I cannot find the quote at the moment -- the account of a Christian lady from Lebannon, who before 1967, watched her parents and their friends urging the government to relax certain restrictions against Muslims in the name of social justice (only Maronitescould serve as commander or the army, for example, or head of the central bank), and once the Muslims had enough power and confidence, thanks in part to their help, these same compassionate reformers were killed like dogs in the street, their bodies left unburied for the crows, because one infidel is no different from the next. But that is the end of the process. Here is one more story from near the beginning. I make no pretense of vouching for it, aside from saying that I am not surprised. You may read and decide for yourself. http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2009/07/special-report-sharia-comes-to-dearborn.htmlDavid Wood says Christians were singled out for legal and illegal harassment at a public festival in Dearborn, Mich. He sums up: We insisted on our Constitutional rights to (i) ask a question at a booth, and (ii) record in a public place. This was enough to get us banned from a public sidewalk in Dearborn, Michigan (the city with the highest percentage of Muslims in the U.S.). By comparison, the Muslim security guards openly harassed, intimidated, bullied, threatened, entrapped, and assaulted Christians; they openly proclaimed that they don’t care about our rights as American citizens; they used profanity as they insulted us; they lied to police. This behavior was perfectly welcome in Dearborn, even at a family festival! (There were other examples of open hatred as well.) I have contacted the Arab Chamber of Commerce (the organization responsible for planning the festival, selecting the security team, and deciding that Christians are no longer free to distribute information in public places). I have asked for an apology and for their thoughts on how such horrendous treatment of Christians will be avoided in the future. They have not responded. Going back to the time of Muhammad, whenever the population of Muslims becomes significant, followers of other religions are suppressed, and the proclamation of non-Muslim beliefs is forb I am curious to hear from anyone on the Leftward side of the political spectrum what your plan is, what policy you suggest the West embrace, to deal with an implacable enemy? Do you believe there is a peaceful means to reduce their threat? Do you think giving the Jihadists money, or power, or apologies, or giving them Isreal will placate them? If that is the your belief, what is the basis for this belief? On what facts is it founded? How would you defend this belief from a skeptic? (Aside from an ad hominem attack, I mean. I am refering to a convincing defense, a defense on the merits, not a witticism mocking the intelligence or moral rectitude of the skeptic himself. Among grown-ups, discussions concern the subject matter of the discussion, and are therefore not merely background noise to a word-game of moral preening.) | | 12:18 am |
| | Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | | 10:45 am |
On Speaking Ill of the Dead
A bit of advice to my fellow conservatives: Do not speak ill of the dead. I think you know to whom I refer, do you not? A second bit of advice to my fellow Christians: Do not speak ill of the dead. Let us suppose that you are a wretched man, recently died under unseemly circumstances, whose life was made all the more wretched by fame. Oh? Do we not believe fame brings wretchedness? It brings its own temptations and its own sorrows that we private people, we happily private people never hunted by the sharkpacks of the press, never bloodlet by the parasites of wealth,know nothing of. It is like having a genii in a bottle: a very ignorant, somewhat diabolical genii, who will gleefully grant you the very wish that is your deepest wish, even if it destroys you. Let us suppose you are a wretched yet famous man, who, passing through the horror of the grave, suddenly finds yourself, awed and surprised and terrified, at the gates of the Country of Endless Joy. And here at the gate sits your Creator, who made you for far finer things that what you have made of yourself, and now you must answer to Him. You must answer not for your public image, but for your innermost secret thoughts. You must answer for things no one else knows, not even your closest friends. Your heart will be measured in a balancing scale against a feather, and if your heart is heavy with sin, you will be thrown into an outer darkness, where the only sound is a wailing that does not end. But if the other pan of the balances lifts, the gates of bliss shall open. How can you not pray, O Christians, for someone facing that judgment seat? You will stand there too someday. Your every word, including whether or not you spoke ill of the dead who cannot defend themselves, will come out of your own mouth to accuse you, and He who searcheth hearts will search yours. When a man is alive, he can defend himself from criticism, whether justified or slanderous. When a man is dead, the angel of death who once passed over Egypt, sparing no first born of that land, stands at our elbow when we speak of the dead: and if he wears a helm of darkness, as the pagans feigned, we shall not see him, despite how real he is. Remember, before you open your mouths, O my fellow Conservatives, O my fellow Christians, that your time on earth in not immortal either. | | Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 | | 6:20 pm |
The Desires of Individuals are My Highest Value
This post is related tangentially to the last. A comment left here made the remark that in a “recent discussion I had with an atheist […] he was unable to posit a single non-religious point that was in any way positive, advantageous, or otherwise non-relativist. When I told him to go and die in whatever way seems best to him, he said that he would go kicking and screaming. Had I decided to respond, I would have said that I see no reason why in a relativist system one should do anything with any feeling at all.” In reply, another commenter opined "You do things with feeling because you have feelings for those things. Eat because you're hungry, love because you love, work because you feel dissatisfied with idleness, or because you need money to eat, learn because you're curious, fight for justice because you're outraged, or because you have an eye for your own rights and safety.” He continues: “I've never understood why this is so hard to get. You do what you want because it's what you want to do, that's what wants *are*. No, there's no materialist philosophy telling one what to want, ab nihilo. This is not a flaw." This reply is inadequate. The first comment, in effect, is asking what warrant one has for taking one’s mere feelings and appetites as a given, and the second comment, in effect, is answering with wide-eyed simplicity that one must take one’s feelings and appetites as a given because nothing else is imaginable. I can only assume man behind the second comment did not really understand the question, or that he means something other than what it sounds like me means. But if it is not a flaw that no materialist philosophy tells one what one should or should not want, this implies that philosophy ought not rank, order, judge, condemn, praise or blame any appetite or feeling. The mere fact that a given appetites exists at all is sufficient warrant and justification to act on it. Because I do not believe anyone in his right mind could actually mean this, let me argue not with the man, but with the comment. The comment means one should take one’s mere feelings and appetites as a given, as a standard beyond question, and beyond criticism. Let me offer ten quick reasons why they most certainly cannot. ( Read more... ) | | 5:37 pm |
An Unexamined Life is Just Not Worth Thinking About
Whoo boy. I think I have heard the most simpleminded argument of all time. It was presented to me in all seriousness, however, so I will answer it seriously. A commenter here says "Dr. Dalrypmle says that "Human affairs cannot be decided by an appeal to an infallible rule, expressible in a few words, whose simple application can decide all cases. . ." But such a rule is exactly what I'm arguing for. It would have a great advantage over the chaotic state in which we live and which Dr. Dalrymple agrees. It would lessen the burden of toil of man. Thought-work would be eased and we would be able to base all our thoughts on a fundament that need not be questioned. Some people get this through faith; I get it through convention. " He concludes with these points: "In short, I am a libertarian, and am unconvinced by these arguments for these reasons:
-The desires of individuals are my highest value
-The desire to shirk from complexity and work are almost universal and quite logical
-Therefore, a simple philosophy is warranted
-Libertarianism satisfies all these points." I must ask him: Sir, did you come by this conclusion by a simple and simple-minded deduction, or did you need to think deeply and thoroughly about it? Because if you thought deeply and thoroughly about it, you contradict yourself, and betray the fact that you know darn well that a conclusion with no thorough thought behind it is flippant and unsound. If you did not, you have no assurance your conclusions are sound, and indeed you are indifferent to whether your conclusions are sound. In either case, your conclusion, by its own terms, defeats itself. Let me point out that the desire to avoid the work of thinking can find a far better work-reward ratio by resting on good authority and tradition. The authority has done all the work. Tradition contains the distilled mental effort and experience of countless generations, most of them smarter and tougher than yours. Even better, tradition polishes and crystallizes its findings into custom, written law, and simple maxims. On the other hand, a simpleminded philosophy or simpleminded law cannot cover all the cases. The main reason why laws are complicated and subtle is because general laws always lead to absurdities and injustices when applied to exceptional cases. Your simpleminded philosophy has not been time-tested, and therefore this would require additional thought work on your part, and on the part of those who might seek to implement it. On the other hand, my philosophy, which I have worked out in excruciating details with loving diligence, is firmly rooted in generations of thought by the most brilliant minds of all the centuries of history. It is time-tested. -The desires of individuals are mere appetite
-The desire to shirk from complexity and work is sloth, and shirking from brainwork is stupidity.
-Therefore, a simple philosophy is stupid and leads to stupid conclusions
-Libertarianism satisfies all these points. | | 5:04 pm |
Lynching is bad but Stoning is good?
Not long ago, when I made some offhanded remark about the superior courtesy of the generation of our grandparents—men actually did used to tip their hats to ladies, and thought and taught that stealing was wrong— a Leftist friend of mine made a reply that astonished me, and opened my eyes to the inner workings of the leftwing mind.
His response was scorn and bile.
To him, the only thing significant about our grandparents’ generation, the folks who worked their way out of the Depression and won the Second World War, was that some blacks were lynched in the South. Those atrocities formed his entire mental picture of all events of the first half of the Twentieth Century, and perhaps of all time preceding.
And because of that picture, no conversation could be had with him on any topic concerning the past. Nothing could be compared to the present day, either for better or worse, or even to point out customs and expectations that were merely different. It was both utterly parochial, and utterly devoid of any nuanced moral reasoning: merely a blanket condemnation of all and sundry.
His reasoning seemed to be that if men of the past prized courtesy, and yet they also lynched blacks, and therefore everything they prize must be bad, therefore courtesy is bad, Q.E.D. I have heard that the film THE STONING OF SORAYA M is being denigrated and dismissed by some Leftwing critics for the opposite reason: that it is merely cheap moralizing to portray an atrocity of the Sharia law. Film critic Christian Toto here compiles a list of the complaints. http://whatwouldtotowatch.com/2009/06/26/liberal-critics-stone-soraya/ He quotes from some of the less intelligent of the intelligentsia: “It takes zero political courage to speak out against the obvious barbarism of public stonings or the oppressive patriarchy of sharia law, but the film whips out the megaphone anyway, eager to extrapolate the martyrdom of an innocent woman into a broader condemnation of the Muslim world.” Note the paradox. The critic is criticizing the film on the grounds that no one will criticize the film. ” … the worst kind of exploitative Hollywood melodrama, presented under the virtuous guise of moral outrage.” Note the irony. The critic is publicly morally outraged that someone would publicize a moral outrage. I have not seen the film, and so I offer no opinion on the merits or demerits of the complaints, aside from the obvious self-contradictions. I have not seen the criticisms in context.
But if Toto’s comment is fair, I cannot help but wonder how these same film critics would react to a portrayal of a lynch mob in dressed bedsheets hanging a black man. ( Read more... ) | | Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | | 12:03 pm |
Somone asked me to stand for public office
Sun_Stealer remarks: "Have you ever considered running for political office, Mr. Wright? You'd have my vote." Heh. I am a failed attorney, because I found law work boring, and unrewarding, and I was (to be frank) not an asset to the firm that hired me. Writing law is just as boring as reading it, but has the added drawbacks of being a job where one must meet, greet, and please the public, plus one must chiffer and bargain with one's fellow politicos to get things done. If the Lord recalls my sins, then in the next life my punishment in purgatory will be doing law work combined with public relations, public appearances, and negotiation. You will see me on one of the shelves of Dante's mountain, singing hymns, on fire while I drag a huge boulder on my back, eyelids stapled shut, or something like that, with an accordion file of legal documents in my hands, and an appointment where I have to dress up in a suit and tie, explaining to ignorant voters that I cannot both lower taxes and give them more goodies. No, the idea of a political career is flattering but without merit. Besides, any Christian man of letters already has more power than an earthly prince. The true leadership in any civilization is in its philosophers and thinkers, its writers and men of the mind. The political leaders, by and large, merely carry out the popular will, which, by and large, is controlled by the ideas of the writers and thinkers of the previous generation. | | 11:29 am |
Why I am not a Libertarian
If it may be permitted, I would like here to quote in full an article which argues against the legalization and the award of social sanction of that form of mental self-mutilation known as recreational drug use, and does so with more authority than I command (since the author speaks from personal experience--note particularly his anecdote about building a road in Africa, when the construction workers were given free booze) . The article is from Front Page magazine, and the author is the skeptical doctor Anthony Daniels, writing as Theodore Dalrymple Don’t Legalize Drugs
Theodore Dalrymple
There is a progression in the minds of men: first the unthinkable becomes thinkable, and then it becomes an orthodoxy whose truth seems so obvious that no one remembers that anyone ever thought differently. This is just what is happening with the idea of legalizing drugs: it has reached the stage when with the idea of legalizing drugs: it has reached the stage when millions of thinking men are agreed that allowing people to take whatever they like is the obvious, indeed only, solution to the social problems that arise from the consumption of drugs. Man’s desire to take mind-altering substances is as old as society itself—as are attempts to regulate their consumption. If intoxication in one form or another is inevitable, then so is customary or legal restraint upon that intoxication. But no society until our own has had to contend with the ready availability of so many different mind-altering drugs, combined with a citizenry jealous of its right to pursue its own pleasures in its own way. The arguments in favor of legalizing the use of all narcotic and stimulant drugs are twofold: philosophical and pragmatic. Neither argument is negligible, but both are mistaken, I believe, and both miss the point. ( Read more... ) |
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