Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From jk Tue Aug 13 08:43:15 1996
Subject: Re: turtle steps
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 08:43:15 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB88AB.758D4BC0@eb3ppp19.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 12, 96 11:01:05 pm
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>I for one do not regret the effort. Even the lack of understanding is
>educational, and the effort to find the language and concepts that
>might bridge has certainly been a useful exercise for me.
We agree on that much, for sure.
>What if the educational process were something like this. Whenever the
>creature, at its earliest formative period, acts like a team player,
>the parents arrange for a big lump sum payment. Whenever he
>conspicuously sacrifices the team for his own financial gain, the
>parents fine him so he ends up with less money. Gradually, in this
>crude psychological model, just as the Pavlovian dog learns to salivate
>when he hears the bell, the creature begins to associate all kinds of
>good feelings to the Team Playing, and to feel bereft at the thought of
>being a bad team player. Later, when the creature is old enough to
>reason and understand, it is explained to him what the greater good is
>that was being served by this teaching, and with its rational capacity,
>the creature comes to see that, yes, this is a good idea. Yes, I'm
>glad you taught me to extend the range of my caring beyond my own bank
>account.
Suppose Beethoven wouldn't have become a composer or even picked up a
musical instrument if his dad hadn't mistreated him. Would that mean
that by nature he was unmusical? Or how about Isaac Newton getting
bopped on the head by an apple? The odd thing about your story is that
you describe what normally would not be an educational process and
propose that in fact it has educational results -- that is, the creature
comes to a rational grasp of morality and an ability to act accordingly
that he would not otherwise have attained.
My inclination would be to say that the creature had the innate capacity
to become a moral being and that the Pavlovian routine was something
that made possible the development and realization of that capacity.
Your last two sentences suggest he ultimately developed a moral
rationality that was not a mere consequence of the conditioning but
enabled him independently to judge the conditioning as beneficial. So
it seems it might equally well (at least in concept) have been something
else that enabled his moral capacities to develop -- he might for
example have been hit by a truck and done a lot of soul-searching while
spending 6 months laid up in a hospital bed.
>What are you up to these days, aside from our discussion?
At the moment I'm putting together a review-essay on Kevin Kelly's _Out
of Control_ that a friend who works for Time Inc. says he'll post on
Pathfinder, their web project. Kelly's the editor of _Wired_ and OC is
a work of popular science cum futurology. What's interesting is that
the conclusions to which the science he discusses lead most naturally
are glaringly inconsistent with the utopian techno-libertarian vision of
the book itself. Otherwise, we're getting ready to go to the UK at the
end of the week, to visit my mother in Scotland and see a little bit of
England. So we'll manage to spend a little bit of time outside of
Brooklyn this summer.
Hope your book is coming together without too much hair-pulling.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Aug 13 08:45:16 EDT 1996
Article: 7940 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Buchanan & the Taxpayers?
Date: 13 Aug 1996 08:41:47 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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ygg@netcom.com (Yggdrasil) writes:
>The federal government legislates values now! The values it legislates
>are illegitimacy, hedonistic self-absorbed alternative life styles, and
>theft from the productive.
It's important to understand the logical system behind what's going on.
It's not simply a matter of deception and malice, and we need to
understand how people most of whom aren't unusually stupid or evil can
speak and act as they do with every indication of sincerity. It's
especially important to understand when the people are those who
currently hold power.
Suppose you want to avoid legislation of values because you think it's
a violation of freedom etc., and you also think that whatever the
government facilitates (for example by protection of private property
or enforcement of contracts) or could forbid is really the
responsibility of government because if the government acted
differently it wouldn't happen. Then what you'll do is try to set up a
system in which how people live, especially with respect to the ethical
matters that touch them most deeply (e.g., sex, family life, personal
responsibility and integrity) is to the extent possible a matter purely
of their own private choice, with as little pressure or coercion as
possible from other people or from practical considerations like
economics. That system will be identical with a system designed to
promote hedonistic self-absorbed lifestyles at the expense of the
productive.
>The federal courts take the position that we have freedom to believe
>whatever we want as long as it is nothing (or at least nothing we
>will act upon or talk about in public).
Just so. Because if our beliefs were allowed to have any public effect
they would have effects on others and thus coerce or at least pressure
them in some way. No one can have any political power except the small
elite that's running the show based on its self-generated ideology.
>So it is not terribly surprising that those whose values are under
>imperial attack would couch their campaign of opposition in terms
>of a spirited defense of those values. After all, they and their
>friends care about the values, and not abstractions like "limited
>government" which cannot be shown to exist in their everyday lives.
The two problems I see are:
1. If you say "long live personal morality" establishment thought will
understand you to mean "long live federal programs designed to enforce
personal morality" since establishment thought can conceive of public
purposes only on the model of social engineering.
2. If someone asks your leaders "what's your plan" they'll start
talking about federal laws and programs because their job is to talk to
the establishment and they have a choice of speaking the same language
or inventing one of their own, and it's hard to invent one of their own
and make it comprehensible to people who don't want to hear about it.
What's needed I think is a new and indigestible language for talking
about politics and a better grasp of how and why it differs from the
way liberals talk about things.
>Liberals are quite experienced and skilled at using federal imperial
>power, and are skilled at the deceptive arts necessary to minimize the
>rebellion against their coercion.
The relation goes very deep. Given federal imperial power it will
generate contemporary liberalism as its ideology because it is the
ideology that most increases the necessity and the power of the central
bureaucratic managerial state and most thoroughly destroys other
possible competing sources of power. For that reason it is *very*
difficult for counterrevolutionaries to do what the Left has done and
infiltrate the system, converting it to their own purposes.
As to deception -- a political order can exist by force, fraud, or
identification with the interests and values of those subject to it.
The federal imperial order doesn't want to depend on the interests and
values of its subjects, because it doesn't want to depend on a social
power outside itself. Force uses up a lot of energy and requires
personal commitment on the part of those using the force. Therefore our
rulers prefer fraud and have become quite skillful at it.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Aug 13 13:18:45 EDT 1996
Article: 7942 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Buchanan & the Taxpayers?
Date: 13 Aug 1996 13:17:09 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <4uq3ma$pak@nadine.teleport.com> cfaatz@teleport.com (Chris Faatz) writes:
>Speak: "conditioning." Early training runs deep.
The conditioners believe in what they're doing though. It's worthwhile
identifying the philosophy behind it all and understanding why so many
people who think about things find it so cogent.
>: Suppose you want to avoid legislation of values because you think it's
>: a violation of freedom etc., and you also think that whatever the
>: government facilitates (for example by protection of private property
>: or enforcement of contracts) or could forbid is really the
>: responsibility of government because if the government acted
>: differently it wouldn't happen. Then what you'll do is try to set up a
>: system in which how people live, especially with respect to the ethical
>: matters that touch them most deeply (e.g., sex, family life, personal
>: responsibility and integrity) is to the extent possible a matter purely
>: of their own private choice, with as little pressure or coercion as
>: possible from other people or from practical considerations like
>: economics. That system will be identical with a system designed to
>: promote hedonistic self-absorbed lifestyles at the expense of the
>: productive.
>This para strikes me as unclear, Mr. Kalb. Sorry. Are you saying "say
>you want a system that a) doesn't legislate values, but b) legislates
>enforcement of contract etc.," and that this inevitably leads to the
>promotion of "hedonistic self-absorbed lifestyles"?
No. Say you want a system that (a) doesn't legislate values and (b)
treats government as responsible for all things. What you'll end up
with is a system that promotes h. s.-a. lifestyles.
>But, I think this is a peripheral matter to our central question, that
>being how to reduce government and increase social bonds.
I think it's important to understand the non-self-interested reasons
why people might oppose that. They might for example believe that
social bonds restrict autonomy and therefore the government is
facilitating the suppression of freedom if it allows social bonds to
exist within the overall social order it maintains. They also might
think that in the absence of detailed and continuous government
supervision social bonds are likely to involve things like sex role
stereotypes, religious and ethnic particularism (necessarily involving
prejudice and discrimination), inequalities based on wealth and class,
and so on. They might think such things violate some principle of
equality and so consider the bureaucratic ordering of social life a
moral necessity because it's the only way uniform rational and equal
treatment can be maintained.
>: 1. If you say "long live personal morality" establishment thought will
>: understand you to mean "long live federal programs designed to enforce
>: personal morality" since establishment thought can conceive of public
>: purposes only on the model of social engineering.
>I think this is a bit of a leap. People still don't identify 100%
>the personal with what the state requires.
They identify what is public with the state. You wouldn't bother
saying "long live personal morality" unless you wanted the principle to
have a role in our social life and therefore public status.
>: What's needed I think is a new and indigestible language for talking
>: about politics and a better grasp of how and why it differs from the
>: way liberals talk about things.
>What kind of a language? I think the likes of Nock and Chodorov and
>Kirk and Nisbet did just fine with the language that they had. Are you
>speaking of terms of political and social discourse?
The latter.
>A mixture of fraud, circuses, and free bread methinks. Problem is they
>won't be able to afford the free bread much longer, especially with
>the changes in the international market, and the moving of corporations
>overseas to take advantage of pennies-a-day labor through NAFTA, GATT,
>etc.
It's a major problem. Buying people off is going to get much harder.
One solution is to step up the fraud, which is likely to involve a
mixture of formal and informal restrictions on public discusions.
Another is more circuses. Electronics is helpful on that point.
Another is engineered reductions in social cohesion, a.k.a.
multiculturalism, a.k.a. _divide et impera_. Put it all together and
maybe people will be too confused and busy scrambling to get by to
cause problems.
>The question is, "what is an authentic Americanism," and how does it
>manifest itself? And then, what role has the state to play in all
>this?
A reasonable question. For my own part I'm still rather fond of the
Old Republic.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Aug 13 17:12:38 EDT 1996
Article: 7944 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Buchanan & the Taxpayers?
Date: 13 Aug 1996 17:12:04 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In ygg@netcom.com (Yggdrasil) writes:
>However, after 30 years of belief that liberals are well intentioned,
>I have abandoned that faith, and now recognize that it is not possible
>for a group to observe the destructive effects of its policies for 50
>years and still advocate them in good faith.
There are liberals and liberals. Most of them, like most other people,
have mixed motives. Some of them, for example _New York Times_
heavyweights like Tony Lewis or Abe Rosenthal, are disgusting bigots.
Then there are theoretically inclined types like John Rawls who mostly
impress me as being not all there. And there are lots of perfectly
normal people with generous impulses who are confused, manipulated,
distracted or overly loyal to their political first love.
>The reason liberals do things to weaken the primary or Western culture
>of the United States is that they detest it.
That's certainly an element. Part of it is dissatisfaction with
whatever actually exists and longing for the unlimited, which as a
practical matter can only take the form of destructiveness. Part of it
is envy and hatred of whatever is superior to oneself. Part of it is
nihilism finding self-realization through unprovoked aggression.
>But what I find most interesting about your exposition in the
>paragraph above is that you (and perhaps all of us) have come
>full circle to adopting the analytical structure and language
>used by the Csarist secret police in 1897, when they authored
>their famous forgery.
I'll have to look at it again. Isn't there speculation that it was
originally an anti-masonic document revised for other purposes? I
skimmed over it very quickly once. It seemed to me that whoever
prepared it wasn't stupid, but it didn't seem to have a specific
connection with its actual targets.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Tue Aug 13 18:42:38 1996
Subject: Re: turtle steps
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 18:42:38 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB890E.C0B119C0@eb3ppp19.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 13, 96 11:58:22 am
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I didn't see much if anything to disagree with in your last message. On
"true nature" my point has been that it isn't a list of all the things
we might become (Jeffrey Dahmer, Mother Theresa, Olympian athlete,
bloody mess immediately astern a steam roller) but rather what we are
when we are functioning as we should (healthy, competent, knowledgeable,
moral).
I certainly agree that nonrational early training and influences are
important in bringing one to a state of rationality. I think my point
has been only that the latter can't be reduced to the former, and that
the additional element is essential.
By "rationality" I suppose I mean whatever it is that turns whatever we
have been trained into or born with into knowledge. Preconception,
habit and attitude are not in themselves knowledge although if we have
the right p's, h's and a's the attainment of knowledge is a lot easier.
I should add that rationality can be implicit. A lot of what our
children learn from us I think is the moral rationality implicit in how
we live.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Aug 13 20:51:10 EDT 1996
Article: 7946 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Buchanan & the Taxpayers?
Date: 13 Aug 1996 19:07:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <629170006wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> See--*this* is, I think, the idea that is central to the entirety of
>> this thread. "Traditionalism and centralized power simply don't mix."
>Not in Islam? Not in Prussia? Not in Russia? Not in the Lower Empire?
>'Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem'.
Traditional Muslim society was rather decentralized. All political
power was in a single ruler, it's true, but the state didn't do all
that much. Consider for example the division of cities into separate
self-governing quarters, the absence of a religious hierarchy of the
pyramidal kind familiar in Western Christendom, and the _millet_
organization of society generally. Prussia was an upstart military
bureaucracy admired by philosophes and philosophers as an embodiment of
reason. The Russian imperial despots had an uneasy relation to the
traditions of the Russian people. And I don't see why the late stages
of a multinational empire and its universalizing codifications of law
should be thought of as a prime example of traditionalism.
>More interesting, perhaps, is the case of the UK, where those who hold
>a 'traditional' view of the nature of the state, resisting
>constitutional change, have been great centralizers with respect to
>local institutions; and the restoration of local power, or the
>establishment of regional powers (an innovation in Great Britain,
>unless you count Scotland a region), are advocated by the 'liberal'
>wing of politics.
My impression was that until recent times England was notably
decentralized in administration -- JPs, squirearchy, and all that --
compared with the situation on the Continent, and that the
decentralization had something to do with the comparative
traditionalism of English politics. As always, though, I will accept
instruction on things British.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Aug 13 20:51:11 EDT 1996
Article: 7949 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Buchanan & the Taxpayers?
Date: 13 Aug 1996 20:46:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <4uq2pg$pak@nadine.teleport.com> cfaatz@teleport.com (Chris Faatz) writes:
>What do Constitutional amendments outlawing abortion, the DOMA, etc.,
>etc. mean if not the legislation of morals by the "right wing" side
>of the empire?
The DOMA simply says that states are not required to recognize a
"marriage" of two men or two women as a marriage under the "full faith
and credit" provision of the Constitution. A Constitutional amendment
outlawing abortion is not of the essence of the right-to-life movement
since the federal problem they are dealing with is _Roe v. Wade_.
>As to your first point, what is the Christian Coalition or Focus on the
>Family doing if not experimenting with and beginning to really have the
>opportunity to wield for themselves Federal power?
Would they view themselves as failures if the Federal government
reverted to its pre-60s relation to issues having to do with sex and
religion?
>: a bunch of passive and powerless religious fundamentalists
>I think that they're drunk on both the exercise of power, and the
>potential of more--remember Lord Acton's marvelous insight on this
>question.
On what exercise of power are fundamentalists drunk?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Tue Aug 13 21:28:07 1996
Subject: Re: turtle steps
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 21:28:07 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB894F.9C8675E0@eb3ppp19.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 13, 96 07:41:47 pm
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> But our dispute was about the inherent status of should. If you're
> statement is "Our true nature is what we should be" and mine is that
> "our true nature doesn't suffice to make us what we should be" then
> your saying "those of our capacities that I have in mind having
> brought out of us to realize our true nature are those that make us
> what we should be" has only restated your original position, it seems
> to me.
We've agreed on a lot of the features of should, it seems to me. We've
agreed I think that human beings should be and act some particular way,
and the way they should be and act doesn't depend fundamentally on the
view they happen to take of the matter or on temporary or idiosyncratic
peculiarities. Given that, I'm not sure why you wouldn't say that the
way they should be morally is part of their nature. But if it's part
of their nature that they should be thus and so, it seems odd to say
that being thus and so is not the realization of their nature.
> About rationality. We've not talked much about it, especially since
> I asked you not to restate the moral issue in terms of what's
> "reasonable." But if your position is that "the only rational way to
> be is to be the way a person should be," and if another position is
> that "a person --a sociopath for example-- might be what is usually
> meant as rational, but not at all be what a person should be," we've
> only moved the dispute pretty much intact onto a new ground.
Rationality seems to mean something like "thinking and acting in
accordance with principles that are universally and necessarily valid
and known to be so". My claim I suppose is that if morality is
objective, as you seem to agree, a broader conception of rationality is
called for than one that would admit such conceptions as "the rational
sociopath". If morality is objective then moral principles can be
correct and known to be so, and if correct they aren't so merely
locally or contingently, so it seems they would be part of rationality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From alt.revolution.counter Wed Aug 14 06:44:30 1996
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
~Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
~Subject: Re: Buchanan & the Taxpayers?
~Date: 14 Aug 1996 06:36:26 -0400
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In <337400651wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> One solution is to step up the fraud, which is likely to involve a
>> mixture of formal and informal restrictions on public discusions.
>All that requires is increasing centralization of media ownership, which
>is already happening and is a natural consequence of the present form
>of capitalism.
As opposed to socialism? In any case I think ownership is less the
issue than the increasing coherence and consciousness as a class of
those responsible for preparing and presenting media content. Thirty
years ago the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and the
Washington Post had a very different slant on things. No more, even
though ownership remains separate.
The change is often described as a matter of the increasing
professionalism of journalism. The consequence is that far more than
in the past the mainstream media present a single perspective on public
issues. That perspective, quite naturally, is one that maximizes the
importance of the media. Since the media are most important if as many
things as possible are public issues decided publicly based on lots and
lots of information and analysis the perspective favors expansion of
government and endless multiplication of process with final decisions
made by experts (bureaucrats or judges) with an appeal process and
therefore centralized hierarchical order.
>But are the multiculturalists the same people as those who are causing
>economic insecurity? Here in Britain they seem to be at opposite poles
>of the ideological spectrum.
One issue is security or insecurity as such; another is whether there
are to be sources of security other than the state bureaucracy. So on
that analysis the old left-wing view was that there should be security,
and it should be provided bureaucratically, and the old reactionary
view was that there should be security, and it should be provided by
traditional non-bureaucratic arrangements. Today security seems harder
to maintain than in the recent past, for a variety of technological and
social reasons, so things are in flux and each party is more worried
about the other than about the provision of security, which seems
difficult anyway. So the leftists emphasize elimination of family and
nation (i.e., anti-sexism, anti-heterosexism, anti-racism,
multiculturalism) and the rightists emphasize elimination of welfare
and protective legislation. The two sides come together on certain
issues, for example with respect to economic internationalism, which
the left thinks will undercut nation and the right thinks will undercut
national social legislation.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Wed Aug 14 07:39:23 1996
Subject: Re: turtle steps
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 07:39:23 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8979.AF699140@eb2ppp16.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 13, 96 11:53:29 pm
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I had said:
We've agreed on a lot of the features of should, it seems to me.
We've agreed I think that human beings should be and act some
particular way, and the way they should be and act doesn't depend
fundamentally on the view they happen to take of the matter or on
temporary or idiosyncratic peculiarities. Given that, I'm not sure
why you wouldn't say that the way they should be morally is part of
their nature. But if it's part of their nature that they should be
thus and so, it seems odd to say that being thus and so is not the
realization of their nature."
You said:
>Take a look at that last sentence. "But if it's part of their
>nature...." But this is precisely the issue.
Is it the last or the next-to-last sentence where you start having
problems? The part of the last sentence you quote just picks up the
thought of the previous sentence.
>I do not think it is (entirely) given in the nature of a human being to
>care. At least I think it is a separate question and empirical rather
>than logical in nature. WHereas you seem to keep thinking that one
>cannot logically imagine that it can be true that a person SHOULD do
>such and such (in the sense of what is moral) while at the same time
>that person can feel --without illusion or insanity or violation of his
>own inborn nature-- indifferent to what he should do.
My impression is that by the nature of a thing you mean whatever the
thing actually is or does under particular circumstances. So you would
deny that it is (entirely) the nature of an eye to see, because some
eyes are blind and all can readily be made so. Is that right? On that
view it seems that it would be unintelligible to speak of a violation
of a thing's nature.
My view is that if a should is attached to a thing, not because of any
decision anyone made or belief anyone has but just because of what the
thing is, then the should is part of the thing's nature and it becomes
possible to speak of a thing acting or being treated contrary to its
nature when the should is violated.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Wed Aug 14 22:03:31 1996
Subject: Re: turtle steps
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 22:03:31 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8A1E.18E91100@eb4ppp17.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 14, 96 08:19:41 pm
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>The good that concerns health --and other dimensions could be adduced--
>clearly derive from the inherent nature of the human being. And I
>would agree that following the related shoulds is part of the true
>nature, and relates to the true interest of the human creature.
Some people:
1. Smoke, use weird drugs, never exercise, and live on Coca Cola and
potato chips. As a result their bodies deteriorate.
2. Live like lazy slobs and take no interest in anything except
comfort and cheap thrills and gratifications. As a result their
intelligence and sensibility deteriorate.
3. Don't attempt to do what is morally right when it conflicts with
other interests, and as a result their moral perception and character
deteriorate.
At what level does their conduct stop violating their nature, interests
and rationality? Is it the possession of a healthy body, an
intelligent, perceptive and well-stocked mind, or a good moral
character that is most necessary for fulfilling human nature? Which --
body, mind or will -- is most truly *you*?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Thu Aug 15 07:23:17 1996
Subject: Re: turtle steps
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 07:23:17 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8A43.7AB2CA00@eb4ppp17.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 15, 96 00:48:21 am
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> Is it possible, do you think, that we are or might be "getting
> somewhere"? I'm not sure.
I think so, but it can take years to clarify basic issues.
>I would agree that human nature MIGHT be such that all three are really
>equally engaged with the issues of interest, nature, rationality. (I
>even entertain the possibility that in fact they are.) But I have
>maintained that they don't logically HAVE TO BE, and I have understood
>you to believe that logic requires it.
I think you have understood correctly. It all follows in my view from
the meaning of "interest, nature and rationality" when those terms are
defined in a way that maintains their function in the way we speak of
things and also takes into account the objectivity of moral obligation
-- its reality and its fundamental independence of what we think of it,
our personal idiosyncrasies, etc..
>I regard the natural good of a human being --in terms of fulfilling
>INNATE human nature-- to be that which leads to the experience of well-
>being. (I suspect that you'd go for a different definition, but I fear
>that your definition might contain within it the conclusion whose
>validity we're presumably trying to verify-- the old circular problem.
>Forgive me if my suspicions are unjust.)
To say someone is discussing things logically is to say his conclusions
are packed into his definitions and first principles.
I could of course accept your definition if "well-being" is taken to
mean "being good" and "experience" is understood as veridical.
I would understand your view better if I had a clearer understanding of
"experience of well-being" and why you think it is the natural good of
man. Does it mean something like "stable system of pleasant sensation"?
If so it leaves out the human need for contact with reality and so it
seems to me cannot be the natural good of man because that good ought to
be a system that takes into account characteristic human needs in some
ordered way.
>By the way, thanks for sharing your thoughts about my other
>interlocutor. I'm not really blown away by his position, either. But
>he is a person of some education, and native intelligence, and so I've
>spent a little time trying to understand how he can believe what he
>believes, and to test whether there's a way to engage his beliefs in a
>fashion that leads to any greater sense of shared understanding.
He's not dumb or ignorant in an ordinary sense. It's certainly
sensible to spend time with him, if only because a lot of people think
as he does at least to some degree.
My basic objection to "I feel what I feel, view things as I view
things, and do what I do" as a final moral principle is that it's
solipsistic and so cuts one off from contact with moral reality. You
end up imprisoned within yourself, and that strikes me as against
nature, interest and rationality because (as the learned Aristoteles
saith in his boke) "man is a social animal", and "all men by nature
desire to know".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Thu Aug 15 15:02:16 1996
Subject: Re: being logical or tautological
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 15:02:16 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8A93.4E683B60@eb4ppp17.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 15, 96 09:53:43 am
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> When you say, "To say someone is discussing things logically is to
> say his conclusions are packed into his definitions and first
> principles," are you saying that when I person thinks logically, he
> is thinking entirely tautologically?
Formal logic is tautological, so the purely logical part of logical
thought is tautological as well. That can be useful -- through logic
we explore what definitions and first principles really mean to see
whether the system of things to which they give rise fits the way the
world is. My point was only that it's no objection to say that
someone's conclusions are packed into his premises. That's always
true.
I should add that logic doesn't exhaust rationality, which includes all
necessarily true principles such as those of morality, not just formal
logic. If rationality included nothing beyond formal logic, I think
radical subjectivism in morals and epistemology and therefore solipsism
would be very difficult to escape.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Thu Aug 15 15:13:20 1996
Subject: man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 15:13:20 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8A93.7155E1E0@eb4ppp17.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 15, 96 10:01:29 am
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> Which scenario --and which accompanying experience for himself--
> would the creature choose? And if we allowed a life to unfold based
> on all the choices the person would make for himself about what would
> happen at each point --based on his preferences for different
> experiences for himself, or for how he wants things to be, or however
> you want to conceive the basis of that experience-- what kind of
> person would he become?
>
> I would say whatever kind of person he would become would be an
> expression of his "true nature," meaning the nature we are BORN (rather
> than socialized) to have. Would you be willing to accept that as a
> definition of true nature?
No. Too solipsistic. Man realizes his nature by learning, and always
getting your way in all respects, so that your world is just a
projection of your desires, makes learning impossible.
It's hard to imagine what such a process would lead to. Would the
creature ever be born if the choices started prenatally? Would he ever
learn language or any other competence, or ever rise above the level of
utter idiocy? Would he be able to survive for a minute if for some
reason the string of wishes came to an end?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From alt.revolution.counter Thu Aug 15 18:48:51 1996
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
~Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
~Subject: Re: Buchanan & the Taxpayers?
~Date: 15 Aug 1996 18:39:07 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
~Lines: 52
Message-ID: <4v08ub$1p6@panix.com>
~References: <4uib5h$oul@panix.com> <4ukt72$rvr@nadine.teleport.com> <4upt6b$ra6@panix.com> <309283430wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <309283430wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>That's well put (as we expect from Mr. Kalb)
Everyone's been getting so lovey-dovey around here lately. Is it
something in the water?
>but
Ah!
>there are elements of petitio principii_ here. For example, it could
>_be claimed (and has been claimed by political philosophers since
>antiquity) that a system that promotes moral responsibility may be
>identical with one that promotes choice. The great-hearted man is he
>who acts responsibly despite the freedom to succumb to temptation.
Acquisition of a rational grasp of virtue and habit of practicing it
requires training and discipline while we are not yet fully rational.
Man is a social animal, and achieves virtue and other goods by
participating in a society in which those goods are somehow
institutionalized. One who lived apart from society (understood as a
moral community) would have to be either a beast or a god. In other
words, simply giving everyone great hearted or not freedom to follow
his own arbitrary impulses won't do the trick.
Surely there have been political philosophers, even ancient ones, who
held some such views?
>Moreover, hedonistic lifestyles are not necessarily at the expense of
>the productive: it depends by what you mean by productive. Modern
>right-wing hedonists regard children as a luxury.
Since today's children are the ones who will be supporting us in old
age, maybe that just shows they aren't right-wing enough. Eliminate
social security and the view that from an economic standpoint children
are a consumption rather than an production decision would change.
>But the Thatcherites in Britain have done precisely that. But perhaps
>they don't count as counterrevolutionaries.
I have too little knowledge of Thatcherism and its degree of success to
debate the matter.
>So you think they can fool all of the people all of the time?
It's a two-pronged approach: confuse the issues, and to the extent
possible eliminate "the people" as a collectivity coherent enough to
deliberate and make decisions.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Thu Aug 15 18:46:06 1996
Subject: Re: man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 18:46:06 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8AC5.9193E600@eb6ppp26.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 15, 96 03:59:24 pm
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> But still, I think you've got problems. Once you introduce learning,
> that is. For all kinds of learning are possible, including those
> done in the name of morality. Once you introduce such diversity,
> including diametrical opposites, including morality that might make a
> person think he was doing right in machine-gunning women and children
> into a ditch, I have difficulty understanding just what meaning can
> be left that's worth having in making a statement that would embrace
> any of those outcomes in the name of morality and say of each and
> all: acting thus is an expression of a human beings "true nature."
I said that learning is necessary for realizing one's true nature, not
that everything one learns and becomes as a result of learning realizes
that nature. The latter seems to me equivalent to saying that whatever
we actually do and are is our nature. I thought that view had been
safely buried by common consent several posts ago.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Thu Aug 15 20:28:06 1996
Subject: Re: Humanism and homosexuality
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 20:28:06 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19960815215417.0069e004@swva.net> from "Seth Williamson" at Aug 15, 96 05:54:17 pm
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>"What we can now turn to," he said, "are far more attractive and
>exciting forms of action--race politics, sexual politics, environmental
>politics, health politics. There are other forms of action which will
>emerge in due course whereby we will transform and overthrow existing
>society."
The idea is to do away with what is given by nature and history -- the
communal affiliations men actually feel, the sexual constitution of
society and human life generally, the relation between man and the
natural world, human bodily frailty -- and subject it all to our own
will. Obvious problems:
1. It's difficult intelligently and beneficently to exert power over
things at the root of human existence. They're too complicated, and too
close for us to see them in proportion.
2. Who whom? "Man must take charge of his destiny" really means "some
men must become as gods with respect to other men".
As the article suggests, we'll want godlike powers unless we're
convinced they're already in God's hands. We need to feel part of a
cosmos, and if there's no God to make things a cosmos we'll try to do
the job by taking charge and ordering things ourselves.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Thu Aug 15 21:22:16 1996
Subject: Re: man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 21:22:16 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8AE4.EFF359A0@eb2ppp5.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 15, 96 08:03:24 pm
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Ave!
> Do you view my beginning my messages by "Dear Jim" as a quaint
> anachronism, importing from an earlier medium something which is no
> longer suitable to the new medium, the way the early talkies tended
> to be filmed stage plays?
No. I don't think it goes well with the quote/comment format, so I
haven't been using it. I like the quote/comment format because it
helps keep me to the point. If I said "Dear Andy" I'd feel obligated
to start off with a little chit-chat before continuing and that can
seem silly in the middle of an exchange. Also I'm both lazy and
extremely critical of everything I write, which makes me reluctant to
write things if I can avoid it.
> I am left with the impression that if I were to relinquish any of my
> own ideas about the meaning of such things as "true nature,"
> rationality, true interest, and the like, and were to adopt without
> prejudice your definitions of the same, I would not disagree with
> your conclusion about morality's relationship with all those things.
> On the other hand, it is also my impression that once one has adopted
> that set of definitions, the conclusion follows automatically. I.e.
> that your proposition that I have been disputing is, at bottom, a
> tautology. But you do not seem to wield it, or regard it, as a
> tautology.
Ditto for your position, that the relation between "true interests" and
"true nature" on the one hand and morality on the other is contingent
and therefore a matter of empirical psychology. The real issue to my
mind is which system of concepts and related principles gives us a
simpler, more coherent and truer way of thinking about ourselves and
our actions. That part of the matter is *not* tautologous. One might
ask, for example, whether it makes sense to have a conception of "human
nature" that excludes the extremely important characteristic all human
beings and no other natural objects have of being subject to moral
obligations. Or whether it makes sense to define the "good" for man in
such a way as to include only subjective experience when men
characteristically do not view subjectivity in and of itself as
satisfying and sufficient. Or whether our "interest" should really be
defined to include maintaining and acting in accordance with some of
our capacities (those that are part of the definition of physical
health and integrity, say) but not others (our capacity to understand
and comply with moral obligation) that on the face of it seem to touch
us at least as closely. "Human nature", "good" and "interest" all seem
intended to be major concepts guiding action, and it's obscure to me
why they should become more illuminating when they exclude matters
relating to obligation.
Vale! Or as Haile Selassie, Conquering Lion of Judah, once said on
taking his leave,
ABYSSINIA!
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Fri Aug 16 04:43:27 1996
Subject: Re: man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 04:43:27 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8AFE.7CD54AE0@eb2ppp5.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 15, 96 11:06:02 pm
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> Are we disagreeing, then, only about definitions? Or are there any
> empirical propositions about which we differ?
Are those the alternatives? For example, if I said "X is reasonable"
and you said "X is not reasonable" would that be a dispute either about
definitions or about empirical propositions?
> I didn't hear you pose any challenges to any of my
> empirical-in-principle thought experiments, such as about what a
> person would do if able to choose this or that, or what I might have
> chosen at my pre-moral stage if given a choice.
I agree that our clear differences seem to regard evaluative theory
rather than matters of empirical psychology. There may be differences
as to the latter. When you suggested that someone who always got just
what he wanted would develop into someone who exemplifies human nature
I suspected an empirical difference since it seemed to me such a person
wouldn't develop into anything recognizably human. Maybe you think
your suggestion is true by definition, though. You seem to believe
that what people want is subjective satisfaction; I regard that as
empirically false unless true by an odd definition of "want".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Fri Aug 16 15:15:42 1996
Subject: Re: man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 15:15:42 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8B75.61B05080@eb2ppp5.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 16, 96 10:40:31 am
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> ME Are we disagreeing, then, only about definitions? Or are
> > there any empirical propositions about which we differ?
>
> YOU Are those the alternatives? For example, if I said "X is
> reasonable" and you said "X is not reasonable" would that be a
> dispute either about definitions or about empirical propositions?
>
> ME again I trust you know that your question about the nature of
> the dispute is unanswerable on the evidence given. It could be
> either, or it could be both. We might agree in all our substantive
> judgments about whether x is true, plausible, makes sense, etc. but
> disagree about its being reasonable just because we have different
> definitions of what reasonable means. Or it could be that we agree
> about the meaning of the word, but disagree about whether X meets
> those criteria. Or we could disagree on both scores.
>
> But you knew that. Right?
Wrong, probably. In any case I don't understand the view you are
presenting. Your language up top, like the email from which it was
taken, seems to divide all propositions into definitions and empirical
propositions. Your "ME again" language points out that there could
also be combined propositions, which of course is OK by me. But then
you also talk about "substantive judgements", giving examples like "X
makes sense" that don't look like definitions, empirical judgements or
combinations of the two.
One possibility is that in your previous message when you said
"empirical propositions" you really meant "substantive propositions",
which would include both empirical propositions (the sun rose at 6:22
this morning) and some non-empirical judgements ("it is wrong to cause
pain to others simply because the pain of others gives one pleasure").
> As for your sense of an 'odd' definition, again, that would not be an
> empirical disagreement.
Could it be part and parcel of a substantive disagreement? For
example, I might use "groovy" as a term of praise and justification and
define it to include tormenting other people for the sheer joy of it.
Someone else might say he didn't see anything particularly groovy about
gratuitous torture. You might object that if "groovy" is so defined
one definition is as good as another. It seems to me, though, that
some definitions make "groovy", and for that matter other terms (like
"interest" and "good"), less useful for rational discussion of conduct
and therefore should be avoided in such discussions.
> Are you interested in trying to ferret out any empirical
> disagreements we may have, or are you assuming that for some reason
> we are just stuck with different sets of definitions that make it
> appear that we disagree about how things are when we really do not?
I assume you mean "substantive disagreements". I'd be happy to try to
ferret them out, although I should mention that I'm leaving late
tomorrow for a couple of weeks in Britain.
How's this for a starter: one place where moral theory and substantive
morality come together is with respect to the education of children.
How should we bring them up to think about themselves and their conduct
and morality? That is in itself a substantive moral question. For
example, should we teach them that because of what they are they have a
natural good that consists in the multiplication of their own agreeable
subjective consciousness, and is often in conflict with the good of
other people, but that for the sake of the greater good of most people
most of the time it is necessary to have rules forcing people to give
up part and sometimes a lot or even all of their own good for the sake
of increasing that of other people? Or should we teach them that it is
their good to *be* good, simply because they are human beings and the
best, most admirable and most choiceworthy characteristic of a human
being is his capacity to live a morally good life?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From jk Sat Aug 17 09:19:35 1996
Subject: Re: man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 09:19:35 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <01BB8BC3.8B240DA0@eb1ppp13.shentel.net> from "Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore" at Aug 16, 96 10:26:59 pm
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>I have a prediction: we will not resolve all this before your
>departure.
Seems likely.
>By the way, I wish you bon voyage.
Thanx.
>I don't think that question will get us anywhere. It is too many
>layers to help clarify what we've been working on. One layer is the
>criterion according to which one would answer which approach is
>"better." With my utilitarian tendencies, I would probably approach the
>question by asking: which way of raising children is more likely to
>lead to their growing up to do good things and have fulfilling lives?
>But I suspect that when you say which one is better, I expect you are
>asking a different question. And I'm not sure it is helpful to the
>point that has been at issue in our long conversation here either to
>leave those different criteria implicit or to focus instead on the
>different criteria we have.
This paragraph is obscure in several respects, as it seems to me. I'm
content to leave the clarification to September.
>By the way, I still think that if you were to put all your relevant
>positions down on a piece of paper, you would end up with more
>tautology and less substantive propositions than you expect. But I'm
>not sure by what means --within my willingness to work-- that
>proposition of mine could be verified, or proven to you.
You've given me no reason to suppose they're more tautologous than your
positions. In fact, I'm not sure what such a supposition could mean.
To say that someone's position contains tautologies is just to say it's
logical. You are logical enough so your position also contains many
tautologies. For example, your apparent view that the good of an
individual consists in the multiplication of his own agreeable
subjective consciousness strikes me as no less tautologous than my view
that the good of an individual includes knowledge of moral obligation
and practical conformity to it. Ditto for our contrasting views of
human nature.
In addition to tautologies a moral position contains substantive moral
judgements. Your claim that my position is unusually full of tautology
might be a claim that I don't make many substantive moral judgements.
It seems unlikely that you're making that claim though -- I don't see
what basis you could have for it and you've never suggested it is the
claim you are making.
A moral position also contains an account of how the concrete
substantive positions follow from more general considerations. To say
that this part of my moral position has lots of tautologies would be a
compliment because it would be the same as saying that I've managed to
identify general considerations that clearly and fully sum up what I
find in concrete instances. It would be to say that I'm a good
theoretician. You evidently don't intend a compliment, though.
Finally, a moral position might contain an account of why its concepts
and principles are better (simpler, more intuitive, more natural, more
coherent, whatever) than some other set of concepts and principles that
in general leads to similar concrete substantive judgements. I think
that's an important issue, after all it's the same sort of issue that
divided Ptolemy and Copernicus, but it's something you don't want to
talk about. Your view that I'm a tautologist seems to have something to
do with my belief that this is an important issue. If you think it's
not an important issue, I'm not sure why you don't abandon your usage
regarding terms like "interest" and "good" and adopt mine, at least for
purposes of our discussion.
But enough -- I have to run off and do things in preparation. Keep the
home fires burning, or whatever people do in Virginia in August, and I
hope your book just rolls off your pen as if by magic, addressing and
solving all relevant issues in clear, forceful, eloquent prose that
just comes to you with no false starts, no blind alleys, no muss or
fuss, no unexpected problems you hadn't thought of, just a single
astounding creative act that rolls onward and onward to inevitable
triumph. (That's what writing is always like, right?)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
From alt.revolution.counter Sat Aug 17 09:37:56 1996
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
~Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
~Subject: Re: Buchanan & the Taxpayers?
~Date: 17 Aug 1996 09:36:47 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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rafael cardenas writes:
>In such systems as I referred to, there are of course always groups
>such as children, slaves, and proletarians who are not fully human and
>rational and therefore must be denied choice. But that doesn't
>undermine the principle for free citizens.
The identification of virtue with responsibility and thence with
individual freedom is recent. Previously freedom had perhaps been
thought to be an element in a good polity but not its sum and substance.
Which political thinkers have favored full citizen democracy under
circumstances (wealth and cosmopolitanism) that give the citizens a
broad practical range of individual choices? Of the ones who have done
so (who I believe are all modern) have any also favored a radically
class-based society of the sort you suggest?
>> Eliminate social security and the view that from an economic
>> standpoint children are a consumption rather than an production
>> decision would change.
>
>I don't see this. Depends what you mean by social security.
In America it refers to the Federal system of old-age pensions.
>Suppose, for example that I'm a thirtysomething libertarian right-wing
>hedonist, who believes people should pay for what they get and taxes
>should be low [ ... ] And this hypothetical I don't need my neighbours'
>children to support me in my old age. I'll be a rentier.
How numerous and influential would such people be in a world with a
libertarian legal regime? Most libertarians seem to think they'd be
the dominant type, but I don't agree. After all, most of the world
most of the time has had a libertarian legal regime in the sense that
there has not been a state with social policies and generally looking
after people. Nonetheless, historically thirtysomething libertarian
right- wing hedonists have been rather rare. Middle-eastern cities,
for example, have traditionally been cosmopolitan, often comparatively
prosperous, and not much administered by any central authority, but
even among the rich the dominant social types have been rather
different from your friend. In early mediaeval Iceland there was no
state at all, and the society was notable for the importance of ties of
kinship and friendship. And so it goes. To get closer to home, the
yuppie ethic wasn't that common in pre-welfare state Britain even
during the hey-day of laissez-faire.
As Aristotle or maybe it was John Lennon said, we all need somebody to
lean on, and if there's no comprehensive government scheme to look
after us informal institutions will grow up that enable us to count on
each other, and those institutions will become socially authoritative.
People with enough wealth and assured earning power to look in all
events to coupon clipping for security would be too few and (in the
nature of things) too isolated to affect things much.
Suppose our libertarian friend had grown up under a libertarian legal
regime instead of a cradle-to-the-grave welfare state. Since there
wouldn't have been public education, our friend would have grown up in a
family in which the parents had to make a much larger personal
investment in his education and upbringing than is likely actually to
have been the case. A general expectation of some form of practical
return would likely have worked its way into their view of things, and
thence into his. He would likely have ended up with considerably less
formal education than he actually received, so his attitudes and
understanding of the world would have been based more on those of his
family and local community and less on those of the state bureaucracy.
With fewer formal credentials, family business and other local and
informal economic relationships would have been more important. In
times of difficulty our friend like everyone else would have had to
depend for support on the same family and local community in which he
was raised and educated and to which he likely would have looked for a
livelihood.
Under such circumstances it seems to me families and local communities
would develop and inculcate into their members, including our friend,
attitudes and understandings that make it possible for them to function
and provide most of their members with tolerable lives. There wouldn't
be much else for people to look to, in particular no all-providing
state, so it would be in local and particular connections that people
would find their moral center of gravity. Since for most people times
of difficulty would include extreme old age as well as childhood, those
attitudes and understandings as they regard intergenerational relations
would be rather different from those most at home among us today. And
since none of us invents his own moral world, I predict that our
friend's attitude toward family would have turned out very differently,
even if in fact he grew up unusually healthy, competent,
self-sufficient, etc. or some of the foregoing otherwise didn't apply
to him.
>My pension scheme invests much of its assets in developing-world
>securities that have higher growth rates than British ones, so when I'm
>old I'll still be rich. And I can then import lots of willing Cocoa-
>islanders (I'm a libertarian, remember, with no commitment to the local
>culture except as decoration) who will provide the services I need,
>paid for out of a pension scheme that's grown fat by exploiting [dare
>we use that word nowadays? our libertarian says instead 'providing
>useful employment for'] other Cocoa-islanders in the past.
Note the subject line: Buchanan, hate-filled bigot and narrow-minded
xenophobic America Firster that he is, doesn't much like all this stuff
about immigration and free trade agreements. The Right (or what I would
call the Right) is not strictly libertarian. They don't like the all-
provident state or its correlate, extensive administrative state control
and management of day-to-day life, but they do think the state is
ordered to the common good and so has functions other than defense of
property.
>That's surely a right-wing view rather than a 'liberal' one, isn't it?
>The globally-marketized elite will make the decisions through the
>'market', and the rest will just have to put up with that.
The tendency seems to be to say "it's all inevitable, because it's the
impersonal market that no-one can control, so you can't do anything
about it" and then to establish a transnational bureaucracy linking
existing national ruling groups so that administrative control can be
re-established and maintained -- in other words, to keep it from being
the impersonal market that controls things. Otherwise, why the
European Union instead of the Common Market? Why is NAFTA (North
American Free Trade Agreement) thousands of pages instead of just a few
lines?
I expect you'll have questions and comments on several things, for
example the adequacy of small-scale informal local organization under
modern circumstances etc. Unfortunately, we're off to Scotland this
evening, to visit my Mom (or should I say Mum?), so my participation in
further discussions will be delayed a couple of weeks. Messrs. Faatz
and Yggdrasil both like small-scale informal local organization,
although they have their differences, so maybe they'll be willing to
respond to your concerns. If you want me to see anything you post in
the next week or so you should probably email me a copy as well as
posting it to a.r.c.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Dammit, I'm mad!
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.