Stupid philolsphers make philosophy look like a mental asylum... and take care about think about nonhuman animals as "beasts". They are instinctive than us, it's indeniable, but it doesn't mean they, specially, nearest of us, are insentient unemotional creatures.
Libertardians are if artificial intelligence (uber nerds and some rambos with brain injury) trying to understand natural intelligence.
''Smith’s economic theory assumes as foundational that the buyers and sellers would be self-regulated, that they’d attempt to act virtuously. That’s the only reason to trust in the “invisible hand,” because the many individuals that make up the market are supposed to take themselves to have something less than absolute personal freedom. We’re supposed to strive to have virtuous characters and to avoid extreme emotions and attitudes.''
Sadly, malign personality traits have been shown to be untreatable...
This extremely silly, almost religious, idea that being human has the same potential for rationality...
The biggest paradox of kindness as a dominant social rule and harmony and peace as a fundamental and desirable ends via the vulgarly popular "make the world a real better place" would be The only really effective way to reach these ends would be by acting in very systematic ruthless manner against those who are mostly responsible for all unnecessary suffering we have. Be truly reciprocal specially with them. If malignant personality traits are untreatable by none or any known method. It's means "identification, sterilization and possible castration", what nazis did against mostly innocent people but now doing against malignant people. But most kind people look like preys. That's why the perfect defense surviving strategy is wisdom, with proportional reciprocity. To the predators and to the parasites behave as a mirror. To the harmless ones, behave also like that, reflecting.
Leo Strauss would say that wise people in the ancient world would keep their wisdom private or disguised, to avoid persecution, whereas in the modern period it's customary to spread wisdom democratically, even if doing so damages the masses. Either way, I'm not sure wisdom itself is an adequate defense against human dominators and predators.
Capitalism and any other type of "conservative" ideology are essentially anti philosophical because it doesn't care about truth specially the most important ones, the existential. It cares only about a minority of, psychoecologically speaking, well organized and ruthless parasites, dominating a majority of different types of preys, if more domestic or more countryside typo. In other words, it really doesn't care about human evolution butseeing humanity, and extending for nature, as resources to be exploited, to serve the cruel interests of these vulgar "elites". It's like an "elite", more and more safe, "beautiful" and healthy by the expent of the rest's variable existential miserability.
About libtardianism, funnily enough, it commit exactly the same major mistakes of communism: significant ignorance about human psychology and also about the inherent complexity of civilized societies because its anxiety to reduce or even eliminate the state, as if a complex society is perfectly capable to become "invertebrated".
This cynical view of conservatives is more or less what I've been saying in my writings on the subject. "Conservative thought" reduces to social Darwinism, to a preference for functional animality to human progress and transcendence.
Yes, I am. Nietzsche thought it's futile fighting against nature with artificial moralizing. He preferred value systems that glorify nature and that aren't based on resentment or fear.
That was a thoughtful critique. Though I'm not a Libertarian I've always taken self-ownership to be a give-in, an axiom upon which rests property rights as they are conventionally conceived. If I do not even own my own body, then it is nonsensical for me to claim I own my shirt, my books, or my teapot. But that is a piece of rhetoric, not a logical syllogism or empirical fact, and as as such it begs the question: what if we don't own ourselves?
Locke's argument for property rights rests on two dubious premises disguised as a self-evident fact: an autonomous self. While humans arguably are at least autonomous in potential, I think the very success of capitalist advertising, based as it is by the psycholoigical determinism of Edward Bernays, belies that premise. If humans were truly autonomous in even a naturalistic sense, they wouldn't be moved to buy carbonated brown sugar water just because the people in the ad look so young & sexy when they drink it.
The second premise is an independent self. The Buddhists might take it too far, but they essentially have a point: our 'self' is dependent on all sorts of causes & variables that are completely beyond our control starting with the very obvious fact that if our parents did not copulate, we wouldn't be here, & continuing with the unsettling insights of modern psychology, neurology, & sociology. What room is there in all that for an autonomous self? If such a thing exists, then it is made, not born & is the product of much time & effort at that - not the sort of status that we can grant anyone as a default & then proceed to work out what rights must follow from it.
The question is: given that autonomy is not the default human condition, but the exception, what rights can be derived from this fact? Can we even speak in terms of 'rights' or should we think instead in terms of duty?
I'm not sure if some form of libertarianism could survive determinism, but I think it's certainly interesting to reflect on the implications of the view that the self is made rather than inherent in every biological human adult. Existentialists and most other philosophers, especially the elitists in the platonic tradition implicitly believe there are degrees of personhood. For example, there are the authentic or individuated selves (in the existential or Jungian sense), and there are those living in bad faith with automated routines. We all likely go back and forth between these extremes, having moments of personal depth and long stretches of automated animality. But some are generally closer to one end than to the other.
Libertarians ignore that and assume that those who earn or take wealth in a capitalistic context deserve it, because private property follows from their moral value as persons. On the contrary, those who tend to dominate in that setting are often the least fully personal humans, because of their sociopathic tendencies and because power over others is corrupting.
A social Darwinist might be a determinist who thinks social classes and inequalities are baked into natural instincts and capacities. So the answer is yes.
Stupid philolsphers make philosophy look like a mental asylum... and take care about think about nonhuman animals as "beasts". They are instinctive than us, it's indeniable, but it doesn't mean they, specially, nearest of us, are insentient unemotional creatures.
ReplyDeleteLibertardians are if artificial intelligence (uber nerds and some rambos with brain injury) trying to understand natural intelligence.
''Smith’s economic theory assumes as foundational that the buyers and sellers would be self-regulated, that they’d attempt to act virtuously. That’s the only reason to trust in the “invisible hand,” because the many individuals that make up the market are supposed to take themselves to have something less than absolute personal freedom. We’re supposed to strive to have virtuous characters and to avoid extreme emotions and attitudes.''
ReplyDeleteSadly, malign personality traits have been shown to be untreatable...
This extremely silly, almost religious, idea that being human has the same potential for rationality...
And that our decisions are from free will.
The biggest paradox of kindness as a dominant social rule and harmony and peace as a fundamental and desirable ends via the vulgarly popular "make the world a real better place" would be
ReplyDeleteThe only really effective way to reach these ends would be by acting in very systematic ruthless manner against those who are mostly responsible for all unnecessary suffering we have. Be truly reciprocal specially with them. If malignant personality traits are untreatable by none or any known method. It's means "identification, sterilization and possible castration", what nazis did against mostly innocent people but now doing against malignant people. But most kind people look like preys. That's why the perfect defense surviving strategy is wisdom, with proportional reciprocity. To the predators and to the parasites behave as a mirror. To the harmless ones, behave also like that, reflecting.
Leo Strauss would say that wise people in the ancient world would keep their wisdom private or disguised, to avoid persecution, whereas in the modern period it's customary to spread wisdom democratically, even if doing so damages the masses. Either way, I'm not sure wisdom itself is an adequate defense against human dominators and predators.
DeleteOnly if you think wisdom is just to be kind.
DeleteCapitalism and any other type of "conservative" ideology are essentially anti philosophical because it doesn't care about truth specially the most important ones, the existential. It cares only about a minority of, psychoecologically speaking, well organized and ruthless parasites, dominating a majority of different types of preys, if more domestic or more countryside typo. In other words, it really doesn't care about human evolution butseeing humanity, and extending for nature, as resources to be exploited, to serve the cruel interests of these vulgar "elites". It's like an "elite", more and more safe, "beautiful" and healthy by the expent of the rest's variable existential miserability.
ReplyDeleteAbout libtardianism, funnily enough, it commit exactly the same major mistakes of communism: significant ignorance about human psychology and also about the inherent complexity of civilized societies because its anxiety to reduce or even eliminate the state, as if a complex society is perfectly capable to become "invertebrated".
This cynical view of conservatives is more or less what I've been saying in my writings on the subject. "Conservative thought" reduces to social Darwinism, to a preference for functional animality to human progress and transcendence.
DeleteAre you familiar with Nietzsche's critique of the "improvers of mankind?"
DeleteYes, I am. Nietzsche thought it's futile fighting against nature with artificial moralizing. He preferred value systems that glorify nature and that aren't based on resentment or fear.
DeleteThat was a thoughtful critique. Though I'm not a Libertarian I've always taken self-ownership to be a give-in, an axiom upon which rests property rights as they are conventionally conceived. If I do not even own my own body, then it is nonsensical for me to claim I own my shirt, my books, or my teapot. But that is a piece of rhetoric, not a logical syllogism or empirical fact, and as as such it begs the question: what if we don't own ourselves?
ReplyDeleteLocke's argument for property rights rests on two dubious premises disguised as a self-evident fact: an autonomous self. While humans arguably are at least autonomous in potential, I think the very success of capitalist advertising, based as it is by the psycholoigical determinism of Edward Bernays, belies that premise. If humans were truly autonomous in even a naturalistic sense, they wouldn't be moved to buy carbonated brown sugar water just because the people in the ad look so young & sexy when they drink it.
The second premise is an independent self. The Buddhists might take it too far, but they essentially have a point: our 'self' is dependent on all sorts of causes & variables that are completely beyond our control starting with the very obvious fact that if our parents did not copulate, we wouldn't be here, & continuing with the unsettling insights of modern psychology, neurology, & sociology. What room is there in all that for an autonomous self? If such a thing exists, then it is made, not born & is the product of much time & effort at that - not the sort of status that we can grant anyone as a default & then proceed to work out what rights must follow from it.
The question is: given that autonomy is not the default human condition, but the exception, what rights can be derived from this fact? Can we even speak in terms of 'rights' or should we think instead in terms of duty?
I'm not sure if some form of libertarianism could survive determinism, but I think it's certainly interesting to reflect on the implications of the view that the self is made rather than inherent in every biological human adult. Existentialists and most other philosophers, especially the elitists in the platonic tradition implicitly believe there are degrees of personhood. For example, there are the authentic or individuated selves (in the existential or Jungian sense), and there are those living in bad faith with automated routines. We all likely go back and forth between these extremes, having moments of personal depth and long stretches of automated animality. But some are generally closer to one end than to the other.
DeleteLibertarians ignore that and assume that those who earn or take wealth in a capitalistic context deserve it, because private property follows from their moral value as persons. On the contrary, those who tend to dominate in that setting are often the least fully personal humans, because of their sociopathic tendencies and because power over others is corrupting.
Can one be a determinist and anti egalitarian?
ReplyDeleteA social Darwinist might be a determinist who thinks social classes and inequalities are baked into natural instincts and capacities. So the answer is yes.
Delete