The following passage from Incompleteness caught my attention:
no validation of our rationality — of our very sanity — can be accomplished using our rationality itself.
Thus, there exist millions of people who are completely sane from within their ideological system, but only insane from outside it. We call these lunatics progressives. It’s not quite correct to say that they “can’t be reasoned with.” Rather, they can only be reasoned with — in the manner described by Chesterton in chapter 2 of Orthodoxy, The Maniac:
The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason….
It is common for conservatives to point out the daily hypocrisies of the left, but this gets us nowhere, since it is utterly beside the point. You can’t be a hypocrite if you have no consistent principles. Rather, they would only be hypocrites if they were to deny their hypocritical expediency in service to power.
It is interesting that you should post just that snippet of a quote from Chesterton’s Orthodoxy pulled from the One Cosmos site post, as I just pulled Orthodoxy from my bookshelves, again for a re-read, just yesterday afternoon, and read just those words yesterday evening. There are no coincidences.
JP MillerApril 23, 2021, 5:32 PM
Every nation that has given over to collectivist morality has failed.
A Collectivist ideology can do no wrong. Party loyalty in a collectivist sense, was best stated by Trotsky: “Comrades, none of us wishes or is able to be right against his Party. The Party in the last analysis is always right, because the Party is the sole political instrument of the proletariat for the solution of its basic problems…I know that one cannot be right against the party. It is only possible to be right with the Party and through the Party for history has not created other ways for the realization of what is right.” (And a collectivist ideology has NO loyalty — e.g. what ultimately happened to Trotsky.)
That method of thinking and behaving is inherently immoral. Trotsky’s end is proof of that. Don’t be Trotsky.
For Individualists, in contrast, the moral principles of politics are an extension of the ethical code of rational self-interest. Because there are no conflicts of rational interests among individuals, the proper society is one in which individuals cooperate for mutual advantage, exchanging value for value. In America, we call rational self-interest, Liberty.
Individualists fixed standards for rational morality — begun by Aristotle and expanded by Aquinas — called Natural Law.
Every nation that embraces the concept of individualist morality will prosper.
Flatulent FilbertApril 23, 2021, 6:48 PM
No, at BEST they’re not hypocrites.
Casey KlahnApril 24, 2021, 6:21 AM
I was watching a Jordan Peterson (yes, I now watch him) on his take-down of Marx. Interestingly, he said that most ideas are wrong. That was an interesting mind bender. I agree that 99.9% of ideas do not pass through or get tested by reason.
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx argued that hierarchy results, directly, from Capitalism. JP counters that even amoebas and birds establish hierarchy, and so it’s a natural order so there’s no reason to blame Capitalism. I think that’s a good remark, however Marx also argues a dialectic, and in that order he may’ve been responding to the last order of things, which was Capitalism. Still, he puts a big dent in Marx. He asserts logical fallacies in just about every Marxian sentence.
I’ve long argued that Communism relies on the equal goodness of man, which is not a correct position to take. I offer: the 20th century. I offer: history. It is somewhat similar to the CS Lewis argument that he’s a democrat because man is corrupt.
Good to think things through. Once in awhile, you come to some conclusions.
One of the basic tenets of postmodernist linguistic deconstructionism (which I learned how to do in my postgraduate studies at Vanderbilt) is that all text is tainted by bias and that objective points of view are impossible. Hence, the objective of expression is to exercise power. (Formerly the type of expression so designated has been confined, mostly, to those of history, literature and politics. But now even mathematics may be considered biased and subjective.)
Hence, there is no such as thing as objective truth and statements are never more than propositional in nature. A statement’s truth content is never more than opinion, and opinions are nothing but expressions of power. Therefore, in a basic sense, all speech is power directed.
This is a fundamental world view of the Left and is derived directly from Marxism, as reworked by Leninism. Since Marx held that his communist theory was literally scientific, his economic-historical forecasts were not merely likely, they were certain. As formulated by Lenin et. al., truth is therefore not statements of objective facts, but assertions that move the communist revolution and its fulfillment closer to reality. “Truth” is therefore pliable and impermanent, the concept of truth being only practical. In practice, all of language became subservient to the dominance of the party, a fact recognized by George Orwell in his novel 1984 and its concept of Newspeak.
That, comrades, is the Leftist, socialist world of Revolutionary Truth, a Marxist-Leninist doctrine that is fundamental to how the Left operates and rules. A good illustration of Revolutionary Truth” is when Rep. and self-described socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on 60 Minutes on Jan. 6, 2019, and said, “There’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”
Because Marxism is a totalist system of belief, it is accurately described in Eric Hoffer’s classic, The True Believer, as “religiofication,” that is, converting political grievances into messianic aspirations and “practical purposes into holy causes.” “Truth” is therefore whatever brings the Revolution closer to reality. Truth is only accidentally connected to objective facts, which is exactly what AOC meant when she dismissed any connection between morality and facts.
What this means is that when any discipline is dominated by the Left, then its purpose is to exercise political power. A standard Leftist critique of the West’s standing values was that they were social constructions, not rooted in objective reality (which does not exist, anyway), but in class struggles.
If scientific objectivity, for example, is a fraudulent concept to the Left, it does not mean that science is of no value. It simply means that science is just another tool for the class struggle and that it can be used on the right side of history. Like any other expression, scientific expressions are therefore concerned not with facts but with power.
Power is the only goal of the Left. When global warmists mount ad hominem attacks against skeptics, comparing them to Holocaust deniers for example, most of us see those attacks as tacit admissions of failure of the scientific argument. But the Left does not see them that way since the scientific argument is just another form of power expression. Ad hominem attacks are, too, and so, like science, are just a tool in the toolbox of power plays.
That is why the Left is immune to accusations of hypocrisy, which is, “a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel.” Leftists frequently contradict what they have already said, and the contradictory statement is declared just as emphatically and absolutely as the one it contradicts. To accuse them of hypocrisy is to waste time. A true statement to the Left is one that advances their causes; its contradiction of an earlier declaration is simply irrelevant. The prior statement advanced their cause and the present one does too, they think, and that is the end of the “hypocrisy” debate. After all, they consider your accusation of hypocrisy to be nothing but a power play anyway, so why should it influence them? And why should they shun self-contradiction if it happens to advance their power?
[5star]
Sam L.April 24, 2021, 9:12 AM
The word, “progressive”, always reminds me of “Cancer”, which is an even older killer.
Sam L.April 26, 2021, 3:41 PM
The word “progressive” always (ALWAYS) reminds me of CANCER, which it is.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
![That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/welcometohell-150x150.jpg "That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]")
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
It is interesting that you should post just that snippet of a quote from Chesterton’s Orthodoxy pulled from the One Cosmos site post, as I just pulled Orthodoxy from my bookshelves, again for a re-read, just yesterday afternoon, and read just those words yesterday evening. There are no coincidences.
Every nation that has given over to collectivist morality has failed.
A Collectivist ideology can do no wrong. Party loyalty in a collectivist sense, was best stated by Trotsky: “Comrades, none of us wishes or is able to be right against his Party. The Party in the last analysis is always right, because the Party is the sole political instrument of the proletariat for the solution of its basic problems…I know that one cannot be right against the party. It is only possible to be right with the Party and through the Party for history has not created other ways for the realization of what is right.” (And a collectivist ideology has NO loyalty — e.g. what ultimately happened to Trotsky.)
That method of thinking and behaving is inherently immoral. Trotsky’s end is proof of that. Don’t be Trotsky.
For Individualists, in contrast, the moral principles of politics are an extension of the ethical code of rational self-interest. Because there are no conflicts of rational interests among individuals, the proper society is one in which individuals cooperate for mutual advantage, exchanging value for value. In America, we call rational self-interest, Liberty.
Individualists fixed standards for rational morality — begun by Aristotle and expanded by Aquinas — called Natural Law.
Every nation that embraces the concept of individualist morality will prosper.
No, at BEST they’re not hypocrites.
I was watching a Jordan Peterson (yes, I now watch him) on his take-down of Marx. Interestingly, he said that most ideas are wrong. That was an interesting mind bender. I agree that 99.9% of ideas do not pass through or get tested by reason.
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx argued that hierarchy results, directly, from Capitalism. JP counters that even amoebas and birds establish hierarchy, and so it’s a natural order so there’s no reason to blame Capitalism. I think that’s a good remark, however Marx also argues a dialectic, and in that order he may’ve been responding to the last order of things, which was Capitalism. Still, he puts a big dent in Marx. He asserts logical fallacies in just about every Marxian sentence.
I’ve long argued that Communism relies on the equal goodness of man, which is not a correct position to take. I offer: the 20th century. I offer: history. It is somewhat similar to the CS Lewis argument that he’s a democrat because man is corrupt.
Good to think things through. Once in awhile, you come to some conclusions.
From, “The Revolutionary Truth of the new Biden administration:”
One of the basic tenets of postmodernist linguistic deconstructionism (which I learned how to do in my postgraduate studies at Vanderbilt) is that all text is tainted by bias and that objective points of view are impossible. Hence, the objective of expression is to exercise power. (Formerly the type of expression so designated has been confined, mostly, to those of history, literature and politics. But now even mathematics may be considered biased and subjective.)
Hence, there is no such as thing as objective truth and statements are never more than propositional in nature. A statement’s truth content is never more than opinion, and opinions are nothing but expressions of power. Therefore, in a basic sense, all speech is power directed.
This is a fundamental world view of the Left and is derived directly from Marxism, as reworked by Leninism. Since Marx held that his communist theory was literally scientific, his economic-historical forecasts were not merely likely, they were certain. As formulated by Lenin et. al., truth is therefore not statements of objective facts, but assertions that move the communist revolution and its fulfillment closer to reality. “Truth” is therefore pliable and impermanent, the concept of truth being only practical. In practice, all of language became subservient to the dominance of the party, a fact recognized by George Orwell in his novel 1984 and its concept of Newspeak.
That, comrades, is the Leftist, socialist world of Revolutionary Truth, a Marxist-Leninist doctrine that is fundamental to how the Left operates and rules. A good illustration of Revolutionary Truth” is when Rep. and self-described socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on 60 Minutes on Jan. 6, 2019, and said, “There’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”
Because Marxism is a totalist system of belief, it is accurately described in Eric Hoffer’s classic, The True Believer, as “religiofication,” that is, converting political grievances into messianic aspirations and “practical purposes into holy causes.” “Truth” is therefore whatever brings the Revolution closer to reality. Truth is only accidentally connected to objective facts, which is exactly what AOC meant when she dismissed any connection between morality and facts.
What this means is that when any discipline is dominated by the Left, then its purpose is to exercise political power. A standard Leftist critique of the West’s standing values was that they were social constructions, not rooted in objective reality (which does not exist, anyway), but in class struggles.
If scientific objectivity, for example, is a fraudulent concept to the Left, it does not mean that science is of no value. It simply means that science is just another tool for the class struggle and that it can be used on the right side of history. Like any other expression, scientific expressions are therefore concerned not with facts but with power.
Power is the only goal of the Left. When global warmists mount ad hominem attacks against skeptics, comparing them to Holocaust deniers for example, most of us see those attacks as tacit admissions of failure of the scientific argument. But the Left does not see them that way since the scientific argument is just another form of power expression. Ad hominem attacks are, too, and so, like science, are just a tool in the toolbox of power plays.
That is why the Left is immune to accusations of hypocrisy, which is, “a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel.” Leftists frequently contradict what they have already said, and the contradictory statement is declared just as emphatically and absolutely as the one it contradicts. To accuse them of hypocrisy is to waste time. A true statement to the Left is one that advances their causes; its contradiction of an earlier declaration is simply irrelevant. The prior statement advanced their cause and the present one does too, they think, and that is the end of the “hypocrisy” debate. After all, they consider your accusation of hypocrisy to be nothing but a power play anyway, so why should it influence them? And why should they shun self-contradiction if it happens to advance their power?
[5star]
The word, “progressive”, always reminds me of “Cancer”, which is an even older killer.
The word “progressive” always (ALWAYS) reminds me of CANCER, which it is.