You are correct in your asseveration that the FedCath has struck again with his typical flourishes of sophistry that would make a freshman polysci major cringe. The root of his inability to articulate stems from his determination to work within the confines of the Constitution as it was written. And he's an inveterate papist.
If Adams were to visit America today there would be a number of things that would send him walking back to his grave plot. I would imagine his chief concern would be the absence of virtue (in the Aristotelian sense). I quote Adams in his letter to Mercy Otis Warren, "“Public virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private Virtue, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.” Based upon this premise alone our foundation has long since been absorbed by the sinking sands of postmodernism. It is time to begin again. I quote Jefferson to Madison "The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force (tyranny), and not of right.” *checks calendar* yes, we are 264 years past the Constitution's efficacy and *scrolls WaPo and checks paystub* we are indeed under the heel of Oligarchical tyrants.
To your point common good is only applicable as long as there is commonality. With nearly 330m people, 13 different categories of religious belief (or non belief), 5 identifiable racial categories, *counts on fingers* at least 8 different gender categories (50+ if you include sub-categories), and FORTY SIX terms within the taxonomy of sexual orientation how could anyone imagine forming a government of passing laws on the basis of "common good"? FedCath is either certifiable insane or working for the Derp State, probably both. Common good is a meme unless applied in some very high level framework, as in "just don't physically hurt me." If everyone can agree on that then we can ostensibly form a "common good" government Although, now we're leaving out the BDSM crowd. I give up.
The root issue is not how we should be governed. The root issue is the spirit of the people from whom government is derived. The current government has been formed by denatured men who are completely incalcitrant in observing Natural Law, thus they elect rulers who reflect their "will to live" spirit. These elected Bugmen desire nothing more than to sycophantically lick the boots of the Oligarchial class in hopes of favor vis-a-vis K street lucre.
Mr. Yamnaya: I agree with much but not quite all of what you've written here. I wish that I would have remembered the Adams quotation that you quote. It would have bolstered quite nicely the claim I was making about the role of virtue in a free society. We will have to agree to disagree on the Jefferson quotation, though. My next book on AMERICA'S CONSTITUTIONAL MIND is meant to be a refutation of that very claim by TJ. As to giving up (which I doubt you actually believe), it's the only option NOT open to me, and for one reason: I have children. If YOU have children, you know that can't be an option. If our fate is "to do and die," then so be it.
We don't have to die if our society is possessed by citizens who share the "enlightened ideas" of the Founders. Currently we have a majority who are not possessed by these ideas. The idea of building society off rights of nature is well intended but offers wide navigational latitude. This latitude invites confusion in course and thus a less than ideal destination.
The modern man's acceptance of natural law is not as consistent as in the days Locke ipso facto the miasma of laws now required to constrain modern man within natural law. Contrary to Locke's rather specific understanding of nature (I am assuming he never raised toddlers) man is not born today as readily equipped as he once was. The denatured men have asserted their own sense of virtue and thus moral codes. Moral codes which are now strewn across dozens of administrative bodies to which Congress has delegated authority; authority which is most recently felt by the CDC's abuses (thank you, Cass Sunstein).
The Lockean/Founders belief in self-ownership as a right has been largely abdicated as represented by the 59m welfare recipients, those willing to have their right to assemble impeded upon, mask mandates, etc. Concerning welfare the government has sought the consent of the governed to accept the burden of that abdication largely in part by means of confiscatory tax legislation; a law that also does not meet TJ's "19 year" litmus.
Someone observed that "everyone may be obliged to acknowledge this absolute" but a quick glance around society today and you will find that many are failing to acknowledge this or most any other absolute. This increasingly vocal "moral class" of society has no intention of working within Lockean ideas and has a government complicit with ensuring they no longer need to do so.
Perhaps a quick fix would be to abolish all laws/agencies which subsidize the failure of citizens to acknowledge natural law and it's subsequent imperative of self-ownership, and forbid the creation of new laws at the behest of the plutocrats who circumvent the consent of the governed by funding and passing legislation and thus enabling administrative agencies to make self-government moot. Those who then find themselves forced to oblige natural law, and who still refuse to do so, can find refuge in Canada.
I think the root issue really is how we should be governed, which is a public matter. The issue of the spirit of the people is a private matter.
As I've pondered what's happened to us in the past two years and more, and as I've subsequently understood more about what's going on (CRT? What's that, and why should I care?) it seems to me that the core problem with America is a lack of understanding of logic.
Yes, that sounds mighty trivial and self-evident: of course these people today are unreasonable! But my argument is that the founding generation understood logic in a way that we do not, and they understood its essence and practiced it in their discourse. They had a respect for logic that we do not; even though we must necessarily use logic all the time we're curiously blind to it. In public discourse we let sloppy thinking get away with murder.
Logic is simply the recognition of identities and contradiction. It's really very simple but we don't teach it; it can, though, be subtle and difficult at times. Even in college I read philosophy (and even symbolic logic) but the core idea of what logic is, how it is, how we use it, etc., were under the radar. But it's a very powerful tool and it's literally everywhere (so yes, I'm building up to the idea that many truths really are self-evident because they have solid identities.)
So this is why I say that the issue is how we should be governed, because we should be governed by logic in our public discourse: no matter what claims we put forward for what we determine as our collective good, we should be consistent with those claims, regardless of the moral virtue (or lack thereof) of individuals. Yes, good government depends on good people but we can't make people good; we can only ensure that their logic is sound.
Right now people are confused about the identity (as a logical category) of America: what is it? What's our greatest good? And I agree completely with what Professor Thompson says. But, how did we get here that we're so confused and turned around? We don't understand and use logic would be my answer, and I would further say that this is probably deliberately intended to keep us stupid.
How to get out of confusion? Use logic. It's simple but it's not. It's like having eyes but, today, not realizing we can see. Our founding generation realized they could see. That, I think, is the real difference between then and now.
You evade identifying Aristotle's virtues. Appeal to tradition was recognized by the Greeks as a logical fallacy. Aristotle's basic virtue, explicit or not, is, of course, rationality, not faith or tradition. And, politically, he was collectivist or significantly so. America was founded on Lockean individualism, hated by Leftist and Rightist enemies of America.
Aristotle, of course, provides the first systematic discussion of mans independent mind. Material causes, ie, the body, are merely one type of cause, of less importance than the formal cause, ie, the independent mind. He was uncertain of his claim of natural slaves. His philosophy as a whole is for man the independent thinker who values himself as an individual, not as mindless member of a group.
Your intellectual habit of dropping the context is volitional, not racial.
Your powerful essay should be posted on the bulletin board of Vermeule's brothel. Perhaps he can provide a scholarly rationalization for evading the 400-year change from Christianity's illusory individuals to the Enlightenment's celebration of the reality of individuals.
Our collective greatest good is that we are each free to pursue our own individual greatest good, with minimal interference from authorities. Good government ensures that this happens.
This has to be coupled with a skeptical attitude toward authority and independence of mind, which should be taught in our schools. But even if it isn't, see my first sentence, above.
This is a beautiful post. It got me running back to - Hobbes’ Leviathan and it’s reprise in the Brothers Karamazov.
Humankind is trying to get its governance right for the past 100,000 years. Before the agricultural revolution it was less of an issue because the numbers in a group were very small.
Governance will always be a work in progress. The Political theorist Francis Fukuyama warns us about the greatest threat in politics - the “bad Emperor or the bad dictator” problem.
History is full of well meaning leaders with noble goals which end horribly with time. The current list includes: Chavez, Mugabe, Mao and many many others. There is no such thing as a good dictator or a good Grand Inquisitor. It always ends badly.
We have not arrived yet but a democracy (with independent judiciary, free speech and vigorous institutions including free media) where the people have the power to deselect Goverment leaders is infinitely better than any other system in existence.
This is a beautiful post. It got me running back to - Hobbes’ Leviathan and it’s reprise in the Brothers Karamazov.
Humankind is trying to get its governance right for the past 100,000 years. Before the agricultural revolution it was less of an issue because the numbers in a group were very small.
Governance will always be a work in progress. The Political theorist Francis Fukuyama warns us about the greatest threat in politics - the “bad Emperor or the bad dictator” problem.
History is full of well meaning leaders with noble goals which end horribly with time. The current list includes: Chavez, Mugabe, Mao and many many others. There is no such thing as a good dictator or a good Grand Inquisitor. It always ends badly.
We have not arrived yet but a democracy (with independent judiciary, free speech and vigorous institutions including free media) where the people have the power to deselect Goverment leaders is infinitely better than any other system in existence.
The "common good" is a vague, undefinable slogan used by collectivists to justify the violation of individual rights so as to bring about what they consider to be their utopian vision.
As an example here is a quote from Adolf Hitler: “a man must renounce putting forward his personal opinion and interests and sacrifice both…” “the common good comes before the private good”
It is contradictory to say that a good society can be brought into existence by using force, i.e. by violating the rights of the individuals of that society. No good can come from an evil act.
They reject mind as independent and themselves as individuals. They reject mind for evasion. Ie, as human, they have independent minds. As those particular humans, they reject it. Ie, man , w/his independent mind, chooses to focus or evade, chooses to value or disvalue his mind.
Both Hitler and Marx reject the independent mind for intuition, whether racial or economic. Both reject reality for a chaos of explictly Heraclitean contradictions ending in a mystical racial or mystical communist fantasy. Both reject rationally productive happiness for the immediate pleasures of social unity.
It is wrong to characterize Vermeule as a man of the right. He is entirely a leftist in search of an ideology to justify elitist power. He uses Catholicism as a veneer. Christ rejected political rule. See John 6:15, Matthew 4:8-10
The "common good" is evil by another name. First, there is no "common good" to which we can aspire because the innate dignity of humans precludes the common good, which treats as like widgets. God did not grant us free will so we could be slaves to sinners. In non-theological terms, freedom is an essential good; no system that denies freedom can be good. Second, the elevation of the common good requires the use of force or deception; any system the requires reliance upon evil to attain "good" is evil.
"My vision of the “common good” is one where the State leaves law-abiding men and women alone to quietly build families, to work and create, to gain knowledge, to travel, to coach little league soccer, to tend their property, to go to the local pub for a pint, to celebrate Independence Day with friends and family, to watch Clemson beat ‘Bama, and to pursue their vision of the good life."
This last paragraph reveals a lot that your essay does not answer. What is "law-abiding"? If the law allows slavery, those quietly built families will have slaves, oppressing other humans like themselves. If the law allows for the possession of assault weapons...well, you know. What about the insane and the homeless? At the root of it is freedom. Many people are less free than others. An addict is less free than someone who does not have an addiction. The emotionally deficient or co-dependent are also less free. Nelson Mandela was free even though he was in prison because of the power of his convictions and ideas. The idea of the common good -- so well expressed in the Socratic dialogues -- is a search for what makes people more free. To cite extremist groups like the Nazis and say that the fact that they believe the promotion of a master race is a common good, means that this ideology is as reasonable as any other, is ridiculous. Most people will agree on what constitutes the common good.
Every civilization that is worthy of the name organizes itself around some concept of the common good, and this results in the achievements of that civilization. All involve some subordination of the individual interest to the common good. The Pax Romana, for example, featured a vigorous concept of the common good -- the acceptance of the authority of the Roman state, the imperative to acknowledge the Roman dieties, Roman law. Icelandic landowners met yearly in a parliament that decided and resolved quarrels, under a concept of the common good. The warring city-states of Renaissance Italy, which produced some of the greatest art and literature of all times, had a robust conception of the common good. But these these high-achieving societies become corrupted by internal weakness, leaving it to other groups of people to once again become standard bearers for the common good and create great civilizations. Vox populi, vox dei -- that's the principle on which our Democracy rests. Yet without a vision of the common good, the voice of the people is easily corrupted. Just look at Trump's gospel of lies, self-interest, and outright rejection of science.
> Every civilization that is worthy of the name organizes itself around some concept of the common good,
The hidden context to "worthy" here is the common good, leading to a circular, invalid definition.
Christianity is a claim that only the supernatural is real and that the concrete, material universe is a God-created illusion to test mans worthiness to spend eternity in Heaven. The Enlightenment is the product of 400 years (four centuries ) of basic, Aristotle-guided, cultural change in which the concretes of the material universe are independently real. Thus common good can refer to a mystical commonality that transcends individuals or to the good of each individual. The Enlightenment is the ONLY basically individualist culture in history, thus the American Revolution, the Declaration and the Constitution. Principled, systematic ,rational individualism is the BASIC cause of America. Mysticism, in its supernatural or social forms, did not create America.
"worthy" means creating lasting achievements in art or science, including medicine, agriculture, engineering. There is no hidden context. No, Christianity is not such a claim. Christianity posits salvation by faith and by works, which are concrete actions in the material world. Mysticism did not create America. Perhaps. Tell that to the masons, though.
Again, your hidden context to these, now lasting achievements, is the mystical common good, a rationalization for the sacrifice of individual good. Christianity is the mind- and reality-hating, death-worship of one fool who evaded the horrific consquences of challenging Rome's polititical power and his followers who left their worldly possessions to gather in forests in the mindless faith that the original fool would provide an escape from their self-created Hell. Later, non-radical, conservative Christians made their compromising peace with the world they hated and chose to suffer without Rapture.
Judeo-Christian Values have a foundational role in America, beginning with the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."
The conservative intellectual skill in focusing on out-of-context concretes is noted. The evaded context is the Enlightenment, whose basic values are reason and individualism. In that context, the product of 400 years of basic cultural change from supernaturalism to real individuals, the vanishing, culturally superficial idea of supernnaturalism occasionally pops up as merely a habit, not a profound concern. Remove Creator from the Declaration and the Founder's worldly, anti-religious creation of a politics to protect mans' right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is clear. You have lost your way from the Christian Dark Ages when man was serious about supernaturalism ,faith, sacrifice, suffering and evil. They would have burnt at the stake any advocate of individual rights. God created and owns man. There are no rights against God as there is in the Constitution. See the Iranian constitution for a real religious constitution. It protects freedom of speech thats consistent w/the Koran. Revolutionary Americans wanted freedom from British trade controls, among other things, not from any religious controls. The culture created by the Enlightenment was concretely concerned with prosperity in the universe, not with fantasies of the supernatural. Step back into the 17th century, when reason was not yet culturally dominant and you might have an argument. But not in the Enlightenment, regardless of how many culturally weak examples of religion lingered on. Cultures change gradually, not overnight. There is no evidence that the faith-despising Founders, with their Deism, natural religion, distant, impersonal God, and rational theology had a fundamental respect for religion. The pursuit of happiness is not a vale of tears or an agonized trial for Eternity. With His infinite Love, God wants man to suffer horrible torments for the chance that he may spend Eternity with his torturer. Christianity is death worship and the Crucifixion is a black mass of suffering. The Revolution is not the Crusades. The Founders were horrified by the vast slaughter of the 16- and 17th century Christian wars. Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, cut out, w/a scissors, all references to God in his Bible. America is the nation of the Enlightenment. Christians had no stake in a new nation. They weren't persecuted.
America was created to defend mans independent mind, a heresy for the faithfull.
Your powerful essay should be corrected. Kansas conservatives do force the teaching creationism. Why would you say such an easily demonstrable falsehood? Once again a conservative tries to curry favor by promoting leftist canards...
"What Happened in Kansas?
“Anti-Evolution” Curriculum Likely to be Overturned
on August 10, 2006
Last week’s school board primaries in Kansas have generated much news—and much confusion—about the teaching of “creationism” in Kansas schools and AiG’s stance on the matter.
Last week's school board primaries in Kansas have generated much news-and much confusion-about the teaching of “creationism” in Kansas schools and AiG's stance on the matter.1 Although the popular press has gone to great lengths to show that the recent election pitted pro-evolution, pro-“science” candidates against those who backed the mandated instruction of creation in public schools, the election was nothing of the sort. Furthermore, it's not the first time the media has intentionally misrepresented the issues surrounding the teaching of evolution in public schools.
The election centered on the Kansas State Board of Education curriculum, which was widely misrepresented as “anti-evolution,” though it was nothing of the sort. The curriculum did not promote the teaching of intelligent design or biblical creation; it only required that students, during their review of the principles of evolution, hear a small sampling of the numerous problems with evolution.
Evolutionists, however, consider any criticism to evolutionary theory identical to teaching creation, so even the slightest mention of problems with evolution is interpreted as violating the First Amendment. More absurd, however, is the current trend that even mentioning that there is a controversy (that is, that some scientists question evolutionary theory) is ruled to constitute creationist teaching. So what has happened in the public school science classroom? The prohibition against teaching “creationism” spread to teaching any kind of design, then to any discussion of the problems with evolutionary theory, and has now spread to any mention that a controversy exists!
Many evolutionists are treating the results of the school board primaries as the triumph of evolutionary instruction; however, the same situation occurred in Kansas in 2001, when the school board re-emphasized evolution after it had been mildly de-emphasized in standards approved in 1999. Evolution was again mildly de-emphasized in standards passed in late 2005, which led to the media attention on last week's primary election. Since the Kansas science standards have already been changed three times (and will presumably be changed a fourth time when the next board takes power), it will not come as a surprise if the Kansas school board continues to sway back and forth on the issue for years to come."
Thank you for that correction! The essay is excellent but I don't believe that pretending that the Cancel Culture Left and whatever label he chooses for the Right are morally equivalent.
Thanks! I loved the rest of the essay so I hope be deletes that part. I hate it when our side feel like it has to pander to the Left and pretend we are moral equals. The Left has played it's hand November 3rd and wants to junk the US Constitution and install a permanent dictatorship. The Right had no one calling for what the Democrats have done.
If evidence weakens your faith in conservatism don't have much. The evidence is that Kansas is not a state of religious yahoos. They are quite reasonable conservatives and don't deserve to be libeled by Thomas "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Frank or anyone on our side in the name of being "open-minded".
> If evidence weakens your faith in conservatism [you] don't have much [faith].
In the 1970s, the USAF conducted sensory deprivation experiments. They even imported a yogi from India but he lost his mind after an hour. What do you think of the Indian rope trick?
That's a package deal combining reason's non-contradictory identification of reality and compromise between contradictions. Would you buy soda with rat poison?
Scientific criticism of some of the details of the inductively proven theory of evolution is one thing. Religious criticism, based on a hidden faith in the supernatural and pretending to induction-based science, is another thing. The solution to this controversy is the abolition of our socialist (public) schools. Parents can pay for capitalist schools that teach the values of parents, exactly as people walk into one store but not another. If some parents want to pay for mystical fantasies to be taught to their children, that is their right. If other parents want their children's schools to be limited to mans focused and independent mind, that is their right. If some parents want egalitarian nihilism for their children, that is their right. No problem for voters here.
And in this case in Kansas it was scientific criticism of some of the details of the theory of evolution. There was no "Religious criticism, based on a hidden faith in the supernatural and pretending to induction-based science." Again, this was an unforced error by the author in an otherwise excellent article. As Conservatives we want to remain in the realm of the factual and not kiss up to our adversaries.
> There was no "Religious criticism, based on a hidden faith in the supernatural and pretending to induction-based science."
As philosophers have known since Socrates, a false idea can be hidden at the base of a conceptual hierarchy of plausible ideas. I don't specifically know that Kansas hid religion but you didn't identify their allegedly scientific criticism.
> As Conservatives we want to remain in the realm of the factual
So Conservatives reject conserving the culturally influential, Christian faith in the transcendence of the factual? Very strange and, after rejecting the mind as source of morality, unsustainable. Skepticism is intellectually, psychologically and culturally unsustainable. Man needs the intellectual/psychological integration of the focused mind. Even the religious focus onto fantasy is sustainable. Its the skeptical (and nihilist) rejection of the focused mind that is unsustainable. Eg, the change from Roman Stoicism to Christianity and the change from modern nihilism to the social mysticisms of Marxism and Nazism.
Perhaps this didn't get through to you. Step back , take a deep breath, and try reading this, this time for comprehension:
"The election centered on the Kansas State Board of Education curriculum, which was widely misrepresented as “anti-evolution,” though it was NOTHING of the sort. The curriculum did NOT promote the teaching of intelligent design or biblical creation; it only required that students, during their review of the principles of evolution, hear a small sampling of the numerous PROBLEMS with evolution.
Evolutionists, however, consider ANY criticism to evolutionary theory identical to teaching creation, so even the SLIGHTEST mention of problems with evolution is interpreted as violating the First Amendment. More absurd, however, is the current trend that EVEN mentioning that there is a controversy (that is, that some scientists question evolutionary theory) is ruled to constitute creationist teaching. So what has happened in the public school science classroom? The prohibition against teaching “creationism” spread to teaching ANY kind of design, then to any discussion of the problems with evolutionary theory, and has now spread to ANY mention that a controversy exists!"
> Evolutionists, however, consider ANY criticism to evolutionary theory identical to teaching creation
Scientists typically regard science-based criticism of particular theories as part of scientific progress. Are you referring to scientists or political activists?
> The prohibition against teaching “creationism” spread to teaching ANY kind of design,
A sewer by any other name would smell just as foul. Reality ie, the universe, is real, not the product of a Cosmic Consciousness. Existence exists. Existence is metaphysically primary. Consciousness is derivative, merely the consciousness of existence. Look out at reality, not inward. Focus your mind.
It is not the special sciences that teach man to think; it is philosophy that lays down the epistemological criteria of all special sciences.
-Ayn Rand
Evolution is an inductive discovery, not a deduction from dishonestly justified emotion. There is no missing problem because the more links, the more missing links. Its an attack on the growth of knowledge by people who reject mans need to struggle for knowledge and who reject the risk of knowledge.
With different visions of the common good heard from various quarters, I wanted to ask Dr. Thompson and fellow Redneck Intellectual readers: what did our nation’s founders mean by the term when they used it?
When Adams drafted the Massachusetts Constitution, what did he mean when he wrote that “all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good,” that “government is instituted for the common good,” and that the assembly should meet frequently “for making new laws as the common good may require”?
In the cited passage of Federalist No. 10, Madison wrote that zeal for various opinions, and attachments to various leaders and persons, “have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.” What did Madison see as the common good, for which men, divided into parties, were not cooperating?
Later, in Federalist No. 57, what did Hamilton or Madison mean by the common good when he wrote that “the aim of every political Constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society”?
And in his first inaugural address, what did President Jefferson mean when he asked Americans to “arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good”?
In Article VII of the Massachusetts Constitution, after Adams wrote that “government is instituted for the common good,” he immediately added, “the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people.” If the “protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people” is what Adams meant by the common good, is this perhaps what the other founders meant as well when they used the term?
Can I define it thus: "the protection" provided by the military; the "safety" provided by our police; the "prosperity" resulting from a free-market economy; and "happiness" something we are all free to pursue in our own way, and with apparent success judging from the constant stream of immigrants attempting to share in it by entering the country illegally.
Yes, yes, I know the military is being undermined by "woke" incursions, the activists are trying to defund our police, and capitalism is being replaced with crony corporatism at an alarming rate by the current administration; all of this is making happiness more difficult, but join me in the fight against soul-destroying Leftism. Become a happy warrior for the common good!
> “[W]e turned our eyes to the Volk alone. That which serves its struggle for life is good and must be maintained and encouraged. What harms its struggle for life is bad and must be eliminated and cut out.” Goebbles (1943 Total War Speech)
> Ayn Rand stole that line without attribution.
Kraus drop's Rand's individualist context, puts the struggle for life in his collectivist context and then claims that Rand is a Nazi. This is intellectual squinting to evade the mans life as a rational whole for an alleged racial part.
If I have ever thought that Thompson was wrong about the bizarre irrationalism and destructive potential of principled racist Rightism, Lorenz Kraus's post is an unpleasant slap in the face.
If I have ever thought that Thompson was wrong about the bizarre irrationalism and destructive potential of principled racist National Socialism, Lorenz Kraus's post is an unpleasant slap in the face.
Objectivism claims to uphold the facts of reality, but rejects and repudiates the facts of race and ethnos.
Rand's ideas are the product of a mind volitionally/logically focused, thru the senses, onto concrete reality. Nazism explicitly rejects mind for automatic, arbitrary and unreliable intuition. Thus the intuition, not the rational knowledge, of the reality ,nature and importance of race and ethnicity. The intuition does not provide rational knowledge of of the reality ,nature and importance of race and ethnicity.
Marx rejected racial intuition for economic class intuition. Intuition, by itself, cant provide the knowledge of which of many and varied intuitions of all people are factual. Further, intuition is only of the immediate moment, eg, a soldier in a tactical situation. An experienced soldier should, perhaps, respect his intuition. A new soldier, perhaps, should not respect his intuitions. Intuition cant rationally learn from the past or plan the future. Hitler was notorious for evading the professional training and experience of his top military commanders, a big cause of Germany's military disaster. His generals, only with great difficulty, talked him out of building a 1000 ton tank which would have been worthless in the fast-moving maneuvers of WW2. And a target for the British dam-buster bomb. Japan ,also rejecting reason for intuition, built a huge battleship and a huge aircraft carrier that were such excellent bombing and torpedo targets that they had little military value.
With intuition, an automatic mental function that arbitrarily blends reason, emotion, imagination, memory, perception and, perhaps, other mental functions and physical experiences. With reason identification and evaluation are distinguished. With intuition, identification and evaluation may be experienced as one fact , a powerful but unreliable experience. Intuition can be extremely useful in living, especially in repeated experiences and emergencies, but its not reliable. It must be judged with a rational knowledge of causes. A mechanic may intuit the cause of a car problem by listening to the car. But he must focus his mind to know if he is correct. The car owner may not have that intuition. _Psychology Today_ (Dec. 2019 and Jan. 2020) published a moderately good article on it.
With the mind, however, Identifying and valuing facts are two basically differerent functions . One can identify race (or what its advocates claim is race) and ethnicity (ethnos?) while not valuing them. Or while valuing them as trivial rather than important.
> Race-ethnos is the central normative concept in philosophy conditioning art, politics, economics, and ethics.
After Kant split mind from reality, intuition of various kinds became influential among German philosophers and other intellectuals.
Eg, Marx's economic class intuitions and "racial", national and ethnic intuitions among Hegel, Fichte, and Herder, Moller, Bruck, Rosenberg, etc.
Man's mind, with its free will and no innate ideas, needs philosophy, a rational philosophy, as a integrated framework for thinking about reality and guiding action. The lack of a rational philosophy, ie, modern culture, leaves only subjectivism and mysticism. Nazism, like Marxism, is a social mysticism, with race, not economic class, as an intuitively experienced (not known) transcendental reality creating and changing the illusory individuals of the concrete universe. But its worthless to guide man to a sustainable future. Only mind, consciously directed, can transform nature into a home for man. Our scientific-industrial-capitalist civilization is the product of Aristotle's discovery of scientific method applied by the practical thinkers of the Enlightenment, most especially in the nation of the Enlightenment, America.
Most importantly, philosophy is for guiding ones personal life and happiness, not for politics. Thus Rand's main moral values of reason, purpose and self-esteem. And her main moral virtues of integrity, pride, rationality, honesty, independence and justice and productiveness. There remains sufficient rationality and individual rights in the West to live one's life independently of the decreasing nihilism and increasing mysticism. Find a productive, personal purpose that provides selfish happiness. Let politics be the care of those who have a rational alternative to the growing collectivism and egalitarianism and statism.
You are correct in your asseveration that the FedCath has struck again with his typical flourishes of sophistry that would make a freshman polysci major cringe. The root of his inability to articulate stems from his determination to work within the confines of the Constitution as it was written. And he's an inveterate papist.
If Adams were to visit America today there would be a number of things that would send him walking back to his grave plot. I would imagine his chief concern would be the absence of virtue (in the Aristotelian sense). I quote Adams in his letter to Mercy Otis Warren, "“Public virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private Virtue, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.” Based upon this premise alone our foundation has long since been absorbed by the sinking sands of postmodernism. It is time to begin again. I quote Jefferson to Madison "The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force (tyranny), and not of right.” *checks calendar* yes, we are 264 years past the Constitution's efficacy and *scrolls WaPo and checks paystub* we are indeed under the heel of Oligarchical tyrants.
To your point common good is only applicable as long as there is commonality. With nearly 330m people, 13 different categories of religious belief (or non belief), 5 identifiable racial categories, *counts on fingers* at least 8 different gender categories (50+ if you include sub-categories), and FORTY SIX terms within the taxonomy of sexual orientation how could anyone imagine forming a government of passing laws on the basis of "common good"? FedCath is either certifiable insane or working for the Derp State, probably both. Common good is a meme unless applied in some very high level framework, as in "just don't physically hurt me." If everyone can agree on that then we can ostensibly form a "common good" government Although, now we're leaving out the BDSM crowd. I give up.
The root issue is not how we should be governed. The root issue is the spirit of the people from whom government is derived. The current government has been formed by denatured men who are completely incalcitrant in observing Natural Law, thus they elect rulers who reflect their "will to live" spirit. These elected Bugmen desire nothing more than to sycophantically lick the boots of the Oligarchial class in hopes of favor vis-a-vis K street lucre.
Mr. Yamnaya: I agree with much but not quite all of what you've written here. I wish that I would have remembered the Adams quotation that you quote. It would have bolstered quite nicely the claim I was making about the role of virtue in a free society. We will have to agree to disagree on the Jefferson quotation, though. My next book on AMERICA'S CONSTITUTIONAL MIND is meant to be a refutation of that very claim by TJ. As to giving up (which I doubt you actually believe), it's the only option NOT open to me, and for one reason: I have children. If YOU have children, you know that can't be an option. If our fate is "to do and die," then so be it.
We don't have to die if our society is possessed by citizens who share the "enlightened ideas" of the Founders. Currently we have a majority who are not possessed by these ideas. The idea of building society off rights of nature is well intended but offers wide navigational latitude. This latitude invites confusion in course and thus a less than ideal destination.
The modern man's acceptance of natural law is not as consistent as in the days Locke ipso facto the miasma of laws now required to constrain modern man within natural law. Contrary to Locke's rather specific understanding of nature (I am assuming he never raised toddlers) man is not born today as readily equipped as he once was. The denatured men have asserted their own sense of virtue and thus moral codes. Moral codes which are now strewn across dozens of administrative bodies to which Congress has delegated authority; authority which is most recently felt by the CDC's abuses (thank you, Cass Sunstein).
The Lockean/Founders belief in self-ownership as a right has been largely abdicated as represented by the 59m welfare recipients, those willing to have their right to assemble impeded upon, mask mandates, etc. Concerning welfare the government has sought the consent of the governed to accept the burden of that abdication largely in part by means of confiscatory tax legislation; a law that also does not meet TJ's "19 year" litmus.
Someone observed that "everyone may be obliged to acknowledge this absolute" but a quick glance around society today and you will find that many are failing to acknowledge this or most any other absolute. This increasingly vocal "moral class" of society has no intention of working within Lockean ideas and has a government complicit with ensuring they no longer need to do so.
Perhaps a quick fix would be to abolish all laws/agencies which subsidize the failure of citizens to acknowledge natural law and it's subsequent imperative of self-ownership, and forbid the creation of new laws at the behest of the plutocrats who circumvent the consent of the governed by funding and passing legislation and thus enabling administrative agencies to make self-government moot. Those who then find themselves forced to oblige natural law, and who still refuse to do so, can find refuge in Canada.
Well said,sir!
> The Lockean/Founders belief in self-ownership
Nicely excluding the conservative belief that tradition owns the individual.
I think the root issue really is how we should be governed, which is a public matter. The issue of the spirit of the people is a private matter.
As I've pondered what's happened to us in the past two years and more, and as I've subsequently understood more about what's going on (CRT? What's that, and why should I care?) it seems to me that the core problem with America is a lack of understanding of logic.
Yes, that sounds mighty trivial and self-evident: of course these people today are unreasonable! But my argument is that the founding generation understood logic in a way that we do not, and they understood its essence and practiced it in their discourse. They had a respect for logic that we do not; even though we must necessarily use logic all the time we're curiously blind to it. In public discourse we let sloppy thinking get away with murder.
Logic is simply the recognition of identities and contradiction. It's really very simple but we don't teach it; it can, though, be subtle and difficult at times. Even in college I read philosophy (and even symbolic logic) but the core idea of what logic is, how it is, how we use it, etc., were under the radar. But it's a very powerful tool and it's literally everywhere (so yes, I'm building up to the idea that many truths really are self-evident because they have solid identities.)
So this is why I say that the issue is how we should be governed, because we should be governed by logic in our public discourse: no matter what claims we put forward for what we determine as our collective good, we should be consistent with those claims, regardless of the moral virtue (or lack thereof) of individuals. Yes, good government depends on good people but we can't make people good; we can only ensure that their logic is sound.
Right now people are confused about the identity (as a logical category) of America: what is it? What's our greatest good? And I agree completely with what Professor Thompson says. But, how did we get here that we're so confused and turned around? We don't understand and use logic would be my answer, and I would further say that this is probably deliberately intended to keep us stupid.
How to get out of confusion? Use logic. It's simple but it's not. It's like having eyes but, today, not realizing we can see. Our founding generation realized they could see. That, I think, is the real difference between then and now.
You evade identifying Aristotle's virtues. Appeal to tradition was recognized by the Greeks as a logical fallacy. Aristotle's basic virtue, explicit or not, is, of course, rationality, not faith or tradition. And, politically, he was collectivist or significantly so. America was founded on Lockean individualism, hated by Leftist and Rightist enemies of America.
Aristotle, of course, provides the first systematic discussion of mans independent mind. Material causes, ie, the body, are merely one type of cause, of less importance than the formal cause, ie, the independent mind. He was uncertain of his claim of natural slaves. His philosophy as a whole is for man the independent thinker who values himself as an individual, not as mindless member of a group.
Your intellectual habit of dropping the context is volitional, not racial.
Your powerful essay should be posted on the bulletin board of Vermeule's brothel. Perhaps he can provide a scholarly rationalization for evading the 400-year change from Christianity's illusory individuals to the Enlightenment's celebration of the reality of individuals.
Our collective greatest good is that we are each free to pursue our own individual greatest good, with minimal interference from authorities. Good government ensures that this happens.
This has to be coupled with a skeptical attitude toward authority and independence of mind, which should be taught in our schools. But even if it isn't, see my first sentence, above.
This is a beautiful post. It got me running back to - Hobbes’ Leviathan and it’s reprise in the Brothers Karamazov.
Humankind is trying to get its governance right for the past 100,000 years. Before the agricultural revolution it was less of an issue because the numbers in a group were very small.
Governance will always be a work in progress. The Political theorist Francis Fukuyama warns us about the greatest threat in politics - the “bad Emperor or the bad dictator” problem.
History is full of well meaning leaders with noble goals which end horribly with time. The current list includes: Chavez, Mugabe, Mao and many many others. There is no such thing as a good dictator or a good Grand Inquisitor. It always ends badly.
We have not arrived yet but a democracy (with independent judiciary, free speech and vigorous institutions including free media) where the people have the power to deselect Goverment leaders is infinitely better than any other system in existence.
This is a beautiful post. It got me running back to - Hobbes’ Leviathan and it’s reprise in the Brothers Karamazov.
Humankind is trying to get its governance right for the past 100,000 years. Before the agricultural revolution it was less of an issue because the numbers in a group were very small.
Governance will always be a work in progress. The Political theorist Francis Fukuyama warns us about the greatest threat in politics - the “bad Emperor or the bad dictator” problem.
History is full of well meaning leaders with noble goals which end horribly with time. The current list includes: Chavez, Mugabe, Mao and many many others. There is no such thing as a good dictator or a good Grand Inquisitor. It always ends badly.
We have not arrived yet but a democracy (with independent judiciary, free speech and vigorous institutions including free media) where the people have the power to deselect Goverment leaders is infinitely better than any other system in existence.
The "common good" is a vague, undefinable slogan used by collectivists to justify the violation of individual rights so as to bring about what they consider to be their utopian vision.
As an example here is a quote from Adolf Hitler: “a man must renounce putting forward his personal opinion and interests and sacrifice both…” “the common good comes before the private good”
It is contradictory to say that a good society can be brought into existence by using force, i.e. by violating the rights of the individuals of that society. No good can come from an evil act.
Good is the product of the independent mind of each individual as an individual.
So in your world Foucault, Mao, Senile Joe and Hitler are good.
They reject mind as independent and themselves as individuals. They reject mind for evasion. Ie, as human, they have independent minds. As those particular humans, they reject it. Ie, man , w/his independent mind, chooses to focus or evade, chooses to value or disvalue his mind.
For The New Intellectual-Ayn Rand
DIM Hypothesis-Leonard Peikoff
Both Hitler and Marx reject the independent mind for intuition, whether racial or economic. Both reject reality for a chaos of explictly Heraclitean contradictions ending in a mystical racial or mystical communist fantasy. Both reject rationally productive happiness for the immediate pleasures of social unity.
It is wrong to characterize Vermeule as a man of the right. He is entirely a leftist in search of an ideology to justify elitist power. He uses Catholicism as a veneer. Christ rejected political rule. See John 6:15, Matthew 4:8-10
The "common good" is evil by another name. First, there is no "common good" to which we can aspire because the innate dignity of humans precludes the common good, which treats as like widgets. God did not grant us free will so we could be slaves to sinners. In non-theological terms, freedom is an essential good; no system that denies freedom can be good. Second, the elevation of the common good requires the use of force or deception; any system the requires reliance upon evil to attain "good" is evil.
"My vision of the “common good” is one where the State leaves law-abiding men and women alone to quietly build families, to work and create, to gain knowledge, to travel, to coach little league soccer, to tend their property, to go to the local pub for a pint, to celebrate Independence Day with friends and family, to watch Clemson beat ‘Bama, and to pursue their vision of the good life."
This last paragraph reveals a lot that your essay does not answer. What is "law-abiding"? If the law allows slavery, those quietly built families will have slaves, oppressing other humans like themselves. If the law allows for the possession of assault weapons...well, you know. What about the insane and the homeless? At the root of it is freedom. Many people are less free than others. An addict is less free than someone who does not have an addiction. The emotionally deficient or co-dependent are also less free. Nelson Mandela was free even though he was in prison because of the power of his convictions and ideas. The idea of the common good -- so well expressed in the Socratic dialogues -- is a search for what makes people more free. To cite extremist groups like the Nazis and say that the fact that they believe the promotion of a master race is a common good, means that this ideology is as reasonable as any other, is ridiculous. Most people will agree on what constitutes the common good.
> Most people will agree
Dont bother focusing your mind onto reality.
Every civilization that is worthy of the name organizes itself around some concept of the common good, and this results in the achievements of that civilization. All involve some subordination of the individual interest to the common good. The Pax Romana, for example, featured a vigorous concept of the common good -- the acceptance of the authority of the Roman state, the imperative to acknowledge the Roman dieties, Roman law. Icelandic landowners met yearly in a parliament that decided and resolved quarrels, under a concept of the common good. The warring city-states of Renaissance Italy, which produced some of the greatest art and literature of all times, had a robust conception of the common good. But these these high-achieving societies become corrupted by internal weakness, leaving it to other groups of people to once again become standard bearers for the common good and create great civilizations. Vox populi, vox dei -- that's the principle on which our Democracy rests. Yet without a vision of the common good, the voice of the people is easily corrupted. Just look at Trump's gospel of lies, self-interest, and outright rejection of science.
> Every civilization that is worthy of the name organizes itself around some concept of the common good,
The hidden context to "worthy" here is the common good, leading to a circular, invalid definition.
Christianity is a claim that only the supernatural is real and that the concrete, material universe is a God-created illusion to test mans worthiness to spend eternity in Heaven. The Enlightenment is the product of 400 years (four centuries ) of basic, Aristotle-guided, cultural change in which the concretes of the material universe are independently real. Thus common good can refer to a mystical commonality that transcends individuals or to the good of each individual. The Enlightenment is the ONLY basically individualist culture in history, thus the American Revolution, the Declaration and the Constitution. Principled, systematic ,rational individualism is the BASIC cause of America. Mysticism, in its supernatural or social forms, did not create America.
"worthy" means creating lasting achievements in art or science, including medicine, agriculture, engineering. There is no hidden context. No, Christianity is not such a claim. Christianity posits salvation by faith and by works, which are concrete actions in the material world. Mysticism did not create America. Perhaps. Tell that to the masons, though.
Again, your hidden context to these, now lasting achievements, is the mystical common good, a rationalization for the sacrifice of individual good. Christianity is the mind- and reality-hating, death-worship of one fool who evaded the horrific consquences of challenging Rome's polititical power and his followers who left their worldly possessions to gather in forests in the mindless faith that the original fool would provide an escape from their self-created Hell. Later, non-radical, conservative Christians made their compromising peace with the world they hated and chose to suffer without Rapture.
Judeo-Christian Values have a foundational role in America, beginning with the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."
The conservative intellectual skill in focusing on out-of-context concretes is noted. The evaded context is the Enlightenment, whose basic values are reason and individualism. In that context, the product of 400 years of basic cultural change from supernaturalism to real individuals, the vanishing, culturally superficial idea of supernnaturalism occasionally pops up as merely a habit, not a profound concern. Remove Creator from the Declaration and the Founder's worldly, anti-religious creation of a politics to protect mans' right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is clear. You have lost your way from the Christian Dark Ages when man was serious about supernaturalism ,faith, sacrifice, suffering and evil. They would have burnt at the stake any advocate of individual rights. God created and owns man. There are no rights against God as there is in the Constitution. See the Iranian constitution for a real religious constitution. It protects freedom of speech thats consistent w/the Koran. Revolutionary Americans wanted freedom from British trade controls, among other things, not from any religious controls. The culture created by the Enlightenment was concretely concerned with prosperity in the universe, not with fantasies of the supernatural. Step back into the 17th century, when reason was not yet culturally dominant and you might have an argument. But not in the Enlightenment, regardless of how many culturally weak examples of religion lingered on. Cultures change gradually, not overnight. There is no evidence that the faith-despising Founders, with their Deism, natural religion, distant, impersonal God, and rational theology had a fundamental respect for religion. The pursuit of happiness is not a vale of tears or an agonized trial for Eternity. With His infinite Love, God wants man to suffer horrible torments for the chance that he may spend Eternity with his torturer. Christianity is death worship and the Crucifixion is a black mass of suffering. The Revolution is not the Crusades. The Founders were horrified by the vast slaughter of the 16- and 17th century Christian wars. Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, cut out, w/a scissors, all references to God in his Bible. America is the nation of the Enlightenment. Christians had no stake in a new nation. They weren't persecuted.
America was created to defend mans independent mind, a heresy for the faithfull.
Your evaded context is reality.
Evidence would only pollute your intuition. Stay clean.
Thinking would only pollute your intuition. Stay clean.
Common good?
Zeke Emmanuel says we should all die at 75. Fauci is 80. He must stop wearing a mask right now.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/
Your powerful essay should be corrected. Kansas conservatives do force the teaching creationism. Why would you say such an easily demonstrable falsehood? Once again a conservative tries to curry favor by promoting leftist canards...
"What Happened in Kansas?
“Anti-Evolution” Curriculum Likely to be Overturned
on August 10, 2006
Last week’s school board primaries in Kansas have generated much news—and much confusion—about the teaching of “creationism” in Kansas schools and AiG’s stance on the matter.
Last week's school board primaries in Kansas have generated much news-and much confusion-about the teaching of “creationism” in Kansas schools and AiG's stance on the matter.1 Although the popular press has gone to great lengths to show that the recent election pitted pro-evolution, pro-“science” candidates against those who backed the mandated instruction of creation in public schools, the election was nothing of the sort. Furthermore, it's not the first time the media has intentionally misrepresented the issues surrounding the teaching of evolution in public schools.
The election centered on the Kansas State Board of Education curriculum, which was widely misrepresented as “anti-evolution,” though it was nothing of the sort. The curriculum did not promote the teaching of intelligent design or biblical creation; it only required that students, during their review of the principles of evolution, hear a small sampling of the numerous problems with evolution.
Evolutionists, however, consider any criticism to evolutionary theory identical to teaching creation, so even the slightest mention of problems with evolution is interpreted as violating the First Amendment. More absurd, however, is the current trend that even mentioning that there is a controversy (that is, that some scientists question evolutionary theory) is ruled to constitute creationist teaching. So what has happened in the public school science classroom? The prohibition against teaching “creationism” spread to teaching any kind of design, then to any discussion of the problems with evolutionary theory, and has now spread to any mention that a controversy exists!
Many evolutionists are treating the results of the school board primaries as the triumph of evolutionary instruction; however, the same situation occurred in Kansas in 2001, when the school board re-emphasized evolution after it had been mildly de-emphasized in standards approved in 1999. Evolution was again mildly de-emphasized in standards passed in late 2005, which led to the media attention on last week's primary election. Since the Kansas science standards have already been changed three times (and will presumably be changed a fourth time when the next board takes power), it will not come as a surprise if the Kansas school board continues to sway back and forth on the issue for years to come."
Thank you for that correction! The essay is excellent but I don't believe that pretending that the Cancel Culture Left and whatever label he chooses for the Right are morally equivalent.
Thanks! I loved the rest of the essay so I hope be deletes that part. I hate it when our side feel like it has to pander to the Left and pretend we are moral equals. The Left has played it's hand November 3rd and wants to junk the US Constitution and install a permanent dictatorship. The Right had no one calling for what the Democrats have done.
How about that guy with the Viking helmet? If he's not a Constiutional conservative, I'll eat my hat.
How about Hunter Biden? If he's not a Mainstream Constitution hating Democrat I'll eat my hat.
They each deserve each other.
Evidence would weaken your faith. Stay strong.
If evidence weakens your faith in conservatism don't have much. The evidence is that Kansas is not a state of religious yahoos. They are quite reasonable conservatives and don't deserve to be libeled by Thomas "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Frank or anyone on our side in the name of being "open-minded".
> If evidence weakens your faith in conservatism [you] don't have much [faith].
In the 1970s, the USAF conducted sensory deprivation experiments. They even imported a yogi from India but he lost his mind after an hour. What do you think of the Indian rope trick?
> reasonable conservatives
That's a package deal combining reason's non-contradictory identification of reality and compromise between contradictions. Would you buy soda with rat poison?
You have gone the Leonard Tose Route: https://webmail.lerctr.org/~transit/healy/tose.wav
Care to explain?
Scientific criticism of some of the details of the inductively proven theory of evolution is one thing. Religious criticism, based on a hidden faith in the supernatural and pretending to induction-based science, is another thing. The solution to this controversy is the abolition of our socialist (public) schools. Parents can pay for capitalist schools that teach the values of parents, exactly as people walk into one store but not another. If some parents want to pay for mystical fantasies to be taught to their children, that is their right. If other parents want their children's schools to be limited to mans focused and independent mind, that is their right. If some parents want egalitarian nihilism for their children, that is their right. No problem for voters here.
And in this case in Kansas it was scientific criticism of some of the details of the theory of evolution. There was no "Religious criticism, based on a hidden faith in the supernatural and pretending to induction-based science." Again, this was an unforced error by the author in an otherwise excellent article. As Conservatives we want to remain in the realm of the factual and not kiss up to our adversaries.
> There was no "Religious criticism, based on a hidden faith in the supernatural and pretending to induction-based science."
As philosophers have known since Socrates, a false idea can be hidden at the base of a conceptual hierarchy of plausible ideas. I don't specifically know that Kansas hid religion but you didn't identify their allegedly scientific criticism.
> As Conservatives we want to remain in the realm of the factual
So Conservatives reject conserving the culturally influential, Christian faith in the transcendence of the factual? Very strange and, after rejecting the mind as source of morality, unsustainable. Skepticism is intellectually, psychologically and culturally unsustainable. Man needs the intellectual/psychological integration of the focused mind. Even the religious focus onto fantasy is sustainable. Its the skeptical (and nihilist) rejection of the focused mind that is unsustainable. Eg, the change from Roman Stoicism to Christianity and the change from modern nihilism to the social mysticisms of Marxism and Nazism.
Perhaps this didn't get through to you. Step back , take a deep breath, and try reading this, this time for comprehension:
"The election centered on the Kansas State Board of Education curriculum, which was widely misrepresented as “anti-evolution,” though it was NOTHING of the sort. The curriculum did NOT promote the teaching of intelligent design or biblical creation; it only required that students, during their review of the principles of evolution, hear a small sampling of the numerous PROBLEMS with evolution.
Evolutionists, however, consider ANY criticism to evolutionary theory identical to teaching creation, so even the SLIGHTEST mention of problems with evolution is interpreted as violating the First Amendment. More absurd, however, is the current trend that EVEN mentioning that there is a controversy (that is, that some scientists question evolutionary theory) is ruled to constitute creationist teaching. So what has happened in the public school science classroom? The prohibition against teaching “creationism” spread to teaching ANY kind of design, then to any discussion of the problems with evolutionary theory, and has now spread to ANY mention that a controversy exists!"
> Evolutionists, however, consider ANY criticism to evolutionary theory identical to teaching creation
Scientists typically regard science-based criticism of particular theories as part of scientific progress. Are you referring to scientists or political activists?
> The prohibition against teaching “creationism” spread to teaching ANY kind of design,
A sewer by any other name would smell just as foul. Reality ie, the universe, is real, not the product of a Cosmic Consciousness. Existence exists. Existence is metaphysically primary. Consciousness is derivative, merely the consciousness of existence. Look out at reality, not inward. Focus your mind.
It is not the special sciences that teach man to think; it is philosophy that lays down the epistemological criteria of all special sciences.
-Ayn Rand
Evolution is an inductive discovery, not a deduction from dishonestly justified emotion. There is no missing problem because the more links, the more missing links. Its an attack on the growth of knowledge by people who reject mans need to struggle for knowledge and who reject the risk of knowledge.
The substantive arguments are strong enough; the ad hominem silliness just detracts from them.
With different visions of the common good heard from various quarters, I wanted to ask Dr. Thompson and fellow Redneck Intellectual readers: what did our nation’s founders mean by the term when they used it?
When Adams drafted the Massachusetts Constitution, what did he mean when he wrote that “all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good,” that “government is instituted for the common good,” and that the assembly should meet frequently “for making new laws as the common good may require”?
In the cited passage of Federalist No. 10, Madison wrote that zeal for various opinions, and attachments to various leaders and persons, “have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.” What did Madison see as the common good, for which men, divided into parties, were not cooperating?
Later, in Federalist No. 57, what did Hamilton or Madison mean by the common good when he wrote that “the aim of every political Constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society”?
And in his first inaugural address, what did President Jefferson mean when he asked Americans to “arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good”?
In Article VII of the Massachusetts Constitution, after Adams wrote that “government is instituted for the common good,” he immediately added, “the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people.” If the “protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people” is what Adams meant by the common good, is this perhaps what the other founders meant as well when they used the term?
Can I define it thus: "the protection" provided by the military; the "safety" provided by our police; the "prosperity" resulting from a free-market economy; and "happiness" something we are all free to pursue in our own way, and with apparent success judging from the constant stream of immigrants attempting to share in it by entering the country illegally.
Yes, yes, I know the military is being undermined by "woke" incursions, the activists are trying to defund our police, and capitalism is being replaced with crony corporatism at an alarming rate by the current administration; all of this is making happiness more difficult, but join me in the fight against soul-destroying Leftism. Become a happy warrior for the common good!
> coomer on an island
beachcomber?
>coomer
> “[W]e turned our eyes to the Volk alone. That which serves its struggle for life is good and must be maintained and encouraged. What harms its struggle for life is bad and must be eliminated and cut out.” Goebbles (1943 Total War Speech)
> Ayn Rand stole that line without attribution.
Kraus drop's Rand's individualist context, puts the struggle for life in his collectivist context and then claims that Rand is a Nazi. This is intellectual squinting to evade the mans life as a rational whole for an alleged racial part.
If I have ever thought that Thompson was wrong about the bizarre irrationalism and destructive potential of principled racist Rightism, Lorenz Kraus's post is an unpleasant slap in the face.
If I have ever thought that Thompson was wrong about the bizarre irrationalism and destructive potential of principled racist National Socialism, Lorenz Kraus's post is an unpleasant slap in the face.
There, FIFY.
"There, FIFY" is a reply to me, not me. And I don't know what "Free Indiginous Flowers Of Yokohama" means.
Your faith is strong. Dont let evidence weaken it.
Look out at reality, not inward. Focus your mind.
Objectivism claims to uphold the facts of reality, but rejects and repudiates the facts of race and ethnos.
Rand's ideas are the product of a mind volitionally/logically focused, thru the senses, onto concrete reality. Nazism explicitly rejects mind for automatic, arbitrary and unreliable intuition. Thus the intuition, not the rational knowledge, of the reality ,nature and importance of race and ethnicity. The intuition does not provide rational knowledge of of the reality ,nature and importance of race and ethnicity.
Marx rejected racial intuition for economic class intuition. Intuition, by itself, cant provide the knowledge of which of many and varied intuitions of all people are factual. Further, intuition is only of the immediate moment, eg, a soldier in a tactical situation. An experienced soldier should, perhaps, respect his intuition. A new soldier, perhaps, should not respect his intuitions. Intuition cant rationally learn from the past or plan the future. Hitler was notorious for evading the professional training and experience of his top military commanders, a big cause of Germany's military disaster. His generals, only with great difficulty, talked him out of building a 1000 ton tank which would have been worthless in the fast-moving maneuvers of WW2. And a target for the British dam-buster bomb. Japan ,also rejecting reason for intuition, built a huge battleship and a huge aircraft carrier that were such excellent bombing and torpedo targets that they had little military value.
With intuition, an automatic mental function that arbitrarily blends reason, emotion, imagination, memory, perception and, perhaps, other mental functions and physical experiences. With reason identification and evaluation are distinguished. With intuition, identification and evaluation may be experienced as one fact , a powerful but unreliable experience. Intuition can be extremely useful in living, especially in repeated experiences and emergencies, but its not reliable. It must be judged with a rational knowledge of causes. A mechanic may intuit the cause of a car problem by listening to the car. But he must focus his mind to know if he is correct. The car owner may not have that intuition. _Psychology Today_ (Dec. 2019 and Jan. 2020) published a moderately good article on it.
With the mind, however, Identifying and valuing facts are two basically differerent functions . One can identify race (or what its advocates claim is race) and ethnicity (ethnos?) while not valuing them. Or while valuing them as trivial rather than important.
> Race-ethnos is the central normative concept in philosophy conditioning art, politics, economics, and ethics.
After Kant split mind from reality, intuition of various kinds became influential among German philosophers and other intellectuals.
Eg, Marx's economic class intuitions and "racial", national and ethnic intuitions among Hegel, Fichte, and Herder, Moller, Bruck, Rosenberg, etc.
Man's mind, with its free will and no innate ideas, needs philosophy, a rational philosophy, as a integrated framework for thinking about reality and guiding action. The lack of a rational philosophy, ie, modern culture, leaves only subjectivism and mysticism. Nazism, like Marxism, is a social mysticism, with race, not economic class, as an intuitively experienced (not known) transcendental reality creating and changing the illusory individuals of the concrete universe. But its worthless to guide man to a sustainable future. Only mind, consciously directed, can transform nature into a home for man. Our scientific-industrial-capitalist civilization is the product of Aristotle's discovery of scientific method applied by the practical thinkers of the Enlightenment, most especially in the nation of the Enlightenment, America.
Most importantly, philosophy is for guiding ones personal life and happiness, not for politics. Thus Rand's main moral values of reason, purpose and self-esteem. And her main moral virtues of integrity, pride, rationality, honesty, independence and justice and productiveness. There remains sufficient rationality and individual rights in the West to live one's life independently of the decreasing nihilism and increasing mysticism. Find a productive, personal purpose that provides selfish happiness. Let politics be the care of those who have a rational alternative to the growing collectivism and egalitarianism and statism.
> you can't fight race or the racial soul.
How did you know about reality prior to knowing about reality?
> If Objectivism requires a 120 IQ to use or understand, that bars vast majorities from ever understanding Objectivism.
So you dont understand Objectivism? Are you one of those mud people?
Your intuition is noted and recorded. An unfocused mind is the Devil's playground.