This week's post is up, but it is at the new URL and host for the Mad Philosopher blog.  You can reach the post here.

The new URL, where the blog will continue (there will be no new material on this site) is www.MadPhilosopher.xyz.

All of the main posts have been moved to the new site, but all of the old "daily resource suggestions" will remain here for your reference.

Carpe Veritas,
​Mad Philosopher

This is an audio-only post.  No transcript, no outline, unrehearsed.  The planned post for this weekend is taking a little longer than anticipated, but I felt I should at least record something for the sake of our Soundcloud sponsor, Anarchist Lexicon.

 Has Mother Church wielded the sword and shackles of the state for so long She has forgotten the use of the shepherd's crook?

A Response to Laudato Si

As is usually the case, the Pope did something and the liberal media came in their pants with excitement. My less-involved Catholic friends and some non-catholic friends then asked me what he actually said and did and what it means, media spin aside. I make it a point to read Encyclicals as they come out, as often as possible. While I'm skeptical of Catholic social teaching for a number of reasons, it would be unbecoming of a Catholic intellectual critical of some social teachings to not keep abreast of progress made in that regard. Also, with the persistent questions from others, I find that it is beneficial to myself, my friends, and our relationships to be able to provide a service in the form of translating 170-odd pages of teaching that's very involved and built on millennia of scholarship into something digestible to a more secular mind.

In interest of defending Church teaching against the portrayal it will receive in the mainstream (RE: pagan) culture, I spent a good chunk of yesterday and this morning reading and re-reading Laudato Si and reading many short commentaries written by various clergymen and lay Catholic journalists. I have several pages of handwritten notes, addressing specific things that were said, the general theme of the encyclical, and its relationship to history and standing Church teachings, and I'm not sure how much use those notes are going to find in this post, as there's some very important general themes that need to be addressed. These issues far overshadow individual lines or phrases that may be misinterpreted or otherwise used contrary to the goals set out for the encyclical, so these smaller issues may be overlooked in this post.

The most important point to get out of the way is the relationship between Catholic social teaching and the general body of scholarship within the Church. Many Catholics, even devout Catholics do not understand the role that the encyclicals and other works in Catholic social teaching play in the Faith. Catholic social teaching is not Doctrine or Dogma, it is not an infallible pronouncement by the Pope acting alone and in persona Christi. Catholic social teaching is, essentially, the magisterium of the Church saying, “Based on what we have to work with, here, this looks like the best solution to a particular problem the Church faces.” In the case of this encyclical, it identifies several problems, some real and some imagined, and looks for a root cause for these problems in order to make “a variety of proposals possible, all capable of entering into dialogue with a view to developing comprehensive solutions.” In such a dialogue, “...the Church has no reason to offer a definitive opinion; she knows that honest debate must be encouraged among experts, while respecting divergent views.” This post (that will be wholly invisible to the magisterium and to those who could and would affect change) is an attempt to address the issues presented, their root causes, and continue the dialogue sought by Pope Francis. No, I don't claim to be an “expert” as indicated in the encyclical, but I am confident that I am no more or less an expert than a substantial majority of the people involved in and affected by this dialogue. As such, I am as entitled as anyone else to express my informed assessment of the situation.

This document is essentially three different encyclicals blended together in a frenetic and haphazard arrangement, a departure from the more analytic and procedural voice and style of Francis' immediate predecessors. It may sound strange, but I will do my best to explain what I mean.

One of the encyclicals is an assessment of mankind's relationship to it's environment, the role that we play in our environment's well-being and the role that our environment plays in our well-being, both spiritually and physically. It explores how exploitative and irreverent practices with regards to creation develop vicious attitudes within the practitioners which results in the exploitation and irreverence being directed at other human beings as well. In a surprising but well-defended argument, the Pope lays out how industrial monoculture farming is culturally related to inhumane medical experimentation and abortion, for example. This encyclical reads as a slightly less poetic text that one would expect Francis' namesake to have written, waxing on and on about the glory of the Creator as seen in His creation, our role as stewards of that creation, and the teleology of all things. This encyclical appears to be addressed to the traditional audience of the encyclicals: the people of the Church in the world at large and within the magisterium. It calls for a pastoral approach centered on acknowledging the almost panentheist nature of reality, how God Himself is part of his creation and His presence in His creatures must be respected, lest one fall into the habit of not acknowledging that same presence on one's fellow humans. With typical Franciscan flair, the primary focus is on how the poor are marginalized and harmed the most by these irresponsible and irreverent practices.

Another one of the encyclicals is drawing a connection between this renewed environmental focus and the greater body of Catholic teachings, the relationship between abortion, postmodernism, consumerism, the destruction of the family, the evils of war and violence, etc. These passages are, unsurprisingly, the main focus of the articles popping up all over the internet titled some variation of “Ten things that the mainstream media will ignore in Laudato Si”. This encyclical is, essentially, a reaffirmation in the long-standing tenets of the Church: Abortion is murder, contraception is bad, gay marriage is a metaphysical impossibility, postmodernism is an intellectual cancer that is killing humanity and faith, etc. The only new addition to this litany that is presented is to try and add “and mind your greenhouse gasses” somewhere in-between “Postmodernism is bad,” and “We have to be careful with GMOs.”

The main focus for everyone, myself included, is this third encyclical. This one is addressed to “world leaders” and the UN in particular, as opposed to the Church and its people. This encyclical is rife with praise for worldwide economic manipulations, the use of government violence to accomplish the ends of the Church, an appeal for granting all governments more authority and force to implement stricter environmental regulations, broader economic manipulations, and redistribution of wealth. This encyclical explicitly calls for a progressive carbon tax, a world government with a navy and police force with authority to supersede national governments, national and local governments to implement “free” public housing and utility access, and heightened enforcement of drug laws.

Worse, though, than pleading with the state to use it's swords and shackles to coerce responsible behavior out of humanity at large, Francis takes a page out of Pope Urban VIII's book. Overstepping his authority in moral and theological matters, the Pope attempts to side with the “scientific consensus” and endorse a worldview that is anti-scientific and empirically falsified. Declaring human-caused global warming to be an existential threat to creation of a magnitude equivalent to the great flood which God repented of in Genesis, Francis demonstrates that he needs to hire better researchers and ought to be more reticent before declaring Galileo anathema. He makes this mistake twice, in rapid succession. After demonstrating an unwillingness to critically assess the legacy academic stance in light of empirical evidence in science, he does so again in the realm of economics. Using Keynesian economic prescriptions and “green” socialist rhetoric, he creates a straw-man of the free market which is even more flimsy and caricatured than those manufactured by liberal college students on social media.

  There was one line, in particular that required a double-take, a re-reading, and it ultimately elicited a violent reaction from me:

“Civil authorities have the right and duty to adopt clear and firm measures in support of small producers and differentiated production. To ensure economic freedom from which all can effectively benefit, restraints occasionally have to be imposed on those possessing greater resources and financial power. To claim economic freedom while real conditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practise[sic] a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute.” p96

This quote is taken from the midst of pages upon pages of diatribe against international outsourcing of labor, speculative investment, development of trade infrastructures, the automation of menial tasks. While lamenting these actions, the Pope calls for an increase in the policies which are the direct cause of them. Economic regulations, such as the minimum wage, intellectual property legislation, and progressive corporate taxation and subsidies creates innumerable perverse incentives within the market, as a natural matter of course which is empirically verifiable. To blame “the market” and paint such claims as “a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals,” demonstrates a wholesale ignorance of the science that is economics. One should expect a former scientist to understand the limitations of his understanding of others' fields and at least call upon them to inform his opinion. If he has done so, he needs to look harder for a reliable resource.

The reason this sudden interest in mainstream sciences and display of ignorance in these matters is offensive is because the Pope is a moral authority in the world, and to draw upon obviously false data, bundle it up in moral language and issue ethical and political proclamations demeans both the sciences he misrepresents and the position which he occupies in the See of Peter.

These three encyclicals are blended together in a manner that makes them inextricable from each other. In one sentence, Francis will point out a theological understanding concerning substantive relationship of the trinity, move to an analogy concerning the nature of agriculture, and indict private ownership of resources. Because of this, it is impossible to tell where the Pope is addressing individual Catholics and exhorting them to consider their role in creation from a theological perspective and where he is exhorting politicians to use violence in order to protect the poor in the developing world from global warming from an economical perspective.

There is no denying that people everywhere in the world are facing ecological crises: living in cities that are not conducive to human flourishing, living near industrial mining operations, facing evictions from tribal lands or private property in the interest of economic gains for the powerful, the destruction of biodiversity in inhabited areas, and a general disregard for the inalienable rights of human beings are all issues that need to be addressed, and quickly. However, to blame “the free market” when there is no such thing, to pin the blame on people that are merely doing their best to survive when faced with systematic violations of their rights, and to fall back on methods that are the direct cause for the decline of Christianity and the rise of the postmodern world seriously misdiagnoses the cause of the problem and results in a very dangerous situation, both in the world at large and in the Church itself.

This political edict in the guise of moral teaching places those that are well-versed in science and economics in the difficult position of trying to justify the teachings of the Church that are explicitly contrary to what they know to be true. Some may lose their faith, either in the Church or in reason. The loss of faith in either is a tragedy, and it can be prevented simply by Francis double-checking his work and being cautious not to overstep the bounds of papal authority. An even greater tragedy than some umber of individuals losing their faith due to a contradiction in moral teaching and empirical fact is the alienation that such teachings has formed between the Church and the people and institutions best situated to aid the Church in pursuing a more Christian world. Economists the world over are denouncing the Church and discovering the long-standing trend on Catholic social teaching towards full-blown socialism. The scientific communities that tend to lean more socially and fiscally conservative (like the Church) also happen to be the ones that have disproven any substantial causal relationship between human activity and global climate change, in outright ignoring their findings, the Pope has alienated the scientific community once again, driving the long standing wedge between reason and faith even further. Even in moral and philosophical circles, there is outrage that the pope would undermine basic human rights (such as the right to be secure in one's property) for the sake of the rights of woodland critters and soil bacteria, which is explicitly done in this document.


TL;DR: Despite all of my defenses of Pope Francis to-date, my re-interpretations of his words in the light of reason and Church teaching in order to explain to others how one can rationally support his teachings, there is no way to deny that he is a full-on socialist with a callous disregard for economics and science. While I am not a sedevacantist or about to apostatize, this is an excellent opportunity to begin picking apart the whole of Catholic social teaching and calling for reform in the Church, not concerning matters which are doctrinally secure (such as prohibitions on gay marriage or abortion) but concerning instances where the Church draws too heavily on philosophically and scientifically flawed information. Many lament that this encyclical will be remembered as “the global warming encyclical”. I lament it as well, the global warming was merely a pretext for pushing a theologically-backed call for one world socialist government, and to remember it as the “global warming encyclical” discounts the very real damage that has already been done by the document to the integrity of the Church and the incalculable damage that will be done if world leaders heed the Pope's plea.

Discovering that the See of Peter is occupied by a died-in-the-wool socialist is a good opportunity to review Church history. I've found, in my limited education of the subject, that the delineation between a Doctor of the Church and a heretic is a razor-thin one between those who are willing to admit the possibility of error and those too prideful to do so.

Only time will tell.

You can read the full text of Laudato Si here:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

 Haven't you heard about how alien lizard jews did 9/11 to get the chemtrail program off the ground? It's all part of the plan to take your guns and re-establish the supremacy of the white, cis-male, capitalist, patriarchy. No? Well, how about how american doctors, under the orders of the federal government, injected syphilis into a bunch of black people (calling it a vaccination) and watched them slowly die an agonizing death? No? One more: did you hear about how the founder of Planned Parenthood openly admitted to being a racist and founded the company for the sake of implementing a far-reaching eugenics program and the intellectual and political elite applauded her for it? No? Not surprising. The terrifying thing about this list is that two out of three items are a matter of historical fact easily verified by reading documents published by the actual perpetrators of the crimes in question. The lizard jews, however, are a little better at covering their tracks.

For the longest portion of my life, I have been what is commonly referred to as a conspiracy theorist. At one point in my life, I could have made Alex Jones himself blush The term and practice of conspiracy theory has an interesting and colorful history, but that's a different story for a later time. Today, I want to explore the nature and role of conspiracy theory in the life of a liberty-minded individual. I believed in alien/government conspiracies of control and technology, worldwide economic planning conspiracies, international government conspiracies, class warfare conspiracies, and more. Smaller in scope, the events around September eleventh, 2001 had led me to strongly distrust the official story which emerges in real time when varying types of crises arise.

Looking at myself, making use of the Hobbesian fallacy of introspection, I think I can identify two causes for one to become a conspiracy theorist. If one has a skeptical disposition but is indoctrinated to believe in “higher powers” without rational justification for that belief, one is forced to either eschew or modify ad-hoc their beliefs when faced with rational criticism. In the case of conspiracy theories, lack of evidence is often considered to be proof of conspiracy, implementing the same rationale as a witch hunt, the internment of Japanese Americans, or McCarthy-style paranoia. It's easy for an irrational belief in celestial parent figure who constantly messes with your life to become a belief that extends to “capitalists” or “all males” or “space aliens”. There may actually be a God, and there may actually be conspiracies, but irrational beliefs in them are just that, irrational. Once one can rationally prove or make a compelling case for such things, it becomes less a theory and more a justified true belief, AKA knowledge.

The second, and likely common, cause for one to become a conspiracy theorist is one of... well... immaturity. If one finds themselves frequently at a disadvantage and lacks the means to overcoming said disadvantage, one can easily fall into what Nietzsche calls “Bad Conscience”. We don't have time here to really explore Nietzsche (If you, the reader would like me talk more about Nietzsche, let me know. I would love to make at least a full Nietzsche post.), but a super-high-altitude description of “bad conscience” is in order. Bad conscience is basically embracing and fetishizing one's own weaknesses while demonizing powerful traits and those that one feels disadvantaged against. Whether or not the perceived disadvantage one faces is real or not, it is a natural behavior to pin advantage and blame on someone else. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it is beneficial or righteous, though. Ultimately, as with every other instance of adversity, one must overcome or circumvent one's disadvantage or consign themselves to death.

How does the externalization of adversity demonstrate immaturity? In itself, it doesn't. However, if that externalization takes the form of “the Jews”, “the patriarchy” “gun grabbers”, “those Christians”, “Satan”, or whatever other shape-shifting omnipotent boogeyman one can cook up, it demonstrates an unwillingness or inability to educate oneself as to the actual circumstances and how one might overcome them. Again, it very well may be the case that Satan sits on the masonic throne and tells the Jews to go out and impoverish the world for their lizard overlords... but that isn't the immediate issue one faces in day-to-day life. If you can't get a job, it could be more because you've demonstrated irresponsible tendencies by getting a women's studies degree on a credit card and a little less because of the patriarchy. In either case, whether or not the conspiracy exists, it is at least intellectual immaturity and could be emotional or social immaturity as well. Here it is, people, an admission that I was once immature. Hell, I still don't believe the official story of 9/11 and I think the Titanic was sunk intentionally, make of that what you will. Why is it immature? Because, if one is at a disadvantage, one must be able to diagnose and overcome that disadvantage; going “Oh, well, it's not my fault... it's impossible to overcome the Bilderberg conspiracy,” renders one unable to grow and overcome adversity. If one is not actually at a disadvantage, yet they see a conspiracy of boogeymen, they develop a learned helplessness and cannot flourish.

Also of note is the manner in which these conspiracy theories influence society once enough people agree that it is the truth. “The Jews” ruined the 20th century German economy, “the Capitalists” oppressed the Russian proletariat, “Islam” blew up the world trade center, “the patriarchy” raped everyone ever all the time, “Satan” made everyone in Africa black and consorts with witches in Salem, “the speculators” caused famines, “the Church”intentionally slowed scientific progress, “Americans of Japanese descent” were plotting to overthrow wartime America's empire... do we need more examples? The problem with conspiracy theories and mobs of immature, angry people is the way that it collectivizes “the other” and justifies the oppression and slaughter of innocent human beings. Conspiracy theorists feed state violence.

More important than what happens when conspiracy theories become popular, more important, even, than the way immature people will be kept from flourishing, is the way that they distract from more real and actionable issues. The reason I took so long to realize that any organization predicated on coercion, murder, or theft is intrinsically unjust and misanthropic and any job which requires such is unjust and misanthropic, and that I have a responsibility to avoid such practices is because I was distracted from such things by “the evil globalist capitalist cabal”, “secret government/alien alliances”, and a handful of other conspiracies. I see so many people seeing systematic oppression by laws and law enforcement in Ferguson and Baltimore but being distracted from their oppressors by the spectre of “racism”. Conversely, I see people witnessing oppression by federal edict in southern Nevada but being distracted by the spectre of “socialism” (the Republican caricature of it, not the intrinsic nature of statism).

When people are so terrified that ISIS, Mexicans, or Chinese entrepreneurs are going to invade the country and behead Christians, steal their jobs, and give them more government, they forget that the laws passed, armies sent, and crimes committed in the name of defending against these boogeymen will eventually be turned against themselves. When people are bogged down in looking for a specific imperial agendas, like “the war on local government/guns/cash/women/minorities/gays/Christians/the environment/etc.”, they are distracted from the root issue that is empire itself. Even in libertarian circles, many are prone to forgetting that the enemy is the state itself as opposed to just the Federal government, the patriarchy/racists/sexists, neighboring governments, the Fed, lizard Jews, chemtrails, vaccination programs, or any other lesser, symptomatic, nebulous enemy.

If a man were to approach you, brandishing a gun and demanding your money and your obeisance, what is a more pressing matter: the mugger standing before you or a cabal of 1%ers sitting on a private island thousands of miles away? If your livelihood were contingent upon the whims of a sociopath living down the street, what would be more of an existential threat: your unruly neighbor or a guy who really hates white people, humps goats, and prays to the devil on the literal opposite side of the planet? If your king declares that you have no right to raise your own children, own land, or avoid being conscripted, wouldn't that be more concerning than which patch of dirt he happened to be born on? What I mean to ask is that if there were a demonstrable and immediate existential threat, why would one concern themselves with a merely possible and nigh-unstoppable future crisis?

Besides, the burden of proof rests heavily on conspiracy theorists. One need only to say:

Murder, coercion, and theft are unjust
Taxation is theft
∴ Taxation is unjust

This is all that's required (with appropriate definitions and such) to undermine the legitimacy of all governments, whereas a conspiracy theorist must often resort to grainy photographs, redacted segments of declassified documents, receipts from trash cans, numerology, and the rantings of this hobo over here in order to show that the UN performs satanic rituals to oppress women and George Soros needs to steal all your guns in order to join the club. If you set a standard of proof for, say, the existence of God (or his non-existence), that same standard must be applied to the existence (or non-existence) of Krishna or Sasquatch. Unless one is willing to say that the absence of evidence of God's existence if proof that he exists (there are some nutjobs who say this), that same claim cannot be made about a Japanese-American conspiracy to hurt the war effort.

Of course, some conspiracies are real. Some are incredibly high profile and far-reaching.Pop culture sites, wikipedia, and even history textbooks will occasionally feature conspiracies so convoluted and successful that no one would believe a movie that had the same plot. These conspiracies serve as easy examples as to why the state is the enemy, but they are not required in order to make a compelling case. For example, mandatory vaccination programs are categorically unjust as they deprive people of their bodily autonomy and self-ownership. It doesn't hurt, though, to point to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and ask how one can know that they will only be injected with what they are told they are receiving (or that it is safe, for that matter).


TL;DR: Conspiracy theories typically distract from more pressing and manageable crises. Those who engage in conspiracy theory also tend to demonstrate an unwillingness to improve themselves, instead choosing to allow themselves to be a helpless victim to an omnipotent boogeyman. In the case that conspiracy theory influences state policy, millions are subjugated and killed. One must remember that politicians and cops are the enemy, not because they are gun grabbers or racists, but because they are politicians and cops. In a free world, “the patriarchy” and Islam would have no ability to conspire in any manner that would affect you or me. It is only the violence of the state which allows for conspiracies to harm the human race.

Dear Mom and Dad,

We rarely find time to talk anymore. I guess that's what happens when you have eight kids and your son has three more. Rushed, oft-interrupted, and emotionally-charged bursts of conversation are not conducive to mutual understanding, and I understand you are too busy to read and understand everything I write. While considering this reality, I've decided to address my confusion over our philosophical disagreements and consolidate my ruminations into the most direct and concise letter I can write for your to read at your leisure. Depending on how the letter turns out, I may publish it as an open letter on my blog, for others to better understand as well.

Really, the heart of my confusion is centered on mom's disparaging and dismissive attitude towards my ideas and understanding of the world. I have arrived at this stage of my understanding primarily due to your influence. Dad's perennial pragmatism and skepticism gave me a high standard and difficult challenge for rational methodology and mom's example for action has given me a healthy respect for intuition and substantial consideration regarding virtuous and moral action. In a way, I guess I'm concerned that I may have put you on a pedestal and now require more form you than you can provide, but I am extremely reluctant to admit that possibility. So, here I will write the things I feel you have taught me and how they have led me to the conclusions I have reached; hopefully, it will give us somewhere to begin understanding each other.



If an idea or approach is discovered to be false or does not work, eschew it for what is and does:

When I was a little kid, I often had great ideas or plans which were poorly engineered. Clubhouses which required far more than the few pieces of scrap wood I had available, for instance. While he may not have had the greatest method of explaining why, dad was very good at pointing out why the idea was impossible and providing a more realistic, comparable plan. After the school system had demonstrated that it wasn't working, mom pulled me out and attempted home schooling. At which point, you perpetually modified and refined the curricula and methods of schooling. Trying different methods for allowance, chores, discipline, and personal liberties, keeping what worked and dropping what didn't was a constant state of affairs growing up. It seems that ethos is still in full force today.

It shouldn't take too much explanation to see how this ethos has had an effect on my journey thus far. Primarily, identifying and learning from mistakes. Whether it be my approach to studies, finances, personal life choices, whatever, I'm not afraid to admit error and strive to rectify it, and to rectify the subsequent mistakes made in the attempt to rectify, ad infinitum. Philosophically, I have always had a set of needs. I've applied this ethos to fulfilling those needs, moving through pursuits such as paleontology, vulcanology, meteorology, astronomy/ology, cryptozoology, theology, astrophysics and demonology, ultimately settling on philosophy. Along this path, I've found what fulfills this need and what doesn't

This process has served as a useful tool for self-awareness, but I will save that for later. For now, I will move to the things you have shown me which have been consistently shown to work.




Deontological maxims supersede practical considerations:

This is a truth that was a long and hard task to learn. For a long period of time, possibly due to the environment in my early childhood, it was hard to critically assess the position that, “The ends justify the means.” “If my goal is noble enough and attainable, the most direct course of action to get there must be taken, regardless of how undesirable the course of action may be.” This claim, in it's myriad forms, consistently saw resistance from you. “Murder is still murder, even if it's for a good cause,” was a common response I would get.

As I warmed up to the idea, for example, that the ten commandments are non-negotiable, I explored the real world and hypothetical ethical dilemmas which would test such a deonotological maxim; trying to expose inconsistencies and contradictions with such an approach became a daily exercise. So far, after trying to break deontology, all I have found is that a clearly-defined and concise set of maxims are the most resilient and reliable basis for moral action. Sometimes, these maxims set a standard too difficult to achieve; this is due to human failings, though, not the mind of God to which we ascribe these maxims.




It is infinitely more honorable to set a moral standard, strive to meet it, and fail than to set a low standard or otherwise make no effort:\

These moral maxims, such as “Thou shalt honor the LORD above all else,” “Thou shalt not murder, steal, or covet,” and their necessary conclusions, “Love your neighbor as I have loved you,” and “Uphold the dignity of the human person,” can be more demanding that one can manage at times. This is not an indictment of these maxims, but instead an empirical fact of the human condition. When faces with this fact, one may choose to dissemble and rationalize or justify their failures and accept them or, worse, to simply give up altogether. I've lost too many friends and seen too mane others loose friends to this temptation. Seeing you strive to more consistently meet that standard, and succeed, has demonstrated the honor in doing so.

Rather than striving to meet such a standard, I would often attempt to reinterpret these maxims or rationalize my status. You dissuaded me for doing so, mostly by example. It helped that, as I explored limit cases of these maxims, you made an effort to resolve issues or directed me to resources wherein others made the effort. Often, neither you nor the sources could provide a compelling resolution, but instead gave me the tools needed to do so for myself. The important trend through this process was the need for integrity: if someone abandons honesty to themselves and their standards, it is tantamount to lying.




Acting justly is more important than comfort:

Between the maxims mentioned above, the need to act in accordance with those maxims, and the need for integrity, one has a duty to accept responsibility for their situation. Again, this is something I learned from your example, first, and be exploring the philosophy behind it later. Simply assessing your circumstances and making what is ostensibly the best choice available, even when it will be difficult or uncomfortable. Those instances when we would move, switch to hippie food/medicine, move to homeschooling, etc. seemed to demonstrate that duty and the discomfort associated with it. Discussing my situations concerning college, marriage, kids, work, etc. with you also followed that trend.




To engage in or directly benefit from immoral action is to be complicit in that act:

Part of acting justly despite discomfort is to avoid immoral action. When I was younger, I had a hard time understanding why you would discourage ideas of what would be a clearly profitable venture: varying from things like selling vices or running (relatively) harmless scams. The recent example would not be wanting Tommy to be a security guard for a pot shop. While I may disagree with you on specific questions of morality, I think we all agree now that selling one's morals for profit is unacceptable.




That which is immediate and actionable supersedes, distant, future, or theoretical concerns:

Even though it may pay the bills to sell cocaine out of the Church garage, and may make enough to be comfortable on top of paying the bills, but the ends do not justify the means. There's a story stuck in my head that I think dad told me, but even if it was someone else it sounds like all the other stories about poop brownies and the like. There was a olympic rowing team that lived together and whenever someone wanted to do something, the team would ask them, “Will it make the boat go faster?” At face value, it would seem to justify the idea that the sole justification of the means is in fact the end.

That interpretation is incredibly naive, though. The olympic rowers found themselves in the circumstance that they were olympic rowers; the olympics was upon them and they had a demonstrable and immediate goal of making the boat go the fastest. In their case, the olympics is as distant or theoretical as getting shot is when on a battlefield or being corralled onto a train in 1939 Poland. That is to say, not very abstract. When faced with a choice, as one is thousands of times a day, the primary consideration of that choice ought to be, “is this option just, in and of itself?” and then whether the demonstrable outcome of the action will “make the boat go faster”. After that analysis, the “what if?” and big picture enter into the equation.

This is how I was coached with regards to Boy Scouts, college prep, financial issues... Dave Ramsey's version of this is “debt is bad, mmk? Avoid selling your future for unnecessary gains (like one does with a car loan). Use what is on-hand to solve the problem.”




It is impossible to judge the heart of another, for your sake you must give them the benefit of the doubt even when judging their actions:

The way I have best seen this expressed is Hanlon's Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Dad has consistently stated and re-stated this claim in some form or another at every occasion I have judged another person. It took an embarrassingly long time to come around to the idea. Philosophically, I call it the “phenomenological/epistemic barrier”. That is, one is privy only to one's own internal experience, it is impossible to directly apprehend the outside world, especially the internal experiences of others. One has an indirect access to others' behavior (the same way they have access to the behavior of a rock, tree, or beast) but not to the internal experience corresponding to the behavior.

One can, with varying degrees of ease, judge the behavior. For example, dismembering an infant with scissors can easily be identified as the crime of murder, regardless of whether the murderer's internal experience reflects that behavior. The CIA could have slipped the murderer some crazy drugs, he could be indoctrinated by the medical school system to do so, or he could simply have dementia. I can't judge his internal experience and call him evil or insist that he is going to hell, but I can say that he has murdered a baby. However, some cases are not so clear-cut and it would not be unjustified to err on the side of caution.




Question the auspices of authority (the only authority is epistemic):

This is something that I think I watched you learn which, of course, is what taught me. My early life experiences like my appendicitis ordeal and elementary school career demonstrated the need for skepticism when interacting with an individual or institution, even if they have the credentials (like an M.D., 100-ish years of history to back them up, or a teaching certificate). The authority of the doctor, teacher, administrator, or priest is not some metaphysical or divine attribute, but instead an epistemic one. The doctor is an authority in medicine insofar as his knowledge of the field is accurate. Not all doctors, teachers, etc. are created equal. Hearkening back to how those who have no standards tend to dissemble and rationalize, those that lack authority tend to lean on their credentials and auspices of authority and, subject to skepticism, are therefore not to be trusted.




Independent research and conceptual reasoning countermand the status quo:

Alongside authority, the status quo is also subject to skepticism. Your rejection (or partial rejection) of vaccines, standard education models, debt-oriented finances, moral/legal equivalence, and the “2.4 kids and a puppy” paradigm is the logical extension of the skeptical approach to the auspices of authority. Independent research can be anything from getting a second opinion from another authority to actually doing the requisite work oneself. Very little on the internet is true, of course. For that matter, very little outside the internet is true, either. This makes independent research incredibly difficult; by extension, that difficulty makes finding an actual authority equally difficult.

What, then, can one rely on when searching for factual or true knowledge? Conceptual reasoning can guide the process, at least. The application of careful deduction, induction, and abduction is ultimately the only tool one has in discernment between different claims, authorities, or options. Of course, like a hammer and nails, reason is useless without experience. All epistemic crises aside, the facts one is able to discern as immediate and actionable often come into conflict with and overcome the status quo. That's because the status quo is an emergent property of human nature.




The human condition is such that utopia and systematization is impossible:

Back in my Marxist days, dad frequently said things like “people don't work that way”, “You can't program society like a computer”, and “who is going to program the computer you put in charge?” Meanwhile, mom was vocally denouncing standardization, especially in education but also in medicine and just about everything else. That, coupled with the Scriptural education you provided, paints a pretty clear picture about the relationship between the human condition and utopia. Utopia being the Greek word St. Thomas More made up which means “no-place”.

Namely, that relationship is radically irreconcilable. In spite of rejecting gnosticism, I am certain that corporeal paradise as we can conceive it, is fundamentally opposed to the human condition. This is not a failing of the human condition, but instead one of utopia. Utopia, in all of its implementations, requires humans to be standardizable, equal, replaceable, and incapable of growth or change. Humans are none of those things; attempts to make them such are doomed to failure.




Coercion doesn't work, neither does rules:

Coercion is essentially any engagement which can be reduced to, “Do/don't do X, or else.” In hindsight, almost every moral crisis I had faced until recent years was a result of being coerced. Sometimes, the coercion was an explicit statement as above. Other times, the coercion was inferred from consistent exposure to the above statement or the behavioral equivalent. I don't want to air dirty laundry, new or old, especially as everything is essentially forgiven and forgotten or is still a secret and not yet beyond the statute of limitations. Having been on both the giving and receiving end of coercion, even in the form of rules that are “for your own good”, I have seen how such behavior does infinitely more harm than good and, on a long enough timeline, ultimately fails to accomplish its intended end. Besides, the ends do not justify the means and coercion undermines the human dignity of the victim in every instance.




Contracts are bullshit:

This is something I have to pin on dad, so you can skip this portion, mom. This comes primarily from our discussions on social contract theory. I unknowingly, used to place undue metaphysical belief on the social contract. You brought this to my attention be demonstrating how the social contract has no effect on the physical world. In a world such as Hobbes' state of nature, there is no difference between two people backstabbing each other over a limited resource and the leviathan's people/leaders backstabbing each other over other issues. The social contract has no more effect in the real world than any other metaphysical fairy-tale. I can believe in ghosts all I want, but that will not change your behavior. The same is true for “real” contracts. Ultimately, any contract signed is nothing more than a promise which alludes to the integrity and ability of the signers to uphold that promise, a-la the social contract. Admittedly, there is a difference between the social contract and a “real” contract. That is, a social contract attempts to coerce its “signers” with the boogeyman of anarchy and a “real” contract attempts to coerce its signers with the threat of government violence. But we've already had this discussion.




The dignity of the human person:

More important than the practical issues concerning coercion, there is a moral issue. Being created in the image of their creator and being given a special moral quality which is at the center of salvation history, there is a certain revealed dignity to human persons. Even “natural man”, a.k.a. Pagans, are aware of this dignity, expressed in our reason, will, and relationship to each other and the divine. Actual catechesis aside, you taught me this be way of debate, example, and counter example, just like all the other items in this letter.

I'm going to circumvent the whole Plato vs. Aristotle, “human being” vs. “human doing” debate and just assent to people possessing their own dignity by virtue of being human. Ultimately, that's the only available underpinning for individuals' duties and rights, but I'm trying to avoid getting too philosophical and lengthy in this letter. I'm just going to stick to the duty (or right) to life, in the interest of time. Simply by virtue of our relationship with out creator, humans have inalienable rights. Chief among those, that from which they are all derived, is the duty to life.

Simply put, it means murder is wrong. By extension, coercion (the threat of murder) and theft (depriving one of their resources used for living) are wrong. Accidental murder, that is, killing someone through avoidable circumstance is still murder. For example “If I leave this toxic waste near the well, people may get poisoned and die. Oh, well, I'm will do it anyway.” So, abortion, murder proper, the death penalty, and war are necessarily a violation of human dignity. Additionally, abdication of one's humanity and person-hood is an offense against human dignity. I imagine this is the basis of mom's paranoia concerning drugs, but I'm not sure. I am sure, though, that intentionally allowing oneself to be objectified, abased, or to lose one's free will/discipline is a violation of human dignity as if they had done the same to someone else.

I guess this is as good a place as any to ask why you changed your mind with regards to the American proxy war in the Middle East. When Bush Jr. wanted to re-invade Afghanistan and Iraq, I fell for the propaganda. You were quick to try and dissuade me from that position. A decade later, I came to your earlier position by a different avenue, that is, by way of the dignity of the human person. I was surprised, then, that mom is so anxious to continue that war and the slaughter of millions of innocents that she tried to dissuade me from supporting. Dad is a bit more coy on the subject, but I think he agrees with mom.

Find what you love and pursue it; make it a tool for survival:

I have a million interests and desires, but the all grow from a root desire which is a love affair I have with Truth and my family. Unfortunately, there is a very limited market for these things in a world rife with lies and captivated with misanthropy. That's not an excuse, but an assessment of my situation. Why does it matter though? I mean, the aspect of the “american dream” you preached to me the most was entrepreneurship and the ability to turn one's loves into a tool for living. So, then, I ought to determine how I and my family are called to live and do what we can to fulfill that vocation.

“If you're not growing, you're dead.” Another nice soundbite from dad that I now totally agree with. In each aspect of one's person, if they are not growing, they are dead. Spiritual, mental, and physical growth, at a minimum, is required for one to uphold one's dignity and pursuit of Truth/flourishing/perfection/“the good”/whatever. Mental growth is clearly the aspect of person-hood I am most disposed towards, with a constant pursuit of numerous “-logy”s and “-ism”s and such, seeking to ground my rational faculties in Truth. Mental growth alone has it's limits. To pursue mental growth, spiritual and physical growth are required. People and action are required.

I am confident in a great many beliefs I have as to what my own vocation has in store for me, and only slightly less confident in what I feel my family's vocation is. Of course, to come to such conclusions, I have to constantly work together with them; I know only myself, and must rely on them to know themselves.




Exit Strategy. Have a concrete goal with demonstrable success/failure criteria and have a contingency plan:

There is so much I have to write on this and the preceding subject, as the main initiative for this letter is to try to figure out where our misunderstandings lie in general, but most especially concerning moving to New Hampshire and later fleeing the american empire. Unfortunately, I'm running out of steam for writing this letter, so I'm sure you've run out of steam and time to read it.

One of the many books dad is never going to write inspired this one. I know I took his treatise on eschatology and turned it into a practical tool, but you grab truth where you can find it. I don't know how much I need to expound on the heading, it seems straightforward enough.




So, what?

This collection of beliefs and lessons has obviously influenced my worldview at large. I think I've spent far too much space and time exploring these ideas, so I will try to wrap this up quickly. Really, I can't understand why you would be so dismissive and crude about the things I have come to understand and what I intend to do. I totally understand disagreeing, as we have always had disagreements, but those disagreements were (generally) calm and rational. Yelling, name-calling, and repeating fallacies is unproductive and neither calm nor rational. It certainly won't change my mind as previous discussions have.

I don't find the beliefs I have to be too extreme. Due to the dignity of the human person, no one has the right to murder, coerce, or steal from another. One has a duty to life, in the fullest philosophical sense of the words. One has an obligation to uphold whatever responsibilities and obligations one takes one. One must have rational justification for one's actions, derived from these first principles.

I find myself in a position where I have taken on the responsibility for the well-being of four other people whom I love dearly. I have this responsibility in the midst of a disturbing situation. This situation is one where I live in a culture centered on misanthropy and death. A society where myself and my children are treated as livestock, coerced into various behaviors by the perpetual threat of murder, routinely stolen from, and ridiculed for pointing these things out. A brief study of history demonstrates an unavoidable cycle of imperialism, where we are currently in one of those cycles, and the fates of those unable to predict such historical cycles. Most importantly, the situation is such that a murderous gang of kidnappers with no accountability, far more firepower than I possess, and a predilection for kidnapping children from those who have beliefs such as mine operates in my neighborhood (funded by the money stolen from me, no less).

A simple cost/benefit analysis revels a clear course of action, especially when the well-being of my children, all the way down to the state of their immortal souls, hangs in the balance. We must assess what fundamental needs we have, what desires we have, and how to change our environment to best fulfill those needs. In order to achieve the flourishing we seek, we must be able to avoid or counter the coercion, murder, and theft we may encounter. That is categorically impossible where we currently live, therefore we must go somewhere else. We must go somewhere where we will either not encounter such things or have more of a fair fight against them. The simple matter of fact is that it is too late in this place to fight back and I don't want myself or my children to face the circumstances that naive Catholics have been faced with in first-century Rome, 18th century Prussia, 20th Century Poland/Germany/France, and at least a dozen other places and times.

I am fully aware that I am to be a martyr, but martyrdom comes in all shapes and sizes. I would like to be a martyr worth emulation, even if never recognized by historians. I would not hesitate to kill or die for my children, so why should I hesitate to forego creature comforts and worldly status? If the status quo is such that I could take advantage of criminal activity, imperial decadence, and misanthropic agendas if only I would forego my conscience or “move to Somalia”, I would side with morality, reason, and my conscience. Not for my sake, but for my kids, so that they will not have this dilemma foisted on them because I didn't feel like addressing it.

I don't need you to understand. I don't need you to agree or condone my ideas or actions. What I need is to understand you, your actions, and help giving you a chance to prove me wrong. I wrote this down so you could read it at leisure and approach the discussion more calmly and rationally and so that you could see that I still value our relationship and your opinions, even if they are wrong.

 Welcome to “honor part two”. Wonderful, right? I spent a good fifteen minutes of your life rambling about ancient concepts that are quite evidently dead, and the best way I can find to spend another fifteen is with a sequel. If you bear with me, I can show you what I see.

Something I did not articulate in the last post is that honor, in its purest ultimate form, is unobtainable by humans; the human condition is such that perfection is unobtainable in this lifetime. We still ought to try, though. No human being has ever demonstrated that they were entirely consistent, self-sufficient, powerful, courageous, just, and intelligent. Instead those that are honored are honored for specific ways in which they demonstrate virtue, not for being perfect. One could honor a soldier's combat prowess while also acknowledging the fact that he is a murderer or honor a bank robber's tactical reasoning while also acknowledging that he is a looter.

This is important because there are people we can look at and say, “I want to have the athletic skill of that man, so I will emulate him... but, unlike him, I'm going to try to avoid doing drugs and beating my girlfriend.” Similarly, one can say that someone is a “good thief” or a “good cop” in that they excel at a profession, while still being aware that the profession in question is immoral. If you haven't noticed yet, I avoid using the words “good” and “bad” with regards to ethics, as our language equates “good” with utility and “bad” with discomfort, neither of which apply in ethics. In this way, honorable action can appear to take on a multitude of incongruent forms.

The character of an honorable man does share certain commonalities across every specific instance of honor, though. They are active, personally engaging their environment in a manner which is efficacious. They are consistent, not stumbling into being honorable but instead consistently acting in accordance with principles for action. They are defiant, not in the way of being stubborn and childish, but in a virile and confident resistance against injustice, misfortune, or the petty squabbles of lesser men.

The aged farmer clawing food from a drought-scorched field, a spartan blocking the advance of Xerxes' army, the scholar pursuing the truth in a society of liars, the Batman pursuing justice in a city of criminals, and the father leading his family to refuge from wicked men are all examples of honorable action. Looking at all of these examples, which I argue to be a representative sample, we will find several commonalities. They each face adversity in some form or another, whether it be the result of personal choices or environmental misfortune. They determine an appropriate course of action, whether it be fight or flight. They are willing and able to sacrifice everything they have in order to pursue that course of action. They do not expect others to do their work for them. Most importantly, though, they are not inviolate. Not planning ahead, resorting to misanthropic agendas, mis-diagnosing the problem, not living life in a manner consistent with achieving flourishing, reliance on vice, naivete, the list of shortcomings is quite long.

So, we're halfway into a post titled “The Death of Honor” and I'm still continuing last post. What is the death of honor? Ultimately, the death of honor happened at the hands of the puritans. One day, I will share my full indictment against puritanism, but today really has little to do with puritanism; it merely dispatched a decrepit shell of what honor once was. Most of the work was done by the state.

It is no secret among historians that the sate, any state, has a vested interest in concentrating and standardizing populations. There is a fair amount of scholarship as to why this is the case; most popular and accessible of which is the writings of James C. Scott. The only reason pertinent to this discussion is that of dependence. If the state is to justify its theft and coercion, it must convince its victims that they need the state to commit these crimes for the sake of their survival. By securing the infrastructure for urban environments and taking advantage of the human tendency towards paranoia in crowded spaces, the state can convince its victims that without the state no one could build the roads or protect them.

I am certain you can already understand why the attitude of dependence is antithetical to the concept of honor but, before I address that, I want to address population concentration. I briefly touched on the Dunbar number before, and the time has come again. The Dunbar number is basically an expression of the reality that the human person is constructed such that one can maintain only a limited number of meaningful interpersonal relationships. Honor is closely tied to that number; normal honorable acts can only effectively serve as setting an example within a community of a few hundred people at most, and extraordinary honorable acts are limited to a couple thousand. I am currently working on an “Intro to the Dunbar Number” post, but for now, I will have to direct people here if they want to learn more about it.

Ultimately, by concentrating populations greater in number and density than the human person is built to handle, individuals are forced to begin interacting with other individuals as if they were merely objects in their environment. An object is not given attributions of things such as honor and virtue. One doesn't have the ability to legitimately honor the girl making one's coffee, the man taking away one's trash, or often even one's own grandfather, simply due to ignorance and the constraints of the lifestyle of a population-dense area.

“Now, wait a minute,” you're saying, “What about Martin Luther King, John Paul II, and Murray Rothbard?” Well, they're dead... so... “Ok. How about Pope Fancis, Stan Lee, and Edward Snowden?” These people certainly have done honorable things that are worth emulation, but have you ever met one of these three? Do you go out for coffee together, go to the same school, church, or bar? Unless you know them personally, you only know a story of a thing they did. These stories are quite useful in demonstrating socially preferable behavior, but only in the same way that Hector, Moses, or Bruce Wayne demonstrate such behavior: as mythology. In concentrating populations to unhealthy degrees, honor becomes an attribute of myth as opposed to man.

More importantly, the mindset of dependence which is instilled by excessive population density is strictly antithetical to the development of honor. Where honor requires that one takes responsibility for one's situation, good or bad, and takes the initiative to improve that situation, dependence insists that the work be done by someone else and that the credit, good or bad, should go to that someone else. When a king conscripts labor to build the roads and aqueducts according to a central plan, he is credited by those that develop a dependence on those commodities. When the kings' men stop neighbors from invading or pillaging, the king is credited for that security. When the kings' men pillage and invade, it is seen as the necessary cost of these other things. Out in the fields, though, men are left to their own devices and still successfully travel, procure water, and ward off aggressors with little or no assistance from the king. These activities engender spirit of self-sufficiency, productive action, and responsibility, which overrides any sense of dependency and encourages honorable action. A less-than-perfect but only recently lost example is the anti-or-small-government sentiment amongst bands of farmers and other producers in rural areas of North America.

The modern democratic equivalent of this dependency vs. honor paradigm is readily available, however. The common citizen saying “there ought to be a law”, and attempting to accomplish one's own ends by use of the ballot box as opposed to direct action is dependent upon his domesticators, whilst the “outlaw” identifies a need, whether it be a market demand or the homeless needing food, and fulfills that need, the law be damned. It may very well be honorable to grab a weapon and interject oneself between a murderer and his victim whether it is a back-alley assault, an abortion, or an ISIS beheading, but there is no honor in demanding that someone else do so. It may be honorable to advocate good causes and to expose misanthropy, but there is no honor in demanding that others should compel good behavior or kill those that exhibit bad behavior. It is even a possibility that there could be honor in assaulting me for my possessions, but there is no honor in sending someone else to do so.

The state is the death of honor. In order to restore this essential virtue, one must establish a geographically local community with a reasonable number of members and engender in themselves the virtues on which honor depends. In the interim, one ought to do what they can to become honorable whilst establishing deep, authentic relationships with friends, family, employers, customers, etc. Stop asking “is it legal?” and start asking “what is just and righteous?”
One cannot obtain external freedom without first becoming free internally.

TL;DR: Honor requires that one be willing and able to assess a situation and take matters into their own hands. The ethos ingrained in subjects of the state is antithetical to these requirements. So long as a culture is dependent on reputation systems, laws and their enforcement, and a mentality of irresponsibility, honor will remain dead. If someone may be faced with the need to call 911 or is anxious to keep their gold stars, they are not free. Without honor, freedom is impossible.


Also, you'll have to bear with me on the wonkiness of my recordings.  Audacity keeps doing something weird and I haven't been able to figure it out just yet.

Several weeks ago, I made a post about the opposite of honor. It is long overdue that I should address the root of all social virtues: honor. One will notice that I write more about the handful of things that one should not do as opposed to what one ought to do. Today, I intend to shrink that ratio a little bit. What is honor? Isn't it some ancient concept that society has advanced beyond? Isn't honor something like following the orders of your superior? That's not very anarchist... Wouldn't an anarchist denounce honor societies out-of-hand?

A more important issue to address than these questions lurks behind the ivory paywalls of academic literature and the veil of history. Modern conceptions of honor are, fundamentally, the opposite of the true nature of honor. Popular culture and medieval theological writings conceive of honor as dutiful obedience to one's leaders and adhering to social norms. This conception of honor is comically shallow and presents a great deal of self-contradiction, as is explored by numerous sci-fi and fantasy works. I don't have the space and time right now to address this unintended straw man and all of it's problems which have been created by history. Instead, I will have to simply define and describe true honor. So, forget anything that you have seen about honor that was produced since Marcus Aurelius, and come with me to the ancient world.

-cue time-travel harp and ancient-sounding music-

Ancient Greece, a region populated with several dozen city-states: some of them more free than others, some of them ruled by kings, some ruled by mobs of slave owners, some of them were pseudo-hierarchical warrior cultures. This region and time is credited with the birth of philosophy as we know it as well as serving as the foundation of western culture. It was also a time and a place, like all places and times with states, a region constantly faced with the prospect of war. In order to flourish in such a region, one would have to either submit to being owned by a powerful man or engender virtues in oneself such so as to be self-sufficient.

There are different types of virtue, and flourishing in its fullness requires all of the virtues, but today is devoted to one specific virtue. Honor is a social virtue. It is an internal, personal disposition to certain behaviors that concern themselves with one's relationships with others. Honor is a virtue that can only be developed in community, but what is it?

The original words for honor, which later became the Greek kleos and the Latin dignitas, originally meant something akin to “trophy”. It was a physical object which represented an accomplishment that would be given from the community to the individual responsible for the accomplishment. Most often, honors were the spoils of war granted to the soldier who demonstrated how one ought to conduct themselves in battle. Other times, though, honors would be granted to those who demonstrated how one ought to innovate, parent, lead, teach, or even farm. These honors would be given publicly and were expected to be displayed publicly. Over time, honors as physical trophies became overshadowed by honor as a social reputation. An honorable person was one who demonstrated a paradigm behavior that others could acknowledge. In this way, honor was essentially setting the example.

During this time, there existed an interesting linguistic situation. The word for honor represented a single, integral concept that modern languages have teased apart and made two diametrically opposed terms: honor and shame. Honor, like many ancient concepts, was a very complex and rich tradition which defies surface exploration. It was a trophy, a reputation, and a feeling all bundled into one. These were nearly indistinguishable from each other and the same term applied to each of the three independently at times. When one received or established their honor, they would have a particular set of feelings associated with that accomplishment.

When put on a pedestal, one ought to feel self-satisfied and proud, even. One ought to be humbled by others' recognition of one's accomplishments, and feel a certain degree of self-consciousness or nervousness. I'm not saying this as an introvert who doesn't like attention, but because of the nature of honor; at the heart of honor is an expectation of integrity and consistency. Having demonstrated one's character such so as to be granted honor means that the village children will be pointed to oneself as the role-model: “You see, little Apollonius, if you want to be magnanimous, try to be like Alexander, son of Phillip.” Alexander ought to feel the eyes of his neighbors and inferiors on him at all times, scrutinizing his actions.

Alexander has no obligation to his inferiors. He has no moral obligation to uphold his honor, especially since it would have to be given to him from someone else, freely and without solicitation lest it would be meaningless (much like the medals on a President's uniform). Meaningful honor cannot be granted to one's self. Of course, if Alexander drops the ball, finding work may become difficult. There is a certain circumstance of expectation for one with honor which must be taken into account if one wishes to flourish.

These feelings and circumstances should look familiar to those acquainted with the modern religious concept of shame. Initially, as western cultures developed terms for shame, it was essentially synonymous with humility. Not the flimsy Thomist “just roll over and take it” version, but the ancient stoic “don't exaggerate your accomplishments, just be aware that you are being watched and let your actions speak for themselves” version. Shame originally meant “the feeling you should get concerning your honor,” which used to be the meaning for the word “honor” when used in the context of feelings.

Incidentally, some cultures would honor undesirable behavior, as well. One would be honored for their cowardice, dishonesty, or promiscuity. In which case, the shame felt would be more akin to the popular modern conception of the term. This specifically, is simply a fun bit of trivia as far as the issue at hand is concerned, but it may come up in later posts.

What is important to the issue at hand? So far, we've only tried to clear up some small degree of confusion regarding a term that has been repeatedly co-opted throughout history. We haven't really defined or described it. So, what is honor and what does it look like? As I already said, honor is a social virtue: a virtue pertaining to the manner in which one relates to others. It is essentially setting the example. What kind of example?

An example of virtue. Ancient virtue. Virtue, as a Latin word, really means “manliness'. Manliness meaning “the paradigm example of what a human ought to look like, in appearance and behavior.” I will make a post later about virtue specifically, but for now I will focus on the attributes of honor. Honor is a demonstration of virtues such as integrity, justice, courage, and self-actualization. A man of honor, ultimately, is a man who is free and willing to do the most righteous thing without the aid or encouragement of others. Instead of saying “someone ought to do X” or “There ought to be a law”, a man of honor simply does X and demonstrates how it ought to be done without seeking payment or recognition.

Clearly, honor is a virtue largely contingent upon other virtues. One cannot, for example, step-in when someone is committing a crime against someone unable or unwilling to defend themselves unless one first possess virtues like courage, magnanimity, and the martial virtues. One cannot engage in intellectual pursuits and eloquently and passionately introduce others to esoteric knowledge unless one first possesses the virtues of diligence, discipline, and reason. Unlike crime, honor is more fluid and less axiomatic in its specifics. However, it's definition is quite helpful in identifying honor when one witnesses it. Honor is a character trait whereby one is prone to consistently demonstrating exceptional virtue in their interactions with others.

Remember, anarchy is a philosophy of responsibility. In the absence of the perpetual threat of murder for disobedience to arbitrary moral claims, alternative cultures of cooperation must endure. Honor, shame, and social relationships have always been crucial to the functioning of free societies.


TL;DR: Instead of confusing honor with a pseudo-Christian bastardization of servitude and approval from one's masters, one ought to read ancient Greek ad Roman stoics and scholarship concerning them. Honor is centered on the social virtue of living well and setting the example as to how one ought to flourish.

Who is John Galt?

Red, black, and yellow? Is that some Illuminati Jew symbol? Didn't you put an uglier version of this logo on last post? What's wrong with the nice, simple, easily dismissed anarchy Ⓐ you were using? Why should I care about a picture on a blog I don't read? These are all legitimate questions.

The new logo, like the blog itself, is intended to be a conversation starter. The idea for this design actually emerged as a result of my frustrations in trying to find a lapel pin with a respectable-looking anarchy Ⓐ. I eventually gave up and said, “I will have to design my own.” Of course, if one has to design their own product (especially a costly product), there is no excuse for not designing it in a manner consistent with one's own desires.

My desire for a lapel pin that looked nice but also looked like the anarchy Ⓐ was to be able to start conversations in the least obnoxious way one could start such conversations, like a sort of respectable bumper-sticker. Of course, if I were to ever encounter someone who is even slightly educated with regards to the history of modern political thought or the philosophy of anarchy, the simple red and black Ⓐ may cause some confusion.

Wait, what? Isn't the red Ⓐ the definitive anarchy logo? Haven't you made the case that anarchy is, as a philosophy, incredibly simple and straightforward? It's the rejection of criminal institutions. Simple and straight forward.

It is simple in theory, but humans tend to make things more complicated when putting them into practice. Time for a history lesson. One upon a time, avoidance of coercion, theft, and murder were widely the daily routine. Free exchange of goods and services and people minding their own business was far more common than kings stealing, armies murdering, and sheriffs enforcing, statistically speaking. As social technologies and infrastructures develop and become more efficient, the daily freedom of action diminished due to efficiency in government. After a time, empire collapses and freedom returns. Rinse and repeat.

I am speaking vaguely and mythologically on purpose, as this narrative is cyclical and each cycle consists of generations at a time. In the course of a more recent cycle (circa 19th century AD), a certain philosopher named Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is credited with resurrecting an ancient Greek concept called anarchism. The anarchy he resurrected was, philosophically, in its nascent stages. The Greeks that were prone to mentioning anarchy always did so from the perspective of statism and provided very little development before passing the torch to gnostics and other heretics in the early centuries AD, which did not bode well for the philosophy's development under christian empires. As a philosophy, it is motivated by the same moral principles today as it was at its inception, but a great many more considerations have been provided with regards to the necessary conclusions of those moral principles.

Proudhon's infant anarchy was a radical reaction to imperial statism and institutional violations of human rights. In his fully justifiable fervor to do away with that which is inherently criminal and misanthropic, Proudhon made the mistake of throwing out several ideas that were misrepresented to him and institutions that were not inherently criminal but only incidentally so. Influenced by the popular philosophical zeitgeist of modernism and communism, witnessing the historical relationship between the Church and the state, and the state-like behavior of aristocratic industrialists, Prudhon rejected the ideas of religion and capitalism. This mistake made his particular brand of anarchism indistinguishable from secular communism in practice: a violent revolution of the poor against their oppressors and those who resembled their oppressors in favor of a social justice warrior utopia of violent atheist egalitarianism. The classic punk-rock anarchist Ⓐ is commonly associated with this brand of anarchism, “anarcho-communism” as it is now known.

Something needs to be made clear here. Two things, actually. First, even though I used to be a straight-up commie when I was younger, I am not an ancom. Second, Proudhon was correct in rejecting the state-like behavior of the industrialist aristocracy and the Church's use of state violence in pursuit of worldly power. The mistake was believing these crimes to be intrinsic to the philosophies of capitalism and religion instead of a result of individual human failings or the influence of the state.

Fortunately, the philosophy of anarchism has not yet waned. Others have taken up the mantle of anarchism from Proudhon and further refined and developed the philosophy. Most notable of which are likely Spooner, Rothbard, and Mencken. Something all three share in common is the fact that they were all economists. Real economists, not Keynesian socialist bullshit artists... Austrian economists. They were also abolitionists. In the moral pursuit of eradicating the crimes and slavery of the state, they applied their understanding of the human condition, as received from economics, and cleaned up anarchism. They saw the political correctness, feminism, egalitarianism, and socialism embraced by ancoms for what it is: statism.

In response to the red and black ancoms, these second-generation anarchists billed themselves anarcho-capitalists, agorists, voluntarists, and a handful of other names. Being economically minded, these men were more aware of the marketing challenges of advocating freedom in a slave society. Some boldly called themselves anarchists, trying to reclaim the truth; others, justifiably, took the easier and arguably more productive route of adopting wholeheartedly the name, “voluntarist” (or voluntaryist). This, more human-friendly, brand of anarchism took on the yellow and black V of voluntarism to differentiate themselves from its communist progenitor, while still hearkening back to its heritage.

Something else must be made clear here, as well. No, I'm not an ancap. More importantly, the excessive focus on voluntary interaction and economics has come at the expense of an awareness of a deeper, more fundamental, aspect of anarchy. If one's rights are directed at the goal of human flourishing, there must be more ethical rigor and development beyond simply determining whether or not an action was voluntarily assented to. Anarcho-capitalism (aka real capitalism) may also present certain complications in practice, not as severe as the practical results of anarcho-communism, mind you, but results which resemble the environment which produced Proudhon in the first place. In a society devoid of the pernicious influences of government and absent a more developed ethics, a feudal-grade series of corporate rentership fiefdoms is likely to develop. One needs to look no further than Google, Facebook, or Goldman-Sachs to get a taste of what this would look like. If you see nothing wrong with any of these companies... just go back to sleep.

If I am not an ancom or a voluntarist (ancap), what am I? Well, as far as this conversation is concerned, I am an anarchist. I reject all belief in institutions predicated on coercion, theft, or murder. I recognize my responsibility to secure my rights to liberty and property in pursuit of flourishing and acknowledge the same in others. I pursue the abolition of slavery, including the slavery of the state. I believe human interaction is largely voluntary and all agreements and exchanges ought to be voluntary, but that is not a necessary result of anarchism, not the point of origin, nor is it the goal. I believe that, in a state-run society, the truly rich are such at the expense of those who cannot purchase their freedom from the law, but I am not opposed to the legitimate acquisition of material wealth or social influence.

So, the new logo is designed to be identifiable to one with even a basic exposure to anarchy, in either of its popular brands. It is designed to convey that I am either a mixture of both or neither. It is designed to look cool, obviously, and it is designed to resemble a hex or Illuminati doo-dilly because everything is. Most importantly, it is designed to start conversations. As a lapel pin, it can start real conversations, IRL. As a simple logo on a website, it can serve as an identifier for my radical notions and aggressive philosophizing.

Best of all, it can instigate conversations amongst anarchists. We need more discussion amongst ourselves, to try and better understand our own position more deeply. I would love to see Christopher Cantwell, Sloane Frost, and Brian Sovryn go on a retreat together for a weekend. We can all benefit from sharpening our teeth on each other and forging deeper friendships and support structures, as free men are a small minority in today's world. As I pointed out in “Is Anarchy a Bad Word?”, we face a tough marketing challenge against an institution with a mandatory 15,000 hour child indoctrination system; every little bit helps.

Remember, more important that changing people's minds by way of symbols or rhetoric is to simply do what is right and pursue flourishing. Setting the example has always been more productive than arguments or advertising. Without an identifier and an explanation, though, the example set will be too esoteric for others to follow.


Tl;DR: The red and black Ⓐ is typically associated with anarcho-communism. The yellow and black V is typically associated with anarcho-capitalists (aka voluntarists). The new logo, a work in progress, is supposed to be suffix-agnostic, so it's got both logos integrated in one simple design. Please give feedback on the history lesson, the logo itself, or on the idea behind the logo. Also, Please, please, let me know if you would be interested in purchasing a lapel pin at a reasonable price. Manufacturing the pins requires a certain large number be ordered at once, due to the casting model that is used. I can only get my pin if I want hundreds of them or if enough people want to reimburse me for their own pin, thereby reducing the cost to me.

This article, by Murray Rothbard, was originally published in the Libertarian Forum, Vol. 10, No. 7, July 1977.

I have been ruminating recently on what are the crucial questions that divide libertarians. Some that have received a lot of attention in the last few years are: anarcho-capitalism vs. limited government, abolitionism vs. gradualism, natural rights vs. utilitarianism, and war vs. peace. But I have concluded that as important as these questions are, they don't really cut to the nub of the issue, of the crucial dividing line between us.

Let us take, for example, two of the leading anarcho-capitalist works of the last few years: my own For a New Liberty and David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom. Superficially, the major differences between them are my own stand for natural rights and for a rational libertarian law code, in contrast to Friedman's amoralist utilitarianism and call for logrolling and trade-offs between nonlibertarian private police agencies. But the difference really cuts far deeper. There runs through For a New Liberty (and most of the rest of my work as well) a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind. In contrast, it is evident that David does not hate the State at all; that he has merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire, which in turn is better than the current system. Amidst the entire spectrum of political alternatives, David Friedman has decided that anarcho-capitalism is superior. But superior to an existing political structure which is pretty good too. In short, there is no sign that David Friedman in any sense hates the existing American State or the State per se, hates it deep in his belly as a predatory gang of robbers, enslavers, and murderers. No, there is simply the cool conviction that anarchism would be the best of all possible worlds, but that our current set-up is pretty far up with it in desirability. For there is no sense in Friedman that the State — any State — is a predatory gang of criminals.

The same impression shines through the writing, say, of political philosopher Eric Mack. Mack is an anarcho-capitalist who believes in individual rights; but there is no sense in his writings of any passionate hatred of the State, or, a fortiori, of any sense that the State is a plundering and bestial enemy.

Perhaps the word that best defines our distinction is "radical." Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and antistatism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul.

Furthermore, in contrast to what seems to be true nowadays, you don't have to be an anarchist to be radical in our sense, just as you can be an anarchist while missing the radical spark. I can think of hardly a single limited governmentalist of the present day who is radical — a truly amazing phenomenon, when we think of our classical-liberal forbears who were genuinely radical, who hated statism and the States of their day with a beautifully integrated passion: the Levellers, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine, Joseph Priestley, the Jacksonians, Richard Cobden, and on and on, a veritable roll call of the greats of the past. Tom Paine's radical hatred of the State and statism was and is far more important to the cause of liberty than the fact that he never crossed the divide between laissez-faire and anarchism.

And closer to our own day, such early influences on me as Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, and Frank Chodorov were magnificently and superbly radical. Hatred of "Our Enemy, the State" (Nock's title) and all of its works shone through all of their writings like a beacon star. So what if they never quite made it all the way to explicit anarchism? Far better one Albert Nock than a hundred anarcho-capitalists who are all too comfortable with the existing status quo.

Where are the Paines and Cobdens and Nocks of today? Why are almost all of our laissez-faire limited governmentalists, plonky conservatives, and patriots? If the opposite of "radical" is "conservative," where are our radical laissez-fairists? If our limited statists were truly radical, there would be virtually no splits between us. What divides the movement now, the true division, is not anarchist vs. minarchist, but radical vs. conservative. Lord, give us radicals, be they anarchists or no.

To carry our analysis further, radical anti-statists are extremely valuable even if they could scarcely be considered libertarians in any comprehensive sense. Thus, many people admire the work of columnists Mike Royko and Nick von Hoffman because they consider these men libertarian sympathizers and fellow-travelers. That they are, but this does not begin to comprehend their true importance. For throughout the writings of Royko and von Hoffman, as inconsistent as they undoubtedly are, there runs an all-pervasive hatred of the State, of all politicians, bureaucrats, and their clients which, in its genuine radicalism, is far truer to the underlying spirit of liberty than someone who will coolly go along with the letter of every syllogism and every lemma down to the "model" of competing courts.

Taking the concept of radical vs. conservative in our new sense, let us analyze the now famous "abolitionism" vs. "gradualism" debate. The latter jab comes in the August issue of Reason (a magazine every fiber of whose being exudes "conservatism"), in which editor Bob Poole asks Milton Friedman where he stands on this debate. Freidman takes the opportunity of denouncing the "intellectual cowardice" of failing to set forth "feasible" methods of getting "from here to there." Poole and Friedman have between them managed to obfuscate the true issues. There is not a single abolitionist who would not grab a feasible method, or a gradual gain, if it came his way. The difference is that the abolitionist always holds high the banner of his ultimate goal, never hides his basic principles, and wishes to get to his goal as fast as humanly possible. Hence, while the abolitionist will accept a gradual step in the right direction if that is all that he can achieve, he always accepts it grudgingly, as merely a first step toward a goal which he always keeps blazingly clear. The abolitionist is a "button pusher" who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately, if such a button existed. But the abolitionist also knows that alas, such a button does not exist, and that he will take a bit of the loaf if necessary — while always preferring the whole loaf if he can achieve it.

It should be noted here that many of Milton's most famous "gradual" programs such as the voucher plan, the negative income tax, the withholding tax, fiat paper money — are gradual (or even not so gradual) steps in thewrong direction, away from liberty, and hence the militance of much libertarian opposition to these schemes.

His button-pushing position stems from the abolitionist's deep and abiding hatred of the State and its vast engine of crime and oppression. With such an integrated worldview, the radical libertarian could never dream of confronting either a magic button or any real-life problem with some arid cost-benefit calculation. He knows that the State must be diminished as fast and as completely as possible. Period.

And that is why the radical libertarian is not only an abolitionist, but also refuses to think in such terms as a Four Year Plan for some sort of stately and measured procedure for reducing the State. The radical — whether he be anarchist or laissez-faire — cannot think in such terms as, e.g., "Well, the first year, we'll cut the income tax by 2 percent, abolish the ICC, and cut the minimum wage; the second year we'll abolish the minimum wage, cut the income tax by another 2 percent, and reduce welfare payments by 3 percent, etc." The radical cannot think in such terms, because the radical regards the State as our mortal enemy, which must be hacked away at wherever and whenever we can. To the radical libertarian, we must take any and every opportunity to chop away at the State, whether it's to reduce or abolish a tax, a budget appropriation, or a regulatory power. And the radical libertarian is insatiable in this appetite until the State has been abolished, or — for minarchists — dwindled down to a tiny, laissez-faire role.

Many people have wondered: Why should there be any important political disputes between anarcho-capitalists and minarchists now? In this world of statism, where there is so much common ground, why can't the two groups work in complete harmony until we shall have reached a Cobdenite world, after which we can air our disagreements? Why quarrel over courts, etc. now? The answer to this excellent question is that we could and would march hand-in-hand in this way if the minarchists were radicals, as they were from the birth of classical liberalism down to the 1940s. Give us back the antistatist radicals, and harmony would indeed reign triumphant within the movement.