I believe or intuit a faith: that I should work with others to establish, defend, and propagate a decent civilization for reasonably availing the freedom of expression and enterprise of its citizens. Apart from direct intuition, or as an aspect of conscious faith, I cannot prove the validity of such a belief ---- not as a derivative of logic, nor as being necessarily consistent with empirical experience. Rather, I take such belief as a priori given, an innate aspect of the condition of being human, a foundation upon which I base all philosophy. That faith seems innate to my consciousness. If it does not seem innate to yours, so be it. I recognize that others may not share that faith, and they may even be antagonistic to it. When they believe and behave antagonistic to it, I see little reason why I should tolerate them, beyond what may be convenient. Some consider such faith to be meaningless, irrelevant, or a hindrance to philosophical progress. There are many who claim, incoherently, not to accept, act upon, or believe anything or any faith unless it can be demonstrated consistent with logic or material experience. Insofar as faith cannot be demonstrated consistent with logic or material experience, such persons render themselves irrelevant to any moral pursuit that may be superior to logic or to material experience. Insofar as moral "oughts" cannot be derived from material existence, such persons render their philosophies mainly meaningless, irrelevant, or of hindrance to moral progress. Insofar as such persons (analytic positivists) disdain all that cannot be quantitatively considered, they necessarily concentrate on how the distribution of that which constitutes material goods can be measured, perhaps to ascertain what is the mean distribution or what would be necessary to effect more equal distribution, thus to compare their worth in respect of a material scale. Such persons have no moral precept by which to advocate that government "should" in any way redistribute material wealth. The foundation of their philosophy is directly antithetical to any notion of "should." When such a person claims his philosophy is not antithetical to moral advocacy, he is either incoherent or seeking to profit by deploying deception. How can he profit by advocating for governmental enforced redistribution of material wealth? Well, at least two ways: First, he can enlist the fascist force of numbers, by inculcating others to help his advocacy, as by conditioning them to believe they ought to be entitled to equal shares in whatever any other may produce. Second, building on skill for living a lie, he can plan ways to backstab fellow fascists when they least expect it. He can finance protesters to seek stimulus bills designed mainly to transfer fiat wealth to skilled sociopaths. After all, nothing in his philosophy forbids it. By living such a lie, he maximizes his opportunities to experience short term pleasure, survival, and replication of his genes and memes by mating with such persons as he is able to condition, hoodwink, or subjugate. Living such a lie, he becomes ever more facile in rationalizing it among all whose thinking may be slowed by more deliberately seeking more worthwhile philosophy to devote themselves to. As Chris Matthews may say, Life's a campaign. There abides a clear choice among paths: seek fulfillment by devoting oneself to a search for truth and higher morality; or devote oneself to maximizing skills for tricking all others out of short term pleasures. Responsible minded Americans tend to devote themselves to the first path; entitlement minded people devote themselves to the second. Neither truth nor morality can abide with the second.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
A Priori Truth and Morality
I believe or intuit a faith: that I should work with others to establish, defend, and propagate a decent civilization for reasonably availing the freedom of expression and enterprise of its citizens. Apart from direct intuition, or as an aspect of conscious faith, I cannot prove the validity of such a belief ---- not as a derivative of logic, nor as being necessarily consistent with empirical experience. Rather, I take such belief as a priori given, an innate aspect of the condition of being human, a foundation upon which I base all philosophy. That faith seems innate to my consciousness. If it does not seem innate to yours, so be it. I recognize that others may not share that faith, and they may even be antagonistic to it. When they believe and behave antagonistic to it, I see little reason why I should tolerate them, beyond what may be convenient. Some consider such faith to be meaningless, irrelevant, or a hindrance to philosophical progress. There are many who claim, incoherently, not to accept, act upon, or believe anything or any faith unless it can be demonstrated consistent with logic or material experience. Insofar as faith cannot be demonstrated consistent with logic or material experience, such persons render themselves irrelevant to any moral pursuit that may be superior to logic or to material experience. Insofar as moral "oughts" cannot be derived from material existence, such persons render their philosophies mainly meaningless, irrelevant, or of hindrance to moral progress. Insofar as such persons (analytic positivists) disdain all that cannot be quantitatively considered, they necessarily concentrate on how the distribution of that which constitutes material goods can be measured, perhaps to ascertain what is the mean distribution or what would be necessary to effect more equal distribution, thus to compare their worth in respect of a material scale. Such persons have no moral precept by which to advocate that government "should" in any way redistribute material wealth. The foundation of their philosophy is directly antithetical to any notion of "should." When such a person claims his philosophy is not antithetical to moral advocacy, he is either incoherent or seeking to profit by deploying deception. How can he profit by advocating for governmental enforced redistribution of material wealth? Well, at least two ways: First, he can enlist the fascist force of numbers, by inculcating others to help his advocacy, as by conditioning them to believe they ought to be entitled to equal shares in whatever any other may produce. Second, building on skill for living a lie, he can plan ways to backstab fellow fascists when they least expect it. He can finance protesters to seek stimulus bills designed mainly to transfer fiat wealth to skilled sociopaths. After all, nothing in his philosophy forbids it. By living such a lie, he maximizes his opportunities to experience short term pleasure, survival, and replication of his genes and memes by mating with such persons as he is able to condition, hoodwink, or subjugate. Living such a lie, he becomes ever more facile in rationalizing it among all whose thinking may be slowed by more deliberately seeking more worthwhile philosophy to devote themselves to. As Chris Matthews may say, Life's a campaign. There abides a clear choice among paths: seek fulfillment by devoting oneself to a search for truth and higher morality; or devote oneself to maximizing skills for tricking all others out of short term pleasures. Responsible minded Americans tend to devote themselves to the first path; entitlement minded people devote themselves to the second. Neither truth nor morality can abide with the second.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Dualism of the Quantitative and the Qualitative: To live in Quantitative harmony with this universe that we share, it seems one must attune one's mind and senses to space-time (gravity) as the aboriginal Source, force, or Field, which itself just exists, but cannot be derivatively defined, yet avails all quantities in respect of which all other quantitative aspects of our beingness are derived, correlative, or measured.
Ordinarily, I'm sympathetic to helping people see better lights. However, reason will not help change habits of thought that, although incoherent, have become fundamental to sense of self. Islamic societies have institutionalized a thousand years of practice in preserving mind enslavement. Islam has become synonymous with mind enslavement. America cannot stand, half free and half mind enslaved. Unfortunately, the half-free portion tends to be half-lobotomized with political correctness.
First thing we do, we need to come to senses about "religion." Understand that religion is something one respects because, of one's own free mind, one believes it's worthwhile --- either literally or figuratively. To internalize exterior forces that compel one to believe, contrary to one's mind, is not to practice religion. It's to practice being mind slave. It's to turn the First Amendment on its head. Dogma that asserts right to take the life of every person who comes no longer to believe in it, whatever else it may be, IS NOT RELIGION! Its anti-religious purpose is to undermine freedom of faith and mind. Law and decency be damned, Islam advocates superior right, by every means convenient to context, to incite hatred of all who are not mind captives.
Author says: "We must make it a criminal offense to preach hate under the rubric of religion or to misrepresent and lie about religion." I would go further. Islam itself is dogma for criminals. It has no rational relationship with practice of any traditional belief system that constitutes religion. Islam should in nowise be equated with religion, and should in nowise receive protection under the First Amendment. No more so than mind killers should be allowed to stand and recruit persons to plan and commit murders. Unfortunately, people of little insight above convenience have enriched Muslims and greased their infiltration against WesternCiv. Reversing this will not be easy, nor will it be done merely by changing a few laws. Movement must restore common sense, to stop tolerating further infestations of the evil mind virus that is Islam.
In the early Roman Kingdom, in the time of Camillus, the Falerians employed a similar teacher of callow youth. Every day, this teacher led his students a little more beyond the Falerian walls. He accustomed them to feel no danger, until at last he handed them over to Camillus. Rather than being impressed with this gift, Camillus felt the teacher's method of deceit was monstrous. So Camillus had the teacher's arms tied, and then he armed the students with scourges, to chastise the teached and drive him back to the city form whence he came. The NYT is like the disloyal teacher. Problem is, Obama is no Camillus.
Post a Comment