Friday, September 25, 2015

Drugs and Crime

There are several things which alter our behavior by altering our state of mind. One such thing is a book. Marx’s manuscripts cause criminal activity because they call attention to the arbitrary nature of the distribution of property. Thoreau’s essays cause criminal activity because they call attention to the arbitrary nature of man-made laws.

Can we rule out the possibility that the mechanisms by which certain drugs cause criminal activity follow a similar pattern to those by which books cause criminal activity? Are we certain that drugs do not produce a state of mind in which users become more aware of certain truths that are inconvenient for the ruling regime?

Perhaps when an underclass man uses drugs, he becomes more aware of the injustice to which he has been subjected by the ruling regime. Perhaps this is what causes him to behave in ways that are inconvenient for the regime. Perhaps the drug gives him the courage to stand up for his interests, rather than passively allowing himself to be deprived of his share of the material goods on the planet.

Not only is the underclass man deprived of his share of ownership in capital, he is also deprived of his drug of choice, the one thing that might have put him in a state of mind in which he could endure the ascetic lifestyle imposed upon him by the regime. If drug prohibition doesn't keep him from his drug of choice, it certainly makes the drug fabulously expensive, when it might have been as cheap as aspirin.

When the underclass man chooses to ransack and pillage society in order to pay for his drug of choice, I interpret this as society getting its just deserts for the manner in which it has treated him. It is not the underclass man who is to be blamed for his crimes, not when the regime is so cruel as to deprive him even of the few cheap things that would comfort him in his misery. When the underclass man breaks into my house and shoots me to get money for his drug of choice, this is fate delivering to me my just deserts for having done nothing while society abused him.

If the bourgeois believes drugs nullify the intellect, this is very likely because his primary experience with mind-altering substances is with ethanol. Ethanol also produces a vast array of cognitive alterations. But awareness of the regime’s injustice and the courage to rebel against it do not happen to be among them.

A regime that abhors criticism keeps its citizens fully immersed at all times. Its rule is like water to the fish. Such a regime permits those drugs which further submerge us in unawareness. But it never permits us to elevate ourselves to a state of awareness in which our aspirations might surpass the artificial boundaries the regime has imposed.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

The world is trying to crush your spirit

The world is trying to crush your spirit. You must fight with all your mind and all your strength to save yourself. The soulless market is trying to make you into a commodity, to be used as a means to its ends.

I'm here to remind you, you are not a means to an end. You are a unique spirit. No spirit like you has ever appeared in the universe before. None like you will ever appear again. The world is trying to deceive you into thinking you are an interchangeable part in a machine, so it can insert you into the machine and exploit you.

Rise up in defiance! Slay this malevolent force! Vanquish every last remnant of the army of ideology that seeks to transform your spirit into a consumer, a producer, a soldier, or any other part in the machine. Restore your spirit to its unique, irreplaceable path toward perfection.

Demand nothing from the world. What can the world give you that could begin to compare to the joy of seeking your own unique and irreplaceable path to perfection?

When a man asks you to go a mile with him, go two miles with him. But for God's sake, try on the way to dissuade him from the path to destruction.

You don't need what the world is selling. All the projects you need can be found in the deepest part of your soul where it is striving for perfection. All the tools you need can be found free of charge at your public library.

The goal of the businessmen who produce your entertainment and the salesmen who peddle it isn't to help you strive for perfection in the way you and you alone can. Their goal is to make money. They distract your from your true tasks, the task of perfecting your intellect, the task of drawing ever closer to God.

"Buy my product," they say. "Work in my factory!" These vipers have seduced us into thinking the flesh and its petty desires are worthy to rule the life of the spirit. They mislead each of us from our unique path to God, and put us instead on the treadmill in their factories. Banish these vipers from your spirit! Slay every last one of them.

The great and powerful, when seen rightly, are the lowest. It is among the despised and neglected we will find true heroes. Heap every celebrity image into the bonfire. As you see the smoke rising behind you, look toward the dawn of a new life, a life devoted to perfecting your spirit in the way you and you alone can.

Even Shakespeare may have written his plays with an eye on profit. He too tries to seduce his audience to win attention and gold. But compared to today's hucksters in Hollywood, he was an amateur. Sordid commercial aspects of art hadn't yet achieved the state of perfection they have today. This is precisely what recommends older works as more worthy of our attention, even as they are less able to command it.

Monday, September 7, 2015

A=A: The Principle of Identity and the Ethics of Accounting

Axiom A1: A = A

The axiom of identity is one of the fundamental axioms of logic. How does this identity work, exactly? Can I substitute anything for A? Let's try that:

0 = 0
1 = 1
Triangle = Triangle

Whoa! Triangle = Triangle? That's clearly false. There are many different triangles. So where did we go wrong?

People often ridicule the philosophy of free market apologist Ayn Rand as boiling down to this:

Premise: Existence exists.
Premise: A is A.
Conclusion: The free market is just and moral.

This might seem like a parody, but in fact the conclusion is not so far removed from the premises as it might at first seem.

Consider the following argument:

Premise P1: A = A
Lemma L1: dollar = dollar
Lemma L2: dollar in the hands of hero = dollar in the hands of villain
Lemma L3: dollar in the hands of starving person buying bread = dollar in the hands of billionaire buying another mansion

Now consider another argument:

Premise P2: A = A
Lemma L4: triangle = triangle
Lemma L5: isosceles triangle = scalene triangle

These arguments, at least to me, seem quite analogous. We lump different things under one concept, and then assert they are equal.

Now consider this argument:

Premise P3: In order for accountants to add their columns, every dollar must equal every other dollar.
Lemma L6: Therefore, every dollar is equal to every other dollar.

This pragmatic argument has its merits. We could also say, after all, that in order to prove geometric theorems, we must assume a straight line can be made joining two points. The geometer's use of points and lines as abstractions does violence to real objects, which never quite attain to the Platonic ideals of pointhood and linehood.

When a shop clerk turns away a gluttonous man so she can feed the poor, we call it discrimination. When a shop clerk turns away a poor man, we call it sound business sense. We have not eliminated discrimination. We have only reduced it to a single dimension. The multi-dimensional space of values has collapsed onto one axis, labeled in dollars.

Wisdom and virtue are outdated. In the brave new world what we need are accountants. We need men and women willing to set aside the subtleties of moral reasoning and assert in unison:

Dollar equals dollar. We don't discriminate.

When people ask troublesome questions, the script is set beforehand.

Child: Who is in need? Who has enough? 

Accountant: Dollar equals dollar. We don't discriminate.

Child: Why do we build mansions for the rich while the poor are homeless?

Accountant: Dollar equals dollar. We don't discriminate.

In eliminating all forms of discrimination but one, we seem to have outlawed racism. But have we? So long as money follows bloodlines, there is a race of rich and a race of poor. Accountants have made this form of racism into a science. They are professional racists.

My education taught me to instinctively side with the rich and powerful. It became second nature. I was always charming to rich people. And I always ignored the homeless. I didn't feel like a sinner. Everyone else was doing it. How could it be a sin?

We all know what it feels like to be despised and neglected. Even the most privileged child has felt lost and abandoned. We might respond by sympathizing with the despised and neglected. Or we might respond by seeking more privilege.

Virtue and wisdom are obsolete ideas. The modern world is ruled by a more scientific form of moral reasoning. Let E{P(X)} be the expected profit from activity X. To decide between two lines of conduct, C1 and C2, we use the following algorithm:

Algorithm A1:
E{P(C1)} > E{P(C2)} ?
Yes: Choose C1
No: Choose C2

Algorithm A1 is an algorithm of tremendous beauty. In its remarkable simplicity and brevity, it rivals the commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself.

Accountants rule corporations that destroy habitats. It's impossible to assign a value to an endangered species. Therefore accountants assign it a value of zero. A point on the y axis, when projected onto the x axis, ends at the origin. In the one-dimensional reasoning of accounting, a world with an endangered species and a world without it are identical.

Epistemic collectivism and individual conscience

When I see a homeless man, I assume he deserves his fate. This sets my conscience at ease as I walk by without offering help. I don’t rely on my own mind or my own conscience to guide my action. I rely on the collective mind. The collective mind has decided the homeless man will live on the street while I live in a house. Who am I to question its verdict?

I ask rich people, “Is it acceptable to live in luxury while other human beings suffer?” They laugh. “Of course it’s acceptable. Whatever we can get away with is acceptable.”

The rich man uses his own understanding without the guidance of another when he chooses whether to order quail or pheasant. I commend him for his intellectual independence. But as soon as we come to a moral question, he immediately refers us to the collective mind. “The collective mind has decided I am rich and the homeless must sleep on the street. Who am I to question?”

Anaxagoras and Anthony asked themselves whether it was acceptable to live in luxury while other human beings suffered. The answer, they decided, was no. They gave all their money to the poor to follow the path of reason.

But Anaxagoras and Anthony are in the minority, and the verdict of the collective mind is decided by the majority. When it comes to choosing entrées and wines, the rich man has exquisite taste. Potatoes and beer are beneath him. But when it comes to moral philosophy, he has no interest in the finest specimens. He is perfectly content to take his cues from the majority.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

The Criminal as Epistemic Hero

"Have the courage to use your own understanding without the guidance of another!" This is the profound and liberating advice of German philosopher Immanuel Kant. My society tells me the rich own everything and I own nothing. But when I use my own understanding without the guidance of those in power, I see the world belongs to all, not to a select few. So I break into the houses of the rich and steal their valuables.

The rich man lacks the courage to use his own understanding without the guidance of the socioeconomic system that tells him he is rich. The poor man lacks the courage to use his own understanding without the guidance of the socioeconomic system that tells him he is poor. It is the thief who is the true epistemic hero, who has the courage to use his own understanding, rather than cowering in meek epistemic submission before the appointed authorities.

For the past four decades, the distribution of wealth has become more and more unequal with each passing year. The declarations of those in power as to who owns what therefore become less and less plausible to those who use our own understanding without the guidance of another. Over these same four decades the population in our prisons has grown five times larger. Is this a coincidence?

The respectable bourgeois who never dares to question anything he is told is an epistemic villain. The criminal locked away in prison who dares to use his own understanding without the guidance of another is an epistemic hero. As in so many other cases, the exalted, when seen rightly, will be despised, and the despised, when seen rightly, will be exalted.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Boys Will Be Boys

As the boys began to organize the game, I was sure there must have been some mistake. Why on earth would boys deliberately set up an artificial antagonism, when we could be loving and caressing each other? It would be easy, I was sure, to straighten out the misunderstanding. I went around kissing each of the boys, showing them a form of loving interaction far more rewarding than any competitive game could ever be.

Of course things turned out a bit differently from what I expected. Rather than converting the boys to the way of loving kindness, I soon found myself in the offices of a psychiatrist recruited to modify my behavior to a form more acceptable in a competitive society.

The aim of psychiatry is to help patients "adjust" to the world they live in. Martin Luther King, in a brilliant 1963 speech, tried to grapple with the meaning of this. Everyone expected Dr. King would "adjust" his expectations and behavior so he could function normally in a world of bigotry and racism. What he did, we know from history, was just the opposite. He didn't change himself so he could live in the world. He changed the world to a world he could live in.

The competitive games adults play in corporate boardrooms are just as silly as the games boys played at recess. I don't intend to adapt myself to these foolish games. I intend to show the world a better way of being together, where loving kindness takes the place of competition.

If I give things away, the more I give the less I have. With love, however, it's different. The more love I give, the more I have. Love isn't a commodity to be carefully hoarded and distributed only to those who are worthy. It is something I can give to everyone, even to those who give me none in return.