Author: Bill Vallicella

Political Ponerology

Ponerology is the theological study of evil. Political ponerology is thus the political-scientific study of evil. A tip of the hat to Tony Flood for referring me to this Mises Wire review by Michael Rectenwald of Andrew M. Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology.  I just now ordered a copy from Amazon.

A new edition of Political Ponerology, by Andrew M. Łobaczewski, edited by Harrison Koehli, is now available on Amazon.1 This strange and provocative book argues that totalitarianism is the result of the extension of psychopathology from a group of psychopaths to the entire body politic, including its political and economic systems. Political Ponerology is essential reading for concerned thinkers and all sufferers of past and present totalitarianism. It is especially crucial today, when totalitarianism has once again emerged, this time in the West, where it is affecting nearly every aspect of life, including especially the life of the mind.

[. . .]

Speaking of ideology, Political Ponerology explains a phenomenon that had vexed me. How did Communist ideologues manage to convince the masses that they undertook their crimes for “the workers,” “the people,” or egalitarianism? But even more perplexing, how did the ideologues convince themselves that their crimes were for the good of the common man? Łobaczewski explains that totalitarian ideology operates on two levels; the terms of the original ideology are taken at face value by true believers, while the party insiders substitute secondary meanings for the same terms, and normal people are subjected to gaslighting. Only the cognoscenti, the psychopaths, know and understand the secondary meanings. They recognize that actions purportedly undertaken on behalf of “the workers” translate into the domination of the party and the state on behalf of the psychopaths themselves. The truth is the opposite of what the party insiders claim to be the case, and they know it. Political Ponerology thus explains the origin of “doublespeak,” which George Orwell portrays so well. Coincidentally, Łobaczewski finished Political Ponerology in 1984.

[. . .]

Łobaczewski argues that an adequate study of totalitarianism had hitherto been impossible because it had been undertaken in the wrong registers. It had been treated strictly in terms of economics, literature, ideology studies, history, religion, political science, and international politics, among other approaches. One is reminded of the literary accounts and studies of the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and Nazi Germany—of the classic works by Hannah Arendt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Václav Benda, Václav Havel, and many others. These made indispensable contributions but had, owing to no fault of their own, necessarily failed to grasp the root of the problem—namely, the psychopathological dimension of the inception and development of “pathocracy,” or rule by psychopaths.

The responses of normal human beings to the gross injustices and disfigurement of reality perpetrated by the ruling bodies had hitherto only been understood by members of the social body in terms of conventional worldviews. Emotionality and moral judgments blinded victims to what beset them. The deficiencies in the approaches of scholars, as well as the moralism of laypersons, had left pathocracy essentially misapprehended and likewise left humanity without any effective defenses against it. Łobaczewski redresses these deficiencies and provides these defenses. In this sense—that is, in using a scientific methodology to treat socialism—Łobaczewski’s work is analogous to Ludwig von Mises’s Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, first published one hundred years ago.

Madeleine Albright Dead at 84

I will now have to leave off calling her 'Madeleine None-Too-Bright,' at least for a time. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, et cetera. This Revolver piece covers the essentials. 

Unfortunately, Madeleine Albright’s long career represents all the failures and mistakes that, in just thirty years, have taken America from its superpower apex to the brink of imperial collapse.

Be it in Eastern Europe or the Middle East or East Asia, a United States that followed the exact opposite of Albright’s foreign policy vision would almost certainly be a richer, happier, and less divided nation than the fading colossus America has become in 2022.

Albright embraced America’s disastrous pattern of global interventionism

As Christopher Caldwell wrote of Albright back in 2003, “For her, every conflict is a replay of the Munich conference of 1938, with a camp of the ‘farsighted’ on one hand and a bunch of ‘appeasers’ on the other.” The best way to be farsighted, it turns out, was to be aggressive in using U.S. force abroad. Albright enjoyed referring to America as “the indispensable nation,” reflecting an assumption that every dispute and every crisis the world over needed, and would benefit from, U.S. meddling and oversight.

According to her own 2003 memoir, during her days as Secretary of State Albright feuded with then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, arguing in favor of more frequent and aggressive use of American military power abroad: “What’s the point of you saving this superb military for, Colin, if we can’t use it?”

For more than two decades, Albright’s toxic enthusiasm for military force has been the closest thing there is to conventional wisdom in Washington. It is not only the attitude that gave us the Iraq War and 20 years in Afghanistan, but also missile strikes in Syria, undeclared drone war in Yemen, and useless regime change in Libya.

But what really angered me about Albright was her talk of 'fascism' in connection with Donald J. Trump. She was a European who didn't know what fascism is:

Perhaps it makes total sense that such a feminized, passive-aggressive foreign policy tool was instituted by a female “trailblazer” with the childish view of international relations as a bunch of schoolchildren playing in the schoolyard with the United States as the schoolmarm spanking the “schoolyard bullies.”

Albright was a neurotic who saw “fascism” lurking everywhere, in need of aggressive confrontation

Ever since Donald Trump descended the escalator in 2015, America’s most powerful media and tech outlets have been shrieking about the danger of “fascism” in America, and have used this phantom fascism to justify ever-more-restrictive crackdowns on free speech and freedom of association. And Albright, for her part, was proud to lead the chorus in yelping about a fascist danger lurking everywhere, at home and abroad.

For Albright, fascism was indeed lurking everywhere, and the leaders of enemy states were nascent Hitlers in waiting. Fear of lurking fascism drove Albright’s desire to intervene in Kosovo and to contain Saddam Hussein. More recently, it motivated her attacks on domestic political foes. In 2019, in the twilight of her life, Albright published “Fascism: A Warning”, where she argues that fascism “now presents a more virulent threat to international peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II.” Naturally it’s all Donald Trump’s fault:

“I am drawn again to my conclusion that a Fascist is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have. Throughout my adult life, I have felt that America could be counted on to put obstacles in the way of any such leader, party, or movement. I never thought that, at age eighty, I would begin to have doubts.

The shadow looming over these pages is, of course, that of Donald Trump. … Trump is the first anti-democratic president in modern U.S. history. On too many days, beginning in the early hours, he flaunts his disdain for democratic institutions, the ideals of equality and social justice, civil discourse, civic virtues, and America itself. If transplanted to a country with fewer democratic safeguards, he would audition for dictator, because that is where his instincts lead. This frightening fact has consequences. The herd mentality is powerful in international affairs. Leaders around the globe observe, learn from, and mimic one another. They see where their peers are heading, what they can get away with, and how they can augment and perpetuate their power. They walk in one another’s footsteps, as Hitler did with Mussolini—and today the herd is moving in a Fascist direction.

Of course, a lack of concern “with the rights of others” and a willingness “to use violence and whatever other means to achieve its goals” would describe both the foreign and domestic policy of the Globalist American Empire. But for Albright, just like the rest of the D.C. elite class, the “fascist” danger was always among her foes, who needed to be crushed.

Albright is a leading example of how the diversity agenda quashes reasoned thought.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Sartorial Songs

In Chapter 42 of his Essays, Montaigne remarks that

We praise a horse for its strength and speed, not on account of its harness; a greyhound for its swiftness and not its collar; a hawk for its wing and not for its jesses and bells. Why then do we not value a man for what is his? . . . If you bargain over a horse, you remove its trappings, you see it bare and uncovered . . . . Why, when estimating a man, do you estimate him all wrapped and muffled up? . . . We must judge him by himself, not by his attire. (Tr. E. J. Trechmann)

I am tempted to agree by saying what I once said to my mother when she told me that clothes make the man, namely, that if clothes make the man, then the kind of man that clothes make is not the kind of man I want to be. (Women are undeniably more sensitive than men to the fact that the world runs on appearances. They have a deep intuitive understanding of the truth that the Germans express when they say, Der Schein regiert die Welt.)

But there is another side to the problem, one that the excellent Montaigne ignores. A horse does not choose its bit and harness, but has them imposed on it. A man, however, chooses how he will appear to his fellows, and so choosing makes a statement as to his values and disvalues. It follows that there is some justification in judging by externals. For the externals we choose, unlike the externals imposed on a horse, are defeasible indicators of what is internal. In the case of human beings, the external is not merely external: the external is also an expression of the internal. Our outer trappings express our attitudes and beliefs, our allegiances and alignments.

But enough philosophy!  Punch the clock. Tomorrow's another day. On to some tunes.  Pour yourself a stiff one. We get things off to a rousing start this fine Saturday evening with

ZZ Top, Sharp-Dressed Man.  This one goes out to Mike Valle who is definitely strutting his sartorial stuff these days.

Bobby Whitlock and Eric Clapton, Bell Bottom Blues.  Sticking with the 'blue' theme:

Bobby Vinton, Blue Velvet.  Check out the Lana Del Rey version.  And of course, this from the moody & mesmerizing David Lynch flick.

Carl Perkins, Blue Suede Shoes.  The Perry Como Show (sic!), 1956.

Mitch Ryder, Devil with the Blue Dress On

Jimmy Clanton, Venus in Blue Jeans, 1962

Bob Dylan, Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Bob Dylan, Boots of Spanish Leather

Del Shannon, Hats Off to Larry

Bobby Bare, Long Black Veil

Jane Russell, Buttons and Bows

Johnny Cash, Man in Black

Big Bopper, Chantilly Lace, 1958

But:

Can you judge a man by the way he wears his hair?
Can you read his mind, by the clothes that he wears?
Can you see a bad man by the pattern on his tie?
Then Mr. You're a Better Man Than I!

Asking Questions about Ukraine Makes You Pro-Putin? Why Do They Lie?

Here:

If you say out loud that you think there is something strange about a campaign involving Democrats and Republicans, the media, Big Tech, corporate giants, and US intelligence services to promote one side in a foreign war that doesn’t obviously touch on the daily concerns of most Americans, you’re pro-Putin.

That accusation has haunted the American public sphere going on six years. For this is where the long campaign started, with Russiagate, the most destructive information operation ever waged against the nation. And unlike, say, the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, its authors aren’t adversarial spy services, but fellow Americans, our own ruling class. Now the same journalists, foreign-policy experts, and retired US officials who lied in 2016 about Trump’s ties to Russia are front and center shaping public opinion about the war waged by Putin—the world leader our overclass put in the middle of an elite conspiracy theory designed to guarantee Hillary Clinton the presidency.

It would be useful to have insight into Putin’s thinking, especially now with a massive land war in the middle of Europe giving rise to a powerful anti-American bloc led by Russia and China. But don’t count on America’s national-security establishment to provide that insight. For they squandered their credibility with Russiagate. From former officials like ex-Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and retired spy chiefs like James Clapper and John Brennan to Biden deputies like National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and the Pentagon’s top strategist, Colin Kahl, and the entire Democratic Party and its media apparatus, the lies of America’s political class left the republic vulnerable to destructive forces.

Why did they lie? Policymakers, spy chiefs, and military officials rightly deceive foreign powers to protect and advance the US national interest. But these men and women lied to the American people about the president they elected. Then they lied about everything. Public US institutions and private industries have spent the last six years mustering their formidable powers to break the US working and middle classes. Why? Because lying is part of the logic of war, and America’s oligarchy is at war with the American people.

Do you have a better explanation?

Virtue, Vice, and Mastery

I lately quoted St. Augustine  to the effect that a bad man has as many masters as he has vices. But to be mastered by one's virtues, though better than to be mastered by one's vices, is arguably shy of the ne plus ultra of mastery.

The ultimate in mastery is mastery of both one's vices and one's virtues.

My pithy formulation wants explanation. It may have been from Donald Davidson that I picked up the notion of akrasia in reverse. Akrasia is weakness of the will.  Imagine a runner who runs every day without exception. He is proud of himself, his 'streak' going on two years now, and his self-mastery. And then a day comes when conditions are bad; there are patches of ice on the roads and a freezing rain is falling. Our man is tired from a hard day at work, and a cold is taking hold. He suits up anyway. The upshot? He slips on the ice, smashes a knee and is out of the running for a good long spell.   Our runner has demonstrated akrasia  in reverse. 

In this instance he has failed to master his virtue: it has mastered him to his own detriment.

The virtues exists for us and our flourishing; we do not exist for them.

The ultimate in mastery is mastery of both one's vices and one's virtues. 

Bergoglio and Biden

They are alike in that neither understands the principles, values, and purposes of the organizations of which they are the heads. Given the termitic nature of the dope pope, the following did not surprise me in the least:

Pope Francis is famous for his tendency to shoot from the hip, which is unfortunate for someone whose every word is watched for significant and authoritative pronouncements. His bad habit was on full display Friday; in expressing sympathy with Ukrainians, the pope declared: “There is no such thing as a just war: they do not exist!” In that single sentence, the pontiff swept aside centuries of Catholic teaching and even undercut the ground for the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. All in a day’s work for the Marxist who warns against Marxism.

The RCC in its current degeneracy desperately needs defunding along with every other leftist outfit. I say that as a cradle Catholic with much residual affection for the church of my childhood.

Polylogism and Leftist Racism

Anthony Flood sends us to Charles Burris, Polylogism — The Root of America's Divisiveness, Decline and Destruction.

History is repeating itself before our eyes. The widespread controversy surrounding President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson as a “black woman” recalls the editorial in The Washington Times, “A Judge Too Far,” concerning President Obama’s earlier nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.  The editorial perceptively observed:

“Judge Sotomayor seems to think that inherent racial and sexual differences are not simply quirks of genetics, but make some better than others. Consider her 2002 speech at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” she said. “I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”

“She also accepted as potentially valid the idea that the “different perspectives” of “men and women of color” are due to “basic differences in logic in reasoning” due to “inherent physiological or cultural differences.”

The brilliant Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, regarded as the greatest economist of the 20th Century, discussed this Marxist nonsense in his magnum opus, Human Action, under the category of polylogism. 

This is the bogus idea that the logical structure of the mind is different based on one’s class, race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual preference, etc.

This skewed Marxist concept lies at the root of all “politically correct” notions of cultural relativism and multiculturalism fashionable in academia, the elite media, and critical race and legal theory circles today.

And if President Biden has his way, upon the highest court in the land.

This is more than the widely-accepted idea that our various life experiences shape our world view, or influence our value judgments in making ethical and moral decisions.

Again, polylogism specifically holds that the logical structure of the mind is different based on one’s class, race, nationality, gender, sexual preference, etc. There is no objective reality independent from these fixed determinative factors of causality.

The notion of a Constitutionally-driven independent judicial temperament or impartiality becomes impossible.

The rest is below the fold. 

Did you catch the exchange between Senator Ted Cruz and nominee Jackson? 

"For example, I'm a Hispanic man. Could I decide I was an Asian man — would I have the ability to be an Asian man and challenge Harvard's discrimination because I made that decision?" Cruz added.

Jackson replied that she could not respond to questions based on hypotheticals.

Lord help us.  Yet another indication that leftists are mendacious to the core. 

Continue reading “Polylogism and Leftist Racism”

COMPACT Mag (Not a gun post!)

This new online journal looks really good.  From the 'About' page:

Our editorial choices are shaped by our desire for a strong social-democratic state that defends community—local and national, familial and religious—against a libertine left and a libertarian right.

I too oppose libertinism and libertarianism.  I note in passing that they in some respects feed each other. See Libertarians and Drug Legalization and Arizona Pot Prop 205 Defeated.

A compact is a political union drawing together different people for a common end. It is neither a contract nor a covenant, neither a market relation nor a religious sodality. It depends not on shared blood, but on shared purpose. We are concerned with advancing this properly political form of solidarity.

I too am opposed to the Blut und Boden mentality of some on the alternative Right. I have come out strongly against tribalism and race-based nationalism while conceding that in the present circumstances a certain amount of pro tempore white tribalism may be necessary to counter our political enemies effectively.  In a war you must do things that you don't want to do and would not have to do in times of peace.

That being said and well understood, I am skeptical of finding "shared purpose" with people from radically different cultures.  What "shared purpose" could we have with sharia-supporting Muslims,  to take but one example?

We believe that the ideology of liberalism is at odds with the virtue of liberality. We oppose liberalism in part because we seek a society more tolerant of human difference and human frailty.

That's strange. The touchstone of classical liberalism is precisely toleration.  I wonder how these boys are using 'liberalism.'

Compact will challenge the overclass that controls government, culture, and capital. Whoever does this is bound to be called radical. We do not shy from the label, but we insist on its proper meaning. Rightly understood, to be radical does not mean going to extremes. It means getting to the root of things.

Very good. 'Radical' is from the Latin radix, meaning root. A radical goes to the root of the matter. But not like the Communists who literally e-rad-icated (uprooted) their class enemies breaking millions of eggs for an impossible omelet. (That's what we call a mixed metaphor, by the way.)

The trick here is to avoid both deracination and a form of autochthony rooted in soil and nourished by blood. We need to find the via media between Bodenlosigkeit and Bodengebundenheit.

One more pun. I have come out against, not masculinity, but toxic masculinity which could be characterized as Blut und Hoden, blood and balls, given the tendency of some on the alt-Right to embrace toxic masculinity in conjunction with an illiberal attachment to the indigenous.

Humanity certainly has its work cut out for it, assuming we don't nuke ourselves into oblivion. 

I stand for free speech against the fascists of both the Left and the Right. And so I wish the COMPACT-ers all the best.

What is the Greatest Threat to Situational Awareness?

The 'smart' phone. Every day I see people rendered deaf, DUMB, and blind  to their surroundings by their phones.  Don't be a dumbass with a smartphone!

Don't even think of packing heat in these days of rampant, Dem-induced, crime until you have thought through the whole business of situational awareness.  Here is a video for you. 

…………………….

A reader familiar with these matters comments:

I agree with almost everything Ken says in this video. You've got to see it coming or your weapons will do you no good. Where I think he goes wrong is when he talks about situational awareness giving you time to decide. No. There is no time in the event for deliberation unless the threat is far away. Then you consider whether to engage or flee. But there is no running away if the threat is a few feet away and coming at you. And no time to decide what to do. You need to react with your weapon by trained reflex. It should actually surprise you how fast you draw and shoot. With practice you can draw and shoot a lot faster than you deliberate. At the gas pump always have your cc in your left hand and your right hand on your weapon. If someone jumps out from behind your car or the pump, bring you gun up across your chest into a close point and shoot. Practice this until it happens very fast, by reflex.
 
Deliberate now how you are going to train yourself to respond to a threatening sit. In the event surprise yourself by how fast you respond.

Kamala Harris on the Passage of Time

We here at Maverick Philosopher are classically liberal in our openness to a variety of points of view on the enduring questions of philosophy.  As long-time readers know, one of our mottoes is Nihil philosophicum a nobis alienum putamus. "We consider nothing philosophical to be foreign to us."* 

In that spirit, we offer the profound thoughts of the Vice President, thoughts that rival in depth those of Aurelius Augustinus and John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart, and that push the philosophy of time in a new direction and away from the notorious B-theory of time much loved by previous Veeps.

I will leave the reader to decide whether Kamala's insights reach the level of those proffered by President Bill Clinton some years ago when he breathed new life into philosophical logic with his penetrating observation that matters of great moment  often ride on what the meaning of 'is' is. 

___________________

*The motto is modelled on Terentius: Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. "I am a human being; I consider nothing human to be  foreign to me." One also sees the thought expressed in this form:  Nihil humanum a me alienum puto. Our motto is based on this variant.  Horace Jeffery Hodges informs me of a Satanic variant to be found in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov: "Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto." (I am Satan, and nothing human is foreign to me.)