Three Axes of Conflict
Antony Beevor in The Spanish Civil War (Orbis 1982, Penguin 2001, p. 279) writes that in the aftermath of the war both sides engaged in gross simplifications for propaganda purposes:
As a result, the three axes of conflict (left-right, centralist-regionalist, and authoritarian-libertarian) have often been crudely amalgamated, leaving the ferocity of the war partly unexplained.
Philosophers do well to study history to offset their penchant for the bird's-eye view. They need to come to ground from time to time if only to fuel themselves for further flight. Feasting on the carrion of fact, however, is not particularly nutritious. So what caught this philosopher's eye was the three-axes schema. Philosophers love schemata. They love the synoptic and panoptic survey. 'Spectators of all time and existence . . . ."
The three-axes schema strikes me as relevant to the current political war in the USA as we teeter on the brink of World War Three thanks to the stupidity and criminality of the Democrat Party and the useful idiots who support it.
1) Left-Right. It might be useful to distinguish between the Old Left, the New Left, and the 'Woke' Left. (Having sneered, I now drop the sneer quotes, at least for the space of this paragraph.) What distinguishes the Woke Left is corporate capitalism, the globalist capitalism of mega-corporations with the economic, and in consequence thereof political, clout to bend both government and the Fourth Estate to their collective will, thereby destroying the independence of both of the latter and eliminating checks on their unbalanced power.
2) Centralism-Regionalism. Liberty versus tyranny defines the battle for the soul of America. Tyranny emanates from the central government which, while endlessly mouthing 'democracy' and 'rule of law' respects neither. Liberty, if it can survive, will be defended locally and regionally by citizens with the civil courage to speak out and face 'cancellation' and worse. (I am thinking, among other things, of ordinary citizens who attend school board meetings and protest being labelled 'domestic terrorists' for rejecting the indoctrination of their children in Critical Race Theory, in 1619-type historical revisionism, in transgender ideology, and in anti-Caucasian ethno-masochism.) Regionalism is or is closely related to federalism. (The overturning of Roe v. Wade scored a point for the latter; the Left's febrile outrage clearly demonstrates its anti-federalism and anti-democratic spirit. )
3) Authoritarian-Libertarian. American conservatism is not authoritarian but classically liberal. But while classically liberal, and thus opposed to throne-and-altar paleo-conservatism, it also opposes the anti-religionism and anti-traditionalism of the Left, especially that of the 'woke' Left, which is a particularly virulent and lethal strain of leftism. It thus treads the via media avoiding both the Road to Serfdom (you get the allusion, of course) and the road to anarchy as lately instantiated by Atifa black shirts and BLM Marxist thugs.
Einstein, Relativity, and Relativism
Substack latest.
To be Alone is Bliss
Your invitation's kind
So I hope you won't mind
If your party I miss.
To be alone is bliss.Your friends are such a bore
And idle talk's a chore
They will be good to miss.
To be alone is bliss.
Tulsi Gabbard Defends Objective Truth . . .
. . . at a rally to end child mutilation. Gabbard's three-minute address begins at 19:30 and runs until 22:42. "Without recognition that there is such a thing as truth, there are no boundaries in our society, which why we are where we are."
That something so obvious needs to be stated explicitly shows how far we have fallen. But precisely because we have fallen so far, Tulsi Gabbard is to be applauded for having courageously stated it. That it should take courage to state something so obvious is yet another index of our social decline.
And now, if you can spare ten minutes, listen to Chloe Cole's story at 47:15-57:50.
Animal Awareness: Aristotle, Galileo, Kant
This just over the trans0m from Edward Buckner. I have added my comments in blue.
Aristotle: Even if all animals were eliminated and thereby all perceptions (since only animals perceive), “there will still be something perceptible—a body, for example, or something warm, or sweet, or bitter, or anything else perceptible.”
BV: Evaluation of the above requires that we get clear about the sense of 'perceptible.' There are at least the following three senses:
1) X is perceptible1 =df it is logically possible that x be perceived.
2) X is perceptible2 =df it is nomologically possible that x be perceived.
3) X is perceptible3 =df x is able to be perceived by some sentient being.
I suggest that (3) is what we normally mean by 'perceptible.' What (3) says is that for a thing to be perceptible, there must be at least one existing perceiver with the ability to perceive the thing. On (3), then, Aristotle is mistaken. So on a charitable interpretation, he probably means something like (2): many if not most natural things are such that, if there were an able-facultied perceiver on the scene, one or more natural things would be perceived, and would be perceived as having in themselves such qualities as being warm, bitter, or sweet. Aristotle is a realist about what we now call secondary qualities.
Galileo: “tastes, odors, colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we place them is concerned, and that they reside only in the consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated.”
BV: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) belongs to the modern period which he helped inaugurate, along with Rene Descartes (1596-1650). The main point to note for present purposes is that Galileo reduces the sensory qualities that Aristotle viewed as properties of things themselves to perceiver-relative 'secondary qualities.' So if "living creatures were removed," then at least the secondary qualities would be "removed" along with them. That's quite the contrast with Aristotle. The Stagirite is a realist about warmth, etc,; the Italian is an idealist about warmth, etc.
What would Kant’s view be? Does he think that if all perceiving beings ceased to exist, then appearances would cease to exist? But appearances, according to him, are things like trees and rocks. Does he then think that if all perceiving beings ceased to exist, trees and rocks, and all other non-sentient things, would cease to exist? We should be told.
BV: Underlying Ed's questions is the question: Who or what is the knowing subject for Kant? For Aristotle, the knowing subject is the concrete man embedded in nature, a hylomorphic composite in which anima forma corporis. For Kant, however, the concrete man, the man of flesh and blood embedded in nature, with both animal body and animal soul, is blosse Erscheinung, a mere appearance or phenomenon, and thus an object of knowledge, but not the subject of knowledge, i.e., not the knowing subject. For Kant, the knowing subject is transcendental. This is Kant's view whatever you think of it. It is undoubtedly fraught with difficulties, but my sketch is accurate albeit superficial.
And so the answer to both of Ed's questions is in the negative.
Ethnomasochism
Rod Dreher on The Racial Masochism of the Left:
Where does the Left and all its institutional allies — which is to say, every major institution in American life — plan to go with this? Do they really believe that all whites, Asians, and Latinos can be trained to accept brutality from black criminals? Do they really think that America itself is Barnard College? So far, they haven't had any real pushback, so maybe they do.
This is what happens when you abandon classically liberal concepts of justice. This is what happens when you Kendify and DiAngelize policy and discourse. When the backlash comes, it's going to be quite ugly. Understand right now that it will be 100 percent the fault of the Left.
I spoke with a salesman at Sportsman's Warehouse the other day. He told me that before 11:00 am he had sold five AR-15s.
That's not a good sign, my friends.
…………………
Vito Caiati responds:
Regarding your short post “Ethnomasochism,” I was reminded of this observation by Machiavelli in I Principe (Chapter 14): “Molte sono le conseguenze negative che ti provoca il fatto di essere male armato, ma la più grave è che ti rende oggetto di disprezzo. . . .” (“There are many negative consequences brought to you by being badly armed, the most serious is that it makes you the object of contempt”). Your conversation with the gun salesman appears to indicate that many people have instinctively grasped the truth of the Florentine’s point.
To which pertinent observation I had the following. The natural contempt that many people have for the weak and vulnerable is at present aided, abetted, and exacerbated by a society in collapse, a society in which half of the population and most of those who run our institutions think it 'racist' to enforce laws and to enforce them equally. And so the weak and the vulnerable, the loving and the kind, are arming themselves for defense against depredatory elements of the sort that leftists used merely to coddle, but now positively promote. At a recent CCW class I was surprised to see so many sweet old ladies fixin' to pack heat. None of this would be necessary, of course, if government did its job. But it doesn't and anyone who votes Democrat is voting to insure that it doesn't, 'going forward' as journalists and pols like to say.
Marxism and Pelagianism
If Pelagianism is the false belief that man can save himself without help ab extra, then Marxism is a latter-day secularized form of Pelagianism. Among the central pillars of Marxist and indeed all leftist delusion is the conceit that human beings are fundamentally good. The blood-drenched attempts at the remaking of humanity in the image of this destructive doctrine are the clearest proofs of its falsehood.
Low Lives
People on a low level should not lower themselves further by pretending that they are not.
Which is Worse?
A former colleague of mine published one lousy book, a teacher of mine, many.
What Did He Expect?
He prayed for the ability to see himself objectively, but then complained that he did not like what he saw.
Odd Man Out
Among the cardinal virtues, courage is the odd man out. It is almost always prudent to be prudent, temperate, and just, but not often prudent to be courageous.
The Albatross and the Donkey
Joe Biden is and will remain an albatross around the neck of the Democrat jackass.
Forgiveness and Self-Justification
One feels justified in not forgiving. "Why should I forgive the bastard? He wronged me, and not just once!"
"Don't you need forgiveness? You must forgive because you yourself need to be forgiven for what you have done to others!"
"There is a part of me that can appreciate your fine Sunday School sentiment. But to survive in this ugly and brutal world I had to become tough and unfeeling; I had to learn how to be unjust and how to wrong people. And of course I had to practice on the weak and vulnerable if I was to make any progress and not be killed right away."
PayPal, Social Media, and the Control of Information
The PayPal Fiasco was no Accident
PayPal on Oct. 8 sent out an update to its terms of use, or acceptable use policy (AUP), that included a shocking addition. It reserved the right to confiscate $2,500 from people’s accounts if they spread “misinformation.” It was a clear announcement of what many already suspected: PayPal has enlisted in the information war.
This comes weeks after PayPal blocked several important accounts in the UK, including Toby Young’s personal account, the Free Speech Union, and the DailySceptic. These are hugely important venues for the English-speaking world in countering the COVID propaganda narrative. It was no accident that they were targeted.
[. . .]
By the following day, PayPal reversed itself, claiming that the banning of “misinformation” was just a mistake.
My take is that the PayPal bums don't have the courage of their convictions. The 'woke' warriors believe in their cause only as long as commitment to it does not affect their bottom line. But when protests cause revenues to drop, they reverse their course, and then lie about their reversal! A trifecta of outrages: the destructive anti-free speech agenda; the cowardly and crass reversal of course; and then the lies about the reversal.
The Tentacles of the Social Media Octopus
In America we once believed our First Amendment prevented a government monopoly on information. But in the age of globalization, the Internet, and social media, the state has become the enemy—not the protector—of free speech.
One obvious sign is that the Biden Administration keeps trying to create new sorts of ministries of truth or “Disinformation Governance Boards.” It alleges such Orwellian censors must combat “disinformation” and “misinformation.” In fact, these bureaucracies are designed to criminalize unwanted free expression while also advancing state propaganda.
Among our Washington officials, the following myths were once declared the official version of the “truth”:
- Mounted border patrol agents “whipped” innocent illegal aliens.
- Officer Brian Sicknick was violently “killed” by Trump protestors.
- An “armed” insurrection sought to stage a pre-planned coup on January 6 designed to overthrow the government by violent means.
- Christopher Steele’s dossier was a factual, well-researched compilation.
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a serial sexual assaulter.
- Jussie Smollett in Chicago’s wee hours valiantly fought off white, racist MAGA-hatted thugs.
- Hunter Biden’s laptop was abject Russian disinformation.
- And Joe Biden does not suffer from serious cognitive issues.
What is unique about these lies is not that the government and its media partners advanced them, but that to this day, some continue to disseminate such untruths in spite of widespread and publicly available information discrediting them.
California Governor Gavin Newsom just signed into law a bill criminalizing the work of doctors who express public doubts about medical orthodoxy. Specifically, the law warns that so-called dissident opinion is synonymous with “misinformation.” It is now a crime for doctors to spread “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”
If we were to criminalize all of history’s doctors who “contradicted scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care” then Hippocrates, Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, and Marie Curie would have been felons in their day.