Yet another example of the misuse of government's coercive power by liberals is documented by the WSJ in This Tax Is for You. And you voted for these irresponsible scum? Then you will get what you deserve for being stupid.
Nietzsche, Truth, and Power
Nietzsche is culturally important, but philosophically dubious in the extreme. Some of our current cultural woes can be ascribed to the influence of his ideas. Suppose we take a look at Will to Power #534:
Das Kriterium der Wahrheit liegt in der Steigerung des Machtgefühls.
The criterion of truth resides in the heightening of the feeling of power.
A criterion of X is (i) a property or feature that all and only Xs possess which (ii) allows us to identify, detect, pick out, Xs. 'Criterion' is a term of epistemology. So one could read Nietzsche as saying that the test whereby we know that a belief is true is that it increases or enhances the feeling of power of the person who holds the belief. To employ some politically correct jargon that arguably can be traced back to Nietzsche, if a belief is 'empowering,' then it is true; and if a belief is true, then it is 'empowering.'
Nietzsche on Revolution
Since I tend to beat up on Nietzsche quite a bit, and in consideration of my being one fair and balanced hombre, I thought I would quote a passage in which old Fritz is 'spot on':
A delusion in the theory of revolution. — There are political and social fantasists who with fiery eloquence invite a revolutionary overturning of all social orders in the belief that the proudest temple of fair humanity will then rise up at once as though of its own accord. In these perilous dreams there is still an echo of Rousseau's superstition, which believes in a miraculous primeval but as it were buried goodness of human nature and ascribes all the blame for this burying to the institutions of culture in the form of society, state and education. The experiences of history have taught us, unfortunately, that every such revolution brings about the resurrection of the most savage energies in the shape of the long-buried dreadfulness and excesses of the most distant ages: that a revolution can thus be a source of energy in a mankind grown feeble but never a regulator, architect, artist, perfector of human nature….(Human, All Too Human, vol. I, sec. 463, tr. Hollingdale)
This unambiguous take-down of Rousseau's conceit according to which man is by nature good but corrupted by society and the state is something the Nietzsche-lovers on the Left should carefully consider.
A Tax Day Observation
Good societies are those that make it easy to live good lives. A society that erects numerous obstacles to good living, however, cannot count as a good society. By this criterion, present day American society cannot be considered good. It has too many institutionalized features that impede human flourishing. In Good Societies and Good Lives, I discuss one such feature, state lotteries. Another impediment is a tax code that punishes productive behavior and rewards behavior that is imprudent.
Nietzsche and National Socialism
Was Nietzsche a proto-Nazi? Did he lay the philosophical foundations for Nazi ideology? That would be a hard case to make given the elements in Nietzsche's thinking that are antithetical to National Socialism. To mention one such element, there is Nietzsche's oft-expressed hostility to socialism. There are, however, passages in Nietzsche which aid and abet the Nazi mindset. They ought not be ignored. A good example is Gay Science #325 (Kaufmann tr. emphasis in original):
Taxman
I settled accounts with the Infernal Revenue 'Service' a few days ago. How about you? I had to pony up, but that's better than a 'refund.' If you let them take too much and hold your money without paying you for the use of it, then you are, shall we say, ordering your temporal affairs suboptimally. Time now to kick back with this live version of Taxman featuring George Harrison and Eric Clapton.
The Urge to Scribble
You got out of bed to write down another of your wretched aphorisms? Thereby compromising your rest? Is not sleep's oblivion superior to the pseudo-reality reachable by words? And will you make of that an aphorism? Well, now that you're up you may as well relieve the pressure on your bladder too.
Carpe Noctem
Would that we could seize and record the fugitive thoughts that patrol the strange no-man's-land between sleeping and waking. We have learned to seize the day, and the children of the day, but night's offspring elude us.
Why Forgive?
Because we ourselves need to be forgiven. "But I have never done anything that requires forgiveness." Really? Then please forgive me for considering you either a liar, or an amnesiac, or self-deceived, or morally obtuse.
Easter Morn
The magic came at 6:25 AM. I was 50 minutes into the run when conditions turned auspicious. The fleshly vehicle, now properly stoked, rose to the occasion of some serious striding under the sign of a celestial conjunction: the Moon, on the wane but still nearly full, was setting over Dinosaur Mountain just as Old Sol began his ascent over the Superstitions. The heavy rains of the day before had released the subtle scents of the desert. Their dominant note was supplied by the tiny oily dark green leaves of the creosote bush. The palo verdes were in bloom. The body rose, but receded, to enable that peculiar awareness in which one is Emerson's "transparent eyeball" witnessing Santayana's realm of essence. There seemed in that moment nothing better to be than a transparent transcendental eyeball running down a road.
Thoughts as Objects of Moral Evaluation: Refining the Thesis
In a comment to Can Mere Thoughts be Morally Wrong? I wrote:
There is nothing wrong with the mere occurrence of a thought, any thought, even the thought of killing someone just to get his wallet. For the thought might arise without my willing it to arise. My point is that once it has arisen, once it is present to my mind, it becomes a legitimate object of moral evaluation, whether or not that particular thought is followed by a corresponding action.
Peter Lupu responded:
Unless I misunderstand what he intends to say here, Bill appears to endorse thesis (A); i.e., that even a single mere-thought with a certain content is “a legitimate object of moral evaluation” and the verdict of immorality. Notice that moral scrutiny applies to the thought, not the person (I suppose because, under the conditions specified, the person is shielded by the principle “ought implies can”).
I can see that I haven't stated my thesis clearly enough. We need to make some distinctions.
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F. H. Bradley on the Non-Intentionality of Pleasure and Pain
I have argued
at length for the non-intentionality of some conscious states. None of the opposing comments made on the various posts inclined me to modify my view. The agreement of Peter Lupu, however, fortified me in my adherence to it. I was especially pleased recently to stumble upon a passage by the great F. H. Bradley in support of the non-intentionality of some experiences. Please note that the intentionality of my being PLEASED to find the supporting Bradley passage has no tendency to show that PLEASURE is an intentional state, as 'pleasure' is used below. No doubt one can be pleased by such-and-such or pained at this-or-that, but these facts are consistent with there being non-intentional pleasures and pains. The passage infra is from Bradley's magisterial "Pleasure for Pleasure's Sake" (Ethical Studies (Selected Essays), LLA, 1951, p. 37, bolding added):
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Are You a Natural-Born Scribbler? Take the Gide Test
Here is an interesting passage from André Gide's last work, written shortly before his death in 1951, So Be It or The Chips Are Down, tr. Justin O'Brien, Alfred Knopf, 1959, pp. 145-146, bolding added, italics in original. Brief commentary follows.
It is certain that the man who wonders as he takes up his pen: what service can be performed by what I am about to write? is not a born writer, and would do better to give up producing at once. Verse or prose, one's work is born of a sort of imperative one cannot elude. It results (I am now speaking only of the authentic writer) from an artesian gushing-forth, almost unintentional, on which reason, critical spirit, and art operate only as regulators. But once the page is written, he may wonder: what's the use? . . . And when I turn to myself, I think that what above all urged me to write is an urgent need of understanding. This is the need that now prompts the ratiocinations with which I am filling this notebook and makes me banish all bombast from them. I hope the young man who may read me will feel on an equal footing with me. I don't bring any doctrine; I resist giving advice; and in a discussion I beat a hasty retreat. But I know that today many seek their way gropingly and don't know in whom to trust. To them I say: believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it; doubt everything, but don't doubt of yourself. There is more light in Christ's words than in any other human word. This is not enough, it seems, to be a Christian: in addition, one must believe. Well, I do not believe. Having said this, I am your brother.
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Questions About Religion and Superstition. Superstitious Materialism
1. Is there a difference between religion and superstition, or is religion by its very nature superstitious? There seem to be two main views. One is that of skeptics and naturalists. For them, religion, apart perhaps from its ethical teaching, is superstitious in nature so that there could not be a religion free of superstition. Religion just is a tissue of superstitious beliefs and practices and has been exposed as such by the advance of natural science. The other view is that of those who take religion seriously as having a basis in reality. They do not deny that there are superstitious beliefs, practices, and people. Nor do they deny that religions are often interlarded with superstition. What they deny is that religion is in its essence superstitious.
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Hypocrisy, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Left
If, per impossibile, there were such a catalog as the Seven Deadly Sins as seen from the Left, hypocrisy would be in first place. Why? Although some who identify themselves as liberals or leftists can be counted among the religious, the dominant note of the Left from at least 1789 on has been anti-religious. Couple this with the fact that perhaps the most egregious forms of hypocrisy are found among religionists, especially the televangelical species thereof, and you have the beginning of an explanation why liberals and leftists find hypocrisy so morally abhorrent. That men of the cloth and their followers exhibit the worst forms of hypocrisy is captured in standard dictionary definitions of 'hypocrisy.' My Webster's shows, "a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; esp.: the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion." One reads something similar in the OED.
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