The All-Encompasing Self Church of the American Epistemology

[4est_4est_Gump]

To compare this with, later, 'All government is evil.' How are the rights to own and pursue property to be enforced? By whom if not by some form of government? Under whose system of law? If the property is claimed as a result of past violence, has that violence been forgiven? If so, why?

All Government is Evil.

This does not imply that government is unnecessary but it is a warning that to go beyond the sanctity of the contract and police/military however noble the aims are ends up only in slavery (even by another name).

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

HAHA!

When it's on the tee, SWING!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Book III

Selfishness is good.
Selfishness creates Capital.
Capital then drives efficiencies.
Efficiencies lead to shared wealth.

Selflessness is moral underpinning of the Epistemology of Altruism.
Self-sacrifice as a duty to others is immoral in the American Epistemology.
Self-sacrifice for Self-gain is moral only when it is a voluntary act; any group agreement driven by the Epistemology of Altruism is immoral.
When legalized theft in the name of the greater good has been moralized by the Epistemology of Altruism then it is a moral act to seize community largess in the name of Self.

The advocates of Altruism fall into two groups, those who rule in the name of Self and those who serve in the name of Altruism (duty and sacrifice).
The former will take, with impunity, as the right of rulers, from the largess of the community to satiate and reward themselves.
The latter will be given from the community largess only enough to temporarily sate their most basic needs.
Thus the Epistemology of Altruism leads to eventual voluntary Slavery.

Individuals are generally men of action and energy, intellectuals, and men of no ambition.
Men of action are busy dong things to enrich themselves and have little time for Philosophizing.
Intellectuals are of two types: those who create and those who are studious and serious but lack creativity.
Intellectuals who create are doing things to enrich themselves and have little time for Philosophy or the affairs of other men.

The uncreative Intellectuals are very concerned with Philosophy and the management of men of no ambition.
Men of no ambition will seek the easiest and most profitable path but will gain frustration if no great wealth is accumulated.
Frustrated Intellectuals will dangle the prospect of easy paths before frustrated men of no ambition if they agree to adopt the Philosophy of Altruistic Socialism.
In the Philosophy of Altruistic Socialism, men of action become the enemy for having devoted themselves to enriching themselves and every effort must be made to destroy them.

It is only in the act of self-enrichment that society itself is enriched and this rankles and frustrates the ambitions of the lesser intellectual.
When the plans of the lesser intellectual do not lead to Utopia, the lesser intellectual and his men looks for more enemies.
As the lesser intellectual finds more enemies, then producing Capital and wealth becomes a criminal act.
In this manner all societies created by lesser intellectuals in the name of Altruism lose value.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Much of the political crisis facing America today stems from a disintegration of the ethical basis of the free society. That is why the core of the 2012 election fight is not tax rates, job growth, or the national debt. These issues, though of enormous practical importance, are merely the policy manifestations of underlying moral sentiments. The fundamental battle to be waged concerns nothing less than the nature of man, and the moral implications of that nature. If public disapproval of particular Obama policies is to become a lasting movement toward societal renewal, then the conservative's primary objective must be the restoration of American individualism.

The problem is that the warm quilt of entitlement and dependency which the left has so cozily tucked around American society not only restricts freedom of movement; it also effectively reinforces the anti-individualist morality that makes the left's advances possible. In the doublethink names of "fairness" and "security," soft despotism of the modern leftist sort produces a siren-song promise of carefree mother's love forever -- with its corresponding appeal to a toddler's moral myopia, the inability to concretize and respect the wishes and wills of other people. Thus, creeping socialism ushers in a hitherto unknown ethic, which we might dub "collectivist self-absorption."

Daren Jonescu

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/on_restoring_american_individualism.html#ixzz1qh6yJzIH

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Late modern philosophy has rejected outright the commonsense awareness, which was elevated to metaphysical theory by Aristotle, that individual existents are the basic facts of material reality. This notion applies, of course, to the category of man as to all else. From this accepted principle -- that the building blocks of human civilization are particular humans, who exist in logical priority to any community or social arrangement -- gradually arose the theoretical edifice of political freedom.

From the classical understanding of the individuated human mind as the essence of man, through the Christian development of the notion of individual moral will, philosophy at last turned, under the influence of modern empirical science, to the attempt to understand man's practical (i.e., moral) essence with a view to determining the most natural social arrangement. This latter effort ushered in the concept of natural rights -- moral constraints on men's behavior towards one another, grounded in the empirical understanding that the primary natural objective of each man is the preservation and progress of his own life, and hence that each man's range of moral authority both limits and is limited by every other individual's primary natural objective of preserving and promoting his own life.

The coinage of a uniquely "American individualism" stems from the fact that America was the first nation grounded explicitly in the most concrete and practical conception of this modern notion of natural rights. Thus, America was a political community that, in its very founding, expressly rejected the hitherto generally accepted premise that the leaders of communities may, and should, determine the purposes and limits of human action. By directly embedding the theory of natural rights -- understood as a moral fence around each individual -- into its basic law and its conception of government, the United States became the first nation founded on the premise that men are by nature free, and therefore that the purpose of government is, and must be, only the protection of that natural freedom.

Daren Jonescu

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/on_restoring_american_individualism.html#ixzz1qh7RWyju

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Those who wish to subvert the American republic, and to undermine its founding documents, have always understood that the primary obstacle is ethical individualism. And this subversion, then, if one wishes to dig up America from its roots, requires an attack on the metaphysical presumption of the primacy of individual beings. Dewey, America's friendly face of socialism, shoved the spade in deep. Seeing that individualism was the source of natural rights, he sought to dissolve this nexus by undermining the metaphysical presupposition of discrete individuals.

For Dewey, the father of twentieth-century American public education, the individual as the given -- as an entity complete unto itself -- is the fallacy at the heart of all previous philosophy. Individual human beings -- i.e., individuated minds -- do not exist. Rather, individuals are created through social and educational influences. Thus, the theory of natural rights, which presumes the logical priority of individual men, is destroyed. Where there are no individuals, there can be no individual rights. Dewey, and others following him, expanded upon the European socialist theories that reject individual human nature, instead regarding historical social conditions as the fundamental realities. Community is prior to the individual; the latter is merely the product of the former. "It takes a village," to state this in one of its well-known contemporary manifestations.

Daren Jonescu

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/on_restoring_american_individualism.html#ixzz1qh869hsX

 

[patrick1]

<<Late modern philosophy has rejected outright the commonsense awareness, which was elevated to metaphysical theory by Aristotle, that individual existents are the basic facts of material reality. This notion applies, of course, to the category of man as to all else. From this accepted principle -- that the building blocks of human civilization are particular humans, who exist in logical priority to any community or social arrangement -- gradually arose the theoretical edifice of political freedom.>>

Perhaps you could quote how Aristotle agrees with this. On the contrary, while he elevates the intellectual life (which your philosophisers seem to denigrate, as if to denigrate their own musings), I'd have thought he pretty much says the opposite: that human beings are almost always acting in a social context, and that individualism is not primary. As this essayist puts it: 'Aristotle gives the key point: "We do not mean a man who lives his life in isolation, but a man who also lives with parents, children, a wife, and friends and fellow citizens generally, since man is by nature a social and political being" (1097b). Human beings, in other words, derive their identity—their sense of self—and thus their moral purposes from their participation in an existing community, the world of parents, ancestors, friends, customs, institutions, and laws. In a tradition that goes back at least as far as Homer, Aristotle has no room for the notion that there is an individual existence prior to or independent of the community. Thus, whatever ethical enquiry involves, it must take into account the essential social and political basis of human life.'

(http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/introser/aristot.htm)

 

[Peregrinator]

All mind left to its own will eventually settle on the facts.

.....

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

<<Late modern philosophy has rejected outright the commonsense awareness, which was elevated to metaphysical theory by Aristotle, that individual existents are the basic facts of material reality. This notion applies, of course, to the category of man as to all else. From this accepted principle -- that the building blocks of human civilization are particular humans, who exist in logical priority to any community or social arrangement -- gradually arose the theoretical edifice of political freedom.>>

Perhaps you could quote how Aristotle agrees with this. On the contrary, while he elevates the intellectual life (which your philosophisers seem to denigrate, as if to denigrate their own musings), I'd have thought he pretty much says the opposite: that human beings are almost always acting in a social context, and that individualism is not primary. As this essayist puts it: 'Aristotle gives the key point: "We do not mean a man who lives his life in isolation, but a man who also lives with parents, children, a wife, and friends and fellow citizens generally, since man is by nature a social and political being" (1097b). Human beings, in other words, derive their identity—their sense of self—and thus their moral purposes from their participation in an existing community, the world of parents, ancestors, friends, customs, institutions, and laws. In a tradition that goes back at least as far as Homer, Aristotle has no room for the notion that there is an individual existence prior to or independent of the community. Thus, whatever ethical enquiry involves, it must take into account the essential social and political basis of human life.'

(http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/introser/aristot.htm)

I'd say that in some way that is correct, for he believed too, as do I, increasingly, that some men are born to be slaves. Only some seem to have that ol' time Gnostic spark...



Where Aristotle is the foundation is in "concept."

In the way that he differs from Plato.

 

[patrick1]

Well, I don't mean whatever he meant by 'slavish' as we might translate - I'm not convinced that means what you say it means, but I don't mean that in this instance - I mean that to my mind Aristotle would disagree with the very heart of the Randian project, this preoccupation with 'selfishness' and 'altruism'. Here's a bit from the first part of the Nicomachean Ethics for instance:

'the final good [i.e. the ultimate virtue] is thought to be self-sufficient. Now by self-sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by himself, for one who lives a solitary life, but also for parents, children, wife, and in general for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is born for citizenship.'

I don't see how you square such assumptions with the ideas of self you're espousing.

 

[Obama_Sucks]

There are no pastors, there is no choir.
Incense is optional as is feasting or fasting.
Sex in neither good or bad, but it is free, and yet it has a cost.

This is the Gospel of Self.

Book I

You are an individual. You are unique, You have one life. You have the right to self defense.
You own you, you are your own property; you have the right to own property.
You have the right to pursue property in the defense of your own life.
This is being selfish. It is good.

Sounds like an exciting Church.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Well, I don't mean whatever he meant by 'slavish' as we might translate - I'm not convinced that means what you say it means, but I don't mean that in this instance - I mean that to my mind Aristotle would disagree with the very heart of the Randian project, this preoccupation with 'selfishness' and 'altruism'. Here's a bit from the first part of the Nicomachean Ethics for instance:

'the final good [i.e. the ultimate virtue] is thought to be self-sufficient. Now by self-sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by himself, for one who lives a solitary life, but also for parents, children, wife, and in general for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is born for citizenship.'

I don't see how you square such assumptions with the ideas of self you're espousing.

Again, patiently because we're going from his views on concepts as opposed to Plato's, not the bulk of his work, but his foundation for reason...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Book IV

Voluntary charity is moral.
Charity can serve the self-interest.
Compulsory Altruistic charity is immoral.
It is a theft against the Life of the Self by Government.

Compulsory charity after death is no more moral than in life.
Wealth and Capital are accumulated by sacrifice.
This sacrifice is from the life of the Self.
The Self owns all of its life.

 

[Saint Peter]

Book VII


You are a cheap bitch.

We are not dogs or snakes.
We are humans.
We are different and should act that way.

It is too easy for the "volunteer" to look the other way.
Pay your taxes.
Give the thirsty man a drink of water.

 

[Johnny_Ray_Wilson]

Post the Self Church books slower damn it! My printer is broke and I have to write all this down.

 

[patrick1]

Again, patiently because we're going from his views on concepts as opposed to Plato's, not the bulk of his work, but his foundation for reason...

Well, what you're writing here doesn't touch on Aristotle's foundation for reason. Explain to me how Aristotle's foundation for reason is relevant to these remarks about self and capital?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Well, what you're writing here doesn't touch on Aristotle's foundation for reason. Explain to me how Aristotle's foundation for reason is relevant to these remarks about self and capital?

Chapter One

An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology



Plato - There is an ideal world that gives us imperfect images of ideals. We cannot comprehend that ideal world; leads to Kant.

Aristotle - There is an imperfect world which we can perfectly observe and measure and from it we create ideals. Leads to Science.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Post the Self Church books slower damn it! My printer is broke and I have to write all this down.

Well, it is almost finished.

It's a lot shorter than the Koran or Bible...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Book IIV


You are a cheap bitch.

We are not dogs or snakes.
We are humans.
We are different and should act that way.

It is too easy for the "volunteer" to look the other way.
Pay your taxes.
Give the thirsty man a drink of water.

I'll bet you did not get an 'A' in Roman numerals.

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I'm here all morning!



Tip your waitress...

 

[Saint Peter]

Book VIII

There is never too much education.
Educated people push humans forward and clarify the past.
Without education humans are just dogs or snakes.
Without education humans slither and eat their vomit.

Pay your taxes.
Discipline your children.
Don't blame teacher organizations for the damages done by parents.

And put that fucking iPhone away at the dinner table.

 

[Saint Peter]

I'll bet you did not get an 'A' in Roman numerals.

You don't know that.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You don't know that.

I'll give you IIIX reasons why I came to that conclusion...


You lost your Jesus. I see he was in Texas.

 

[Byron In Exile]

http://purelyconsumed.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/deteriorata.jpg