Walk Like a Romantic – A Gentleman’s Guide

Exactly two weeks ago Prince William married Kate Middleton. I watched the ceremony as did millions, if not billions, of others on televisions and internet connections across the world. One thing that struck me as I watched the guests arrive was Prince Harry’s horrible posture. His shoulders lurched forwards and as he followed his brother to greet guests I thought of some Pete Lorre style minion. In all fairness, William was only slightly better. By contrast, when members of the old guard arrived they were, well, stunning. Straight, solid, erect and commanding in movements executed with effortless grace and style.

I was reminded of a reality television show a few years back called, Diets That Time Forgot. The plot was that twelve fat people are locked up in an old rural mansion and divided into three groups each representing an historical era: the Victorians, the Edwardians, and the 1920’s. Each group was subjected to the diet regime popular in their particular era. Not only did the participants have to dress the part; they also were taught how to walk the walk.

Every era has its own unique ideas concerning behaviours. Collectively, this creates a sort of temporal culture or zeitgeist, meaning “Spirit of the Age”. This is most obvious in the manner of dress associated with a particular era, but it also includes body movements. The experts in the television program pointed out that each era had a particular gait and bearing that was unique: Victorian bearing was noble and regal, the Edwardian was military, and the 1920’s was loose and flowing.

This is evident in the clothing of the period. As someone who wears Victorian styles daily, I say with absolute confidence that you do not wear the clothes rather the clothes wear you. Everything is forced firmly in its proper place, this goes for men as well as women.  I am by no means uncomfortable in my clothes, but the cry from the casual shirt, T-shirt, jeans, and trainers brigade is that they are comfortable clothes. Comfort is seen as the primary value in modern fashion, particularly men’s fashion.

When I first conceived to write this article my intention was to write on the subject of Victorian, Neo-Victorian, and Steampunk fashion but it took a detour in my mind. Mostly, I was distracted by my own perceived cleverness on the title which led to the brief discourse on posture. I console myself in saying that they are all part of the same picture. It was yesterday afternoon that I decided to focus on men’s fashion and this is why.

I saw a few women on Glasgow’s main drag, Buchanan Street, yesterday. One wore tight fitting brown leather trousers, brown boots, and I believe a white top and a short jacket that I do not remember. Another woman, possibly thirties, was wearing a calf-length brown skirt, brown boots, and a light brown/green military style jacket. A third was the female companion of an acquaintance of mine. She wore a black gothic lolita style dress, black tights, and calf-length white military gaiters, a fashion accessory in recent years employed by the Steampunk designer Kate Lambert, also known as Kato. All of these clothing choices could be labelled Neo-Victorian or Steampunk.

However, we can go a bit more subtle and mainstream with this. Every few years or so elements of Victorian fashion come into style and can be found in everyday shops. One example is the pagoda sleeve blouse. A fashionable woman can not only get away with indulging in such diverse expressions; she is expected to.

Men are far more limited.  For example, I may wear my winged-collar shirt with a thin black cravat tied in what is known as the American knot. This is perceived as strange. Male neckwear is not fashionable outwith a work environment and on top of that all forms of male neckwear other than the standard modern tie have been banished. The winged-collar was once a common alternative collared shirt, like the pagoda sleeve blouse for ladies, but now it is reserved only for formal wear and weddings.  Consider my earlier description of the women on Buchanan Street. Many of the elements are traditionally male garments. The boots, the military styles, the gaiters, the trousers, and yet today any man wearing the comparable male clothes would be the subject of stares and perhaps novelty or ridicule.

I once saw an episode of the program Grumpy Old Men, a show where older men complain about modern life. In this particular segment a well-known Briton aged in his sixties was complaining about youth fashion, but not as you might think. He was upset that it was so boring. Everything was a mass market rehash of styles pioneered by earlier generations of youth. Perhaps I’m being a grumpy old man myself when I say that there has been nothing interesting of worth from the youth scene since 80’s goth, though I will admit that in many ways the Naughties manifestation was an improvement on the theme.

In the world of youth fashion the goal is not necessarily causal and comfortable, though this may apply to the more mainstream teens. In the world of the alternative teen and young adult market the goal is to dress to impress and comfort be damned. Of course when the shows over the comfort clothes come-out, especially when the main show of youth is over and they join the ranks of the mundane. The problem being that developing a personal style takes time far beyond those provided in youth, and so many young people get it wrong and give up before they ever get it right.

My purpose here then is a brief guide for men who want to walk the walk of the Romantic, because women have enough social leeway when it comes to fashion.

First off, fashion begins in the heart and not the in the eye. What you choose to wear and how you carry yourself in your clothes is ultimately an expression of your soul. For this reason you need to find that soul of yours. There are two questions that you need to ask yourself. What is? and What ought?

I’m currently reading the book Northern Lights by Philip Pullman on which the film The Golden Compass was based. The story is set in a world where a person’s soul exists outside of themselves in the form of an animal called a daemon. I read this great passage where a sailor is discussing the relationship between a person and their daemon.

“There’s plenty of folk as’d like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they’re going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling that is.”

Stylists say that you should put a paper bag with eye-holes cut out over your head and look at yourself in the mirror. Analyse your body and accept it for what it is. Nothing worse than a fat girl dressed like a skinny one. She is far more attractive if she dresses for her size and body shape.  The same goes for the soul, that is, your psycho-emotional make-up. First know thyself. Know who you are and what you have to work with. If you do not start from a point of self-acceptance then no amount of clothing with change anything. It might just make it worse.

The next question is “What ought?” Who do you want to be? What image do you want to portray? For this I refer you to my theory of herotypes. The gist is this. Psychological tests have found that students taking a test while surrounded by pictures of scholars and intellectuals perform better than those without, but more importantly, they perform better than those being watched by a photo of Albert Einstein.

The human mind is subject to limiting self-beliefs. In many cases a person cannot perform because they believe that they cannot perform. The images of the stereotype scholars made the test takers feel a part of that group so their minds allowed them to perform better, but the image of a specific intellectual, like Einstein, represents an unattainable goal, so the mind gives-up.

Herotyping is simply surrounding yourself with images, objects, and cultural consumables (like films, books, etc) relating to a particular stereotypical group of which you want to be associated with. This includes clothing and bearing. Herotyping is a means of telling your subconscious mind the type of person that you want to become and letting that unconscious master at the switches do the rest without the conscious mind worrying about self-image.

A person can have many herotypes. A dominant one for me is “the gentleman adventurer”. This probably stems from my youthful connection with Indiana Jones, the respected scholar who goes on adventures. Others in this group would include Doc Holliday from Tombstone, the educated Southern gentleman and deadly pistoleer; or Lord Asriel from Northern Lights; and most Victorian heroes, such as Sherlock Holmes, Phileas Fogg, and others of note.

I once worked briefly showing homes and apartments in Beverly Hills. On one occasion I was riding to a site in my client’s car. He was not much older than me, but unlike me he had a very expensive car. Definitely from a wealthy family in contrast to me from a lower middle-class background who had gone to wealthy schools.

During the journey, I noticed something protruding from the bottom of my boss’s briefcase that I had borrowed and instinctively put my finger to it. Turns out it was a razor blade used for cutting carpeting away to show hardwood floors beneath it. So, I sliced my finger and simply pressed another finger against the wound. I mentioned it to my client and he went in hysterics and carried-on about going to the hospital. When I convinced him that it was not necessary, he says, “Don’t bleed in my car.” So here is this guy who over-reacts at the first sign of difficulty like a child, but when the difficult passes he’s more concerned about his upholstery.

For me, the gentleman adventurer herotype as it is expressed in the real world is someone who can move in well to do circles, be the scholar, and be well-dressed, but he is not feckless fop or coward like the client in my story. He is the man in the suit that you do not want to mess with. I discovered this fascinating little website of tropes (“a conceptual figure of speech, a storytelling shorthand for a concept that the audience will recognize and understand instantly.”) that includes examples of the Gentleman Adventurer. Quick disclaimer though, the site includes the parody figure of “the upper-class twit adventurer” in the mix, needless to say, this is not what I mean.  On the site I discovered other herotypes of mine that are apparently also tropes, identified as the “Rogue Scholar” and the “Badass Preacher”, both are intellectuals who have either rejected or are rejected by the academic or religious authority and bring their message to the people.

Concerning the Gentleman Adventurer, here is a description of Lord Asriel from Northern Lights:

“Lord Asriel was a tall man with powerful shoulders, a fierce dark face, and eyes that seemed to flash and glitter with savage laughter. It was a face to be dominated by, or fight; never a face to patronize or pity. All his movements were large and perfectly balanced, like those of a wild animal, and when he appeared in a room like this, he seemed a wild animal held in a cage too small for it.”

I believe that there are those who see me in a similar light, but I am by no means convinced. For me, this is the person I would like to be, but alas I am not. One important thing to remember about self-development in the Romantic vein, it is not about reaching your destination but rather closing the distance between your starting point and your unattainable goal.

I share this with you, my dear reader, by way of example. It is for each person to find their own herotypes and to consciously fill their lives with images, artefacts, people, and experiences that push them towards the goal of manifesting in the real world the thoughts and feelings of their inner world.  Romanticism begins with the self and it is your actions that define that self. Your thoughts, your feelings, and your mind are not you. They simply support and drive your actions. They are a means to an end and ultimately manifested through action.

So when we look at the clothes and the bearing of the Victorian, Edwardians, and the 1920’s folk as presented in the television series Diets that Time Forgot we see the zeitgeist of the eras. In the zeitgeist we see the individuals involved that compose it. The noble bearing of the Victorians demonstrates the Romantic virtue of pride born of accomplishment and self-respect. The military bearing of the Edwardians is that of the builders of Empire: militarily, culturally, and economically. The 1920’s style represented a relaxation after work as industry brought more leisure time to more people.

All three groups of people subscribed to the belief that “we live to work”. Through work the common man could rise through the ranks, through work empires are built, and through work more leisure time can be afforded. As denizens of the Romantic Era, all three group recognised that you are what you do and what you do is your work, so do your best, hold your head high for your accomplishments and honest work shall be its own reward.

Today, the West holds the opposite view. Today, “we work to live”. Work is a necessary evil that cuts into playtime. Extra work is penalised through taxation. Men and women of status and accomplishment achieved through hard work are scorned by those envious of their honestly earned profits and positions. And we all dress as though we are off to play at a moment’s notice. The common view these days is that you are what you feel, not what you do. So everyone must do what they can to feel good and make every moment count regardless of tomorrow.  The price that they pay is enormous consumer debt.

This casualness is reflected in the popular style of dress evident in most anywhere.  Unlike in a film or television program that has the benefits of a costume designer, real life fashion tends to be fairly routine, monotonous, and uniform.  Should you doubt me, go to any populated area and notice how many people are wearing the jeans, casual top (including T-shirts), and tennis shoes combination.  Once you’ve done that, start noticing how they move.

A future episode of Diets That Time Forgot, say sixty or seventy years from now, will no doubt have some historian describing how people walked in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.  There is plenty of room in the zeitgest for variation, but generally the body will hang naturally for its type.  For example, I am very tall and slender.  Tall people tend to hunch, lean their heads forward, and if they swing their long arms too broadly it gives the impression of an ape.  If you followed my experiment, you might noticed that the chin position angles downward as opposed the the upward slant of the Victorians or the straight gaze of the Edwardians.

To press my point, this is not universal.  You will no doubt witness swaggering men and poised women perambulating down the avenue communicating the desirable qualities of their particular gender and I applaud them for it.  These people, be they in casual attire or not, stand-out in contrast against the grey backdrop of the mundane.  But men, too much swagger, as seen in what I must call the either the street, ghetto, or gangsta walk, makes you look like an ape – no racism intended.

It has been said that casual clothing leads to casual thinking.  What is lacking is purpose and casual has very little purpose apart from comfort and uniformity.  The same holds true with casual body movements.  There is no awareness and no direction.  I have noticed the same phenomena paralleled in causal speech, where a thought is not fully considered and developed before someone tries to speak it and word meanings seem pretty much made-up on the spot.  Of course this is not universal, but I seem to be noticing this contingent in society growing.  Some call it casual, but I would presume that more traditional thinkers would simply call it laziness.

Here is another illustration from my personal life. I am often asked by people if I am going to work, a formal occasion, or to an event. In other words, in their worldview no one would dress like me unless they had to and the reasons that someone would “have to” are work, a formal occasion, or an event (which is playtime dress-up). I was once asked in all seriousness if the rodeo was in town because this man honestly wanted to attend. How does one answer that?

For there is the ever present danger of falling into the trap of wearing a costume.  Sometimes that’s something that you just cannot get around as so much depends on the perceptions of the viewer, but there are a few tricks.  The first thing I have already covered and that is self-believe.  Do you believe in yourself and in the image you are portraying?  If not then you will appear uncomfortable and thus more likely to lead people to believe that you are just a pretence.  Remember, part of this is bearing and attitude.  Without it, then you’re just playing dress-up.

Next point.  For men there are two rules – masculinity and elegance.  I did not makes these rules.  They come from Beau Brummel, the man who invented the men’s suit back circa 1800 and basic men’s apparel has not changed since.  Dressing masculine does not necessarily mean not dressing feminine, like the fops that Brummel and his fellow dandies brushed aside.  It also means not dressing like a boy.  What does that mean?  I honestly do not know, but I know it when I see it.  It’s a certain je ne sais quoi.  I will say that some track suits remind of a toddler’s romper suit.

Elegance is more easily defined.  To dress elegantly is to dress streamlined and purposeful.  So unless you are an aeronaut ditch the goggles and other pointless paraphernalia.  Think of it like the prat who wears sunglasses at night or in a dark club.  One silly bit of foppery from the Goth scene is the men’s trousers with buckles and straps to nowhere.

I once knew the son of the Duke of Carlisle.  He was the kind of person that everyone liked as soon as they met him.  A great guy.  I remember one night I was at a Goth club and he had just arrived from work wearing naught but black trousers, a white shirt, and I believe a plain black jacket.  From a fashion stand point, he out shown every guy there.  How?  Of course he had bearing, but more identifiable was his simple masculinity and elegance.  The moral of this story – don’t try too hard.  Keep it simple.  Think of your clothing as a mask that your soul speaks through.  If people are too distracted by the mask, then they cannot hear you.

Romanticism is not just a style of art; it is a style of life.  Walking like a Romantic means walking the true path of the glorified self of achievement.  My preference is the herotype of the Gentleman Adventurer.  It represents a masculine and elegant style the evokes my Victorian and Romantic values, but it is by no means the rule of law.  I am outspoken against the ubiquitous denim in our society, but I admit that there are some who exude masculinity and elegance in that attire just as there are those who are scarcely noticed when dressed the same . They say that clothes maketh the man.  This is true to an extent, but ultimately it is the quality, character, and strength of the individual man that maketh the clothes work.

I Am – You’re Not

Probably the single most important branch of philosophy is Metaphysics. It asks the question, “What is reality?” The next branch is Epistemology, or “What is knowledge?” In other words, I hear your metaphysics, now prove it. Together these two branches pose the ultimate question, “What is Truth?” These then form the foundation for Ethics, correct action, and this leads to Politics, the fourth branch, which looks at applying ethics to society. Finally, all this is expressed emotionally through Aesthetics, the manifestation of philosophy.

The Metaphysical view that I express as Romantic is summarized in this phrase. “We live in the real world and exist within our perceptions”. I came upon this as reconciliation between Empiricism and Rationalism/Idealism.

These two concepts come from the philosophical branch of Epistemology. The Empiricist point of view is that knowledge comes from experience. This forms the foundation of the scientific method and marks the beginning of the modern world. Rationalism and Idealism hold to the belief that knowledge comes not from the senses but from the inner world of the reasoning mind and the heart.

I realised that both approaches to Epistemology were responses to two different Metaphysical realities. This led me to create my Triune Theory of Reality. I admit that it is not very original and resulted from a cut-n-paste approach, and yet it seems to have stood the test of minor scrutiny by myself and others.

First there is Objective Reality. This is the physical world governed by the laws of science and can be known through the scientific method. In this reality, a thing is what it is. Everything in the universe is real, solid, and true.

Next there is the Subjective Reality. As we observe and interact with Objective Reality we perceive it more than we sense it. It’s like going through life wearing tinted glasses. The tinting is the result of each person’s unique psycho-emotional make-up, or what I call “the soul”. Thoughts, feelings, experiences, social programming, values, and beliefs all conspire to lend a personalised perception of reality. The Subjective Reality is a model of the world that we carry around in our heads and interact with and respond to.

The third “reality” is the Artificial, or man-made, Reality. This world is the result of human creation and must be constantly maintained through human time, energy, and skill, also known as production. Without production this reality will cease to be thanks to entropy. Artificial Reality has two components; the Material and the Social. The Material is primarily dependent on Objective Reality and the Social on the Subjective. Both create the world we live in.

According to Umberto Eco in his book, On Beauty, the marked difference between the Classical and Neo-Classical concepts of beauty and the Romantics that challenged them was determining the source of beauty. The Classical view was that beauty was inherent to the thing itself in the symmetry, lines, and form. The Romantics, with their emphasis on the individual and individual feeling, took the revolutionary approach best summarised by, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The source of Beauty lies in the perceptions of the viewer and not the thing itself.

Who is right? They both are. The answer depends on your perspective. Likewise, when we question the truth about reality, and the ethics and politics that are built on our conclusions, perspective plays a large role. This is why the concept of the Triune Nature of Reality is important. Do we choose to take the Objective, Subjective, or Artificial perspective? Since most people cannot identify these different perspectives they assume that there exists only one point of view – theirs.

Here is the great human cognitive dilemma: There is a real world outwith human consciousness, but we can never know it. All that we can ever know is our perception of reality. In other words, it’s all just you.

It’s kind of strange when you really stop and think about it. The real world of the Objective exists independent of us. Life goes on whether you think about it or not. Reality does not care about your opinions, beliefs, desires, or hopes. It just is. All that feels real is our idea of reality, and since it is only an idea, then it isn’t real. We instinctively accept the unreal conceptual Subjective Reality of the as fact, but we must have faith in the real world of the Objective. It’s all turned around. No wonder we get confused.

In philosophy there is the concept of solipsism, from the Latin meaning “the self alone”. The notion here is that only the self exists because we cannot prove the existence of anything outwith the self. Sounds crazy, but when you consider that Objective Reality, including all the things and people in it, can never truly be known, then it’s a short hop to saying all that exists is my consciousness. I exist – but you don’t.

There is this idea of the philosophical zombie. It is presented as a thought experiment along the lines that every human, other than ourselves, is lacking in consciousness or sentience but only mimic the outward demonstrations of it. So for example, you poke a zombie with a sharp stick, it feels no pain but it cries out as if it did. The world and the people in it are little more than moving scenery.

The obvious problem with this idea is that I exist and you don’t, but from your perspective, You exist and I don’t. I have never heard anyone consciously voice this belief but you see people behave in a manner that can only be explained by presuming them to be solipsists, or extreme egocentrists.

Solipsism seems completely ludicrous as a philosophy despite the fact that you can reason out its premise. However, I’m looking at the uncomplicated version found in the most simplistic form. The more complex it gets the more muddy the waters become till you cannot see the solipsism for the trees.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone insults you, then you insult them back, and then they get angry at you for insulting them? How about being in a conversation where anything you say is not met with follow-up questions but with unrelated personal anecdotes?

In the first example, the person feels justified insulting you because as a zombie you have no feelings, but when you insult them back, well, you just hurt their feelings. In the second example, none of what you are saying is real because it does not relate to what is real to them, that is, their Subjective Reality.

On a deeper level, there’s religion. A person believes something because they feel it to be true. So for them the feelings signify truth. This disregards that other people with contrary religious beliefs have the exact same feelings about their faith. So if your feelings support your faith, then why don’t the feelings of others support theirs? The answer is because they do not have feelings. They are just zombies. Only you have feelings so only your feeling show truth.

Another sign of solipsism is called projection. This is when a person denies their own feelings and then projects them onto their perception of someone else. Suppose someone hates what they perceive in their minds as a particular group of people. They deny the hate but claim that group hates them, thus justifying any harsh actions towards that group. Their perceived enemy may not even know that they exist.

Looking at how the Subjective Reality relates to the Artificial Reality we need only see children in the marketplace with their parents. The child finds something they want and proclaims “I want to buy this”. This simple statement reveals that the child cannot conceive one of the key features of the Artificial Reality – economics.

Products are produced and sold to other people who exchange money, which is a symbol of their production, for products. The child produces nothing; therefore the child hasn’t any money to buy products. The child is dependent upon the production of his parents.

However, from the child’s perspective a new thing has entered their Subjective Reality and he wants it without any regard for the truth of economics. For him there is no Objective Reality or Artificial Reality and the rules they impose. There is only what he wants in his little subjective universe. This behaviour is not limited to children. Many adults decide that they want something and cannot conceive that it is unattainable according to the rules outwith their Subjective Reality. Like the child who throws a tantrum when his parent says no, these people throw tantrums when someone serves as the voice of reason.

Here’s another example of solipsism. Place where singles meet are called meat-markets. When it comes to relationships it really is a market with each person having a market value. In older times it was called the marriage market. Usually, the woman puts her goods on display to draw male customers and she decides from the bidders who gets the contract. Generally, the prime market time for a woman is her early twenties and for a man it is the early thirties. Recently, someone who discovered this point objected saying that girls her age, early twenties, find such men “creepy”. So let’s tear this statement down.

When a woman goes to the market and dresses to impress she expects to draw the attentions of men. If the men she draws are acceptable to her then all is well, but if the men are not acceptable then they are the subject of derision. If she finds him too old for her tastes he is a “creepy old man” if he lacks social skills, then she might say he is “a looser”. So the man’s actions are judged according to her Subjective Reality without any regards for the suitor’s feelings, personality, or character. After all, he is just a zombie.

Of course not all women are like the example and yes, all people judge others according to their Subjective rules. What makes this an example of solipsism is that the judgement is made without any regard for either Objective or Artificial Reality. The world is what it is, and what it is is how she perceives it to be. The man is creepy because she has determined it so. The only reality is the reality of her feelings about things.

I have always held that the worst quality a person could have is to be inconsiderate. Why? Because by its very definition – the absence of consideration – the offending person has no idea that they are being inconsiderate. They are so focused on their own Subjective Reality that they deny others their Subjective Reality. To be courteous is to remind yourself that others have the same human consciousness and feelings that you do. In essence, you remind yourself that other people are real too.

I subscribe to the Aristotelian idea that you are what you do. You are not your mind, your heart, or your ego. You are your will, because it is through will that you act or don’t act in the world. Through your volition you produce the words and deeds that define you as a person and set the course of your life.

But these actions do not emerge spontaneously. The building needs a blueprint, but the blueprint is not the building. The film needs its storyboard, but the storyboard is not the film. Our actions in the Objective Reality are the results of our thoughts and feelings in our unique Subjective Reality but not reality in and of themselves. Your thoughts and feelings are nothing more than your thoughts and feelings, however where the mind goes the body follows.

In 1925 Napoleon Hill published the book, The Laws of Success. The idea came from Andrew Carnegie who compiled a list of the great achievers of his day and commissioned Hill to interview them and discover the secret of their success. The book was the result. Twelve years later, Hill condensed the information and published the seminal work, Think and Grow Rich. This is seen as an early form of the current self-help phenomenon known as the Laws of Attraction which claims that human consciousness has the power to alter reality in sometimes miraculous ways.

However, this is just another conceit of the Subjective. It is important to understand the miracles that it can accomplish but also its limitations. It can lead us to great heights and accomplishments that appear miraculous but also to horrible disillusionments and even sins.

As Voltaire said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Belief in God has, in my opinion, brought more good than ill, at least the Christian God. Belief is quite possibly one of the greatest drives for human activity for right and wrong, but this is all the result of the Subjective driving human action in the Objective and the Subjective is ultimately a chosen illusion.

Because human beings live in the real world of the Objective Reality and simultaneously exist within the realm of their own pocket universe of their Subjective Reality, we are capable of incredible things but also prone to sometimes disastrous cognitive biases.

A cognitive bias is basically a faulty perception of Objective Reality that leads to a faulty representation of reality in our Subjective model. Here’s a list of some http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases or for something a bit more entertaining there’s this video.

An example of one such bias is the confirmation bias. This means that you can only see facts that support your preconceived notions. So if you believe that all Blacks are criminals, then you will only notice Blacks who are criminals and not notice those who are not.

Likewise, perhaps you judge an individual in the negative, then that is all you perceive in them and not the positive. If someone that you like gives you a gift you are grateful but if someone you do not like gives you a gift you think that they are insincere. Confirmation bias is one way that people sustain their subjective worldview whether their beliefs are valid or not and keep us in that state of solipsism.

Romanticism is all about individualism and individual feeling. The power of belief and emotion is to be embraced. However, on this path there is the danger of falling into solipsism, the danger of embracing your individualism and feelings but denying the individualism and feelings of others.

This is why Romantics must embrace the rule, “No man has claim on my life and I have no claim on the lives of others”. This means recognising the Natural Rights of others. It means reminding yourself that other people are people too and not zombies. I believe that by doing this mutual respect and courtesy that seems to be lacking in this day and age will make a return, for the sins of inconsideration, envy, jealousy, cruelty, selfishness, and arrogance all stem from the solipsistic belief that my reality is the only reality.

Imagine playing a competitive game against others. You are caught-up in the thrill and action of the moment and you think that you are doing pretty well. In fact, you think that you are winning. But then you look at the score and see that you are not doing as well as you had thought.

The scoreboard is Objective Reality. It is the final arbiter that governs all the little Subjective Realities under its gaze. It is the force of reason and the source of Natural Law. Every debate, argument, or conflict between the Subjective Realities of each unique individual should be decided through empirical means because that is the final word on Truth. Everything else is just self-centred egotism, also known as solipsism.

Of Image and Substance

Mark Twain is claimed to have said “image travels round the world twice before reality gets its shoes on”. For William Butler Yeats, it had more to do with the poetic persona as the mask a public figure must wear to communicate with large numbers of people. For those whose public dealings are limited to the few within their monkeysphere there really is not much need for a public persona, however in these days of mass communication and social networking image is no longer the reserve of the famous. We are our own little spin doctors and image consultants.

I find it quite appropriate that places singles go to meet other singles in hope of finding love are called “meat markets”. All ethical human relations are based on trading values. These may be monetary exchanges, exchanging favours, or advice, or simply companionship. The values exchanged can be emotional or material. The important part is the trade. When people are looking to meet someone in these settings, it’s like being in an outdoor market with everyone showing and shouting what they have to offer another person. We are all salesmen selling a product and the product that we are selling is brand us.

A friend shared an observation with me the other night. He noticed that if a pretty girl passes I suddenly start speaking more loudly about my work as a writer. I honestly never noticed I did that, but I see now it’s true. I do do that. That is me announcing the values I have on offer. I do this out of habit probably because my work is of value to me and it has always brought me buyers in the past.

According to the pick-up artists, I am presenting the wrong image. The goal is “cocky funny” as being the attitude, or image, that women find attractive. There has to be a balance. Too little cocky is boring and lacking self-confidence and too much is arrogance. As for funny, too little is boring and too much is the overbearing class clown. Cocky funny is more effective than a discourse on Aristotelian Ethics in creating arousal despite what you might read in an Ayn Rand novel.

Where I believe some pick-up artists get it wrong is that much of their advice leans towards creating a public image to sell the product, but like the snake oil salesman, he may get the punter’s money but there is no substance to the product so there are no return customers. So he has to keep moving from town to town and hope that no one recognises him. Only then can the snake oil salesman perpetuate his fraud.

Image is like the smell of fresh coffee or cinnamon buns. We are drawn by the smell and we enjoy the feelings it gives us, but we want that cup of coffee or the bun at the end of the journey. We not only want our desires to be fanned, we also want them satisfied. For this reason, image and substance go hand in hand. One is simply a reflection of the other. For the Victorians, this cultivated image was not just appearance, but more importantly reputation. A reputation could make or break a person’s prospects. As the saying goes, “Our reputation precedes us”.

I was recently made aware of someone who is quite vocal in her beliefs and calculated in her image, but her listeners found her strangely hollow. She was described as lacking passion. When the person’s history was recounted to me it became obvious that here was someone who had cultivated an image based on a particular ideology and had the ability to argue and even embody her position, but her life was one of complete contradiction. The word for such people is hypocrite; someone whose image is contrary to their substance.

What I am describing here is the relationship between image and substance as it pertains to people selling themselves in their social interactions. When we move up to more famous people another layer is added to the dynamic.

Consider the case of Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Tease. The story goes that their marriage ended because she wanted to be the Fifties housewife and he wanted to be the partying rock star. The Manson image/substance seems consistent but Dita’s seems contrary. Not true. Manson seems to have made a classic blunder. Female performers whose job is to convey an image of sexuality are not inherently nymphomaniacs. That is an image the male audience wants to believe, but that is all just part of the show. The sexy stripper flirting with a guy as she gives him a lap dance will go home to her boyfriend and complain about her sore feet.

But the same can be said of the rock star. I once met an aspiring metal singer whose band was considering touring. He complained that he would now have to grow his hair out again. The members of Metallica are all classically trained musicians, but you would not assume that from their fan base. Or think of Lord Byron, the poster boy for the Romantic. Mr Mad, Bad, and Dangerous-to- Know wrote, “Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves." One hardly thinks of the Byronic image as an advocate for Reason.

People are drawn to the popular image created by such celebrities and fill-in the blanks with the sort of person they want them to be for real. As Mr. Incredible said, “Of course I have a secret identity. I don't know a single superhero who doesn't. Who wants the pressure of being super all the time?”

The concepts of image, self-image, public persona, celebrity persona, and reputation are all facets of the same basic concept. These are ideas that we utilize, consume, and propagate on a daily basis, but like your mobile phone, you can probably work it but don’t really understand it.

Image is a form of communication. As with any communication, do you know what you have to say? Is it purposeful and thought out or haphazard? Are you going to tell the truth or lie? Will your audience understand you, misinterpret you, or be completely baffled?

Another thing about image is that it is always communicating. Even when a person says not a word they are speaking volumes to an observer, whether or not the audience is correctly interpreting the image or even if they are consciously aware it.

This is how image works. Regular readers are aware of my theory concerning the triune nature of reality. In that video link I wrote:

Objective Reality is supreme, but we can never truly know it.

We exist in Subjective Reality, but the map is not the terrain.

We depend on Artificial Reality, but it must be sustained by production.

There is a philosophical debate over what defines humanity. There are those who say that it is our ability to reason. Others say it is emotion, particularly sympathy and empathy. I once strongly advocated the former over the latter, but Adam Smith convinced me otherwise.

We live in the Objective Reality governed by Natural Law and fuelled by the engine of karma, the process of cause and effect. I sometimes call this The Great Machine with every moment in time, every event, and every human choice moving another piece forward and creating a new chain of events. We could not understand this process if we could not imagine the process.

Sympathy and empathy are also the result of imagination, as we imagine ourselves in another position or imagining how they feel. Of the four root emotions (happiness, sorrow, desire, and fear) two of them, desire and fear, are purely imaginative in nature.

What makes a human being unique is their ability to imagine and thus create the Subjective Reality of our perceptions. Our imaginations make us human. It is the source of all human invention and creation, and thus the source of the Artificial Reality as well.

The image that we communicate to others depends upon the perceptions of our audience and how they imagine us to be.

This brings me to my theory of Doppelgangers. Since the mind can never truly engage reality.  Every person, place, thing, or concept that we encounter is filtered through our perceptions and the mind creates a mental manifestation of it.  When we think about, talk about, or engage with that thing we do so with the mental image and not the thing itself.  Wisdom is the ability to align our idea of reality as closely and objectively as possible with reality.

When you first see or encounter someone, your mind begins to construct a mental doppelganger, or imaginative duplicate, of this person.  If a relationship forms, then that image gets fleshed-out.  Ideally, a perfect mental double is created.  All of your dealings with this person is not with the person but with your idea of the person.

If an intimate relationship or long-term partnership develops, the mind starts to form emotional attachments with the doppelganger.  Now, the doppelganger needs constant feedback from the real person to remain viable.  So the process is not independent.  However, we are always in love with our idea of a person and never with the real person.  That may seem harsh, but if we exist within the realm of our perception and can never truly know Objective Reality, then why would our romantic relationships be any different?

As with our relationship with reality, our mental constructs may be more true than false in some areas and more false than true in others.  The doppelganger may be accurate or it may be constructed of wishful thinking or emotional need.  As with life, the goal is to be wise.  We should use the facts of reality in our mental manufacturing process; likewise we must look at a person’s actions as objectively as possible in creating the doppelganger.

When the relationship ends, even though the person is gone, the doppelganger remains.  However, without the feedback from the real person the doppelganger begins to die.  This is incredibly painful because the doppelganger is made from you.  Your thoughts, your hopes, your desires, your emotions.  It may feel like you are dying inside, and that is because you are.

The human imagination is a powerful thing – and extremely dangerous. Of the three “realities”, the only one that is True Reality is Objective Reality.  Nonetheless, it is our ability to imagine Objective Reality in the form of Subjective Reality that allows us to form emotional connections with it and ultimately gives life meaning.

In his poem Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats concludes with the famous line "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”. The reasoning behind this statement is that we live in a world of order governed by Natural Law which is the source of Truth, likewise Beauty is defined by order and symmetry. We can go a step further and say that by following the Natural Law then order and beauty will follow, which is Morality, or right action. So Truth, Beauty, and Righteousness are all aspects of the same central concept.

According to Objective Reality governed by Natural Law, Truth is Beauty and Beauty is Truth, however the picture changes in the context of Subjective Reality. Subjective Reality is based on an individual and collective perception and interpretation of Objective Reality and the feelings evoked. Since this is only an idea, then is does not really exist. Likewise, when we communicate these ideas to each other be they through conversations or through art, we are only communicating ideas, not necessarily reality.

Subjective Reality is governed by individual and collective feelings, learned responses, and social conditioning which may or may not have any connection to Natural law. To break these laws is to invite hurting people’s feelings and possibly invite their retribution.

Everything is relative without the standard provided by Natural Law and its principles. When everything is true; there is no Truth. When everything is beautiful; there is no Beauty. When any action is moral justified; there is no morality. When Subjective Reality is taken to its logical extreme we find that there is no Truth, no Beauty, and no Ethics.

John Keats was a child of the Romantic Era, the Age of Reason. Today, we live in what I call The Socialist Era, the Age of Feeling. I cover this in the article, Born in 1920. Where the culture of Keats was one focused primarily on Objective Reality and Natural Law, ours is one based on Subjective Reality and on Divine and Positive Law, in other words, whatever people feel is true, beautiful, or moral is valid regardless of any proven basis in reality.

To illustrate, with an Objective orientation the purpose of education and research is to understand Nature so that we can command Nature. But with a Subjective foundation the purpose of education and research is to attain social status and influence regardless of Natural Law. This places us on the path to destruction, or what I call Athena’s Wrath.

I touched on the concept of celebrity persona. When we see Christian Bale dressed-up like a giant bat and saying, “I’m Batman” we know that he’s lying. He’s Christian Bale. But we accept the lie because we recognise he is an actor pretending to be Batman for our entertainment. In the film Galaxy Quest, we laugh at the alien Thermians who thought American television programs were historical records. In real life, it would be just as foolish as the guy in the strip club thinking that the dancer was flirting with him because she fancied him. Most people have the power to discern a false image from a true one and will happily play along.

And yet when it comes to celebrities outwith playing a role, or musicians, or even politicians, people are quick to believe the false image concocted by their stylists and spin doctors. Why? Because they want to believe even though deep down they know it is a lie. They want their heroes and villains standing in the spotlight to love or despise. They want to believe in the substance they perceive to be communicated by these images.

There is a scene in the film Galaxy Quest where an actor, who plays a Captain Kirk-type hero on TV, is feeling irritable and slags off a fan by reminding him that it’s not real. The dejected kid says he knows this and slinks off. In the course of the film the fictional ship is built by aliens and the actor has to call on the fanboy for help. The actor tells the kid that it’s all real and the elated fan shouts, “I knew it”. We know that it is a lie but we desperately need it to be true.

The psychologist Nathaniel Brandon has an exercise were he asks people to stand in front of the group one by one and say convincingly, “I am worthy of existence”. Some are overly theatrical, some are shy, and others are monotone. He then asks the audience if they believe the person. Mostly, they don’t. His point is that most people don’t believe that they are worthy of existence. Most people want to be someone that they imagine to be more worthy.

We play out this exercise every day of our lives. The world is a meat market and we are all salesmen trying to convince the world that our goods, Brand Us, is worthy. Some people use gimmicks, some lie, some are overly theatrical, some shy, some sexy, some monotone, and some mundane. All this is conveyed through image – whether that image is consciously cultivated or not.

In the world of the Subjective we endeavour to make our audience feel good, regardless of Natural Law. This can bring fame, fortune, and recognition, but it all lacks substance. According to Branden, one of the keys to a positive self-image, which we then project through our communicated image, is the sense of efficacy. This means that we have done something to merit it by our actions in the Objective Reality of karma – cause/effect or action/consequence.

Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and applied his uncle’s theories in the field of sales and marketing. He even branched out into politics and political causes. Bernays was all about manipulating public opinion through human desires. Remember, desire is one of the imagined emotions. In other words, he was using image to sell products and concepts. Why? Because people respond to the feelings invoked through the imagination more than facts. This is how image travels round the world twice before reality gets its shoes on. This same principle is taught by the pick-up artist gurus. The lesson is how to create an image to manipulate female emotions in your favour.

Now perhaps the products sold by the Mad Men are superior to their competition. Perhaps the guy manipulating the girl really is a great guy for her. Regardless, the image is meaningless without the substance to back it up. Without substance the product and the relationship will eventually fail.

One of the key principles of the Romantic is to live consciously. This is because the Romantic emphasises the self and free will, but free will is meaningless if we choose not to consciously exercise it. This means taking conscious control of your image.

Through a combination of attitude, dress, and physical and verbal communication you are conveying an image. You may have a celebrity persona and also a public persona and a private persona, but each of these must convey Truth. The substance behind the image is you.

The Assassin’s Creed – Nothing is true; everything is permitted

Where other men blindly follow the truth,
Remember, nothing is true
Where other men are limited by morality or law,
Remember, everything is permitted.
We work in the dark to serve the light.
We are assassins.

I like criticism. Now there is a lost art. The role of the critic is to examine a piece of creation or a social phenomenon, or even a political phenomenon, and put it into a philosophical context that both the consumer/s and the creator/s may have missed. Unfortunately, the role of critic in society has devolved into two types. The academic critic is driven by ideology and the pop critic, with his thumbs up or down reviews, is usually driven by the market. The best place for reading proper old-fashioned criticism is the internet. I have written several and many folks have written some brilliant pieces.  The keen eye of the critic is most often active in the arts of painting, literature, and cinema. I know it is foolish to ever claim to be the first, but I know of no one who has ever written a proper criticism of a video game. I wonder why not. The best games have story and characters so why not unpeel the layers to reveal the hidden messages?

The frame story of the Assassin’s Creed series is actually pretty weak. The idea is that a secret society has created a machine called the Animus that allows a person to tap into the genetic memories of their ancestors. A bartender named Desmond Miles is kidnapped by this secret society, The Knights Templar no less, because they seek information known only to his ancestors, and Desmond must relive the memories of his ancestors to find the answers. In Assassin’s Creed 1, the ancestor is Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad (born 1165) a member of The Assassins, or Hashishin, during the Third Crusade. In Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood the ancestor is Ezio Auditore da Firenze (born 1459) a Florentine noble during the Italian Renaissance.  The world of Assassin’s Creed is one where two secret societies are locked in a nearly thousand year struggle for the soul of mankind. The Animus provides the narrative means of linking the past and the present to give the player a much larger picture of historical events in relation to the present.

There was a time when the Knights Templar were of little interest outside historians, but today they have become the foundation of the conspiracy theorist’s grand narrative. Their history in brief is that the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, commonly known as the Knights Templar, were a religious order formed circa 1129 who fought during the Crusades as the elite troops of Christendom. To fund their activities in the Holy Land the Knights Templar had to be able to move money from the West to the Middle-East quickly and so invented the foundations of the banking system. They not only moved wealth to the Holy Land, but also from it and thus became very rich. King Philip IV of France was in debt to the Templars, so he pressured Pope Clement V to disband the Order in 1312 and, Jacque de Molay, the Templar Grand Master, was burned at the stake and the Templars disappear from history.

The conspiracy theory goes that the Templars, though disbanded by papal decree, continued to operate behind the scenes ever since as the secret money men controlling the strings of puppet governments. Their modern decedents are the cabal of international bankers and multi-national corporations moving us towards a one world government – The New World Order. This seems to be the premise accepted in the Assassin’s Creed games.

The only opposition to the Templars in the game are the Assassins. Historically, the Assassins active during the Crusades were an order of Nizari Ismailis, part of the Shia branch of Islam, which existed from 1092 to 1265 under the leadership of the Persian Hassan-i Sabbah. The name assassin comes from the Arabic hashishin, or “users of hashish” but also carries the connotation of “outcast” or “rabble”. Sabbah’s followers were known for their athletic prowess, intelligence, and ability to blend in. Their targets were exclusively politicians and generals and during the Crusades they were known to take contracts on Crusaders and Saracens alike, whichever suited the guild’s purposes. In 1257, the Mongol warlord Hülegü destroyed Alamut, the Assassin’s mountain headquarters in northwestern Iran, including their library, so not much is known of their beliefs. Then in 1265 their strongholds in Syria fell to Baybars, the Mamluk sultan, and that was the end.

Just as conspiracy theorists postulate that the Knights Templar survived their reported demise to become the secret ruling elite, the game Assassin’s Creed resurrects the Assassins in the mold of the plucky outcasts murdering key figures to disrupt the machinations of the Templars to enslave mankind.

Now let’s take a step back from the game for a moment and look at the larger game. There is a hierarchy to the world. In every human society, no matter their claims to egalitarianism, there have been people at the top, people at the bottom, and people in-between. The gauge for determining a person’s place is power. Power is the means by which we work our will in the world. People of great power command wealth, some control armies, and some control both. This can be on a global, national, or local scale, but the principles are the same. The people at the bottom have limited power, so they learn to submit.

We acknowledge that all people have the Natural Rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness and any violation of these rights is immoral and grounds for moral retribution. This puts a check on the power of the powerful. Through the instrument of law the weak are protected from the abuses of the mighty.  But what if the law favours the powerful over the weak? What happens when the phrase becomes, “and freedom and justice for all who can afford it”? What if the very laws themselves serve the interests of the people of power and not the people?

We may read Assassin’s Creed as being subversive in that it complements the narrative given by the conspiracy theorists, particularly in these dark days when it seems that their predictions are coming to pass. Or we may view it as a metaphor. The Templars represent the powers-that-be seeking to control people and the Assassins are those willing to fight such controls, not only for themselves but for all people. These people who “work in the dark to serve the light”.

Consider this fictitious scenario. Police raid a home or place of business without announcing themselves. Perhaps they have a warrant; perhaps they do not. Either way, that is not announced upon their arrival. The occupants respond to the armed intrusion with gunfire and some of the officers are killed during the arrests. Should those who killed the policemen be accountable for murder?


I believe that the vast majority of people would say yes. We are taught through our social conditioning to obey the police and that murder is wrong. However, in a liberal society based on individual rights, the answer would be no. Such an invasion would be a violation of property rights unless the police have a search warrant issued by a judge who determines if there is reasonable cause for such an action. So regardless of the fact that these invaders are wearing uniforms, without a warrant they are, under the law, intruders, and the occupiers have the right to defend their property using reasonable force.

If we reject this interpretation, then what we are saying is that the State, meaning the people of power, can use force against the people as they choose and it is illegal for the people to oppose them. We have taken power from the law and put it in the gun. Of course the people of power have more guns, so those who choose to fight back must use force with surgical precision, meaning assassinations.

However, although I can make a moral argument for using assassination as a political tool, when we look through history we find that the most famous assassinations were not performed in the advance of liberty, but by either the insane, by the men of power themselves, or by the few acting in personal interest in the name of the people. The only exception that comes to mind is the assassination of Julius Cesar and perhaps John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. “Sic semper tyrannis”, or “thus always to tyrants” Booth shouted from the stage. In order to preserve the Union, Lincoln acted against the prescribed powers in the Constitution and impeachment was not an option given Lincoln’s popularity after the war. So though Booth may have been wrong, a case can be made that he acted morally.

The Assassinations

The game Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is broken-up into segments with the core chapters concerned with three primary assassinations. The first is a corrupt cardinal and banker who flaunts his hedonistic lifestyle, the second is an effete French general who believes his value stems from his birth status and not his actions, and the third is a rival assassin (the Murderer) whom Ezio spares.

With each victim we have their final words and Ezios admonitions:

To the Banker:
Juan: The things I have felt, seen and tasted. I do not regret a moment of it.
Ezio: A man of power must be contemptuous of delicacies.
Juan: But...I gave the people what they wanted.
Ezio: And now you pay for it. Il piacere immeritato si consuma da sé (Pleasure unearned consumes itself). Requiescat in Pace (Rest in Peace).

To the General:
Octavian: I only wanted respect.
Ezio: Respect is earned, not inherited or purchased.
Octavian: Perhaps you are right... I need more time...
Ezio: Che tu sia parte nella morte (May you be equal in death). Requiescat in Pace (Rest in Peace).

To the Murderer:
Micheletto: I am not yet dead.
Ezio: I did not come here to kill you. He who is the cause of someone else becoming powerful is the agent of his own destruction.

In the additional story available as downloadable content, The Da Vinci Disappearance, Ezio kills the leader of cult that wants to use a hidden Pythagorean code make people more enlightened.
Ercole: You... an Assassin... the enemy of knowledge?
Ezio: One must choose to search for truth. Forcing it on others accomplishes little.
Ercole: These lost people... warring kingdoms... I would have ended their suffering.
Ezio: Che tu possa conoscere la verità nella morte. (May you know the truth in death.) Requiescat in pace. (Rest in peace.)

Each of these characters is symbolic of power in our society. The Cardinal/Banker represents pleasure. However it is not as simple as that. Why are people religious? It makes them feel good. Why do they consume? It makes them feel good. Why do they rack up consumer debt with the banks? To pay for feeling good. To all this Ezio says, “Pleasure unearned consumes itself”. All of these pleasures are of value, but they must be earned. The pleasures of faith through deeds, the pleasure of consumption through work, and such honest thrift saves us from the banker’s debts.

I find it interesting that morality here is equated with hedonism when it takes the form of self-righteousness. It is so obvious, but rarely articulated. The image of the Cardinal/Banker seems perfect to express the do-gooders supporting the power of the state to satisfy their own self-importance all in the name of righteousness.

The French general represents those born into power. From my association with the wealthy, I have found that the men who earned their wealth are good, if not great, men. However, their children are another matter. Often they have an innate sense of entitlement which is unearned and they grow to command others as their fathers had. Some are capable and others are not. To them Ezio reminds them that “Respect is earned, not inherited or purchased”.

The Murderer represents those among the people who serve as the fist of those in power. Ezio’s admonition, “He who is the cause of someone else becoming powerful is the agent of his own destruction”, reminds me of the socialist protestors who are in essence demanding a more powerful central government. They are the agents of their own future oppression.

Finally, the cult leader represents academic power and the self-proclaimed intellectual elite. Have you ever noticed that people think that everyone else is an idiot but them? Those that I might consider stupid proclaim that the world is full of idiots and apparently they are the exception. How more so must this be among the educated? These are the people who tell others how they should live if they are to be as intelligent as they are and they seek to accomplish this through the force of government in the form of laws. To this Ezio says, “One must choose to search for truth. Forcing it on others accomplishes little”.

You may have noticed someone missing from the list. The games primary antagonist and final kill. This is Cesare Borgia and he represents political power. He is the overreaching force that controls the Cardinal/Banker, the General, and the Murderer. His end comes when he is defeated by Ezio but proclaims that no man can kill him. Ezio answers that fate will decide and throws him from the castle walls. The message here is that government by its very nature will spawn new Cesare Borgias and we must remain constantly vigilant for their return.

The Assassin’s Creed

But what of the Assassin’s Creed?

“Nothing is true, everything is permitted”. There are three sources for this. The first is the 1938 novel ‘Alamut’ by the Slovene writer Vladimir Bartol which was the basis/inspiration for the first Assassin’s Creed game. Strangely, the novel was not translated into English until 2004. The game itself appeared three years later. The next source is a quote mistakenly attributed to the 1880 novel ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "If God doesn't exist, everything is permitted". The exact phrase, “Nothing is true, Everything is permitted” appeared that same year as “Nichts ist wahr, Alles ist erlaubt”, in ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ by Friedrich Nietzsche.

In philosophy, the branch known as Ethics concerns itself with human activities. Those actions with a positive outcome are good and those with a negative outcome are bad. It is impossible to determine right action from wrong action without considering the context. That is where the first two branches come in, Metaphysics (what is reality?) and Epistemology (what is knowledge?). Together, these two branches pose the ultimate question in all of philosophy, “What is Truth?” If there is no Truth, then there are no moral limitations to action and thus is every action permitted.

Now take a moment to consider what you believe to be true. Is God in His heaven? Is global warming threatening life on planet Earth? Would the world be a better place is wealth was equally distributed? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then can you prove any of it or do you just feel that it is true because everyone else says it is?

In his day, Nietzsche was questioning the commonly accepted truths of the Judeo-Christian belief system. Today, we might expand that to include all socially conditioned beliefs that people accept without question. What if none of it was true? What if nothing is true? How would that affect your actions? There would then be no limitations to your will to act, or as Nietzsche famous said, “the will to power”. What he is really addressing here is what modern psychology and self-help call “limiting beliefs”. These are ideas about the nature of reality (truth) that limit our ability to act productively for our own benefit.

To say, “Nothing is true” is not a denial of Objective Reality. It is a denial of Subjective Reality and its power over our ability to engage our free will to act. This is not only important to humanity in general but particularly to the Romantic, since individualism is built upon volition and fettered volition is not true freedom at all but a form of slavery.

When I discovered the idea of the triune nature of reality: Objective, Subjective, and Artificial, I felt incredibly empowered by this idea. Ultimately, what it says is that nothing is true except Objective Reality, but there is more to it.

As we see in Ezio’s admonitions, and as his character as it develops throughout the games, he is constantly preaching a believe system. So we cannot say that “nothing is true”. However, these beliefs he espouses can all be traced by to the idea of Natural Law derived from Objective Reality.

One of the central characters in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is the historical figure Niccolo Machiavelli, who the writers of the game recast as a member of the Assassins. The following is from a scene involving Machiavelli and Ezio Auditore in Rome.

Ezio: Look at this city, the center of Borgia and Templar rule. Killing one man will not change things. We need to take away the source of their power.
Machiavelli: Are you suggesting we appeal to the people?
Ezio: Maybe.
Machiavelli: Relying on the people is like building on the sand.
Ezio: You are wrong. Our belief in humanity rests at the heart of the Assassin Brotherhood.

What Machiavelli is suggesting here is that the people cannot be trusted to do the right thing implying that they are fickle and will pursue short term gain or pleasure rather than long-term happiness and stability. We might go so far as to say that people are ignorant or stupid and therefore incapable of doing the right thing. A religious person might simply say that people are sinful. In all of these scenarios, the conclusion is the same. The people must be controlled, led, coerced, regulated, or nudged to do the right thing. Right being determined by someone else’s idea of truth and imposed by force on others for the good of society.

I think the majority of people would agree with Machiavelli here, but Ezio’s reply taken in conjunction with the Assassin’s Creed says different. He may be suggesting the idea of spontaneous order, or the invisible hand.

Objective Truth relies on Natural Law. There is a Sanscrit word that does not exist in its pure meaning in English; the word is Karma. It denotes the reality of Cause and Effect that lies at the heart of Natural Law and creates the spontaneous order found in Nature and in society.

Consider this scenario. You should not hit people. Why? Because they might hit you back. That is Natural Law. You avoid pain by not causing pain to others. Now suppose that you are socially conditioned not to hit people because it’s not nice, or God says so, or any other Subjective line of reasoning. You are now at the mercy of those who do not share your social conditioning. They can be violent without any fear of reprisal. They can now act without consequence and so disrupt the Natural order.

I confess that I too agree with Machiavelli, that the people cannot be trusted. However, I believe that is because they live a life where they have be sheltered or protected from the consequences of their actions, and therefore never learned how to be better -- to live up to their own potential.  The solution is not to impose rules based on Subjective Reality, but to allow Nature to take its course. This teaches responsibility and self-control through experience. Positive actions bring positive results and negative actions bring negative results.

For example, an article from Scientific America (April 2011) entitled ‘How Self-Control Works’ by Dan Ariely demonstrates the importance of self-control.

A recent study by colleagues of mine at Duke demonstrates very convincingly the role that self control plays not only in better cognitive and social outcomes in adolescence, but also in many other factors and into adulthood. In this study, the researchers followed 1,000 children for 30 years, examining the effect of early self-control on health, wealth and public safety. Controlling for socioeconomic status and IQ, they show that individuals with lower self-control experienced negative outcomes in all three areas, with greater rates of health issues like sexually transmitted infections, substance dependence, financial problems including poor credit and lack of savings, single-parent child-rearing, and even crime.

A quality like self-control is proven objectively to bring happiness, so it is up to parents to encourage this process of delayed gratification in children until they learn to do it for themselves, otherwise it is up to them to learn it on their own through experiences and hardships. The problem is that some people never learn from their mistakes and so as parents they never teach it to their children.

GK Chesterton said, "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything." In other words, belief in nothing creates a vacuum without any sort of standard and all that remains is the post-modern idea of relativistic Truth. So in rejecting Subjective truth we must accept the lessons found in Objective Truth to avoid the vacuum.

Conclusion

In 1987, I studied the book, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know by E. D. Hirsch Jr.. Wikipedia defines cultural literacy as:

Cultural literacy is the ability to converse fluently in the idioms, allusions, and informal content that creates and constitutes a dominant culture. From being familiar with street signs to knowing historical references to understanding the most recent slang, literacy demands interaction with the culture and reflection of it. Knowledge of a canonical set of literature is not sufficient in and of itself when engaging with others in a society, as life is interwoven with art, expression, history, and experience. Cultural literacy requires familiarity with a broad range of trivia and implies the use of that trivia in the creation of a communal language and collective knowledge. Cultural literacy stresses the knowledge of those pieces of information that content creators will assume the audience already possesses.

People can play a game series like Assassin’s Creed and take little from it aside from the combat, challenges, and quests. That’s fine. However for the culturally literate there is so much more to see. That is the role of the critic. He points these things out.

As a Romantic, I recognise the deeper ideology as being more than the “assassin’s creed”. It is also the Romantic's Creed. It is not surprising that Machiavelli appears in the game as a secret leader of the assassins. He is part of the Romantic philosophical canon, and his works influenced others in the canon like Rousseau, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Adam Smith, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.

Blair Worden wrote in "Milton's Republicanism and the Tyanny of Heaven":

In the seventeenth century it was in England that Machiavelli's ideas were most substantially developed and adapted, and that republicanism came once more to life; and out of seventeenth-century English republicanism there were to emerge in the next century not only a theme of English political and historical reflection - of the writings of the Bolingbroke circle and of Gibbon and of early parliamentary radicals - but a stimulus to the Enlightenment in Scotland, on the Continent, and in America.

There is a clever scene towards the end of Brotherhood where Ezio and Machiavelli part company. Machiavelli says, “I intend to write a book about you one day”. Ezio responds, “If you do, make it short”. This is no doubt a reference to Machiavelli’s most well-known work, ‘The Prince.’

I like the idea that the assassins are “outcast” but through their nobility of spirit and their character, as embodied in Ezio, they become princes. I will note that ‘The Prince ‘itself has little bearing on Ezio or the assassins.

For those with the culturally literacy to see it, Assassin’s Creed is more than just a game. It is a call to arms encouraging us to remove the shackles of our social conditioning by recognising that “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” and thus have the strength of will and character to challenge the oppressions of our age.

Imagining Libertarians

Edward Crane, the founder of the libertarian think tank The Cato Institute, wrote of the 1972 Libertarian National Convention held at the Radisson Hotel in San Francisco:

"As a libertarian I was always aware that it was appropriate to be tolerant of alternative lifestyles. But until I walked into that room, I had no idea just how many alternatives there were. There were anarchists dressed in all black. There were Randians holding long, gold cigarette holders. And hippies from the left and conservatives from the far right. I think the only other person there with a suit was Ed Clark, who later ran for president on the Libertarian ticket."

I thought of this over drinks the other day when I complained to a friend that I feel my ambitions are thwarted due to a lack of human material. My vision for many years was the creation of an organisation dedicated to my principles. I call it my Church of the Romantic in jest, but in practice I call it my Salon de Mal, a place where Romantic thinkers, artists, activists, and lifestylers could gather to educate and support each other and further promote the Romantic ideals and values.

Here is the problem. The thinkers I want are into academia. The artists are into aesthetics. The activists follow mainstream politics. The lifestylers are transient souls consuming superficial pop-culture; they are still growing-up and will statistically grow out of what I am offering. I may succeed in collecting the young and the idealistic educated poor (like myself), but what I need are powerful adults, but many are already invested in jobs, families, and perhaps even the status quo. What I want to is unite the strands of philosophy (Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Politics, and Aesthetics) in society into a holistic organisation.

This is where my friend pointed out that libertarians lack an aesthetic. There is no cool and recognisable image. In my mind there is, but he was right. There is not one evident in the mainstream.

I once overheard an American student speaking to some Scots in a club who were about her same age. She said, “Do I look like a Republican?” I’d wager we could ascribe an image or stereotype to fit most ideological points of view, but somehow the libertarians fall through the cracks and are often mistaken for Republicans or Torries.

This is when I thought of Ed Crane’s observation. “There were anarchists dressed in all black. There were Randians holding long, gold cigarette holders.” For me, libertarians are Moderns. I’ll explain.

I’ve written before my theory that the Romantic Era ended in 1929 and the Socialist Era began. Other authors use different terms. What I call the Romantic Era is called the Victorian Age, The Enlightenment/Industrial Age, or simply the Modern Age by philosophers such as Jean-François Lyotard, who coined the term Postmodernity. What came after was called The Postmodern, or the state of Postmodernity.

So the postmodern is not defined by what it is but by what came before it. It is the period after the Modern. Lyotard suggested that the “Grand Narrative” collapsed leaving a void to be filled. The old truths that people believed in ceased to have the power to cement and motivate society. So the Modern is characterized by relatively homogenous nation-states with an established hierarchy and national will, but more importantly it believed in an absolute, knowable, and objective Truth.  Postmodern is not.

Postmodernity is the state where you may have more in common with your friend on the internet living 6,000 miles away than you do with your neighbours. It is the state where you might encounter dozens of different ideologies, from sexual orientation, to religious or cultural beliefs, to political beliefs all before lunch and none of them is more “right” than another. It’s a world where truth is not objective but subjective. If that is so, then so is right and wrong. Whatever feels good is right. This is what I call The Age of Feeling.

So within this diverse stew we have representatives of different cultures, zeitgeists, beliefs, and so on. These can be placed into three primary groups: the Pre-moderns, the Moderns, and the Postmoderns.

The Pre-moderns are the hippies, neo-pagans, neo-tribalists, eco warriors, New Agers, feminists, and so forth. You get the picture. The subjectivication of truth has served them well and they have thrived. This is mostly due to the fact that in the wealthy West they have the luxury of playing primitive without all the negative consequences of a true primitive lifestyle. Or to put it this way, they will pay a fortune for traditional Indian remedies while the people of India are in desperate need for Western medicine that actually works. The Pre-moderns are the prime movers of the Age of Feeling and the bastion of the Left.

The Moderns are the bad guys. We are the pro-industry, pro-technology, pro-science, pro-reason, pro-capitalism, pro-nationalism, pro-gender roles, and pro-Christian. Most social conservatives would fit this category, but so would the libertarians who are socially liberal. If that seems odd, remember that both were represented during the Modern Age as conservatives and liberals; the common thread is their desire to return to the Age of Reason. Given the current state of postmodernity, they have more in common than not despite core differences.

Finally, we have the Postmoderns. One book I read ages ago on the subject divided these guys into two categories: the Nihilists and the Players. “If everything is true, then nothing is true” says the Nihilist. The flip side is the Player who just loves it all. He jumps from one fad or ideology to the next. The only downside is when there is nothing new on the horizon. I suppose the author who coined the term may have had the sexual player in mind. He doesn’t care about substance or deeper meaning as long as he gets pleasure from it. When he’s finished, then he will happily move on. What they have in common, the Nihilist and the Player, is the belief that nothing has meaning.

So for me, the image of the libertarian draws from its political roots in Classical Liberalism of the Nineteenth Century and therefore the Romantics of the Modern Era. This seems perfectly embodied in Crane’s description of the followers of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism with their cigarette holders at the Libertarian National Convention. It is classy, charming, and perhaps a bit elitist and anachronistic.

In my dream world, frock coats, waistcoats, and corsetry would be associated with libertarianism just as tie-dye shirts and beads are associated with hippies and the Left. I would love someone to see my style of dress and assume me to be a libertarian because I am dressed as a Modern rather than as a Player who is into “the cowboy”, “Goth” or “Steampunk” look. And while the hippies gather in the woods to sing folk songs, the libertarians are in some elegant café discussing issues.
 

Of course this is just a dream. In real life, if I were to see someone so dramatically and Romantically dressed, then I can only assume them to be a Player without the ideological core that I am looking for in a partner for my salon. Perhaps they are off to a club theme night. I have developed this belief through countless dead-ends and disappointments. Meanwhile, the true image of the libertarian is the somewhat intellectual and geeky guy at his computer. I guess that fits me too.

Yes, libertarians are in desperate need of a make-over from the mad men. Should this ever occur, I can’t imagine my phone ringing. From my experience, I suppose it will one day happen and the final result will be something I heartily disapprove.

My objective through my work has been to take those existing subcultural groups within Postmerdernity whose Aesthetic roots lie in the Modern, such as the Goths, Dandies, Steampunks, and Burlesques and reconnect them with their philosophical roots to form a recognisable alternative lifestyle or counter-culture called Romantic.  In this, I have failed completely.  You can lead a Player to Truth, but you can't make him think.

The Modern Hero

A friend sent me this quote from the book, ‘King, Warrior, Magician, Lover : Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine’ by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette

"Ours is not an age that wants heroes. Ours is an age of envy, in which laziness and self-involvement are the rule. Anyone who tries to shine, who dares to stand above the crowd, is dragged back down by his lackluster and self-appointed 'peers.'

 "We need a great rebirth of the heroic in our world. Every sector of human society, wherever that may be on the planet, seems to be slipping into an unconscious chaos. Only the heroic consciousness, exerting all its might, will be able to stop this slide toward oblivion. Only a massive rebirth of courage in both men and women will rescue the world. Against enormous odds, the Hero picks up his sword and charges into the heart of the abyss, into the mouth of the dragon, into the castle under the power of an evil spell."

It sounds great and inspiring, and I totally agree, but these days can we tell the difference between the hero and the anti-villain? For those not aware of the concept of the anti-villain, he is someone with all the attributes of the hero, as described above, but he is willing to commit acts contrary to accepted social morality in order to achieve a higher purpose.

In fiction, we have anti-villains like Magneto from the X-men who believes the oppressed mutants must fight back against humanity in order to survive; Ra’s al Ghul in ‘Batman Begin’ believes crime must be stopped by destroying those who engage in criminal behaviour as well as those who support criminal activity through action or inaction.

In life, we have the recent events in Wisconsin where the heroic teachers stood up against the state legislature to fight for their rights to collective bargaining for state employees. But wait a second. Collective bargaining is where union representatives have the power to negotiate terms that affect all members of the union and said negotiations are conducted between union representatives and representatives of the state legislature. Since the unions are major contributors to political parties, particularly the Democratic Party, could this not be seen as a conflict of interest? The state representatives are state representative because of money and votes provided by the very union representatives with whom they are negotiating. Furthermore, the benefits the unions are arguing for are come from the state treasury, that is, taxpayer’s money. So in truth, what the heroic teachers are fighting for is money and benefits at the taxpayers’ expense agreed upon under dubious circumstances. So are they heroes or anti-villains?

If you are a mutant, then Magneto is a hero. If you hate crime, then Ra’s al Ghul is a hero. If you are a teacher, then the teacher’s union is heroic. Propagandists, PR men, and spin doctors can contrive any group and their leaders into heroes.

The true test is a question of Ethics. Is right action determined by the real or projected special interests of a particular group or by a standard law of conduct?

Here’s an example of what I mean by a “projected” special interest. In Britain, a group wanted to ban the story of the Three Little Pigs from schools on the grounds that it was offensive to Muslims. Turns out, no one in this group were Muslim and the representatives from the Muslim community spoke out saying that they are not offended by stories about pig, they just don’t eat them. This group projected what they imagined a segment of the population might find offensive and on these grounds sought to use political force to prevent it. Is that moral?

Here is my moral code in brief. Ethics is simply defined as right action. What actions will promote greater happiness and flourishing? The fundamental answer is the recognition and respect of the Natural Rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness for each individual. These rights can only be morally infringed in defence of your rights and/or as punishment for their violation. To make it even more brief, “Live and let live”.

Sure, it reads simple and I reckon most people would agree with this in principle. The problem comes in the execution. That’s when all the deeper implications emerge and the true test of character begins. I say character because people will do things that you do not like and you have to suck-it up and accept it. People will suffer for their bad decisions, but those were their decisions to make and their consequences to suffer. Sometimes people will contrive that they have a claim on another person’s life, liberty, or property and claim a moral duty to secure it for themselves.

Get this bit of horror. The racist has a right to be a racist, though he is in violation should he choose to infringe upon another’s rights. The obese person has the right to be obese. The rich man has the right to be rich. The junkie has the right to destroy himself. The carnivore has the right to eat meat. The homosexual has the right to be gay. In other words, people have a right to say and do things that we disapprove of or find to be morally wrong – provided that they do not infringe the Natural Rights of others. Now that takes character.

So what makes a hero? A hero fights for these rights against the murderers, slavers, thieves, fraudsters, and tyrants (both large and small). The villain strives for his own interests regardless of the Natural Rights of others, but the anti-villain is not selfish. He fights for the interests of his special interest group, but he too acts regardless of the Natural Rights of others. What defines the hero is his defending of the principles of these rights as higher ideals regardless of the individuals involved or his own personal judgements of them.

Natural Rights are also called Negative Rights. No, not because they’re not positive, but because they say what people and governments cannot morally do. They cannot violate your rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. The flip-side is Positive Rights. These are not so much rights as privileges, sometimes called goods. They say what people and government “should” do, such as a right to an education, health care, housing, a job, or whatever can be contrived. PJ O’Rourke calls the Positive Rights “Gimme” Rights and the Negative Rights “Go Away” rights.  I would argue that the Natural Rights form the basis of morality, whereas the qualities expressed by Positive Rights, such as personal altruism or beneficence, are morally praiseworthy but are not morally obligatory.

Many problems stem from the Gimme rights. In order to give services they must first be paid for. They are paid for through taxes which are collected under force or the threat of force. In other words, the Gimme rights are only possible by violating the Go Away rights. Gimme Rights are usually for a specific group’s benefit and not to everyone’s. Should the threat emerge that the Gimme rights might be lessened or taken away, then the anti-villains wrap themselves in the hero’s mantle, take to the streets, and fight the just cause of using government force to steal from others to benefit their group’s interests. Also, the Gimme Rights allow for larger government, this means more government jobs, more bureaucrats, and larger expense accounts.

In a proper Republican form of government the elected officials understand that the purpose of government, and therefore their purpose in government, is to protect the Natural Rights of their electorate. So every official action, law, or regulation is accepted or rejected according to this guiding star. In a Democracy, its majority rule regardless of the Natural Rights. 

However, the current state of play is this. Special interest groups, be they corporate or unions or action groups, fund political parties or candidates who use that money to influence voters. Once elected, the representatives pass legislation as they see fit, but their guiding star is how to fund the next election. This is not a Republic and it isn’t even a Democracy where the issues would be presented to an informed public for a vote with account books laid bare. It’s more of an oligarchy where the representatives of special interest groups form a shadow government alongside elected representatives. As a consequence its all about the Gimme without much Go Away.

Over the past month, both versions of the film ‘Inherit the Wind’ have been on the television and I watched them both. The story is based on the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 in which a high school biology teacher was accused of violating a state law banning the teaching of evolution.   ‘Inherit the Wind’ shows two “heroes” clashing in the courtroom. Henry Drummond is the defender of Natural Law (the law of Reality) and Matthew Harrison Brady is the defender of Divine Law (the law of God) under the auspices of Positive Law (the law of Society ) as seen through the court, the audience at the trial, and the law itself. 

The true hero of course is Drummond who is defending free thinking, free speech, and of course Natural Rights. Brady is the anti-villain who is trying to preserve faith and fight the good moral fight, at the expense of Natural Rights, for the greater good. In the end we see him collapse under the weight of his own self-importance, emotionalism, and personal sense of moral rectitude. As for Positive Law, unlike the primary positions, it has no fixed position and wavers on the whim of the crowd and the greater public opinion beyond the courtroom.

The world is full of men like Brady who are full of moral zeal and righteousness who believe that the magnitude of their beliefs justifies violating the Natural Rights of those who have done no wrong save questioning, challenging, or even mocking the beliefs into which their opposition has invested so much of their emotions and their identity.

Ever since 1945 the name of Hitler is evoked to represent evil. As Godwin’s Law states, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." The thing that people conveniently forget about Hitler is that in his mind he was fighting the heroic moral battle for the souls of the German people and the German people loved him for it. After all, the evil Jewish bankers had to be stopped because they were corrupting Germany. In dire times like these, we are justified in violating a person’s Natural Rights for the preservation of the nation. Right? Wrong.

The thing about the Antichrist is that no one recognises him as such. They think he is the Christ. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. (Matthew 24:24, King James Version). We recognise the false Christ because he is willing to violate the Natural Rights of others with moral justifications. The only true moral justification is in defence of your rights or as punishment for violating rights; all crimes are punished by violating the rights of the convicted, either through death, incarceration, fines, or banishment and each penalty corresponds to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. 

So how do we fight the villains and the anti-villains of the world? We do not initiate violence, but once begun we can morally finish it. We talk. We argue. We debate. We thwart. We challenge. We stand firm. Most of all, we do not advocate the violation of an individual’s Natural Rights either directly or through endorsing government force on our behalf. We live and we let live. 

I was ready to close this up with that, but I just realised that I have discussed the hero, the villain, and the anti-villain, but not the anti-hero.  So I shall close with two quotes for you to ponder.

“Rorschach's Journal. October 12th, 1985: Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll whisper "no."  -- The Watchmen

“I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you.” –Batman in Batman Begins