Restoration and Invigoration of the Romantic

In The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand writes about the natural Romantic tendencies of certain children and how as they mature this anti-Romantic society of ours immediately puts them on the defensive. They must either conform or prepare for a fight that they are ill prepared to wage at their level of maturity. I related whole heartedly.

Children look to society as it is presented to them via their parents, siblings, peers, and the media to find who to be and how to be it. Often children will identify with one set of messages over another. When "normal" children were into sports or music, I was into heroes. Comics, Mythology, American Tall Tales, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Indiana Jones. All strong with Romantic themes. I learned about relationships from the old Hollywood musicals my mother loves so much. This was the world I thought was normal. Of course that wasn't the case.

I have no doubt that other juvenile Romantics shared similar interests, but in the end we all come down different paths to the same rallying point as Romantics. When we take whatever our social imprints are into the playground we find that they are not normal, therefore we see ourselves as not normal.

Suppose there is no interest in sports and no innate athletic ability, then if you are an American your social status is immediately second class. If you are British and have not chosen a team to support, then you might as well be an atheist.

Suppose your intellectual strengths lie in the humanities, well, you won't be a science geek. Or let's say your musical tastes aren't't top 40 status. So you fall in with the "alternative crowd" who base their entire sense of self on the music and paraphernalia they consume. What if that's not your identity?

For girls, lets say you are a late bloomer or not immediately attractive? The upper status boys aren't going to sweep you into their league. If you're not into soap operas then you're out of the social loop with the other girls.

For the developing Romantic all these are knock backs. The message clearly received is you are weird, different, and at best interesting. As these children learn their place in society it is as the outsider. They begin to view their perception of mainstream society as representing the normal people and themselves as abnormal. Naturally, they seek to find "their own kind" and if they succeed they will largely congregate together throughout their school years. As a result they may or may not find successes in other available aspects of school like drama or politics because they would rather avoid others.

Some juvenile Romantics give in and join the greater social network within that microcosm that is school. Others may continue consuming their fantasies and become the stereotype sci-fi geek content in his little world but never learning any social skills. And others still may create an identity for themselves based on being different and never actually develop the necessary values associated with Romanticism. The result is being different for difference sake and reveling in that oddness.

Then there's politics. The images associated with the right are the businessman, the redneck, and the born-again Christian. If you do not see yourself as fitting in with these types then you automatically default to the left with the intellectuals, artists, minorities, and the poor. Notice children have no Libertarian Romantics on the menu of images to choose? Where does the developing Romantic have to go?

I always believed that I was destined to be the hero. I was not content to fantasize or pretend. Heroes are not fan boys. Indiana Jones would not wear an Indiana Jones T-shirt. He would wear a suit in town and a leather when out in the world. I did what a young Romantic should do. Emulate the hero until you find your own style.

But there was a problem. The social knock backs of youth become trivial when the wider world opens up after school years are done and the real task of living begins. The social pressures lessen, the variety of people and worldviews widens, and new opportunities for success, failure, validation, and rejection present themselves. Despite this emergence into adult life the old programs are still running.

I once read that people with a poor self-image see themselves as funny looking, awkward, and socially inept. The reason for this is that our sense of self develops as teens when we are funny looking, awkward, and socially inept. The pattern becomes set.

The mind then determines what we can and cannot have from the smorgasbord of life according to this pattern and will do all it can to both facilitate what it believes we are worthy of having and undermining those things "out of our league".

For example, if by some quirk of fate you find yourself joined to a partner that you deep down honestly believe that you do not deserve, then you will unconsciously sabotage the relationship and thus restore the pre-programmed state of how your life "should" be. It's the same principle as when the vast majority of lottery winners loose their multi-millions in a few years. The temperature is changed to match the internal thermostat.

It is important to remember that you are not your mind. Your mind does not care if your heart is happy or sad. It only wants to maintain a stable, familiar, pre-programmed mental state. If this state is left-over nonsense from junior high and high school keeping you from getting what you want, then so be it.

Paul McKenna is his book, I Can Make You Rich, tells of comparing notes of school memories with a friend of his. In maths class McKenna's working class word problems involved buying and selling apples and oranges whereas his upper-class friend's memories were of problems involving the buying and selling companies. One man was imprinted for poverty and the other for wealth.

The same holds true for the young Romantic's socialisation. He is imprinted as an outsider. Of course every person has those experiences as not everyone is in the schoolyard elite. Even the elite are in competition with each other. We all know the feeling of being the unworthy, misunderstood, outside. The real issue is one of degrees.

During my examination of the gothic idiom the great recurring theme was not sorrow, as any might expect, but power. The self-identification is with the powerful "monster" and not the victim. And yet in society we see that the gothic subculture is among the least powerful. Why? Because people work best as part of a team and the larger team tends to wield more power. The outsider persona cripples both Goths and the greater community of Romantics of which they are a natural part.

Power is the means to work ones will in the world. The more power someone has the closer they are to being their true self. As Nietzsche observed, we are driven by the will to power, but most people learn to accept their state of powerlessness.

I do not hold to the notion that power corrupts, it simply allows one's true nature the means to act out without limitations. If the end result is corruption and cruelty, then it was always there and only lacked the power to act on it. But what happens if our juvenile programming prevents us from attaining enough power of expression to achieve our Romantic aspirations?

I have identified seven forms of power: characteristic, physical, social, material, titular, legislative, and time. Underlying all of these is the basic requirement of self-belief. You have to believe in yourself and your worldview in the face of a world you perceive to be against you. Without that self-confidence your power supply will be limited. It is difficult to walk through the world with ease when you're in a state of fear and defensiveness due to an actual or perceived lack of power and efficacy.

There is a creature in Glasgow, and indeed Scotland in general, called a Ned. They are usually underclass or barely working class. There are those among them who have never worked a day in their life and some whose parents haven't either. For some, their availability to work is sorely handicapped by their mental, emotional, and social retardation possibly due to being pre-teen alcoholics killing off those developing brain cells. They are socialised among others like themselves and so know nothing of the world outside their little bubble.

For fun, Neds generally drink, but the greatest past time seems to be abusing others, either physically or verbally. I once knew someone, a fairly average, "normal" guy, who was mocked by Neds because they thought his hair cut resembled someone in a boy band popular at the time, so you can imagine the amount of abuse I have received.

The single greatest difficulty I faced in immigrating to Scotland was the Neds and the general Ned-mentality. Suddenly I was back in junior high, but facing a level of verbal abuse I never experienced as a child growing-up. The messages I received from their taunts were that I was a social outcast with no grasp of reality and at worst a joke. Imagine walking onto a bus and a group of people laugh at you then one says, "get a grip" or the ubiquitous "yeeha" on the street.

It wasn't just the Neds. It seemed that everyone I encountered wanted to make some comment about my appearance. Some negative, some positive, and some people thought that they were being funny (usually with a line that I have heard a million times before). The dominant feeling invoked was "how dare you".

I dress to impress myself, and if someone else is impressed then they are welcome to come along for the ride, but I do not dress for the benefit of others. I am not pretending to be something I am not. I am not wearing a costume. I am not here for your entertainment.

The words sting because deep, deep, down my unconscious programming agreed with them. On the surface I may fight them, debate them in my mind, and justify myself, and yet underneath part of me – my programming – agrees with them. The comments act as triggers evoking all those feelings of alienation from childhood along with all the baggage that goes with it.

I became very angry and defensive in my life, stuck to "my own kind", and constantly questioned myself filling my mind with self-doubt. If I wanted anything outside of my safe bubble I convinced myself that I could not have it on account of my handicap.

I have since adjusted to my life in Glasgow. The level of abuse is not what it once was and I have developed what I considered to be the correct posture for dealing with this. It is more than answering, or not answering, the fools who inhabit our globe. It is about self-belief. The reason I am either praised or mocked is because I stand-out, not unlike celebrities who are praised and mocked by people who do not even know them. I have come to accept these comments part of being who I am, just as any public figure must. So yes, these days I'm cool with it.

The post-modern Romantic has been told throughout his life that he is wrong. Is he? Of course not. He may consciously see himself as being right, he may stand defiantly, but how much of that defiance is born of fear, anger, bitterness, and jealousy? These negative motivations stem from the deep unconscious belief that he is, in fact, wrong. Who can blame him? Throughout his life he has been damned or praised for being different, which is the same as being outside, weird, and ultimately unlike everyone else.

You see, humans are creatures of two worlds. We have individual consciousness and we are also group animals who work best in a team. How do we reconcile this? What is too individualistic? What is too collectivist? We crave both liberty and acceptance. How can we have both?

We also crave truth. Whether we are right or not is largely irrelevant. We just want the assurance that our worldview is valid. This usually comes from other members of society telling us that we are right, also known as social validation. So how do you deal with life when society (as you perceive it) has been sending you direct or indirect messages telling you that you are wrong?

I want to emphasis again that this is not just the burden of the Romantics. Our commercial society is quick to tell people that they are wrong if they do not buy their product or their ideology. It's a matter of degrees and fundamentals. Romantics fundamentally disagree with the social mainstream.

Here is an example. There is more than one ethical system. Most people do not realize this. The dominant system is called altruism. The good is self-sacrifice for another and the bad is selfishness. The Romantics look to the Aristotelian system where the good is to flourish and the bad is destruction. Those who embrace the Aristotelian system are perceived as being selfish. This is a far cry from buying the wrong brand of deodorant in the grand scale of fitting in. The Romantic is not just wrong or weird; the Romantic is evil in the eyes of society.

The Romantics created the Modern world; unfortunately we do not live in the Modern world. Welcome to post-modernity. Of course there are still Romantic elements, but they have the style and lack the substance. For example, as a child growing-up I remember a TV ad for a clothing store called Millers Outpost. In one ad they called on people to be individuals while selling Levis, the most conformist article of clothing a person could wear. So we promote the Romantic virtue of individualism while at the same time encouraging conformity.

In the same vein, people outside the goth community say that Goths are trying to be individuals but they all look the same. This same person will happily go to the shopping mall surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of people wearing jeans and a casual top or T-shirt. Sure, the goth scene is subject to the same fashion trends as any other group, but a handful of Goths does not compare to a multitude of conformists who also see themselves as individuals.

In the modern world, the Romantics were heroes, but in the post-modern worlds they are outcasts, weirdos, and some times just plain evil. What we have here is a conflict of fundamental beliefs concerning the nature of reality. Children are exposed to elements of the Romantic, the style without substance, from an early age and if they identify themselves with those elements they find no encouragement from society in general and no means to develop along that path.

I have written extensively on the three "realities". Here's a recap. There is the Objective Reality, the world that is; the Subjective Reality, the world as each individual perceives it, and the Artificial Reality, the material and social man-made world. Each person lives in the Objective Reality and exists within their Subjective Reality as based on their experience of the Objective and Artificial realities.

In other words, the world and the people in it are real, however you can only experience your idea of it, therefore much of what you call "real" is not. It's just your idea. Likewise just as you respond to your idea of reality, other people respond to their idea of reality. Sometimes these Subjective Realities correspond and sometimes not. When they do not, then the result is conflict. When a whole group of people share a worldview that you do not, then you might begin to question yourself.

The final arbiter as to whether one Subjective Reality is truer than another is Objective Reality, the real reality. The outsider may have the opportunity to debate his point, but that rarely occurs in normal routine life. If it does, there is no guarantee that your opponents will see reason. Most people are happy with their Subjective Reality as it is and any threat to it is perceived as a threat to reality itself, since they believe that their perception is truth.

In conflict resolution, this reasoning together to arrive at a mutual win/win solution is called collaboration. There are five types of conflict resolution in total which are: Avoid, Accommodate, Force, Compromise, and finally Collaborate. Avoidance is simply withdrawing; Accommodate is acquiescence; Force is attacking either verbally, physically, or emotional to get your way; and Compromise is as it says on the tin.

In conflict situations people will use certain styles first and if that does not work thy will move through the list. For example, when I was tested on this I start with Collaboration and scored a zero on Compromise. So I would rather go along with things than compromise.

When the young Romantics face their initial conflict with society, there are those who avoid and become introverts avoiding others in general. Some accommodate in order to fit in and eventually join the collective. Some use force and become fierce individualists driven by the anger and fear that once dominated me. Some compromise never loosing their Romantic tendencies, but always cutting themselves short from what they really want for themselves. I advocate collaboration.

Collaboration requires a respect for the worldviews of others and an acceptance of the fact that not everyone sees the world as you do for whatever reason. I believe the Romantic is superior, however that does not give license to disrespecting others who are simply ignorant.

Collaboration also requires self-respect. You're views may not be mainstream. You may be mocked or damned by those who do not understand or those who wish to use force against you. In the face of this you must hold firm to the belief that your worldview is just as valid as theirs (if not more so).

If collaboration is not possible then avoidance comes into play. Will any good (flourishing) be accomplished by either using force or accommodation? When I was mocked by the Neds, I saw avoidance as silent accommodation. I believed that if I ignored them that I was given silent consent to their attacks. If I used force, as I have on occasion, I may change one mind but there are a lot of Neds. Do I want to live my life in perpetual conflict? No. Can I save them? No. In the absence of reason and the threat of physical force the only logical path is to leave them to their own fate to punish them.

Sometimes the conflicts come closer to home from family, friends, and co-workers. People close to us seem to love telling us who to be and how to live. Here, it is important to know your boundaries.

Victorians loved rules. Rules make sure that everyone was on the same page. Rules can be oppressive, yet it also makes life easier when the social expectations are clearly defined. For the Victorians, it was considered rude for a man to pry or question the motivations of another man. Of course it was done, but usually prefixed with an apology. "Not to pry into another mans affairs, but..." There was recognition of another person's right to themselves, their mind, their liberty, and their free will.

These days it seems that everyone has their hands in every else's pockets. The very notion that they should mind their own business is alien to them. To tell them to back off is seen as rude, mean, or hurtful. So a person is forced into a position of accommodation to keep the peace or out of fear of either being hurtful or being seen as a mean person.

In these worldview conflicts, collaboration comes first, but if that is not possible then force may be required if your personal boundaries are threatened. Be polite but firm. Your life is your own and your choices are yours. My parents did not always agree with the choices made by myself and my sisters, but they always supported our free will decisions. They even helped pick-up the pieces if it went wrong. There may have been an "I told you so", but it was in the spirit of "now you've learned something" and not "I'm right, listen to me from now on."

Here are few final thoughts. One thing that I have learned from studying hypnosis is that people will generally believe what you tell them about yourself. If you accept and believe in yourself, then they will too unless given evidence to the contrary.

Sometimes I see or meet girls that I think are out of my league. They are usually attractive, motivated, career women with boyfriends who are career men. I have no career. They are "normal" and I am, well, eccentric. I question my reality and see my reality as less real and therefore inferior to theirs. They are grown-ups and I am a child in a costume.

See the problem here? I've given myself a handicap from the start. Most of what we think is reality is just an idea. It's an illusion. So why not have an illusion that benefits you instead? If you see yourself as an outsider, then you are. If you perceive others to have it more together than you, then you are less than them (even if the fact is that they don't have it all together). If you believe in your world with confidence and conviction, then others will too.

I wrote earlier of Paul McKenna's childhood math problem. His working class schools used fruit for math problems and his upper-class friend's school used companies. McKenna then goes on to explain the importance of reprogramming these old imprints imposed upon us as children. This goes towards resetting the mental thermostat of what our minds will allow us to have.

McKenna's book is called I Can Make You Rich, so it focuses on resetting the wealth thermostat. He advocates reimaging a wealthy childhood instead of a poor one. This same process can be done regarding Romanticism.

On a positive note, Romantics are people who live life to the fullest, take chances, and walk through the world with ease. Their level of self-confidence is such that there is nothing that they fear. They do not fear failure, ridicule, or experience the "need" to fit it because they know that they do. The Romantic is not the freak or the outcast. He is a man of values and principles who does not compromise his beliefs or himself. His most prized possessions are his soul and his honour, which no one can take from him.

The contents of your mind whether they be memories or fantasies are equally valid as far as the mind and heart are concerned. Where the mind goes the body follows, so tell the mind where you want to go. Re-imagine your life as the one you want it to become. Think back on your past as one where you were that self-confident Romantic I just described. Imagine that wealthy childhood, the admiration of your peers, the great accomplishments even if it did not actually happen that way.

I know this may reek of self-delusion. Does it matter whether you were popular or not in school? It only matters in your memory – a memory that is setting the patterns of your life today. Besides, most of our memories are misremembered perceptions of events anyway. If that inner Romantic was repressed in your youth, then reconfigure your memories so that it wasn't repressed. Imagine a better past and you will have a better future.

In my teenage years I had no luck with the opposite sex. I was the loser without a girlfriend. At least that was my mental self-image. Since then I have had remarkable good fortune with many beautiful women. Did this matter? Nope. I still saw myself as the loser who couldn't get the girl. I always found some excuse to validate this poor image. When I was young it was because I was different, then it was because I was loosing my hair, then it was because I was getting old. The fact is that none of this matters.

I'm sharing all this personal information because none of us is unique in this regard. Everyone, Romantic or otherwise, has this same experience. For me it was relationships, for some people its wealth, for others its success. We all have this childhood programming holding us down.

Rousseau said that we live our lives in bondage from swaddling clothes to the shroud. I believe these chains are those of the mind. We are bound by our programming, but alas this is no master programmer. Random events, media images, social pressures, parental concerns, or lack thereof, all contribute to the mental system we foolish call ourselves.

You are not your mind. You are not your heart. You are your will, the will to power to be who you choose to be through your actions. When people look at you they do not see your mind or your heart. They see what you do.

I believe that there are many people who share my experience of Romanticism frustrated and misled in youth. As adults, we are still burdened by our perceptions and memories of the experiences. Likewise, I believe that process is still at work in schools across the Western world.

The answer is not to fight but to simply be. Use the power of imagination to recreate your programs. Speak out with boldness. Be confident. Walk the world with ease. Be an example of individualism gone right. And reach out to the lost lambs trying to find their place in the world. Most of all, remember Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love.

 

I Am Iron Man

No, I'm not really. But wouldn't it be cool?

Romanticism means a number of things to a number of people. My researched and considered view is that Romanticism describes a zeitgeist, the Spirit of the Age, for the period from roughly the late Eighteenth to early Twentieth Centuries.

I disagree with Ayn Rand who pits Romanticism in-between the two opposing deterministic forces of Classicism before it and Naturalism after it. The events of the Classical Period, though certainly based on religious determinism, paved the way for the Romantic with the Reformation, the Enlightenment, Republican Radicalism, and the Rise of Capitalism. Likewise, in many ways the social determinism of Naturalism can be seen as a twisting or misreading of Romanticism.

I'll pause here for a little background. Rand saw Romanticism as the aesthetic aspect of her approach to the five philosophical branches (Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Politics, and Aesthetics). So she focused on Romanticism as an artistic movement and a manifestation of the other four branches. For her, Romanticism in art is based on the central premise that man possesses volition.

In contrast, Classicism saw man's existence determined by God or the gods whereas Naturalism replaces the divine with the social. For the Naturalist, your existence is determined by society and therefore, by extension, the state. Where Romantic art seeks to glorify man's existence vis-á-vis the individual, Naturalist art sees man as a cog in the great social machine cast about by the tides of cruel social forces.

I differ only slightly from Rand in that I also see Romanticism as a greater social and cultural movement resulting from the affects of the underlying philosophy found in Romantic art forms.

The Romantic Manifesto by Ayn Rand was published in 1969. Given the date of publication, we see how she charted the advance and eventual manifestation of Naturalism from the late Nineteenth Century through to it entering the mainstream culture in the Sixties. Today, many of those Sixties socialists are in power in the United States government.

In 1963, six years prior to the publication of The Romantic Manifesto, Stan Lee decided to create a superhero that embodied everything the Naturalist popular culture of his day would hate. Enter Tony Stark, a wealthy arms manufacturer, industrialist, capitalist, and womanizer based on the real life Howard Hughes. Unlike most super-heroes, Iron Man's only powers are his intellect and his wealth which he uses to created a powerful suit of armour.

Steve Ditko was the co-creator of Spider-Man with Stan Lee and a follower of Ayn Rands philosophy of Objectivism. He went on to create two "Objectivist" heroes in 1967, The Question for DC Comics and Mr. A for Witzend. Mr A was recently the subject of the song "Good-Bye Mr A" by The Hoosiers and both The Question and Mr A served as the inspiration for the character Rorschach in the Watchmen graphic novel and 2009 film.

All three of these characters embody elements of Ayn Rand basic philosophy and yet they lack the Romanticism she praises in characters like James Bond. These men are social outsiders and hardly reflect the spirit found her own characters from Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. For that, you have to look to Tony Stark.

Personally, I have never been an Iron Man fan. I knew the basics but that was about it. I preferred the X-men, particularly the swashbuckling Nightcrawler and the feral Wolverine. What caught my attention was the 2008 film. Not only did I see it in the cinema, I pre-ordered the DVD, and these days its been on the movie channel, as a result I have probably seen in close to ten times.

The last time I watched it, I noticed how Victorian the story is. I say Victorian, but it is also Romantic and indeed Objectivist.

The word Romantic is taken from the Medieval Romances in which brave knights battled dragons and saved fair maidens or indeed the kingdom. The knights embodied the best of humanity through the chivalric code of ethics, their wealth as noblemen, and their sheer physical power as heavily armoured mounted infantry.

The Nineteenth Century popularity and cultural influence of these Romances cannot be over-emphasised, particularly through Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe. Two books influenced by Ivanhoe are The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper (aka Last of the Mohicans) and The Virginian by Owen Wister. These books in turn form the foundation of The Western genre.

So Ivanhoe the lone knight riding through the countryside righting wrongs trades in his armour and lance for a six-gun. Then in the Twentieth Century he puts on tights, or in this case a high-tech suit of armour equipped with advanced weapons systems.

Tony Stark is the son of Howard Stark, a wealthy industrialist and owner of Stark Industries. In this sense he is of "noble" birth in that he is born into privilege as the prince of the kingdom of Stark Industries. His parents die in a car crash while the teenage Stark is attending MIT and he inherits the kingdom his father created.

As an adult, Stark is wounded by shrapnel while in a foreign land (originally Viet Nam and most recently Afghanistan) while on company business involving the US military. He is captured by the enemy and builds his first armour as a means of escape.

The wounding of Stark means that he must constantly wear an electro-magnetic chest plate to prevent the pieces of shrapnel from entering his heart. Here we see the theme of the wound that doesn't heal found in the Romances, The Fisher King in the Percival stories and Lancelot in the film Excalibur come immediately to mind.

One of my favourite scenes in the film is the one where Stark's enemy, Obadiah Stane, is trying to recreate the power cell used in chest plate for the armour. The chief scientist on the team says "Sir, the technology doesn't exist. Honestly, it's impossible." Obadiah Stane retorts yelling, "Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!" He meekly replies, "Well, I'm sorry. I'm not Tony Stark."

Few scenes illustrate the greatness of Tony Stark like this one. Stark is born into wealth and therefore power. However, he also has another form of power in abundance; he has intrinsic genius. When he is reduced to nothing but a wounded hostage in a cave, he is able through his genius to rise above and conquer by achieving "the impossible" while making it look easy. Stark is determined, but not stressed, strained, or broken.

The Romantic walks through the world with ease. This is the most obvious external manifestation of Romanticism in a person. It is the Romantic temperament, or attitude, in action. There are no obvious indications of any fear, self-doubt, pressure, or confusion. There is an easy going air that conveys the sense that everything is going to turn out alright. When things do go wrong, they are not the focus of brooding or worry. If Plan A fails, then move seamlessly to Plan B without anyone noticing the difference. This attitude is portrayed to text book perfection in Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Stark.

But Tony Stark is one of the richest men on the planet. Of course he "walks through the world with ease". There is a Celtic Christian saying from St. Columba, "The man to whom little is not enough will not be satisfied by more." Yes, more power makes more possibilities available, but it is attitude that is the key to success. Be content with yourself and the powers, both material and immaterial that you have, but also constantly strive for more. Not because more will make you happy – it won't – but because more creates more opportunities and greater freedom of self-expression and therefore happiness.

Besides, when we makes excuses for someone else's success as means of justifying our own lack of achievement, well, that's just quitter talk. We all have obstacles to overcome. The path to and the maintenance of success is nothing but a series of obstacles. If you cannot jump the small hurdles at the start, then what makes you think you can jump the big ones at the end?

Two of the recurring themes I see among many Victorians are progress and legacy. Victorians loved their tech and were constantly pushing for technological advances. People like Bell, Edison, and Tesla were heroes to be admired and emulated. For proof, just look at some of the goofy gadget advertised in Victorian newspapers.

They were also concerned about their legacy. What kind of world will we be establishing for future generations? Today, people speak of the world they will leave to their children. The Victorians were thinking great-grandchildren. They wanted the history books to recognise their achievements. On a small scale this sense of legacy is revealed in the elaborate funeral customs and the monuments they left behind.

In Tony Stark, we see a genius promoting technological advances and the desire to create a world dominated by the American values of freedom for the sake of future generations. In the comics, his original enemies were Communist in nature and in the film they were terrorists. In both instances, Stark is supplying weapons to the American military to battle these threats while taking the initiative to battle them himself.

Here is another aspect of that. When you watch the news and you see something you find morally wrong, who do you look to for action? In the Flashman novels, George MacDonald Fraser through Harry Flashman credits the spread of the British Empire to four words. Something Must Be Done. These are usually spoken by the wives of generals, governors, politicians, or civil servants over tea.

The American tradition is different. Something must be done means that I must do something. The most immediate examples that come to mind are the volunteers to the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War or the Americans who joined the fight in the two world wars before the US government officially declared war.

When Tony Stark saw that something must be done, he did not use his enormous power and influence through the US government. He put on the armoured suit that he built himself and he took action. This is not unique to Stark. All superheroes feel the sense of personal responsibility to make a difference themselves and not sit back and expect the government to pass legislation or use its power in their name. They take responsibility for their values.

I have seen clips of the new Iron Man film due out next year. One scene has Tony Stark appearing before a government committee demanding that he turn the armour over to them. The government does not like the idea of an individual or a group of individuals to have that kind of power unless it is under government control. Society, through government, must control the individual in the name of securing the safety of society but in practice to restrict personal liberty.

Here is where Naturalism returns to the equation. Naturalist literature portrays a world of the lowest common denominator with a journalistic approach to narrative sometimes lacking plot, and therefore purpose. The characters are pushed through their journey by oppressive social forces and not individual volition.

If we are all merely swept by the ebb and flow of social forces, then it stands to reason that society can be improved if only the right people were in control of it. But who are the right people? Obviously those concerned with the well-being of the largest group of people, the masses, the poor, and oppressed. Once in power, the right kind of people will redistribute power, in the form of wealth, and thus improve society. There are no individuals, only members of social groups of various size and influence based on class, race, creed, or gender.

In such a world Tony Stark is the enemy, just as Stan Lee had intended. He is a rich, white, male, industrialist, pro-American capitalist. He is a member of that minority group who oppresses and exploits the majority of the Earth population. And yet he is also the hero Stan Lee intended. Why?

Because Naturalism is unnatural. It's double-speak. Individuals don't come in groups. They come individually with individual consciousness, individual lives, and individual goals. This is what Nietzsche called our innate will to power as the driving force of mankind. Freedom without the means (power) of expressing that freedom is meaningless. We have an inborn need to exercise our free will, our volition, to accomplish our values. This is why Romanticism is natural.

So we look to characters like Tony Stark as examples and inspiration. If Tony Stark can be that Romantic, cool, suave, gallant knight in shining armour and over-come his big obstacles, then why can't I do the same to overcome my small obstacles?

So how does one become Iron Man? The answer is so simple that it stings of cliché. Believe in yourself, know what you want, believe you deserve it, and constantly strive for competency. Oh, and walk through the world with ease, and why wouldn't you? Hey, you're Tony Stark. Cool.

The Fall of McDonalds

To my knowledge McDonalds, the global fast-food giant, the restroom with a cafeteria attached, is not going to be falling in the near future. However, a couple years back I read a newspaper article saying that for the first time in decades McDonalds was not the number one fast food company on the planet for that year. It was Subway.

Institutions like McDonalds, Coca-cola, and other global brands may seem like great unassailable and eternal stone edifices, but they are not. Like any other company providing a product (or value), they are only as powerful as the choice consumers make in buying what they are selling. If another company comes along with something the public prefers, then good-bye McDonalds.

There was a study done in which a group of five people enjoyed a nice meal. Each of them cleaned their plates and praised the meal. The follow day, the same five people were served the same meal in the same restaurant and prepared by the same cook. The only difference was the blindfold. None of the participants could see the meal. The results were that the meals were not finished because the subjects felt full and they also noted that the meals did not taste as good as the one the previous day.

This study highlighted the role vision played in eating. By seeing all the food on the plate subjects felt the need to eat more than their bodies required. By eliminating the visual stimulus they ate more slowly, therefore they were more aware of the physical cues from their bodies that told them that they had eaten enough. Also, the absence of vision gave them a more objective approach to the flavour of the food. The lack of vision made consumption a self-aware and conscious activity rather than a habit.

McDonald provides a product, a value, that which we act to gain or to keep. A value is only a value if it is of value to someone. The value requires a valuer. When customers decided that they no longer valued the values McDonalds was offering, they went to someone else. The executives concluded that Subway represented healthier eating, so McDonalds changed their values on offer to include a new healthy range to their menu, thus aligning their available products to the values of their customers.

As for the customers, something changed in them. Perhaps they were habitual McDonalds customers since childhood, but then one day, or perhaps gradually, there occurred a shift in their awareness and therefore a change in their values. When the time came to act on their values they chose Subway over McDonalds when given a choice.

People do not consume merely food. Food, as a value to be consumed, is but one of many. People also consume clothes, entertainment, leisure time, books, magazine, newspapers, and even friendships and ideas. Since we live in a value-driven society there are a myriad of value choices given to us on a daily basis. Collectively the choices made in consumption define an individual's style of life.

The question for each of us is how many of our choices are conscious and how many are a matter of habit or whim? Just as blindfolding the participants in the eating experiment made them more aware of their bodies and their tastes, so too must we become aware of our values. Perhaps if we are, then we may take the time to savour our values and perhaps realise that certain values do not taste as good as we had once thought.

I have noticed a small up swell in people consuming according to their values instead of through habit. This is most obvious to me in the media where the values on offer do not fit the values of the consumers.

When McDonalds dropped to number two it realised that it had to change the values on offer to fit the values of its customers. And yet, rather than change as McDonalds had done the traditional mainstream media outlets continue to drive their messages even harder. So consumers of values do what they have always done. They consume from someone else.

As a result, newspapers are failing across America; mainstream news outlets are loosing their audience to cable and the internet. I think the same might hold true of the celebrities turned social and political pundits as their comments become increasingly disconnected from mainstream values. More and more, nobody is listening to them anymore.

The lesson here is that if the mighty leviathan that is the McDonalds Corporation must change its ways or fall, then so too must politicians, media outlets, and even celebrities. We live in a marketplace of values. As any purveyor of values will tell you, "first know your market". It is not your place to tell them what they want when they clearly do not want what you are offering.

This reminds me of Betty Crocker and the egg. Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, invented the focus group and with it he invented public relations. Betty Crocker had just created instant cake mix and sales were poor, so they brought in Bernays.

By applying some of his uncle's theories to groups of housewives he discovered that they felt guilty using a cake mix. It went against their values. Bernays' solution? He told Betty Crocker to change the instructions on the packaging to read, "add one egg". The egg symbolised the housewife giving something of her own and made her feel as though she was actually making a cake for her family. Sales skyrocketed. The solution was not to change the customers' value system rather to work with it.

Contrary to popular opinion consumers of values are not a vast ignorant populace blindly buying whatever the mass media tells them to buy. Yes, people can be persuaded. Yes, not everyone consciously considers their value system when consuming. And yet, consumption is still driven by the individual value system of the consumer. When any purveyor of values, be they a massive corporation or a politician, fails to provide a desired value the consumer will go elsewhere. Without support from the consumer the seller fails and disappears from the market.

This is how the free marketplace of values, both material and immaterial, functions. But what about the unfree market? The unfree market can only operate with the force of government in the form of socialist, communist, fascist, and corporatist policies. In these systems the government decides what the individual may or may not consume according to its collective value system. After all, government and its academic lackeys know what is best, not the ignorant masses.

If the government favours McDonalds over Subway it will subsidize McDonalds, tax healthier food, give tax breaks to McDonalds over Subway, and run public service announcements highlighting the health risks of going to Subway. If the public still refuses to choose McDonalds over Subway and McDonalds goes bankrupt, then the government will bail-out McDonalds as being too big to fail and now the government is in the fast food business.

The public does not know what is best. It has to buy rubbish cars that are good for the environment or a light bulb that does not illuminate and costs a fortune to clean-up if it breaks. It should not smoke, watch Glenn Beck (or anything on Fox News), or eat fatty foods. It must not buy tires from China. It must send its kids to state-run schools and learn what the state says they should learn. It cannot buy health insurance across state lines and must take a prescribed policy. This is the unfree market at work. We, the state, will tell you what to value, when to value it, and for how long.

I'm no fan of McDonalds. I may have eaten at one five times in the past twenty years. Popular fashion is not always to my taste, nor is popular music. I do not own jeans, t-shirts, and trainers. I'm not a sports fan either. Nor am I a tech geek who needs the latest and greatest piece of kit to hit the market. I believe that global warming is a fraud, I smoke, and I do not trust in governments to make my life better.

All of these choices and beliefs are derived from my conscious and unconscious value system. Some I consider a matter of choice and others as moral imperatives. Most put me outside of the mainstream. I will always argue my corner, but never demand others to accept my ways as their own.

And yet in the media and online I see people not arguing their corner but insulting all those who do not agree with them. Worst of all, I see this coming from people in the US government as well. Idiot, fool, hate-monger, racist, astroturf. These arrogant politicians and pundits are mocking their customers.

The free market is about free choice. You may not like that people choose McDonalds, but that is the individual's choice. Accept it. If people choose Subway instead, then McDonald changes or it falls. Simple. At present, Glenn Beck's ratings are through the roof and both of his books top the New York Times and Amazon best sellers list. Why? The free market. He speaks to people's values, just as Obama speaks to the values of his audience. Is popular best? Not necessarily. But liberty is all about the right to choose from various values on offer.

In the world of material values companies recognise the need to address the values of as many potential customers as possible. In the world of immaterial values we are seeing ideologues condemn those whose values they fail to address. They are providing a product the public does not want and they seek to use the force of government or media pressure (in the form of public ridicule) to sell their agenda.

Unlike other countries in the world, the United States has a prescribed philosophical identity. To be an American is to accept a particular set of values and for every American liberty is one of the highest values. The simple truth is that you cannot have liberty without a free market of material and immaterial values.

It may be argued that the market has never been totally free. That is true. This is because there have always been powerful forces in the world that seek to control the market for their own ends usually with the excuse of helping society. Thus does the pendulum swing.

Just as McDonalds can fall by not meeting the desires of their customers, so too can ideologies, politicians and their parties fall. They become irrelevant and fade into insignificance. Republicans and Democrats/Conservatives and Labour are no more eternal than McDonalds or Coca-cola.

In a free market, the world will beat down the door of the company that can make a better sandwich. Therefore it is in the best interests of the authoritarian Statists and Corporatists to keep the marketplace of values as unfree as possible. Only then do they stand a chance of survival. So all lovers of liberty must be constantly vigilant in preserving the value of values by keeping the market place of values as free as possible.

Lessons From St. Trinian’s

I’m sitting here watching Sky movies and St. Trinian’s in on again, that’s the 2007 version mind you. I first saw the film last month and as an American with little knowledge of the film’s heritage I did a bit of Wiki research.

I confess that I liked the film. Before you think me a perv for schoolgirls, I thought the French teacher was the hottest. Trés chic. Anyways…I liked the non-political correctness of the film. Not only did the film depict rebellion against political authority, the film itself was a slap in the face of all those prigs up their own arses. According to Wiki, it wasn’t even released in America…some reader correct me if I am misinformed. I can only imagine the tempest it would cause.

For those who have not seen the film, it depicts school girls (ages 12-17) engaging in acts ranging from theft, making and selling alcohol, demolitions, drug use, sex-chat hotlines, and gratuitously implies one girl giving a blowjob to extract information. I’m sure I’ve missed bits.

St. Trinian’s began as a comic panel series by Ronald Searle in the 1940’s and then became a popular series of films in the 1950’s. According to Wiki, “[St, Trinian’s] pupils are wicked and often well-armed, and mayhem is rife. The mistresses (as female teachers in Britain were known at the time) are also disreputable. Cartoons often showed dead bodies of girls who had been murdered with pitchforks or succumbed to violent team sports, sometimes with vultures circling; girls drank, gambled, and smoked....The films implied that the girls were the daughters of gangsters, crooks, shady bookmakers and other low-lifes.”

The real St. Trinian’s was inspired by St. Trinnean’s school in Edinburgh established by Miss C. Fraser Lee in 1922 and closed with her death in 1946. She followed the Dalton system of education which focused on self-discipline rather than school-imposed discipline. Thus it was said that St. Trinnean’s was the school “where they do what they like.”

There are still Dalton schools throughout the world. The most noteworthy being the prestigious Dalton School of New York. It’s the kind of school whose waiting list is filled with the names of the spawn of the rich, powerful, and influential and whose graduates are almost guaranteed to follow in their parent’s footsteps.  It strikes me that the children of the wealthy get the Dalton system which encourages freedom and individual responsibility and accountability while the middle-class and the poor get government approved scholastic brainwashing factories.

My impression of the girls of St. Trinian’s is that they are not rebels. The teachers imposed very little discipline and are just as “bad” as the girls. Thus there was nothing to rebel against. In fact the girls are shown to give deference to their teachers. Besides, I figure true rebellion is a label thrust upon you by those who feel rebelled against and not one self-consciously applied. Anyone who plays the rebel or rebels for the sake of it is just a poseur. True rebellion requires purpose and someone to piss-off with that purpose.

Of course there is a long list of teen rebellion movies. The bad kids with hearts of gold who play by their own rules. I think people have a vicarious attachment to these films born in the contrast of their own lives of quiet desperation. Unfortunately, these films oft depict rebellion for rebellions sake without any genuine purpose save being wild and crazy and defending their right to party. I say unfortunate because anyone inspired by these role models emulate the image and not the substance.

I think St. Trinians was a bit different. The start of any film shows the characters in their natural state before it is disturbed by the narrative conflict. The girls are running an illegal distillery, engaging in petty crimes, and other below and above board profit making ventures. They reminded me of lion cubs. Baby predators play-fight with each other to prepare for their adult life of predator vs. prey survival. Likewise, the girls practice some pretty valuable life skills by being unruly and yet this does not seem to interfere with the school’s ultimate purpose, to educate them and prepare them for life. If the former head girl shown is anything to go by, we see the girls going-on to lead successful career lives.

In one of the deleted scenes I found on YouTube, the headmistress is giving the new English teacher a tour of the grounds when they come upon a fight. Not only does she refuse to stop the fight she shouts tips to the combatants. As she explains, “In other schools, girls are sent out quite unprepared into the merciless world. When our girls leave here it is the merciless world that has to be prepared for them.”

The challenges for the protagonists in the film come from two sources. One is the bank foreclosing the school at the encouragement of a greedy second-rate businessman and the other is the government in the form of the over-eager Minister of Education. He wants to parade the school before the press as an example of the decline of discipline in British education. He doesn’t want to close the school, but to break their spirit. Of course the girls must save the school to avoid being sent off to “normal” schools. Therefore the object of the rebellion is not directed towards the school itself, rather towards an imposed external authority.

Freedom is the right to do as you damn well please, however, there are a few caveats. With freedom comes responsibility and consequences. These are the natural checks and balances to freedom. When in the name of political correctness, socialism, mercy, forgiveness, parental concern, politeness, fear, weakness, misguided idealism, or sympathy these natural checks are circumvented, then all hell breaks loose.

There are of course the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, but there is also an implied right – the right to defend those rights. If someone pushes you and you don’t push back, then you have given silent consent to your rights being violated. The level of response is up to you really, but it should be a proportionate response. The failure to respond breaks the law of consequence, or at least diminishes it.

There will always be people who want to mess with you, by which I mean violate your rights. I’m not talking about people that you don’t like or those with whom you disagree. You must accept and respect the rights of others just as you expect others to accept and respect your rights. This balance between individuals creates a line of mutual respect. Crossing the line meets with dire consequences. As well it should.  In older times it might result in a fatal duel.

There are certain Objectivist and libertarian views that I hold with some reservation, such as the instigation of violence. The idea is that the only rational response to violence is violence; therefore violence should only be used in response to violence and never initiated. I agree in principle; however one must be prepared to punish those who cross the line with an appropriate response, which in some rare cases may include violence. Also, any response to violence requires both the ability and the will to respond effectively with violence. This means preparation a forehand, such as misspent youth. We have to let the cubs tear into each other and don’t spare them the consequences of their actions.

Perhaps I read too much into this film. Where I see lessons in freedom and anti-establishmentarianism others see yet another teen rebellion movie or some girl power fantasy film. I’m sure both can be read. And yet, when one of the look-out girls refers to the Education Minister’s approaching motorcade as “black eagle”, in obvious reference to the Nazis, it seems the film makers may have had more in mind than sucking-up to the teen girl market. Perhaps they were subtly sowing seeds of dissent against a fascist nanny-state.

The atmosphere of St. Trinian’s School both encourages freedom and personal responsibility in the girls, but also the ability to defend that freedom learned through Darwinian conflict, the so-called anarchy. Freedom starts at home. If your tolerate family, friends, and randoms imposing on your freedom, treading on your rights, then you will tolerate your society, media, and government imposing on your freedom. So take a lesson from the curriculum at St. Trinian’s and don’t let them get away with it.

Remember the Xhosa, or Athena’s Wrath

Athena is the supreme deity.  There is no other.  Defy her at your peril.  No, I’m not going all pagan on you dear reader, I’ve outgrown that phase.  No, I’m writing metaphorically.  Athena was the goddess of wisdom and as such she was also the goddess of war.  Not war in the brutish ways of Ares, rather military tactics were her auspices.  Her Roman counterpart Minerva adorns our courthouses as the blindfolded lady justice in her search for truth, weighing the accused upon the scales and  employing her sword if need be.  Likewise her shield is a mirror, as employed by Perseus against the Gorgon, symbolising Truth and her spear administers her punishments.  So in a sense she represents the application of wisdom and the consequences of foolish action.  To be wise one must understand reality and the laws of reason that govern it, but to be foolish is to be ignorant or in denial of these laws.  Upon the wise she bestows victory, honour, prestige, and glory and upon the foolish she brings damnation.   Here is one such example.

Our setting is South Africa.  There was a tribe called the Xhosa who had been struggling unsuccessfully against European incursions into their territory.  In May of 1856 a young girl named Nongqawuse was drawing water from a pool at the mouth of the Gxarha River and there she met three ancestral spirits.  They told her that if the Xhosa destroyed all of their cattle and crops, then on the following day, a great army of the ancestors would rise from the Earth to aid in expelling the white man from their lands and with them all the slaughtered cattle and crops would be restored in greater abundance.  Not only that, but sickness and hunger would vanish and youth and beauty would be bestowed upon all.

She rushed home to tell her uncle, a man named Mhlakaza, who believed her strange tale and conveyed the message to their chief Sarhili.  He too believed the prophecy and ordered that the commands of the spirits be obeyed.  The news spread throughout all of the other tribes of the Xhosa.  They too believed and preparations began in earnest.  Not only were all the livestock and crops destroyed, also huge cattle pens were constructed to contain the promised restored cattle.

Finally the prophesied day came.  Then low and behold, nothing happened.  Another day was chosen, and again the same result.  There was no great resurrection.  A great mass of Xhosa did seek out the British, but not as a military force but as starving supplicants.  In their extreme self-induced famine, they had turned to cannibalism.  There is even one account of parents eating their own child.  The girl who met with the “spirits“, Nongqawuse, survived, but her uncle was among the 50,000 Xhosa dead.  The newly depopulated region was settled by members of the German legion serving in the British army and 2,000 North German emigrants.  Despite this tragedy, the Xhosa did survive as a people.  The most famous modern Xhosa being Nelson Mandela.

So what happened to the Xhosa?  They broke the rules.  If you do not eat, then you will die.  If you do not produce, then you will die.  As the Xhosa economy was based on cattle ownership, they also destroyed their wealth, and they died.  Athena is without mercy.

So why did they do something so foolish?  Why were the Xhosa so fucking stupid?  They acted like the people of South Park for Christ’s sake.  And therein lies the answer.  The beautiful thing about South Park is that unlike shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, or American Dad, the humour is not based on the stupidity of a single individual character, rather it is the stupidity of an entire society living in fear, quick to over-react to situations, and who believe just about anything that they are told, particularly from the often misinformed media.

The citizens of South Park are quick to believe and so too were the Xhosa.  They believed because they were taught to believe.  For the Xhosa believed in their ancestral spirits.  This was a given, a fact of life, the truth of their reality. Therefore, was it so difficult for them to believe that the ancestors would bear a message to them and instruct them even if the instructions went completely against reason?

I once met a man in Portland, Oregon who was trying to get media studies added to the grade school curriculum.  He illustrated his point by enlightening me to the evils of Sesame Street.  Yes, you read correctly, Sesame Street.  He told me that it is natural for children to explore their world and to learn and discover new things for themselves.  What Sesame Street does is give the children the answers.  Pre-packaged and prepared answers all transmitted via the mass media.  In those critical first six years of life children are taught to believe what they see on television and it becomes their authority for the remainder of their lives.  It all starts with Sesame Street.

A belief is a thought with an emotional attachment.  You do not just believe something to be true.  You feel it to be true.  Since emotions are pre-programmed responses to stimuli, then it stands to reason that beliefs can also be conditioned through emotionalism.  Hitler knew this well.  The Xhosa did not just believe in the ancestors, they felt it down to the very depths of their beings.  But these feeling, no matter how intense or powerful, did not make their beliefs any truer.  Since their beliefs were in fact not true, they acted foolishly and 50,000 people died.

Beliefs matter because what we believe drives our actions and our actions will be either consistent with the laws of reality or not.  All things being equal, a man who lives by reason will prosper and a man who does not will not.  This is Athena’s decree.

The ancestral spirits of the Xhosa promised a golden age complete with eternal youth and beauty.  That’s how politicians, con artists and salesmen work.  They tap into your desire, the imagined gaining of a value.  What utopias are we promised on a daily basis? Imagine it.  More money, a Green Planet, no more poverty, less work, stay young, be fit, a bigger penis, a dream date, no more exploitation of the working class,  no more war, a great big hippie socialist love fest, oh….I forgot the current buzzword “Hope“.  Yes, it is all about hope.  Hope is just a dressed-up word for Desire.  You hope for a better future.  You hope for the realization of your values.  You hope that life will be all that you dreamed that it will be.

There is nothing wrong with desire, or hope for that matter, but you cannot allow yourself to be blinded by it.  The desire for victory over the British and for paradise blinded the Xhosa to the grim realities of their actions.  They destroyed their food supply and their economy.  Ponder that for a moment.  They destroyed their food supply and their economy.  Sound familiar?

In the name of “saving the planet” our society is destroying our food supply and our economy.  If the Green Movement and the Animal Rights Movement and the Socialists have their way millions of people will die.  That is reality.  Sure you can put on funny costumes, beat your drums, frolic about, and then return to your nice suburban homes, but make no mistake.  Decreasing production and increasing government planning will result in limited resources which in turn will force the population to decrease to match the available resources.  By decrease I mean people will die.

What will they die for?  They’ll die for their beliefs.  Not a glorious self-sacrificing way of dying for one’s beliefs, but dying for their own stupidity and wishful thinking, just like the Xhosa.  They’ll die for what they felt was right despite the evidence of reason.

I’ll take a moment to introduce a concept of which you may not be familiar called The Precautionary Principle.  This is a theory succinctly summarized by the expression, “better safe than sorry.”  It is the idea that in the face of a possible threat immediate action must be taken to avert it since the consequences of waiting to determine the legitimacy of the threat may waste valuable time should the threat prove real.  The best illustration of this is in the issue of global warming.

Contrary to Al Gore, the debate is not over.  We really do not know if global warming is a man-made phenomenon or not.  Advocates of the Precautionary Principle hold that even though all the facts are not in and there is no consensus, we must act now to prevent climactic disaster because the longer we wait to act the worse it will be should global warming prove to be caused by human activity.

So what actions are being taken in the name of what is essentially the deep, heart-felt belief in an unverified threat?  First governments tax companies in the energy industry.  These revenues do not necessarily go towards environmental causes but into the general government coffers.  Like all taxes, it is stolen production, but these taxes are implemented as a deterrent “for the greater good”.   The companies then have to make adjustments by decrease production, increasing costs, or cutting-back on future investments.  The result is that energy is more expensive and there is a prolonged wait for new energy sources and technologies.  In the case of oil, the cost of everyday consumer items goes up to compensate for increased transportation costs.  After the companies, the governments then tax the consumers of the products supplied by the companies thus further increasing the cost of living and government revenues.  As the cost of living increases, companies must then pay higher salaries to compensate.  This could lead to cut-backs and therefore increase unemployment.  But that’s okay because in both the United States and the United Kingdom, 50% of the national budget goes towards welfare programs.  If that gets too expensive, then they can just print more money and devalue the currency even further thus decreasing the buying power of your pension fund or they could borrow more money from China.

So what is going on here?  Am I suggesting that the Green Movement is an unwitting part of a pro-socialist government conspiracy intent on creating an international serfdom?  Sure.  Why not?  Whenever someone tries to sell you something, be it a product or an ideology, always ask yourself who profits from it.  Always follow the money.  I forget, how many mansions does Al Gore own?

Actions have consequences, and in our modern, complex, integrated, globalised system these consequences affect every aspect of society.  For the Xhosa it was a simple matter of not destroying their cattle and crops in order to sustain their food supply and their economy.  However it is more complicated for us.   It seems so easy to just tax oil companies to stop the perceived threat of global warming through carbon emissions, but this simple act has wide-ranging consequences that could spell our damnation.  It is in not understanding the consequences of our actions, no matter how desirable or noble the imagined ends may be, that will make us as foolish as the Xhosa.  Then we will face Athena’s full wrath and be the damned fools that we deserve to be.

I want to end this on a positive note.  If you know reality then you will prosper, so be in the know.  Every great moral code comes down to respecting the rights of others to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of prosperity (provided that pursuit does not infringe on the rights of others). 

I wonder, when the Xhosa went around destroying everything, was there this one guy who said, “You will not violate my property rights.  These are my crops and my cattle. Fuck you all.”  I certainly hope so.  He may have been called evil for not believing in the ancestors or the promised paradise. Romantics are usually characterized as being evil for not going along with social norms and expectations, but he was right.

If anyone, be it a person, a government, or a religion, seeks to or advocates the violation your rights or these same rights in others, no matter their idealistic or moral justification, then they are evil.  They may be the sweetest and most well-intentioned of people.  They may tell you how much they care.  They may dress-up in happy costumes and do a little dance for you.  They may be characters in a children’s cartoon or a singer in your favourite band.  They may be your best friend or your lover.  None of this matters, because the ends does not justify the means.  So beware the woman in the red dress, she might be an agent.

PS: Here is a brief clip from an episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit illustrating how beliefs inconsistent with reality driven by fear, paranoia, and self-righteousness can lead to the deaths of millions of people.

Steampunk and Discovery

They say that fetishes are born from random childhood experiences that seem meaningless at the time, but become key moments in ones personal history once the fetish has become fully manifest in adulthood.  I do not know if this is true, or simply a case of justifying the present by exaggerating the past.  Here is my experience not of a fetish, but of an interests.

The year must have been 1978 or '79 when I went on a school trip to Disneyland.  One of the benefits of growing up in Los Angeles is that going to Disneyland is a mere field trip.  I remember going into a small room off Main Street, USA where there was a model of the park complete with future plans.  Apparently in-between Tomorrow Land and Frontier Land there was to be Discovery Land, a section of the park devoted to the Victorian Science-Fiction of Jules Verne   I learned a few years back that although this land never materialised in Disneyland, it is a part of Disneyland, Paris.  I would like to believe that the thrill that I felt seeing this model, the expectation that gripped me, played some role in my development.

It must have been 1981 when I was distracted by Indiana Jones and my interests focused on the music, culture, and literature of the 1930's.  This lasted many years.  Then it was the fringes of the LA Goth scene, and then 1988 began my long passion for things Celtic.  It was during this period that I first remember putting on waistcoat, buttoning it up,  and feeling very Victorian.  This was the start.  From there is was living in 1863 with the 79th NYSM throughout the 1990's.  This was when I began wearing my trademark pocket watch.

In 1998, I began plotting what would become my first, and only, screenplay called Thunderchild, a science fiction story set in the Victorian world involving steam powered space ships and regimental warfare against the Martians.   I was sitting in the Research Club at Glasgow University recounting the plot to someone when he said to me. "Oh, its Steampunk".  I had no idea what he was talking about.   So I went on-line and did some research from what few websites existed on the subject.

William Gibson is credited with creating Steampunk with his novel, The Difference Engine.  I prefer to believe that I invented Steampunk, but he gets all the credit only because he was an established writer with a best selling novel.

My influences were that little model in Disneyland, Jules Verne, HG Wells, the original television series The Wild Wild West, a short lived show called QED, and of course my time in re-enacting the American Civil War.  When I left the regiment to come to Scotland, it was not unlike those men who went West after the war.

I saw myself entering civilian life and I dressed as Victorian "western" gothic as my debts would allow.  Over time I was finally able to afford a black bespoke frock coat as opposed to the tattered Victorian originals I once wore.  It was something that I had wanted since I was nineteen years old.  A few years back I started wearing a black Stetson, and last month I was finally able to purchase a pair of high waisted black Victorian trousers and a new period waistcoat, complete with a collar. Over a year ago I was able to purchase a mobile phone from Nokia's retro chic L'Amour collection that could be worn on my watch chain.  Very Steampunk indeed.  Again, my only limitations are my pocketbook.

Both last year and the previous year I have appeared in two Scottish newspapers, The Herald and Scotland on Sunday, in their "street style" section.  In both cases I explained Dandyism, Steampunk and Neo-Victorianism to the reporter and in both cases I was misrepresented and misquoted to fit their impressions rather than mine.  The others who adorned their spreads were influence by pop stars and fashion rags, whereas I was influenced by an ideology exemplified by Doc Holliday and the Earps in the film Tombstone.

About six years back I began writing the book, Gothic Philosophy: The Way of the Dark Romantic.  Throughout most of the Naughties I was involved in Glasgow's Goth scene as a regular figure at most events as well a key mover in the Scottish Vampyre Society.  If you called me a Goth, I would not say no, but I always considered myself more of a Romantic or Neo-Victorian.  Even though I loved the music and the style, I always saw that as part of a deeper ideology.  This inspired me to write a book on Goth as being more than just a fashion.  I was wrong.

You see.  I don't give a shit about the boys in the band and I care even less about impressing people in my local clubs or on-line.  This is not to say that I do not like music or fashion, but I see these as the products of an ideology.  The problem here is if the group ideology is just about consuming the latest "cool" alternative cultural commodities rather than an actual belief system.

I have seen the latest wave of Goth popularity come and go. Then it was Burlesque. Now I see the new trends beginning to emerge on-line and stirring in the clubs.  Where once there was very little of Steampunk, more and more I am seeing it becoming the new Goth -- or goth in brown.  Now every girl who had wanted to be a Burlesque performer now wants to be a Steamgirl.

Despite being a major player in the Glasgow Goth scene, I always saw myself as being on the fringes of Goth, but Steampunk, well…now you're on my turf.  And yet I fear that once again I will be the lone voice screaming my ideology to those I think will understand based on how they dress, when in fact they only want to look the part to impress others.

Another reason I gave-up writing my book on Goth was that I realised that everything that gave Goth a viable ideological foundation was there by virtue of Goth being a subset of the Romantic.  Likewise, so too is Steampunk.  Which is why both are separate chapters in my current project on The Romantic.

"So what is your take on Steampunk, Logan?"  I hear you ask as I put words into your mouth.  Well, here it is for your reading pleasure.

The Victorian Era was the height of human civilization and the Victorian Era sucked.  When I say that it sucked, I do so to let you know that I know that the modern world possesses some wonderful technologies and conveniences that I for one would not want to be without.  There is no use living in the past or playing dress-up.  Why ride a horse when you have a perfectly good car?

However, in terms of ideology I believe that the Victorians far surpassed us.  I strongly believe that we as a civilization have inherited a great wealth from that period of history and each successive generation has squandered that inheritance leaving our modern age morally bankrupt.  By morally, I should clarify to my new readers that I am not referring to morality in the Christian sense but in the Aristotelian sense.

To clarify a few more terms.  Steampunk is a sub genre of science-fiction and Neo-Victorianism is the name of the fashion inspired by Steampunk, however I see the two merging into a single all-encompassing term, rather like the Gothic Romance becoming Goth.  Therefore, I prefer to see Neo-Victorianism as the ideology behind Steampunk.  Both Goth and Steampunk as a style of design and fashion are born from the Decadent belief that Life should imitate Art, as opposed to the Naturalist view that Art should imitate Life.

I see Neo-Victorianism as a means of taking modern technologies and luxuries and creating them in the Victorian aesthetic.  Among the inventions of my mind are the Steampunk desk, a Victorian roll-top desk with a computer and printer built into it complete with brass fittings.  Then there was the façade bookcase.  It was a bookcase with old, hard-bound books, but that was just a false front.  You popped it open to reveal an actual bookcase filled with your tatty books and DVD collection.  I also created the Electric Walking stick, a cattle-prod/taser built into a Victorian walking stick.  If only I had the skills and money to make my world a reality.

Likewise, I see adopting Victorian ideologies for the modern world.  No, I am not talking about stuffing kids down chimneys, but I do know a few insolent brats who could use that.  There were a lot of horrible things about the Victorian Era, but as the age progressed, things were getting better.  The middle-class expanded, child mortality plummeted, slavery was abolished, the first age of globalisation dawned, and the era ended with women's suffrage.  Whose to say what would have happened if World War I, the Rothschild banking cabal, and the Socialists hadn't screwed things up.

Victorians could buy heroin at the local chemist.  Victorians carried guns.  Victorians made money unashamedly.  Victorians envisioned a better future.  I'm all for that.  During the Nineteenth Century, I would have been called a Liberal, but today the word is Libertarian.  Yes, we are those crazy people who think people should make their own choices and suffer the consequences no matter how horrific.  This stems from the Romantic belief that we are all individuals and therefore individually responsible for the outcomes of our life.  This is the complete opposite of the widely accepted modern view that we are all part of society and that it is the responsibility of government to manage that society.

Here's another interesting observation of the Victorian mentality taken from the American West.  If you have seen the film Tombstone, then you will remember Powers Booth playing Curly Bill Brocious.  After Bill was acquitted for the murder of Marshall Fred White, he and two friends went to a Mexican dance hall in Charleston, Arizona.  The men blocked the exits, drew their gun on the crowd, and Curly Bill ordered, "Strip, every one of you." Once they had, Bill told the musicians to strike-up a tune.  The patrons danced naked at gun point for half and hour.  A local policeman passed by and saw the scene through the window.  A posse was organised and laid in ambush across the street in a corral, after a shoot-out Curly Bill and his pals escaped uninjured, but some horses in the corral were killed.  The following day Bill sent a friend to the corral to pay for damages.

So here is Curly Bill Brocious a notorious criminal and murderer, and yet he was willing to pay the owner of the livery for his lost property.  Here is a man willing to humiliate people at gunpoint for a laugh, but still respected the property rights of others.  How bizarre that is to the modern mind where many parents won't even offer to pay for merchandise that their children break in stores.

Here's another Victorian concept that seems alien to us today.  Human beings are great.  Sure there are problems, but taken on the whole we humans are pretty amazing.  This runs counter to the modern view that human are a threat, or as Agents Smith says in The Matrix, humans are a virus on this planet.  Laws are constantly being either passed or advocated by those intent on containing the human threat to the Earth, to animals, society, and to themselves.  This is in stark contrast to the idea that human progress should be allowed unfettered for the benefit of all.

Of course a three page blog is not enough to fully cover this topic.  I'll save that for the book.  However, I will close with one more point of contrast.  The concept of The Other and the Victorian Nightmare.

The Other is an idea often found in adventure stories and science-fiction.  The Other is that which is not us.  For the Victorians, The Other were usually savages driven by blind emotion.  This changed in the Twentieth Century when The Other became un-emotional aliens.

The actions of the Victorians were governed by Reason.  They were not so-much emotional as passionate.  Emotions are a response to the real or the imagined.  Passion is a specific type of emotion characterised by high-interest.  It denotes an enthusiasm for an object, therefore to live life passionately is to live in a state of high-interest, which is completely compatible with living a Rational life.  However, to live life based on emotion is to deny that emotions are a response to perception and claim that they are perception itself.  The truth is that your feelings mean nothing to anyone but yourself.  They are not reality.  What feels good to you is not necessarily good and what feels bad is not necessarily bad.  This is not to discount intuition, which is often called feelings.  Intuition has been described as reason in a hurry.  If we choose to aspire to a Victorian state of mind, then we had best learn to live rationally, passionately, and intuitively without being led astray by vain emotion and sentimentality.

The Victorian Nightmare was the end of Reason.  In the Gothic Romances the victims faced two fates, death or madness.  One was the loss of existence and the other the loss of reason.  But there was another monster, possibly the greatest of the Victorian Nightmare creatures, the Vampyre.

In the late Twentieth Century vampires became a focus of aspiration for many people, particularly in the Goth scene.  People were drawn to the elegance, power, and sexuality of the vampire, and yet for the Victorians the vampire was something to be feared.  One might speculate that it was feared out of xenophobia or sexual repression.  I am more inclined to believe that the Victorians saw the vampire as a parasite.  A creature that sucked the life's blood out of others.  For an energetic people what could be worse than to have that energy drained from you?  Or to have your will, your liberty, taken from you.   Now I'll admit that I may be reading too much into this, but I do like the fact that in the end of Dracula the cowboy, Quincy Morris, sacrifices his life to preserve the freedom of the others.  The American representing the new order of personal liberty kills the last remnants of a parasitic ancient aristocracy.  And yet today we have again parasitic governments, but rather than fight them people are scurrying around to either control or to become them.  Rather than killing the vampire, we want to become the vampire.

For me Steampunk is more than just the latest fashion.  It is more than the steam-powered dystopia envisioned by William Gibson in his novel.  It is that Discovery Land of my youth.  It is the opportunity to embrace forgotten ideologies, to rescue the Spirit of Man from the techno-feudalism that I see looming on the horizon courtesy of the Central Banks, Corporate Interests, Nanny States, and Socialists, and a return to a Romantic vision that glorifies the individual and his achievements and holds him to the highest possible standards.  More importantly, it is about true freedom, and not the empty emotionalism spoon-fed the masses by politicians who, 150 years ago, would have been horse-whipped, then tarred and feather for the lying snake oil salesmen that they are.  That's you Obama, McCain, and Gordon Brown.