Evil Days

Perhaps like many people I have struggled with ethics, the questions of right and wrong.  Unfortunately, this debate has been dominated by religions and idealistic political groups.  All that has been accomplished is a muddying of the waters.

Two concepts cleared the waters for me.  One is that ethics is simply a question of right action.  What actions will lead to a prosperous and happy life?  Good actions bring benefit and wrong actions bring destruction.  Admittedly, this is a simplistic version, but it captures the basic idea.  Good intentions can bring bad results and bad intentions can sometimes bring positive unintended consequences.

The second concept was recognising a connection between Natural Rights, Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and traditional moral teachings from many different cultures.  For example, when the 10 Commandments says, “Thou Shalt Not Steal” or “Thou Shalt Not Covet” what it is saying is that we must respect the property rights of others.  Likewise, “Thou Shalt Not Murder” is saying to respect your fellow man’s right to life.

If we respect the Natural Rights of others, then we find that we are on a pretty solid moral path.  I will add to this the implied right to protect your rights.  This keeps the villains at bay and the tyrants in check.

In philosophy, the branches of Ethics and Politics interconnect to form a cluster.  Ethics concerns itself with the actions of the individual and politics with the actions of the group, and more precisely the actions of those who presume to lead the group.

I am inspired to write this because I see the rise of evil.  This is the worst kind of evil.  It is not the Disney villain wringing his hands at his glorious evil.  It is the idealistic do-gooders with the best intentions at heart embarked on activities that violate the Natural Rights of others and is therefore evil.  For them the ends justify the means, so they will engage in evil actions with good intentions in hopes of a positive outcome. 

When the Socialists demand government money to help the poor, it sounds so noble.  When they speak out against the wealthy, it sounds so revolutionary.  It is the voice of the common man against the exploitation by the rich.

Let’s take this apart.  Where does government get this money?  It comes from taxation.  If you choose not to pay your taxes, then you go to jail.  This practice is commonly called theft, the taking of another person’s property by force or the threat of force.  So what the Socialists are calling for is for the government to steal more money. 

Of course they claim that they only want the money to be stolen from the rich, because they can afford it.  Who determines what constitutes rich?  At present, the average Briton works nearly four months of the year solely for the government.  There is a word for this too.  It called indentured servitude and it is a form of slavery.  So it is not just the rich who are being taxed.

They demand that we tax businesses.  When a business is taxed it figures the loss into its operating costs.  This is then passed onto the consumer of whatever goods or services the company provides.  Larger companies and corporations are able to spread the costs, but small businesses go under.

The Socialists demand an increase of the minimum wage.  This too is born by the businesses.  Again the large companies spread the cost and the small ones hire less people.  The unemployed who are willing to work for less than minimum wage cannot be hired and remain wards of the state.

Society can be divided into two factions.  There are the private employees who work to provide goods and services and thus increase the nation’s wealth.  Then there are those who produce nothing, but survive only by the production of the private workers.  This groups ranges from politicians, to bureaucrats, to public service providers, to welfare recipients, and to some students.  These are the groups with vested interests in socialist policies because this is where they get their money.  One group funds the other.

The relationship between the socialist and capitalist aspects of a mixed economy is like the blood farms in vampire films, like Blade 2.  If the humans become too conscious they might rebel, but if they are not conscious enough they are dead and therefore of no use. 

Many of these public employees may work very hard in difficult and demanding jobs.  Some have very important jobs, such as the police or teachers.  However, ultimately they do not contribute anything to the wealth and prosperity of the nation.  When their pay is taxed it is merely going back into the same pool from which it came.  Likewise, when they spend their earnings it is simply returning money into the private pool that it was taken from initially by the State.  In a socialist state, money is not made; it is simply moved around.

This is a medieval worldview that money is finite dating back to the false notion that wealth and political power was based on land ownership.  If someone has a lot of money, then someone else must be poorer for it.  This is a completely false notion.  It’s the economic equivalent of believing that the sun revolves around the earth.  Money is a symbolic representation of human production and trade and can therefore be increased and created.  The answer to poverty is not the redistribution of wealth (theft) but an increase in production and trade.  This is accomplished through less socialist policies and programs and not more.

There are many individuals dependent upon socialist policies, however when we look at the big picture we see that socialism makes people poorer.  Look at the socialist nations in Africa.  Over 500 billion US dollars have been given to African states to alleviate poverty, but they are poorer now than before.  On a more local level, it is estimated that one in five Scots are deemed unemployable due to lacking the most basic skills sets, such as literacy, numeracy, and social skills.  This is the result of three generations of government dependency.

For a libertarian, this state of affairs is evil enough.  However, it is not enough for the Socialist protestors.  They want more power to be given to the State.  Make no mistake.  These people are not revolutionaries fighting for the oppressed people.  They want the government to have more power and all the money.  Their only complaints are that the government is not authoritarian enough and that they want to control that power as they see fit.

Socialists have always targeted the underdogs as allies.  This is for the simple reason that there are a large number of them and they are easily seduced into biting the hand that feeds them in the name of a free hand out gathered and distributed by the government at the taxpayer’s expense.

So let’s talk about exploitation for a moment.  How is the worker exploited?  He sells his time, energy, and skill to an employer for an agreed upon price.  It is a voluntary trade for mutual benefit.  And yet, the socialists claim that he is exploited.  For me exploitation is being forced to surrender a percentage of my income in order to avoid incarceration.   For me exploitation is government regulation over every aspect of my life.  You smoke, so we’ll tax that.  You drive too much, so we’ll tax that.  You drink too much, so we’ll tax that.  You’re fat, so we’ll tax that.  Feeling exploited yet?

People tolerate the present state exploitation because the current level is within their comfort zone.  But with each passing generation people become more and more acclimatised to even greater levels of government control.  This they accept as just the way the world is.  But it wasn’t always like this.  Of course people learn that in school.  They are taught how bad things were before the State took control of their lives.  This they learn courtesy of the free education from state schools and the state approved curriculum.

And what are they learning in schools?  For one there is multiculturalism which is the idea that there is no Truth, only perspectives.  It’s an aspect of “post-modernity”.  So you may choose to believe in evolution or creation.  It does not matter.  If there is no Truth, then there is no morality.  Truth is the measurement by which we choose a course of action towards positive results, which is morality.  But without Truth, then there is no guiding star.  So how do we determine morality?  It is not determined by Truth, but by authority.  This is right and this is wrong because the State says so, because my religion says so, because the mass media says so, because the pop-majority says so, because my favourite musician or actor says so.

There was a spirit of a different age that faced the challenges of life as a matter of personal responsibility.   If you saw something that bothered you then you took responsibility and did something.  You donated time or money to a charity or in cases of foreign affairs some people formed militias and literally went to fight for the cause that they believed in.  Concerning social ills people sought to educate each other.  Check out this list of London charities in 1917, http://www.victorianlondon.org/charities/charities.htm

Today, everything is done through the government.  Yes, there are charities but not at the same level as in the above list.  Taking action these days means utilizing the force of government.  Demand taxes on fatty foods, demand smoking bans, demand more money to welfare programs, force people by law to behave a certain way towards each other, demand your government act a certain way in foreign policy or in foreign wars.

There have always been people who wanted to shape the world in their image.  This can be modest, such as commanding a household, or megalomaniacal, such as controlling a country.  Traditionally, this was accomplished by creating mass influence.  Today, all you need is government on your side.  The force inherent in government allows you to make others act as you and your allies see fit.  This avenue is pursued by business, special interest groups, and political organisation.  They by-pass public debate and go straight to making orders which are justified later.

There was a time when giving a man a hand-out was considered to be an insult.  It implied that he was incapable of personal responsibility.  It was a mark against his dignity. Today, the hand-out is considered by many to be a right.  The technical definition of the word “pauper” is someone who exists by the charity of others.

Beneath the rhetoric and handy slogans of the socialist activists is a dark heart advocating slavery and paupery for all.  They make promises of a better life for the people against the rich, but all that they accomplish in the long run is destruction.  What good can be achieved by preaching covetousness, theft, and the instigation or threat of government force?  I have not even touched on the promotion of discord turning class against class, race against race, and gender against gender all in the name of equality of outcome rather than the more proper equality of opportunity.

There is another evil in the world and I will admit that I am not as outspoken about it as perhaps I should be.  I am of the belief that for the Romantic the purpose of life is to enjoy it.  Happiness and pleasure are worthwhile pursuits.  However, I advocate what I call Rational Hedonism. 

This model is taken from the writings of Epicurus, the first philosopher to seriously look at the idea of happiness.  He wrote that pleasure that brings pleasure is to be embraced.  Pleasure that brings pain is to be avoided.  Pleasure that defers a greater pleasure is to be avoided.  Any finally, pain that brings a greater pleasure is to be embraced.  He also wrote that the three ingredients of happiness are friends, freedom, and contemplation.

Adam Smith wrote, “A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much, and to labour as little as possible.”  If a person feels that the path to independence and a greater pleasure is blocked to him, then he will only due what is necessary to service his immediate desires.  Today, we call this consumerism.

"The nation that has no higher god than pleasure, or even dollars or calico, must needs be in a poor way. It were better to revert to Homer's gods than be devoted to these; for the heathen deities at least imaged human virtues, and were something to look up to." --Samuel Smiles

The idea of consumerism ties into my ideas earlier on socialism.  Remember the vampire keeping the human barely alive?  The trick is keeping the human occupied with bread and circuses.  As long as the majority of people retain enough of their wealth to consume then they will not questions their state.

I have written in the past of my frustration in discussing political philosophy and ethics with people whose primary goals are consumption.  They could care less, but by God they have an opinion.  They proceed to defend the status quo and regurgitate the party line like automatons.  The end result is usually irreparable damage to any relationship that there may have been.

I often sound off against the government, but the fact is I do not blame politicians, for me to do so would be as foolish as criticising a lion for eating meat or a businessman for trying to make a profit.  Historically and presently, politicians enjoy the pretence of virtue and affect a caring image, but the truth is that he is an opportunist.  He will move with popular opinion.  We all get the government that we deserve.

The evil days can be blamed on social conditioning from schools and mass media, but at the end of the day it is a pill we have chosen to swallow.  The evil is not in some distant capital.  It is in your community, in your neighbour, and quite possibly in you.

I’ll finish with this.  I was always of the belief that what made man unique among the creatures of the Earth was his faculty of reason.  I have written on the subject in the past arguing that man is first an animal that reason over the notion that man is a creature that feels.  I have since learned of another faculty, perhaps the faculty that ties both reason and feeling together.

According to Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiment what makes humans unique is our imagination.  We use imagination in conjunction with reason to create invention and we use imagination in conjunction with emotion to produce sympathy.

Through imagination we hypothesize how the world works.  Through imagination we can walk in another man’s shoes.  We use our imagination to share the pains, joys, and victories of our fellow humans, be they real, distant, or fictional.   I have been convinced that all that makes mankind special and unique is this faculty of imagination.  It makes us human.

Bearing this in mind, Smith had a few things to say about true believers – the ideologues.  These are the people who believe in the ideal system.  Today we call them the social planners or central planners.  They are also the supposed revolutionaries who belief that if only society would accept the tenets of their belief system the world would be an ideal place.  I simply call them socialists, but that phrase is limiting.  It equally applies to those who place their ideology before the people they purport to care about.

From a certain spirit of system, however, from a certain love of art and contrivance, we sometimes seem to value the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the happiness of our fellow-creatures, rather from a view to perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any immediate sense or feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy.

The man of system…is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it… He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.

intoxicated with the imaginary beauty of the ideal system, of which they have no experience, but which has been represented to them in all the most dazzling colours in which the eloquence of their leaders could paint it. Those leaders themselves, though they originally may have meant nothing but their own aggrandizement, become, many of them, in time the dupes of their own sophistry.

The beauty of Adam Smith’s works, to which I will add the Romantic philosophy of Classical Liberal thought, is that it is not based on ideology but on principles.  The difference between the two is that an ideology provides one with a cold and unimaginative blueprint very specific in its structure.  Principles are not so much an elaborate painting, but rather a connect the dots leaving each of us to paint our own picture through our imagination, reason, and emotion.  This allows the people to fit the structure and not impose the structure on the people.   For me, this is the moral path and not the vain preachings of a religious or political ideologue.

The Great Disconnect

The word philosophy means “love of wisdom”.  In other words, it expresses itself as a desire to understand how the world works.  People tend to forget that the purpose of this study is so that we can apply our conclusions towards leading happy and fulfilled lives.

The first two branches of philosophy establish the groundwork.  Metaphysics describes the nature of reality and Epistemology demonstrates how we know this to be true.  These two branches are interconnected to form a cluster.

The second two branches apply those conclusions.  Ethics tells us the best way to live happy and productive lives and Politics tells us the best way to manage the group towards that same purpose.  Since the group is a collection of individuals, then both Ethics and Politics are also connected to each other to form a second cluster that is completely dependent on the first.

Therefore the first four branches of philosophy must be consistent with each other with no contradiction.  It is like a clockwork machine with all the individual cogs and springs working together to make the whole work.

So the first four branches all fit together into a neat, interconnected package and can be tested against reality by being put into practice.  But what about the fifth and final branch of philosophy?  This is Aesthetics, the realm of human creation and feeling.

On the surface, the question of Aesthetics is “What is Beauty?” but on a deeper level it concerns itself with all human creation.  Here’s a small list to name just a few: art, architecture, drama, dance, painting, sculpture, design, ornamentation, writing, music, film, fashion, home décor, cosmetology, and computer graphics.

I once sat in a room with two PhD students doing papers in philosophy.  I asked them a question that had been bugging me for years.  “Why do people like what they like?”  I thought the question was fairly straightforward.  But they did not understand it, no matter how much I elaborated or rephrased.  It was years later that I discovered that there was an entire branch of philosophy concerned with this question – Aesthetics.

The ignorance of these philosophy students regarding Aesthetics illustrates what I call The Great Disconnect, the separation of Aesthetics from the other branches of philosophy and therefore from Reality itself.  What you believe philosophically is seen to have no connection to your tastes and your preferences in the art you choose to consume.  This also demonstrates a disconnect from the mind and the heart, as the first four branches are primary rational while Aesthetics is primarily emotional.

Once the philosophy is taken from the art, the art loses its meaning.  If the primary cluster of Metaphysics and Epistemology defines reality, and the secondary cluster of Ethics and Politics defines Action in that Reality, then the role of Aesthetics is to give meaning, heart, soul, or whatever words you choose, to the philosophy.  When people claim a life without meaning, it is because of The Great Disconnect.

I was recently re-watching the film Equilibrium which takes place in a post-war Orwellian society in which feeling emotion is illegal and by extension so are all forms of art because they evoke feeling.  What this film is saying is that art is about feeling.  Now we may feel passionate about wisdom and be lovers of it, but philosophy is not inherently emotional.  Rather, emotion can serve to cloud rational judgement with preferences and prejudices.

Where Aesthetic fits into with the other four branches of philosophy is that it communicates a sort of summary of the conclusions but with an added emotional element.  A belief is a thought imbued with emotion, so in this sense Aesthetics is the injection of emotion into the thoughts presented by the other branches.

This may not be readily apparent when looking at the Mona Lisa or listening to Wagner.  This is because artists do not usually create with a conscious message in mind, unless he or she is preaching.  The artist usually begins with an idea ultimately derived from their personal worldview, or philosophy, which is then manifested in their art.

Once upon a time there were a group of people known as critics and what they did was examine a piece of art to unfold its hidden meanings and messages and thus add an extra dimension to it.  Since the artist may not have been unaware of any deeper unconscious influences, he might be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised by what the critic discovered.

Unfortunately, the role of critic has devolved into two groups.  There is the academic prone to all sorts of fanciful nonsense derived from what he wants to find in the art and uses the art to justify his own philosophy.  Then there is the pop-critic with his thumbs up or down. Even the word “critic” now has a negative connotation as one who demeans rather than as one who enlightens.

The demise of the traditional critic essentially severed the first four branches from the fifth thus taking any meaning from the art.  Today art interpretation is seen as highly subjective and any attempt to impose meaning is viewed as rude. 

Art is now whatever you want it to mean.  This is an entirely false premise since if something can mean anything then it means nothing.  Meaning enriches definition, so there can be no meaning without definition.

All art has two key aspects; the style which has to do with execution (call this the emotional aspect) and theme, this is the philosophy or message being conveyed by the art.  The critic would be able to discuss both the message and the execution of the art and reveal it to the public who may or may not perceive it readily.

An excellent example of this is the film Avatar.  It is a spectacular film.  The imagery, effects, and execution are stunning.  Thus it excels in terms of style.  But few critics stood-up against the theme of the film.  What Cameron created was an allegorical denunciation of capitalism through a misrepresentation of it and the history the film presumes to parallel.  One might go so far as to call the theme hateful.

And yet the real life equivalents to the villains portrayed in the film (or at least their inheritors) stood in the aisles applauding it.  After all, it’s just a film.  Art means nothing apart from how it makes you feel.  This is another symptom of the disconnection of Aesthetics from the other branches.

The problem here is that Aesthetics is part of philosophy and ignoring that connection does not alter the axiom.  It does not change reality.

Consider the costume designer working on a film.  Their job is to convey through the art of fashion the character of the character that they are dressing. The set designer plays a similar role by dressing a character’s space to tell the audience something about the character.  Both the costume designer and the film goer send and receive these communications.  They can read the art and get the meaning conveyed.

However, if I were to judge someone in real life according to the messages transmitted by their personal aesthetics, I would be seen as being presumptive. How dare I assume that the person wearing the cross is a Christian or that the boy in the Che Guevara shirt is a Communist? If I expected someone to behave according to the philosophy inherent in their aesthetic choices, or image, I might be seen as being dictatorial.  Who am I to confer my assumed meaning to their personal choices?

And yet, advertisers look to attach philosophical meanings to their products.  I remember as a boy seeing an ad for Levi’s 501 jeans that promoted individuality.  Even then it struck me foolish to brand the ubiquitous denim as a sign of individuality.  Or running shoes can be associated with freedom.  The list can go on and on.  Advertisers are not merely selling a product; they are selling a concept that they associate with their products through the art forms utilized in their advertisements.  Strange that people accept that connection between Aesthetics and the other branches when spoon fed to them by advertisers or in the context of art, but not when they are held accountable for their aesthetic choices in their daily lives.

In Aesthetics, there is the concept of the idiom, a particular style of expression.  These idioms can be derived from a particular culture, for example the Japanese style, or a particular time period, like Victoriana or 1960’s style, or genre fiction, like Goth or Steampunk.  Some styles have become so entrenched in the popular imagination as to become idioms, like the English Chap or the 80’s businessman in the Patrick Bateman/Gordon Gecko mode.

Idioms communicate a universally agreed upon meaning.  The Sixties was seen as a turbulent period of social change, and yet the Sixties idiom convey fun and freedom.  The English Chap conveys propriety, the Eighties businessman represents greed (for right or wrong), and Goth is associated with melancholy, for a few more examples.

Sometimes people choose to live a particularly idiomatic lifestyle, such as Goths for example.  The ideal is a thoroughly saturated existence.  Goth clothes, Goth decor, Goth music, Goth books, and Goth partners.  Feel free to replace the word Goth with any number of other idioms.

One the one hand such an idiomatic lifestyle is to be applauded for its purity, but on the other hand it may be condemned for its purity.  In art we look for saturation, but in life saturation demonstrates a single faceted existence.  It is this saturation that leads to accusations of pretentiousness because it is so unnatural.

Modern existence presents us with a vast array of cultural expressions and to discount all of them save one seems abnormal.  That said; my particular Romantic idiom would look bizarre dancing to House Music.  It’s disjointed and out of place.  So people tend to pick and choose depending on the situation.  They may dress mainstream or fashionable in some contexts and idiomatic in others.  This is deemed normal.  And yet to me this self-diversification always felt lacking integrity – integration.  The true force of integration is the philosophy of the person employing the signs that constitute the expression.

When artists, costumers, decorators, advertisers, and even window dressers employ Aesthetics they are very aware of what they wish to communicate.  The study of this is called Semiotics – the study of signs.  A sign has a distinctive history and cultural meaning.  An idiom is essentially a set of signs. 

The Nineteenth century American essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, “Fashion is only the attempt to realise art in living forms and social intercourse.”  He identified fashion as the link between art and life.

By this statement, Oliver Wendell Holmes sees fashion is the bridge linking art and life.  This suggests a logical connection between philosophy (in the form of the artist’s worldview), to Art (as an expression of this worldview), and then to fashion (as the means of expressing this worldview).  Collectively these expressions signify an individual’s particular style of living – that is his life-style.  Just as the artist’s style is born of his worldview, so too is the individual’s lifestyle born of his worldview, which brings the model full circle back to the philosophy.

However, to what extent can we say that people employ Aesthetics in their daily life?  I’m writing not simply of Aesthetics as it pertains within itself, but also Aesthetics as an expression of the other four branches of philosophy.  I would say by and large it would be little to not at all – at least not on a conscious level.  This is where the connection between idioms and reality falls on its face.  When aesthetics ceases to be a conscious act and becomes a mass consumption habit. 

The contribution of the Romantic as a movement or school of art was the introduction of individual emotion and this was most apparent in the concept of the sublime.  The goal of the artist became to evoke powerful emotions, sometimes conflicting extreme emotions, in the viewer or reader.

On the surface this seems to contradict the idea of having a philosophical core.  It seems to suggest that how you feel is more important that what you think.  However, emotions are a response to values and values are born of philosophy.

For example, Gothic literature sought to elicit the emotion of fear as an extreme emotion.  Fear is the imagined loss of a value.  In the stories, the greatest threats to the protagonists were the loss of life followed by the loss of sanity, the capacity to reason.  Therefore we might argue that Goth promotes the value of reason, for it is through reason that the supernatural evil is defeated or the mystery solved.  Thus the emotional aesthetics and the philosophy are connected.

Fear is one of the four cardinal emotions and is sister to Sorrow – the actual loss of a value.  Fear is an imagined loss and sorrow is an actual loss.  For most of its history, the Gothic idiom was dominated by the Byronic type in that is emphasised what Nietzsche might call “the will to power”.  Although Gothic imagery evoked fear, there was an elemental desire to ascend to that power we feared.

Over the past thirty years the focus of the Gothic idiom has shifted from the Byronic will to power to a form typified by Edgar Allan Poe depicted as fear and sorrow.  Poe suffered traumatic losses in his life and this actual loss of a value was expressed in his works.  Modern Goth cannot begin to understand that level of loss, but it can imagine it, hence the emphasis on fear, an imagined loss.  There is not the Byronic will to overcome and be one with that which we fear, but to succumb and revel in it.  Goth is the oldest idiomatic subculture in the world, and yet it is the least influential and most misunderstood, despite the fact that the philosophical message inherent in the idiom is the will the power.

The stereotypical Goth girl is quiet, shy, and introverted.  This is not to say that all Goths are.  Over the past fifteen years we have seen the Goth scene mutate due to cross-pollination with heavy metal, punk, and fetish and a healthy dose of mainstream media attention.  The result is a gothic variation of those other idioms, but lacking the philosophical foundation of either the Byronic or the Poeic variety inherent in Goth.

All art is communication and all communication starts with something to communicate.  This is an idea, a philosophy, a worldview.  The art is a natural manifestation of the philosophy.  It is philosophy brought to life.

I remember reading that people asked David Hodges to explain his song My Immortal (performed by Evanescence).  They wanted to know the actual story behind the song.  He answered that there was none.  He just made it up.   It is the stock and trade of artists to write love songs and poems for nonexistent people or even for people that they do not even know because they are paid to create.

This story illustrates how Aesthetics operates today.  Just as you can have a great love song without love, so too can people partake of wonderful art and modes of expression without it being rooted in the inherent philosophy, without it being that natural manifestation.  Non-Christians can wear crosses because they like it and people can wear Ché Guevara t-shirts just because they are popular.  You can have art without meaning just as you can have non-dairy ice cream.

A popular insult when I was growing-up in Los Angeles was to call someone a poseur, non-dairy ice cream pretending to be ice cream.  It is the assumption of an image, style, or idiom but lacking the philosophical foundations.  We also had what we called “Betties in Black”.  These were the weekend Goths who gothed-up to go clubbing but they were mainstream during the week.  At the club, all these poseurs would gather together in their clique and be Goths without the slightest inkling that there was more to it.  They were all happy in their ignorance and there was no Idiom Standards Division there to hand out citations.

Imagine if the most important thing a new Christian did was buy their cross.  Silly notion isn’t it.  No, to be a Christians you must study the Bible, pray, and be in communion with other Christians.  You have to learn the philosophy first and the Aesthetics comes later.

I first became aware of Congressman Ron Paul about five years ago.  His name kept popping-up on forums and I decided to investigate.  I found a lengthy speech he gave in Congress against Neo-Conservatives.  The focus of the speech was refuting the philosophical foundations of the ideology.  I later saw something similar in his speech against the Iraq War.  His approach was a breath of fresh air.

Why is philosophy important?  Because it is the foundation of all human existence.  Just as Ron Paul recognised the need to look at the philosophical foundations of the Neo-Cons, so too do we as a society need to stop looking at the surface.  Be that the surface of our own characters, the surface of others, the surface of our societies, our civilizations, and our art.

What is the meaning of Life?  It is the meaning you give it.  Life can be as vain or as profound as you choose to make it.  You can choose to be a poseur if you like and suck all the meaning from the world leaving it devoid of colour.  Or you can deny the Great Disconnect and reunite the broken shards of philosophy.  The result may not be a happy life, but it will be fuller, richer, and well...meaningful.

REVOLUTION!!

It’s been said that one should never start an article quoting someone else. The reasoning being that you arte telling the reader that someone else can say it better than you.  So here I am opening with the trailer for a video game.  I wonder what that says about me.  In this instance I want to write about the concepts presented here by the creators of Fable 3.

What I look for in a video game is multi-level story telling.  On the one hand there is the combat and action.  Call this the first level.  The higher levels are revealed in the storyline and even more so in those games that take action and consequence into consideration, such as the Fable series.  Apparently the theme in this new game is revolution.  I’ll admit that it sends a chill through my spine.  I love the rhetoric of revolution.  However, an important point is made by Peter Molyneux, “to be a rebel; deciding what is just and unjust.   This brings us to the very core of the concept of revolution.

I watched a video on Youtube covering the recent protests in Britain to cuts in federal spending and public services.  The poster wrote this, “

The British public are starting to show the government exactly what they think of the recent public cuts to pay for the banking crisis that was engineered by the very same corrupt bankers.  The time for sitting doing nothing is over. A tyrannical government will slowly push things through, step by step, and judge whether the people will take it or not. Up till now, us British have sat and taken it like bitches, but no more! no more!  stand up and fight for your freedom, because if you are not willing to fight for it, you hardly deserve it in the 1st place”

So here we have an example of revolutionary rhetoric.  There is talk of tyranny, corruption, freedom, and the importance of the people to rise up and fight.  The question here is what are they fighting for?  What is their idea of just?  Where is their moral compass set?  That is the question that every revolutionary, and every revolution, must answer.

The answers we seek are to be found in philosophy.  Step One:  What is Reality?  Step Two:  Prove it.  Step Three:  Determine an individual course of action accordingly.  Step 4:  Determine a group course of action.  Or to rephrase those steps:  Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, and Politics.

When we say that an individual or group activity is immoral, what we are saying is that these actions are not consistent with the requirements of reality in order to prosper.  The great lie is to determine morality not according to the dictates of Reality, but according to how we feel.  How we feel things should be.  What we feel is right.  What we have been socially conditioned to see as the correct course of action.

The Declaration of Independence is a philosophical document in which Thomas Jefferson makes his case for the moral rightness of the American War of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Jefferson then assures the reader that they do not embark upon this course of action lightly and points out that they have attempted to have there grievances redressed to no avail.  He then lists specific violations of their rights and concludes with the absolution of ties with the United Kingdom.

The central premise here is that the purpose of government is to protect the Natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.  The original concept in John Locke is life, liberty, and property.  Jefferson is making a statement on the nature of reality.  Unfortunately, he did not feel the need to make an argument defending his position as he considered this concept to be “self-evident”, and it is.

You have a right to exists simply by virtue of your birth.  You have a right to think and act as you see fit simply by virtue of possessing consciousness.  You have a right to property.  You used your time, energy, and skill to produce which you traded for property. Like your life and your liberty, this is yours.  I will also add that liberty and property are essential to human existence.  This is self-evident.

There is another moral point of view dating from the beginning of time.  In many tribal cultures the chief, king, or leader was seen as a father figure who takes care of his children.  In Scotland, the word clan means children.  The people were the “children” of the chief.  As such he had a moral responsibility to care for his people. To deny that or to take for himself or distribute to his friends was seen as immoral.  If the people suffered, it was because the king was immoral.  In modern times, this translates into the belief that the purpose of government is to provide for the people as needed.  This is called central economic planning, or Socialism.

So here is the moral dilemma.  One the one hand, humans possess individual consciousness and from this comes the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.  However, humans are also social creatures who work best in a state of cooperation.  These human groups are usually led by a leader who administers the resources and activities of the group.

The modern political spectrum takes both these views into account.  On the Left extreme we have 100% government control over society and the economy.  Ideally, the benevolent chief pools the resources of the group and redistributes it according to need for the benefit of all his children.  On the Right extreme we have 0% government control over society and the economy.  Ideally, individuals act in their rational self-interest to create a spontaneous order, by positive actions rewarded by positive consequences and negative actions rewarded with negative consequences,  and the people will provide for each other.  Today, the people on the Left are referred to as Collectivists and those on the Right as Individualists.

Let’s look at the situation in Britain.  Prior to roughly 1800, the United Kingdom was largely Collectivist.  The ruling aristocracy governed either benevolently or not, depending.  During the Nineteenth Century, the UK was Individualistic.  After roughly 1900 the UK swung back to Collectivism.  Therefore, the vast majority in Britain believe the purpose of government is to benevolently provide services to the public, such as education, health care, and benefits for the needy.  In philosophical terms, this a metaphysical statement on the nature of reality.  If this statement is true, then the moral rectitude of a government is judged by how well it serves its purpose as provider.

Now here is the problem.  It has been predicted that the UK national debt will exceed 100% of GDP by 2012.  At present 65% of the government income goes to health, education, welfare, and pensions.  The current total expenditure is 45% of the GDP.  The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is the total production of the people within the United Kingdom – it is the nation’s wealth; the accumulation of every individual person’s work day.  Well, not every person.  In June 2005, 20.4% of the UK workforce was employed in the public sector.  These people do not contribute to the GDP; they take from it.

Individual producers create wealth (increased GDP) through the non-coercive trade in goods or services.  A percentage of the wealth produced is then taken by coercion by the government (pay your taxes or go to jail).  This wealth is then used to pay government salaries, expenditures, public works, defence, government services, and welfare. 

So society is broken-up into two segments.  The producers who create wealth and the public employees and the underclass who take wealth.  Government workers have jobs in the sense that they are paid for services rendered, however they are not being paid a share of wealth created, as in private business, rather in wealth taken from private business.  When a public employee or government beneficiary spends money, he or she is not contributing to the wealth of the nation through trade; they are simply moving money around. 

As government expenditure grows, private business has to produce more just to keep up.  If the prediction that the UK national debt will exceed 100% of GDP by 2012 is correct, this means that all wealth created by private individuals will be needed to pay for the debts incurred by government in its effort to take care of people.  Imagine every one of your pay cheques being taken by government and a share given back to you to keep you alive.  This will not happen.  But such a scenario is commonly called slavery.  Is this moral?

In the language of Revolution, we all agree in freedom, power to the people, morality, justice, fairness, and standing against tyranny.  But what those things mean is wholly dependent on your worldview and the morality that stems from it.  Each individual must decide for themselves what they believe to be true and moral, and then be able to rationally defend that position.  “Because the Bible says so” does not count.

Do you have a moral and civic duty to pay your taxes for the benefit of all, or do you view this as the theft of your honest earnings under the threat of force to take your property?  Is tyranny the government in league with greedy businessmen or in the unaccountable bureaucrat writing the regulations that control your life? Or perhaps both.  Does government have a moral obligation to provide services at the expense of individual property rights, or are property rights inalienable.  Does “power to the people” mean regular elections of government representatives or government leaving the individual alone to make their own decisions?  Is fairness the “social justice” of taking money from a producer and giving it to a non or less successful producer or is it each individual benefiting from the fruits of their labour?

In The Revelation of St John the Divine 3:16, Jesus said, “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth”.  When it comes to morality there are always the lukewarm people, also called moderates.  They believe that the moral purpose of government is to take care of people AND protect individual rights.  These are the people who in opinion polls and elections say that they want more government services AND lower taxes.  The problem of course being that in order for government to provide these services they have to violate your property rights.  So they justify it by saying the government can steal a little money provided its not too much and the cause is good, such as teachers and nurses salaries.  This is the refuge for the unprincipled and the opportunist.

So what is your Revolution? What is your moral stance?  These are the questions every person must ask themselves.  When you look at the world do you see a world out of control tumbling into darkness or do you want to bring about the dawning of a new age of enlightenment?  The world of fiction is so much more simple.  There is the evil tyrant and the people looking for a leader to take them into liberty.  But that is not the way of things.

The enemies take many forms and some honestly believe that they are on the side of angels, just as you believe yourself to be.  I think Socialism is evil incarnate.  Why? Because the right to Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness is a sacred and essentially to human prosperity.  I believe in Freedom.  I am an Individualist.  No man has claim upon my soul and I have no claim on another's.  Socialism claims the moral high ground.  They seek to provide for the poor and disadvantaged, provide free healthcare, education, and housing through the power of a benevolent government that puts people first.  It sounds so noble.  And though its goals are noble the means are not.  Their goals are barely, if ever, achieved and the unintended consequences create unprecedented social chaos.  Then when we look at the history of socialism in the 20th century we see nothing but pain, suffering, and disaster.  How can we call this moral?

Of course they would call me evil in return with a long list of perceived free market evils.  Many of which I have heard are misrepresentations.  The plain and simple fact is that I cannot take a self-professed revolutionary seriously when the revolution that they are promoting is a more intense form of what we already have.  And yet they are there and they are active.

So if, like me, the notions of revolutions give you a chill and make you want to take to the barricade singing anthems, then take a moment to ask yourself some moral questions first.  Is your cause truly just or are you justifying.

It’s Different for Girls

There’s a story of a man who went for a walk and found a frozen snake. He took his new friend home and thawed it out by the fire. The newly revived serpent promptly bit his rescuer. When the man protested this cruel thank you, the snake replied, “but it’s my nature.” In other words, when assessing something, or someone, it is important to be mindful of its nature.

I’ll take a moment to enlighten any new readers to my notion of Romanticism as essentially the philosophy of the individual most clearly manifested in the zeitgeist of the 19^th Century in Britain and America.

One aspect of the Romantic is the pursuit of individual greatness (or at least efficacy); however the individual may choose to define that. They say that without ugliness there can be no beauty. Likewise, there can be no individual greatness in a purely egalitarian society. Nor can there be individual greatness if the powers that be conspire to thwart or oppress opportunity.

The problem is that where there are winners; there are losers. If little Johnny is picked last in baseball, then chances are he sucks. He may excel at maths, but when it comes to baseball he’s shit, no matter how many participation awards he receives.

So Johnny has a few options open. He can work hard to become a better baseball player. He can get all insecure about it. Or he can focus on what he does well. Even in that he can despise those who are good at baseball, or he can accept his failings, accept his abilities, and be a cheerleader.

Science is not my strong suit. But I will watch science documentaries. Read a science article in the paper. And I will shout hooray for some great discovery or invention. I accept my failings and choose to be a cheerleader. I have other things that I do much better and I prefer to focus on those things for my sense of efficacy.

But what if we lived in a world that demanded that everyone play baseball? Not only play baseball, but also be good at it. If someone like Johnny (or me for that matter) is rubbish at the game, we all pretend that he’s capable. If someone dare speak the truth, then we all demean them for their prejudice.

We do not exactly live in that world. Every individual is an individual, and these individuals choose their own operating spheres that suit their talents, their temperaments, and their general nature. Most of these associations are chosen, but there is one that is not. The groups formed by Nature that we call male and female.

The predominant Nineteenth Century view, that which I call Romantic, was that men and women were possessed of different natures simply by virtue of their genders. Men occupied sphere’s suited to their natures and women to theirs.

Some women came to object to the spheres that they were relegated to and demanded equality of opportunity. This is completely in keeping with the Romantic. However as the Twentieth Century rolled along a new ideological force came into being known as Feminism which stands contrary to the Romantic by denying the differences in the fundamental nature between the sexes.

To continue the baseball analogy, let’s say that men were all good at baseball and women were all good at sewing. A few women preferred baseball and were quite good at it. These women fought for the right to play baseball and won but the vast majority of women could not care less.

Then one day a group of women decided all women should play baseball. They fought against this idea of separate natures and different spheres. They convinced the powers that be everyone should play baseball equally. Men were forced to accept women on their teams and boys were not taught how to play the game.

Now the vast majority of women wanted to go back to sewing, but all the sewing kits were gone since everyone had to play baseball. So they snuck their kits out into the field inside their mits and sewed instead of paying attention to the game. They struggled to have it all by sewing and playing baseball at the same time. As a consequence some women really sucked at baseball, but God save any man who dared say so. That would be sexist, cruel, and mean. No matter that it’s true.

Equality was no longer based on the evidence of performance but rather the acceptance of the premise that a woman was capable of any sphere once dominated by men whether or not that respect was earned. Equality was measured by equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. As a consequence, just about everyone sucked at baseball equally, especially after women insisted on changing the rules because there was not enough sewing in the game.

Here is an example from my life. I once worked with a young girl just out of university. Her degree was in history, a favourite topic of mine, but she showed no interest in discussing it. While I spent my breaks reading philosophy and history; she spent hers reading fashion and gossip magazines and her nights-out partying. There is nothing wrong with that.

Then one day I made a point on a historical topic, as I tend to do rather than discuss more mundane topics, and on this particular occasion she chose to argue against me. I made several points to support my thesis and she made none, and yet refused to concede. In frustration I finally said, “While I’m studying history you are reading fashion magazines.” Suddenly, the women in the room all turned on me.

There are many women in the world in the academic field of history. There are many women in the world who study and enjoy history as a hobby. However, there is not a multi-billion dollar, century old publication industry supported by these women. According to the market, a majority of women are more interested in celebrity gossip and fashion than in history. And yet I am deemed a sexist for making this observation.

A similar situation occurred at the last British General Election. The gossip girls whose brains go all foggy when the topic of politics comes up suddenly have strong political opinions that I am expected to take seriously. To do otherwise would be deemed insulting, rude, and sexist. I prefer to see it as the height of arrogance to demand a seat without doing the work necessary to warrant a seat at the big boys table.

I have far more respect for woman who earned that seat and even for some bimbo who confesses her ignorance and apathy before going shopping than the woman who sews all the time and then demands respect when one day she decides to play baseball.

I can think of two films where I left the cinema thinking how great the story was only to overhear two girls leaving the same showing talking about how cute the leading man was. How can I possibly take someone seriously if their tastes are so shallow?

I have been in four major relationships in my life, and of those two of the girls were obsessed with celebrity. One had a half-naked poster of Peter Murphy on our wall and the other had photo clippings of her latest obsessions. I accepted this because I did not want to appear insecure, however I doubt either would have such reservations if I stuck some leggy model on the wall.

The other day I met a woman who had a picture of Edward Cullen from Twilight on her phone. Of course her husband accepted it just as I had with my ex’s. I have no doubt that society would not be so forgiving were he the one with some young starlet on his phone.

Celebrity idealisation and worship is accepted for women. The problem here is that for women the feelings evoked are in tune with female sexuality. The male equivalent would be something far more sexually overt, like porn.

In those ancient forgotten days before internet young men had to drum up the courage to enter the sex shop to buy porn or to ask the man (or sometimes woman) behind the convenience store counter for a Playboy or Penthouse. It was generally assumed that he was not buying it for the articles. Likewise, most of the strip clubs that I have visited were populated by lonely, single men and only very rarely by Bacchalian revellers.

Think of this poor sod. He’s shelling out cash for this woman to turn him on with empty promises then he leaves with only his unfulfilled lusts and an empty wallet. Who is taking advantage of whom?

Should his secret lifestyle become known, he was seen as being a deviant of some kind. Or worse he was accused of objectifying women. This is not so much the case these days due to the plethora of internet porn, but still there is a certain stigma there.

For men this type of sexual stimulation is usually a private and hidden thing, but for women it is public. Do not tell me that those hysterical teenage girls screaming for Elvis, The Beatles, The Who, Duran Duran, etc., etc, were not having a sexual experience. Women fainted for Hitler for Christ sake. If God were a woman, the criteria for getting into heaven would depend on how cute She found you, or more precisely, how you made her feel.

What I am presenting here is just the tip of the iceberg of historical and experiential evidence that can be presented to support the theory that women on the whole are psychologically hardwired toward celebrity worship, gossip, and fashion.

All of these things are deemed superficial by society as a whole. So, like my former co-worker, women want to be respected for their minds, their opinions, and general character and yet not do the work required for that level of respect. If a man were to say to a woman, “That’s nothing to worry your pretty little head about” or “Be quiet, men are talking” he would be seen as being a sexist pig. So he indulges her and her opinions. Once given that inch she takes a mile.

I am of course making broad generalizations here, but the exceptions do not invalidate the rule. The key exception is what I call the Athenian Woman. There will be more on her later.

Contrary to popular belief, the Victorian male was not as secure in his manhood as popular misconception would lead one to believe. The following is an excerpt from a review of Jack Donovan’s book, Androphilia written by Derek Hawthorne that demonstrates the struggle for every man throughout time.

A first step to understanding what he is talking about is to recognize that masculinity is an ideal, and a virtue. Men strive to cultivate masculinity in themselves, and they admire it in other men. Further, masculinity is something that has to be achieved. Better yet, it has to be won. Femininity, on the other hand, is quite different. Femininity is essentially a state of being that simply comes with being female; it is not an accomplishment. Women are, but men must become. If femininity has anything to do with achievement, the achievement usually consists in artifice: dressing in a certain manner, putting on makeup, learning how to be coy, etc. Femininity is almost exclusively bound up with being attractive to men. If a man’s “masculinity” consisted in dressing butch and not shaving, he would be laughed at; his “masculinity” would be essentially effeminate. (Such is the masculinity, for example, of gay “bears” and “leatherman.”) Similarly, if a man’s “masculinity” consists entirely in pursuing women and making himself attractive to them, he is scorned by other men. (Ironically, such “gigolos” are often far more effeminate mama’s boys than many homosexuals.) No, true masculinity is achieved by accomplishing something difficult in the world: by fighting, building something, discovering something, winning a contest, setting a record, etc. In order for it to count, a man has to overcome things like fear and opposition. He has to exhibit such virtues as bravery, perseverance, commitment, consistency, integrity, and, often, loyalty. Masculinity is inextricably tied to virtue (which is no surprise — given that the root vir-, from which we also get “virile,” means “man”). A woman can be petty, fickle, dishonest, fearful, inconstant, weak, and unserious — and still be thought of as 100% feminine.

A woman can also be the butchest nun, women’s lacrosse coach, or dominatrix on the planet and never be in any danger of someone thinking she’s “not a real woman.” With men, it’s completely different. As the example of homosexuals illustrates, it is quite possible to have a y chromosome and be branded “not a real man.” Masculinity, again, is an ideal that men are constantly striving to realize. The flip side of this is that they live in constant fear of some kind of failure that might rob them of masculinity in their eyes or the eyes of others. They must “live up” to the title of “man.” Contrary to the views of modern psychologists and feminists, this does not indicate a “problem” with men that they must somehow try to overcome. If men did not feel driven to make their mark on the world and prove themselves worthy of being called men, there would be no science, no philosophy, no art, no music, no technology, no exploration.

“But there would also be no war, no conflict, no competition!” feminists and male geldings will shriek in response. They’re right: there would be none of these things. And the world would be colorless and unutterably boring.

As Camille Paglia famously said, “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.” She also said “There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper.” What this really means is that given the nature of men, we can’t have Mozart without Jack the Ripper. So be it.

I included this here because not only does this illustrate to struggles of men to be men, but also because it segues into the role of women to men. One of the principle casualties of Feminism is the masculine ideal that men inherently aspire towards. The result is a Western world half-populated by “boys in men’s bodies”.

As the famous line from The Crow says, “Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children”. For women to be superior to men you must prevent the boys from becoming men, thus woman will always be his “God”. He will pander to her whims and endeavour to please her. I see this in its most obvious and glaring form on Facebook with the plethora of orbiters and white knights kissing-up to every woman on his friends list. One girl whines and ten boys comfort her with a virtual hankie.

This stands in complete contradiction to the Athenian Women that I mentioned earlier. When we look at Greek mythology we see the goddess Athena aiding or mentoring numerous heroes including: Asclepius, Bellerophon, Hercules (Herakles/Heracles), Odysseus, Perseus, and Theseus. Her job seems to be turning men into heroes, which can be read as turning boys into men.

Athena was one of the boys. I discovered an article entitled, “Athena – A Goddess for Men” which says it all. I often describe her as the one woman on the all-male board of directors who all the men respect as an equal.

The Athenian woman is a woman who has earned her position and the respect of the men around her. She has played by Men’s rules and proven herself by her own merits without any special allowances for her gender. Likewise, she is harsh to any aspiring women. In writing this, the image of Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada comes to mind as an example of the Athenian woman. Lucky for Andy that Miranda did not turn her into a spider or a gorgon.

The Athenian Woman is the woman who is a great baseball player and any man who did not pick her first for his team is an idiot.

To carry this analogy even further, we might also find the Heran Woman, who enjoys cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children, provided her husband remains faithful of course. Or the Aphroditian Woman, the fickle one who reads the fashion mags and falls for all the pretty boys who are all looks and attitude but no substance (see Paris, aka Orlando Bloom in the recent film).

One might even read the story of the Judgement of Paris as Everyman’s judgement. Do you choose the beautiful and seductive Aphroditian Woman, the dutiful and dependable Heran Woman, or the Athenian Woman. I’m not sure if this analogy works, but my thoughts drift to the film How To Marry A Millionaire with Betty Grable as the Aphroditian, Marilyn Monroe as the Heran, and Lauren Bacall as the Athenian.

I believe the two archetypes of Aphrodite and Hera represent the vast majority of women. I’m reminded of the American man’s choice between Ginger and Mary Anne from Gilligan’s Island. For my British readers, in the television series, Ginger was the hot, sexy Marilyn Monroe type while Mary Anne was the sweet country girl always making coconut cream pies.

And yet we are expected to respect all women as being Athenian. Likewise thanks to the modern two income households women are expected to be Athenian, whether they like it or not and whether they are capable or not.

Here is one final note on the Athenian Woman. Some have suggested that she is so rare that she may not even be real. I can list many examples of the Athenian Woman, but alas all are in fiction. Think of Lara Croft. She has many Athenian qualities and men adore her, but how many real life Lara’s are there?

Of course there is a little of Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite in all women, but I’d wager one goddess, or others, takes precedent. I believe that most of humanity can be aligned to some Olympian archetype. We already acknowledge the Apollonian, Dionysian, and Arian in men, so why not the women? Perhaps there is also some Artesian tomboy with a penchant for bow hunting or a Demetrian farmer’s wife.

The biggest issue that I have with Feminism, which I might call the fundamental premise, is its rejection of the notion of differing male and female natures, except when it suits some diatribe on female superiority.

On the surface, it appears that Feminists want all women to be Athenian, succeeding in a man’s world. There are a few problems here. First off, very few women are natural Athenians. This requires the Feminist to decry the behaviour of women who want to be housewives or focus on their appearance, and those who do are forced to apologise because they feel that they should be Athenian and feel insulted when they are reminded that they are not.

Second, a true Athenian aligns with the men and does not play the gender card when it suits her. She loves men for being men and has no desire to retard their development. So sorry feminist, Athena’s not for you.

Finally, she succeeds without any special treatment on account of her sex. The world of men is about competition. This can take the form of playful insults, healthy completion, or all out war. Through competition the best rise to the top. If a woman wants to play that game, she has to be prepared for the bumps and bruises that go with it. She can’t go off whining, complaining, or crying. She’s got to take it like a man. “There’s no crying in baseball”.

There is a danger in trying to pigeon hole individuals, but by the same token it is even more dangerous to deny the nature of a thing. You cannot pretend that a snake is not a snake and expects it not to bite you after you have showed it kindness.

Due to biology, psychology, evolution, and sociology men and women are possessed of different natures. No crusading Feminist, or legislation, or self-perception, or wishful thinking will change this.

There is a theory of attraction that says that we are drawn to the opposite sex because they are opposite. Perhaps this is the key in my personal mistakes. I was raised to favour an androgynous middle ground of feminized men and masculine women.

I suppose my strong suit is my intelligence and I naturally open every conversation with that. I suppose on some level I may even use it to impress a girl. One girl I pulled later confessed that she only agreed to our first date because I apparently have a “nice ass” and could have cared less about my philosophies at the time. Other women mistook my interest as a desire for friendship because I treated her as a friend and not as a sexual interest.

So here’s me assuming my value came from my intellect, which may work in the competitive world of men, but woman have different standards. They look for different things. It has taken me forty years to finally shed my feminist programming. I was always taught that man and women were the same and I clung to this notion despite all the evidence and experience to the contrary. I’m stubborn that way. Now I finally partially understand that it really is different for girls.

From the Mouths of Villains

I recently learned of an interesting theory from Leo Straus, a man often noted as the Father of Neo-Conservativism.  The theory goes that some philosophers who put their beliefs into a fictional form realised that the general public would not approve of the deviation from accepted beliefs, so they put their views into the mouths of the villains and let the hero speak for popular opinion.  The public would naturally accept that the hero speaks for the author and thus the philosopher can avoid a scandal.

This is a fascinating approach to criticism which may only be valid with a handful of created works.  Who knows?  There may be more.  One thing that is certain.  Often the villains resonate with people more than the hero.  Who wants to be Jonathan Harker? Or Raoul?  Its Dracula and the Phantom who capture the imagination.

When I first heard this theory my mind went immediately to my hero villain, Ra’s al Ghul from Batman Begins.  He is actually an anti-villain.  Like the hero, he is motivated by a higher cause or purpose rather than for his own ends.  What makes the anti-villain a villain is the means to his end.  He will willingly oversee the deaths of ten, scores, hundreds, thousands, or millions of people as a reasonable price to pay to achieve his higher purpose for a better world.  A more popular anti-villain by way of an example is Magneto from the X-Men comics.

Here are some key scenes that give us an idea of the philosophy of Ra’s al Ghul aka Henri Ducard:

Gotham's time has come. Like Constantinople or Rome before it the city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die. This is the most important function of the League of Shadows. It is one we've performed for centuries. Gotham... must be destroyed.

Justice is balance.

Tomorrow the world will watch in horror as its greatest city destroys itself. The movement back to harmony will be unstoppable this time....Over the ages, our weapons have grown more sophisticated. With Gotham, we tried a new one: Economics. But we underestimated certain of Gotham's citizens... such as your parents. Gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help. Create enough hunger and everyone becomes a criminal. Their deaths galvanized the city into saving itself... and Gotham has limped on ever since. We are back to finish the job. And this time no misguided idealists will get in the way. Like your father, you lack the courage to do all that is necessary. If someone stands in the way of true justice... you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart.

When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural.

 Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding.

Only a cynical man would call what these people have "lives," Wayne. Crime, despair... this is not how man was supposed to live. The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. We sacked Rome, loaded trade ships with plague rats, burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance.

A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely.... A legend.

But a criminal is not complicated. What you really fear is inside yourself. You fear your own power. You fear your anger, the drive to do great or terrible things.

Theatricality and deception are powerful agents.

Henri Ducard: Your parents' death was not your fault.
[Bruce attacks Ducard with his sword]
Henri Ducard: It was your father's.
[Bruce furiously attacks Ducard, but is easily defeated]
Henri Ducard: Anger does not change the fact that your father failed to act.
Bruce Wayne: The man had a gun!
Henri Ducard: Would that stop you?
Bruce Wayne: I've had training!
Henri Ducard: The training is nothing! The will is everything!
[Ducard bests Bruce once again]
Henri Ducard: The will to act.

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So what is the philosophy of Ra’s al Ghul? Quite simply that there is good and there is evil and this evil will thrive as long as good men do nothing.  They may do nothing because they indulge evil out of a misguided sense of morality or they may do nothing because they lack the courage, skill, or will to act, particularly will.  Over time, this unchecked evil will thrive until, like ivy, it penetrates every strata of society.  When that occurs the building must be destroyed and rebuilt.  Therefore, the individual must prepare himself to be constantly vigilant against evil and devote his life to cultivating the courage, skill, and will to fight evil.

But what constitutes evil for Ra’s al Ghul?  He seems to take an Objectivist view that evil is parasitic by nature and feeds off the production of others.  Murder may be a means to that end, but Ra’s al Ghul is not above murder himself.  Death is the penalty for the criminal and also for the “misguided idealists” who stand in the way of true justice.

This idea of “true justice” is another interesting notion.  Ra’s al Ghul says that justice is about balance.  This can be seen as an “eye for an eye” approach.  However we may look at it like this.  A thief takes the property of another through the use of force, the threat of force, fraud, or stealth.  Property is the result of an individual’s time, energy, and skill.  On top of that there is the emotional investment we place in our property – so called sentimental value.  It seems reasonable for the thief to be forced to compensate the victim if he is caught.

However, compensation is not enough.  There is no penalty for the thief if he simply restores what he has taken unless he is unable to do so and must compensate from his own pocket.  So there must be an extra price to be paid before balance can be restored.

Where Ra’s al Ghul and Bruce Wayne differ is that Wayne believes that it is not for the individual to dispense justice.  The hero may thwart the villain and bring him to justice, but not to administer justice himself.  On the surface, most people would agree with Wayne, but if pressed, many would advocate Ra’s al Ghul’s position, particular when they feel crime and corruption runs unchecked.

Ultimately, the argument here is Law versus Order.  When the Law is corrupted, does the individual have the responsibility to restore Order by any means necessary?  The Romantic would answer yes.

Law is a luxury of society.  Among the Natural Rights of Life, Liberty, and Property is the implied right to defend those rights.  In civilized societies, people look to governments to perform that function.  In tribal cultures, the clan, family or tribe did so.  Both government and clan are merely extensions of the individual’s responsibility of self-defense.

In the television series, Deadwood, Alma Garret’s husband is murdered by order of Al Swerengen, the tough guy who dominates Deadwood.  As a woman, she is incapable of administering justice in a town without law, so she seeks the aid of Wild Bill Hickock, a Western hero who had come to town.  He therefore becomes an extension of her will so that she may have justice.

We also see this in the historical events surrounding the gunfight at the OK Corral.  The criminals spent good money in the town of Tombstone and were friendly to many of the inhabitants there.  Should they come to court for their crimes, their fellow criminals and allies would provide alibis in court for them.   Finally Judge Spicer called Wyatt Earp to the bench after dismissing a case and implied the only way to stop these men was to just kill them. 

The debate is one of Law versus Order.  Should the good go outside the law to preserve order?   If we view Law as a luxury, then we can more readily put that luxury aside to preserve the very purpose of the law – to maintain order and balance by protecting, defending, and if need be restoring or avenging, individual Life, Liberty, and Property.

According to Ra’s al Ghul, the League of Shadows acts when a society has become too corrupt.  This implies a line that is crossed, a point of no return, as had happened in Tombstone.  Ra’s al Ghul sees Gotham at that crisis point, thus must order be restored by any means necessary, including the sacrifice of the innocent.

This is justified by demeaning their lives.  Again, another Romantic idea.  When I am asked whether people are basically good or evil, I will say that they are a disappointment.  As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation”.  Those men who lack the courage and will to lead full lives are hardly worthy of the prestigious title “Human”.  Or in the words of Rob Zombie, being “More Human than Human”.  The purpose of life is to live, not to merely survive and endure.  For Ra’s al Ghul, the people of Gotham are not truly living so what matter if they die?

Of course Bruce Wayne does not share this belief.  As with the Law vs. Order debate, again we see Wayne giving the surface belief professed by mainstream morality, but if pressed most people would express the sort of elitism seen in Ra’s al Ghul.  Even the most outspoken advocate of egalitarianism demonstrates in action that some animals are more equal than others.

What makes Ra’s al Ghul a villain, or more precisely an anti-villain, is not his ends but his means.  He is willing to light the purging fire to allow new growth and restore order, even if it sacrifices the weak and the wicked, which could be argued as one in the same, but that is another article.

For me, Ra’s al Ghul’s philosophy is a sort of guilty pleasure.  Of course I do not advocate the destruction of innocents, however there are times when I see the world as a big ball of evil beyond redemption and I think that balance must be restored by any means necessary.  I see misguided idealist making matters worse, and I think they have to be destroyed with the chaff.  I do not think that I am the only one who has these moments.

If Ra’s al Ghul is about Order, then the opposite is Chaos represented by the Joker in The Dark Knight.  The most telling scene is this one...

The Joker: Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just... do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So, when I say... Ah, come here.
[takes Dent's hand into his own]

When I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know that I'm telling the truth. It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and look where that got you.

[Dent tries to grab the Joker]

I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

[Joker hands Two-Face a gun and points it at himself]

Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!

Perhaps I am reading too much into this scene, but from a political point of view we see the people in power as the social planners who decide how best to manage society, but usually falling victim to the law of unintended consequences.

The message from the Joker is that reality cannot be controlled and that is the joke.  One type of joke is where you expect things to play out one way, but there is an unexpected twist at the end.  Like Rorschach’s joke in The Watchmen.

I heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life is harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor... I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.

The planners and schemers expect events to go one way, but in the end there is a twist.  Sometimes it is a very dark twist.

The planners fall into two categories, those misguided idealists afore mentioned are the most visible and vocal.  I honestly believe that they want to do good and that they are daily working hard and sacrificing to bring about a better world.  The problem is that they do not have a vested substantial interest in the outcome.  All they have is positive emotions.

Here is an example from the 1880’s in the American railroad industry.  There were 125,000 miles of track and competition was fierce.  As a consequence, fares for long-haul travel between populous destinations were low.  However, the short-haul travel had less competition so fares were sometimes higher than long-haul fares. 

Consumers complained about the high cost of short-haul fares and eventual popular opinion turned against the “greedy” railroad men.  The misguided idealist decided to stand against the railroads and got the US government involved.  The result was the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887.

Victory achieved, the idealists moved on to a new cause.  But who was going to run this Interstate Commerce Commission?  Well, the only people who cared were those with a vested interest – the railroad men themselves.  The first ICC commissioner was Thomas Cooley, a lawyer who had worked for the railroads.  For decades, the bureaucrats in the ICC were the very railroad men that they were suppose to regulate.

Here’s the punch line.  The ICC solved the price discrepancy between the long and short haul fares by raising the minimum fares a company could charge, thus making long-haul travel more expensive for the consumer and increasing the profits of the railroads by government mandate.

The second kind of planner is the one behind the scenes who has vested monetary or political interest in the cause.  They play along with the idealists like the railroad men in the example but turn the tables in the end when the idealists inevitable move on to the next crusade.  For the businessmen it is about profit and for the political type it is simply about control.

There is more to this joke.  The artificially high cost of the railroad led to the emergence of trucking in the 1920’s as a cheap alternative and the eventual death of the railroad industry.

This pattern is played out over and over and over.  Look at the role Goldman Sacks is playing today in regulating the financial services industry.  The misguided idealists demand banking reform and regulation, government commits to it in the form of some agency, the idealists claim victory and leave, and then the foxes are put in charge of the henhouse.  Good joke.

Here’s another one.  Jamie Oliver, misguided idealist, decided school lunches were unhealthy and worked with the British government to change the menu.  So the kids stopped eating school provided lunches and bought from the burger van outside the school.  Not quite according to plan, eh Jamie?

Like the Joker, Reality has a way of turning the plan in on itself.  As a libertarian, I am not an anarchist, as the Joker claims to be, but rather a minarchists, or minimal anarchist.  This allows freedom and with freedom comes chaos for the planners and schemers who want control over the lives of others.

So although I am not in the Jokers camp to the same extent as I am with Ra’s al Ghul, I appreciate the sentiment.  I love it when the planners fall on their faces and hopefully see the futility of trying to control Reality.  Of course this does not always happen.  That dark side of me looks for a Joker to help things along.

The planners and schemers, be they the misguided idealists or the guided interests, seek to impose their idea of order on the chaos.  But Reality is not chaos.  It is a very complex and varied order that cannot be controlled, therefore their attempts at order produces naught but more chaos, thanks to the law of unintended consequences.

In writing this I discovered many potential tangents that I chose not to follow.  For example, both Ra’s al Ghul and the Joker created a situation where society would destroy itself from fear, either from a toxin or a life or death scenario.  This makes me wonder if Christopher Nolan sees fear as the root of all evil.

Another tangent was the role played by the minor villains: Falconi, the Scarecrow, and Two-Face.  If Ra’s al Ghul is Order and the Joker Chaos, then we might argue the other characters might represent other concepts, such as Power for Falconi, Fear for the Scarecrow, and Justice for Two-Face.

So where does that leave The Batman?  He is no villain, but the Dark Knight sets him up as a dark knight.  In religious texts, this is the “left-hand of God”.   Superman is the right hand, moral, good, and light.  Batman is the left, or sinister, side performing the dark deeds that must be done for a higher good, even if it means breaking the law.

In Christian mythology, this is Azrael, the Angel of Death.  Though he began as an angel, over time he became portrayed as a demon.  Oddly, when Batman in the comics suffered a broken back, the mantle was handed to a character called Azrael who was “Batman” from 1993-1994.

The Joker is often portrayed as the opposing force to Batman.  I would argue that many of the key archetypal villains in the Batman mythology are aspects of Batman taken to extremes with Batman as the centre that they all orbit, balanced in the shadowlands of the human psyche.  Perhaps that is another article.

For now, suffice to say that we might find wisdom in the mouths of villains, provided we are prepared to face the truth in the darkness.  The villains say what we are afraid to say.  They pose the questions that we dare not ask.  They slap the fools we dare not slap.  We watch Ra's al Ghul or the Joker and we  secretly delight vicariously in them, but we dare not claim them.