I'm not religious, but I've wondered for some time about the nature of Heaven in Christian theology. Specifically, what is it like for the people who go there? I can come up with some answers to this question, but none of them are all that satisfying. As such, I would like to enlist the aid of my Christian friends who have actually studied this subject, and with their help, we will all become more enlightened on this subject.
One, very simple answer is that Heaven is totally beyond our comprehension. All we know ex ante is that it is perfectly good, and we will only learn more when we get there. This is clearly unsatisfying--we want to know about Heaven before we get there, that's why we're inquiring. Of course, that's the most we can say against this possibility, so unless we can find a better and more interesting answer, it's what we're stuck with.
We are saved by another view of Heaven...that's not much more satisfying than the first. According to this view the souls of the righteous form a celestial choir and sing praises to God. This may have more appeal to Christians than it does to me--I'd rather do something a bit more intellectual than merely sing praises, but this also is a fairly consistent idea. In Heaven, one has all the satisfaction one could want, except perhaps something to do. Thus, souls in Heaven do the best thing that occurs to them: praise the one responsible for their bliss. As I said, this doesn't seem very satisfying to me, but if someone can make a better case for it than I just have, I'm open to it.
Probably the most popular vision of Heaven is that of a sort of congress of friends and family. When a soul reaches Heaven, it meets the souls of those it knew and loved in life and spends eternity in their company. The first problem I can see with this idea is that it makes God incidental, or even unimportant. What makes Heaven wonderful is not the presence of the Almighty, but rather of those mere mortals who are missed by those still living. I myself have no objection to such a conception, but a Christian would certainly have to resolve this difficulty.
A more substantive objection to this interpretation of Heaven involves the details. To use a non-Christian example, when Socrates discusses his views on death in the Apology, he says that he will either experience oblivion or ascend to the Isles of the Blessed where he can discuss philosophy with the great thinkers of the past. But what if those great thinkers don't want to discuss philosophy with him? What if Heraclitus, Parmenides, Homer, et al. have more interesting things to do than philosophize with Socrates? (Admittedly, philosophizing with Socrates would be quite a treat for any true lover of wisdom.) More generally, when one comes to Heaven, one inevitably has some idea of what perfect bliss would be like, but what if people have different ideas of Heaven that include each other? A dear friend may wish to spend eternity with someone you find distasteful, or perhaps to ration their eternity different way than you would prefer. We can put aside this objection by invoking concord amongst the righteous, but this will still involve changing Heaven from the popular conception.
How about this: instead of everyone living in the same Heaven, each person has their own Heaven, which is precisely to their liking? Thus, conflicting visions of Heaven are made compossible, as they are discrete and individual. But this means that Heaven rests on a lie--the "Heavens" in which people dwell are illusions rather than realities. The bright side to this is that we can easily grasp what Hell would be like: to know, and be unable to forget, even for a second, that the wondrous world they now inhabit is nothing but a fantasy. However, surely Heaven and falsehood cannot be combined, so I reject this interpretation, though if someone thinks they can defend it, they're welcome to do so.
That concludes the list of schemas for Heaven that I think are worth mentioning, and that I can articulate clearly. This brings me to one idea I've been putting together while reading Plato. However, it is only a rough idea, and it involves interpreting Plato's theory of forms a fair bit. Neither of these am I prepared to do lightly, and I would not propose this vague notion as true, or even as a true interpretation of Plato. I do think it fits well with Plato's philosophy, which I greatly respect.
Now is probably a good time to answer a question that might be bothering the reader: why I am, an atheist, wondering about the nature of Heaven? This is not an easy question to answer, but I will do my best.
One important thing to understand is why I'm an atheist. In simplest terms, it is because I don't know what God would be if he existed. If someone were to ask me today, "Do you believe in God?", I would have to ask for clarification. (If someone were to have asked me the same question a few years ago, I would have answered with a hasty, "No.") I've analyzed various ideas of God and found them all wanting. I also do not find convincing any argument for a generic God's existence, so I would not even qualify as a Deist. On the other hand, lacking a conception of God, I cannot rule out a priori the possibility of some divine force or being of a form I simply have not imagined.
Still further, I find certain, vague notions of divinity rather appealing. The idea of an all-seeing and perfectly just judge is certainly something I like, and the idea that all knowledge is somewhere collected is appealing as well. But by the same token, it would be nice if I didn't have any homework; this world is not as I would like it in many ways, so why should it be in these? The upshot of all this is that I'm open to the possibility of divinity without being at all convinced of it. To answer inevitable questions, yes, "atheist" is the proper term for me, and no, there is no serious hope of converting me to Christianity or any other religion--to do so, you'd need to come up with a genuinely new argument.
So, I'm an atheist willing to consider the possibility of the divine, and this gives me some reason to not ignore questions like the one I've posed. But why should I actually bother thinking about these issues? Because if there is divinity, I want to have correct ideas about it...because I want to have correct ideas about everything. If these ruminations bring me closer to the truth, most excellent; if not, at least I have inquired.
Now on to my idea. To give a complete explanation would require recapitulating a great deal of Plato, which I'm not going to do. However, everyone seeking wisdom should read the Dialogues. To start off, let's take his theory of forms, at least in vague outline. According to Plato, to try to analyze the world as we see it on its own terms results in nothing but confusion. In order to properly understand the world, we must abstract away from the world of flux in which we live to a more permanent realm of forms or ideas. These forms are not all coequal; there exists a hierarchy of forms culminating in the form of the Good. By ascending through these realms of forms, a philosopher gains a more and more complete understanding of the world until, at the end of his journey, he understands all things as they are. Plato never actually discusses what the form of the Good is, but my hypothesis is that it a variation on Eleatic monism--another idea that would be too complicated to explain in detail here, let alone the variation I have in mind. Simply put, a philosopher attaining to the form of the Good would comprehend the unity of the world. Plato scholars have debated the nature of the form of the good for thousands of years, and all I will say in my defense here is that this idea is not unique to me. I do have some ideas of my own about Plato's epistemology, but this brief sketch I've given is sufficient for my purposes.
Another important aspect of Plato's cosmology is that the souls of those who are neither extremely righteous nor extremely vile are reincarnated, and thus given the chance to attain to the Good in the fullness of time. I have to say that I count this as a point of superiority over Christian spirituality, which gives souls only a single shot at attaining righteousness (though I understand some of the reasons for it). As I see it, if God truly wants all souls to come to him, but hates sin, surely he could contrive a means to allow souls more than one chance to attain genuine righteousness. As I said, this is very much non-Christian, but I digress.
Plato includes in his cosmology rewards for those souls who were virtuous in life, but who did not reach the pinnacle of the Good. It would not be unfitting to call the state these souls enjoy "Heaven," but I want to reserve that name for the state attained by the truly righteous. There are two possibilities that I see at this point: one is more logical, the other more attractive to me. However, as I've said, the world does not order itself to my whim, so I have to give more credence (out of none) to the first. Still, I will describe them both.
For the first possibility, we can imagine that souls that have grasped the form of the Good and come to realize the unity of the world would then ascend to unity with the world. Since a being at this stage would have already, by grasping the form of the Good, acquired the greatest satisfaction conceivable to mankind, and it would hardly make sense for them to be separate from the universe, it easily follows that this immanence would be the highest good conceivable. What it would actually consist of for the philosopher, I cannot say, but at the very least there is a logic to this idea.
The second possibility tweaks the cosmology a bit and doesn't actually change the ultimate result, but it will be easy to see why I would find this option more appealing. Instead of Heaven being reserved only for those who have attained to the form of the Good, we might allow a philosopher who has reached a slightly lower level of enlightenment to dwell there in contemplation to prepare for his ultimate ascension. In Heaven, he would spend all his time (assuming that time as we understand it exists in Heaven) meditating on the forms and seeking for further enlightenment, leading eventually to the immanence I described above. Why I like this option better is fairly clear: it makes attaining ultimate enlightenment easier. Especially since Plato has souls' memories buried by the waters of the River Lethe before they are reborn, I suspect he would prefer this possibility, to the alternative of every soul being completely reset until they reach the pinnacle, as well.
So there you have my idea for Heaven. It is very much non-Christian; in truth, it bears a striking resemblance to Buddhism, which was developed around the same time. I do not claim that this is true, or even that it is a true interpretation of Plato. I simply claim that it is consistent in itself and with Plato's writings. Constructive criticisms are welcomed.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
Is Government an Organization or a Function?
Imagine, if you will, a world without government. What does it look like? Is it a chaos where life is nasty, brutish, and short? Is it a paradise, without hatred or coercion? Perhaps it lies somewhere between the two, tending toward one or the other, or maybe you need more information before you can tell.
What I'm wondering about in particular is how did you make the transition from our world (which presumably has at least some government) to a world without it? What precisely did you remove? When we speak of government we often conflate two distinct meanings of the term. Government can be either a set of tasks or an organization that performs those tasks. Which do you have in mind when you use the word? Different ideas on this point lead to vastly different answers.
Probably the most popular interpretation is of government as the State--a territorial monopolist of judicial enforcement (or some other essentially identical definition). Precisely what the State does, or should do, is a major point of contention in modern political discourse. Some believe that it is rightly a simple guarantor of the natural rights of the citizenry; others that it ought to equal out disparities of economic or social power; still others that it exists to help society achieve its collective goals, usually (though not always) communicated by means of a roughly democratic process. Anarchists from Noam Chomsky to Hans-Hermann Hoppe see the State as an agency of oppression by those with effective control over it, typically a subset of the extraordinarily wealthy.
Of all these ideas, the anarchist view is most correct, since what ultimately typifies a State is the impunity with which its agents can commit acts which, when performed by anyone else, would be considered criminal. Devices like constitutions, separation of powers, and supreme courts might be used to restrain the activities of the State, but these safeguards are ultimately illusory, as they are enforced by the State itself. That it would eventually begin looting and tyrannizing the populace is about as foregone a conclusion as that a fox set to guarding a hen-house would one day start consuming its wards.
As you might guess from the preceding paragraph, I am not a fan of the State. Precisely why I object to it should become obvious over the course of this inquiry. For a long while I was also in the camp that identified government with the State. However, reading Plato, a number of articles on natural law, and a book by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn gave me a new idea that significantly changes my perspective, at least terminologically. The meaning of terms is fundamentally significant to any discourse seeking truth, and I think explaining my new views will help elucidate some subtleties our casual use of the word government obscures.
What would be an alternative to thinking of government as the State? Consider this paradox. According to Kuehnelt-Leddihn, conservatives during the 19th century thought of a society ruled by a democratic State as in actuality having no government at all. The solution to this conundrum is an alternative interpretation of government. Natural rights theorists have traditionally ascribed the tasks of protecting life, liberty, and property to government, almost always meaning the State. But what if, instead of government being an organization, it is instead a function. We could thus keep the notion of government protecting life, liberty, and property, but drop the necessity of a territorial monopolist.
According to Plato, the purpose of the ruling body, whether of a man or of a society, is to temper the passions that can lead it away from the Good. In the Gorgias, he carefully explains how a tyrant, who can satisfy his desires to the greatest extent, is worse off for doing so, and even in truth a slave to his own whims. He may be very clever, but lacking wisdom, he will invariably take action which is contrary in effect to his true wish. Such a man does not rule himself, and stands in need of restraint by those wiser, for his own good as well as that of those he might harm. By the same token, if all the people in a society are permitted to express and act on their desires to the utmost degree, nothing but harm can be expected to result. Thus, a society must be regulated for the common good of all its members.
I agree with Plato, at least as I have interpreted him. To put it more plainly, since some readers might be surprised by this, I am convinced that government is a necessary component of a society. To speak of one without the other would be nonsense. This may seem to break sharply with my anarchist ideas, but in fact they are quite compatible. Being as I am a property-based anarchist, suppose there were no private property at all and anyone would be permitted to use any physical object they wished. This would result in conflict as soon as one person wanted something that another person was using. We can easily imagine that in a few cases this is resolved peacefully, it strains credulity past the breaking point to say that this would be the norm, especially after some people with a great deal of strength and modicum of intelligence noticed that they could acquire whatever they wished by brute force. Remembering that in this scenario there would not even be property rights in individuals' bodies, we can see immediately that this would lead to an utterly intolerable state. However, if we have property rights in objects and bodies, and these rights are generally respected, we can easily imagine an essentially peaceful society, even with occasional criminals and outlaws.
Now, to avoid being misunderstood, I do not mean to say that any distribution of property rights is acceptable. Rather, I have a specific method for assigning them in mind derived from the tradition of natural law, specifically Locke, Rothbard, and Van Dun. While there is room for nuance, the basic principles are the presumption of self-ownership of individuals' bodies; that new property titles only arise when previously unowned resources are plainly altered, with the title belonging to the person who altered those resources; and property titles can be transferred only by means of voluntary exchange or gifts. The great beauty of this system is that it can ensure conflict-free interaction starting from the beginning of mankind onward and also is the legal regime most conducive to economic prosperity. However, another advantage is that it strains moral intuition almost not at all--to find fault with this system, critics usually have to resort to horribly contrived examples or extreme behavior, for example, consensual cannibalism. If you have to go to the extreme of eating people to find an objection--which I think can be answered--then you're really grasping at straws.
Something I've left out, however, is how these rules are to be enforced. Obviously the law will not support itself, so some group of men must organize to do so. Thus, a government is born. However, this government need not be a compulsory monopolist. In fact, there can be many organizations providing government in various ways in the same area; and this has been borne out historically. Of course, it would be to the advantage of each such organization to eliminate its competition, but so long as public opinion is against the violence necessary to establish such a monopoly, it will be all but impossible for them to do so. Thus, if such a system could be established, it could be remarkably stable for the freedom from injustice it would provide.
Now, it might be objected that this whole scheme hinges on public opinion. If the public decides it no longer wants justice, then a State and all the corresponding injustices arising therefrom can take over. This isn't as serious an objection as it seems. If a people believes that injustice is unobjectionable, there will be injustice. Nothing terribly remarkable about this. And in such a case, the solution is surely not to convince them that only certain people dressed in the proper regalia or brandishing the appropriate insignia may commit injustice, but rather than it is acceptable for no one to do so.
There you have it: my views on the nature and proper role of government. Constructive critiques welcome.
What I'm wondering about in particular is how did you make the transition from our world (which presumably has at least some government) to a world without it? What precisely did you remove? When we speak of government we often conflate two distinct meanings of the term. Government can be either a set of tasks or an organization that performs those tasks. Which do you have in mind when you use the word? Different ideas on this point lead to vastly different answers.
Probably the most popular interpretation is of government as the State--a territorial monopolist of judicial enforcement (or some other essentially identical definition). Precisely what the State does, or should do, is a major point of contention in modern political discourse. Some believe that it is rightly a simple guarantor of the natural rights of the citizenry; others that it ought to equal out disparities of economic or social power; still others that it exists to help society achieve its collective goals, usually (though not always) communicated by means of a roughly democratic process. Anarchists from Noam Chomsky to Hans-Hermann Hoppe see the State as an agency of oppression by those with effective control over it, typically a subset of the extraordinarily wealthy.
Of all these ideas, the anarchist view is most correct, since what ultimately typifies a State is the impunity with which its agents can commit acts which, when performed by anyone else, would be considered criminal. Devices like constitutions, separation of powers, and supreme courts might be used to restrain the activities of the State, but these safeguards are ultimately illusory, as they are enforced by the State itself. That it would eventually begin looting and tyrannizing the populace is about as foregone a conclusion as that a fox set to guarding a hen-house would one day start consuming its wards.
As you might guess from the preceding paragraph, I am not a fan of the State. Precisely why I object to it should become obvious over the course of this inquiry. For a long while I was also in the camp that identified government with the State. However, reading Plato, a number of articles on natural law, and a book by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn gave me a new idea that significantly changes my perspective, at least terminologically. The meaning of terms is fundamentally significant to any discourse seeking truth, and I think explaining my new views will help elucidate some subtleties our casual use of the word government obscures.
What would be an alternative to thinking of government as the State? Consider this paradox. According to Kuehnelt-Leddihn, conservatives during the 19th century thought of a society ruled by a democratic State as in actuality having no government at all. The solution to this conundrum is an alternative interpretation of government. Natural rights theorists have traditionally ascribed the tasks of protecting life, liberty, and property to government, almost always meaning the State. But what if, instead of government being an organization, it is instead a function. We could thus keep the notion of government protecting life, liberty, and property, but drop the necessity of a territorial monopolist.
According to Plato, the purpose of the ruling body, whether of a man or of a society, is to temper the passions that can lead it away from the Good. In the Gorgias, he carefully explains how a tyrant, who can satisfy his desires to the greatest extent, is worse off for doing so, and even in truth a slave to his own whims. He may be very clever, but lacking wisdom, he will invariably take action which is contrary in effect to his true wish. Such a man does not rule himself, and stands in need of restraint by those wiser, for his own good as well as that of those he might harm. By the same token, if all the people in a society are permitted to express and act on their desires to the utmost degree, nothing but harm can be expected to result. Thus, a society must be regulated for the common good of all its members.
I agree with Plato, at least as I have interpreted him. To put it more plainly, since some readers might be surprised by this, I am convinced that government is a necessary component of a society. To speak of one without the other would be nonsense. This may seem to break sharply with my anarchist ideas, but in fact they are quite compatible. Being as I am a property-based anarchist, suppose there were no private property at all and anyone would be permitted to use any physical object they wished. This would result in conflict as soon as one person wanted something that another person was using. We can easily imagine that in a few cases this is resolved peacefully, it strains credulity past the breaking point to say that this would be the norm, especially after some people with a great deal of strength and modicum of intelligence noticed that they could acquire whatever they wished by brute force. Remembering that in this scenario there would not even be property rights in individuals' bodies, we can see immediately that this would lead to an utterly intolerable state. However, if we have property rights in objects and bodies, and these rights are generally respected, we can easily imagine an essentially peaceful society, even with occasional criminals and outlaws.
Now, to avoid being misunderstood, I do not mean to say that any distribution of property rights is acceptable. Rather, I have a specific method for assigning them in mind derived from the tradition of natural law, specifically Locke, Rothbard, and Van Dun. While there is room for nuance, the basic principles are the presumption of self-ownership of individuals' bodies; that new property titles only arise when previously unowned resources are plainly altered, with the title belonging to the person who altered those resources; and property titles can be transferred only by means of voluntary exchange or gifts. The great beauty of this system is that it can ensure conflict-free interaction starting from the beginning of mankind onward and also is the legal regime most conducive to economic prosperity. However, another advantage is that it strains moral intuition almost not at all--to find fault with this system, critics usually have to resort to horribly contrived examples or extreme behavior, for example, consensual cannibalism. If you have to go to the extreme of eating people to find an objection--which I think can be answered--then you're really grasping at straws.
Something I've left out, however, is how these rules are to be enforced. Obviously the law will not support itself, so some group of men must organize to do so. Thus, a government is born. However, this government need not be a compulsory monopolist. In fact, there can be many organizations providing government in various ways in the same area; and this has been borne out historically. Of course, it would be to the advantage of each such organization to eliminate its competition, but so long as public opinion is against the violence necessary to establish such a monopoly, it will be all but impossible for them to do so. Thus, if such a system could be established, it could be remarkably stable for the freedom from injustice it would provide.
Now, it might be objected that this whole scheme hinges on public opinion. If the public decides it no longer wants justice, then a State and all the corresponding injustices arising therefrom can take over. This isn't as serious an objection as it seems. If a people believes that injustice is unobjectionable, there will be injustice. Nothing terribly remarkable about this. And in such a case, the solution is surely not to convince them that only certain people dressed in the proper regalia or brandishing the appropriate insignia may commit injustice, but rather than it is acceptable for no one to do so.
There you have it: my views on the nature and proper role of government. Constructive critiques welcome.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Does Knowledge Exist?
Life seems hell-bent on keeping me from writing the final entry in my How to be a Conservative series, distracting me with an endless array of philosophical questions to answer. The current one that I'm addressing is on the nature of knowledge. Specifically, I claim that knowledge is but does not exist. In this discussion, I'll touch on a number of related questions and produce a rough metaphysics. This post has grown out of a conversation I had last night with a few of my brothers, so I'll be drawing from their expressed views primarily.
We will begin with fairly simple metaphysical ideas: all that is exists; there exists a universe of objects independent of perception; the objects within this universe functions according to fixed, causal laws. Before going any further, let's clarify what the distinction between being and existing. To exist means to be in space and time. This carries some things along with it, such as extension (occupying a volume of space) and weight (being movable, but resisting motion). Being is a broader term allowing for the possibility that there are objects which do not occupy space for any period of time. What the nature of such non-physical (non-existing) objects may be is a question we will not be exploring.
Now, we can make an easy objection to our beginning ideas: how do we know that the universe functions according to fixed laws? Perhaps the objects in the universe behave randomly instead. This objection was answered long ago by Heraclitus of Ephasus. He said that everything changes except the Logos, or law of the universe. But what was the law? That everything changes. By the same token, if all in the universe is random, then the law "All is random" is applicable. Even if there are only some objects which obey fixed laws, then the law "Some things are random" is applicable.
We can go even further by asking what it means for something to be random. The standard answer is that something is random if it is unpredictable. But predictable by whom? What does it even mean to predict something? Presumably, to have justifiable, true knowledge of an event before it occurs. But we don't know what knowledge is yet. We can't use a concept we are trying to derive in formulating our premises. To do so is simply to beg the question. After dealing with the subject of knowledge, we'll return to this issue, but to discuss it now is absurd.
Let us now construct a theory of knowledge based on the metaphysical assumptions we mentioned. In the universe, there exist objects obeying fixed laws. Certain objects in a certain space, called a mind, have a correspondence with objects outside of the mind. Specific behavior of objects outside the mind produces, according to fixed laws, specific behaviors of the objects within the mind. Some of these behaviors are knowledge. Some behaviors within the mind can also cause other behaviors within the mind, some of which are knowledge.
This theory of knowledge is extremely broad, and we have not even given a specific definition of what behaviors of objects within the mind actually constitute knowledge. However, it gives us enough to notice a couple critical problems. How does this square up with how we actually think? Well, for one thing, it means that no one has free will, so really this entire discussion is pointless. Everything we say and do is predetermined by the laws of the universe, so even trying to define knowledge is pointless. Another thing is that we haven't defined what it means to have knowledge of something. In ordinary life, when we say that you know X, we generally mean also that you have knowledge of something to which X applies. For example, I know that it is sunny means that I know something about the weather. Perhaps we should say that we have knowledge of that which immediately causes our knowledge. But then, we have no knowledge of any connections between things in temporal sequence beyond a single stage. If X=>Y and Y=>Z, where Z is knowledge, then we only have knowledge of Y, never knowledge of X. Making things a bit more complex, If X=>Y and A=>B, but A is before X, then even if B&Y=>Z, we only have knowledge of B&Y and still no knowledge of A or X, let alone their temporal sequence.
Perhaps we can make this work. If A=>X and X=>Y and A&Y=>Z, then can we have knowledge beyond one stage of temporal sequence? Not so, because A must persist for A&Y to be true and we still only have knowledge of one stage of the temporal sequence, that in which A and Y coincide. We still know nothing about what happened before then. Thus, we have no knowledge of any historical even that we did not directly experience. We cannot say, "Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC," only "I learned that Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC." This may seem vaguely similar to the notion of meaning proposed by A. J. Ayer, that the meaning of a proposition is its method of verification, but we have actually made a stronger statement. Whereas Ayer would translate the statement, "Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC," as, "If you look in a book on history, you will be able to verify that Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC," we are saying that even this is an unwarranted extrapolation.
We can even go further in striking down impermissible statements. Not only can we not say "Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC," we cannot even say that Caesar existed, not because we can't be certain of it, but because we don't have any knowledge of Caesar! Furthermore, we don't have knowledge of anything in the universe outside of our mind except what directly grants us knowledge. But wait! At the beginning, we stipulated various metaphysical statements that guided our theorizing--how could we have formulated those statements if we can't even have knowledge of the objects we were describing?
The situation does not improve if we relax the standard for what the object of our knowledge is by going back some more stages in the chain of causation or by saying that something can give us knowledge of something causally unconnected (except perhaps going back to the beginning of time). We still have knowledge only of specific things and cannot grasp the whole.
Well, maybe we can rectify this situation by saying that we know of all the stages in the chain of causation leading to our knowledge and all the effects of these causes, whether these effects led to our knowledge or not. In this case, as soon as we know one thing, we know of everything. We might change this to make it slightly less ridiculous, perhaps by saying that we don't immediately have knowledge of everything, but after a certain amount of knowledge has been formed, we have constructed knowledge of everything. However, even leaving aside the obvious absurdity of knowing of everything, we still could not make the statements we gave at the beginning because we couldn't grasp the unity of all things. Thus, we could not say there a universe exists, let alone anything about its properties.
The solution to this contradiction is to realize that we have implicitly assumed that some things are withing existing. The unity of all things is but does not exist; rather, it is a mental construction. More fundamentally, the laws that govern the behavior of objects cannot exist, yet they are nonetheless. When we said that a specific place in space was the mind, we used another mental construction. Thus, even in attempting to create the most materialistic metaphysics possible, we have necessarily employed non-physical objects.
But wait! I left the issue of a purely random universe hanging--how can I deal with that possibility. First, my initial objection stands: we begin our theorizing with a random universe because to do so involves having a theory of knowledge already. Second, the issue of the objects of knowledge remains. If knowledge is acquired randomly, we still could not have knowledge of things which do not exist, such as the unity of the universe.
These objections are fatal, but using a non-materialistic theory of knowledge can give us some extra insight. If knowledge is not physical (along with the concomitants mind, consciousness, intuition, etc.), then we can meaningfully speak of randomness as unpredictability. In a weak form, this means simply that we lack sufficient knowledge to systematically predict events correctly. We might have ideas about what will happen, but we don't know for certain until it happens. To this I raise no serious objection at the present time. However, the stronger form, that no causal relations exist, creates problems. Dealing with this claim requires a great deal of argument, and this post is already rather long as is. At this point, I will say simply that no one actually believes this and leave it to Immanuel Kant and Hans-Hermann Hoppe to explain why.
At this point, I am confident that I have demonstrated the necessity of objects which do not exist, but nonetheless have being, though I suspect I'll be accused of begging the question. Criticism is welcome.
We will begin with fairly simple metaphysical ideas: all that is exists; there exists a universe of objects independent of perception; the objects within this universe functions according to fixed, causal laws. Before going any further, let's clarify what the distinction between being and existing. To exist means to be in space and time. This carries some things along with it, such as extension (occupying a volume of space) and weight (being movable, but resisting motion). Being is a broader term allowing for the possibility that there are objects which do not occupy space for any period of time. What the nature of such non-physical (non-existing) objects may be is a question we will not be exploring.
Now, we can make an easy objection to our beginning ideas: how do we know that the universe functions according to fixed laws? Perhaps the objects in the universe behave randomly instead. This objection was answered long ago by Heraclitus of Ephasus. He said that everything changes except the Logos, or law of the universe. But what was the law? That everything changes. By the same token, if all in the universe is random, then the law "All is random" is applicable. Even if there are only some objects which obey fixed laws, then the law "Some things are random" is applicable.
We can go even further by asking what it means for something to be random. The standard answer is that something is random if it is unpredictable. But predictable by whom? What does it even mean to predict something? Presumably, to have justifiable, true knowledge of an event before it occurs. But we don't know what knowledge is yet. We can't use a concept we are trying to derive in formulating our premises. To do so is simply to beg the question. After dealing with the subject of knowledge, we'll return to this issue, but to discuss it now is absurd.
Let us now construct a theory of knowledge based on the metaphysical assumptions we mentioned. In the universe, there exist objects obeying fixed laws. Certain objects in a certain space, called a mind, have a correspondence with objects outside of the mind. Specific behavior of objects outside the mind produces, according to fixed laws, specific behaviors of the objects within the mind. Some of these behaviors are knowledge. Some behaviors within the mind can also cause other behaviors within the mind, some of which are knowledge.
This theory of knowledge is extremely broad, and we have not even given a specific definition of what behaviors of objects within the mind actually constitute knowledge. However, it gives us enough to notice a couple critical problems. How does this square up with how we actually think? Well, for one thing, it means that no one has free will, so really this entire discussion is pointless. Everything we say and do is predetermined by the laws of the universe, so even trying to define knowledge is pointless. Another thing is that we haven't defined what it means to have knowledge of something. In ordinary life, when we say that you know X, we generally mean also that you have knowledge of something to which X applies. For example, I know that it is sunny means that I know something about the weather. Perhaps we should say that we have knowledge of that which immediately causes our knowledge. But then, we have no knowledge of any connections between things in temporal sequence beyond a single stage. If X=>Y and Y=>Z, where Z is knowledge, then we only have knowledge of Y, never knowledge of X. Making things a bit more complex, If X=>Y and A=>B, but A is before X, then even if B&Y=>Z, we only have knowledge of B&Y and still no knowledge of A or X, let alone their temporal sequence.
Perhaps we can make this work. If A=>X and X=>Y and A&Y=>Z, then can we have knowledge beyond one stage of temporal sequence? Not so, because A must persist for A&Y to be true and we still only have knowledge of one stage of the temporal sequence, that in which A and Y coincide. We still know nothing about what happened before then. Thus, we have no knowledge of any historical even that we did not directly experience. We cannot say, "Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC," only "I learned that Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC." This may seem vaguely similar to the notion of meaning proposed by A. J. Ayer, that the meaning of a proposition is its method of verification, but we have actually made a stronger statement. Whereas Ayer would translate the statement, "Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC," as, "If you look in a book on history, you will be able to verify that Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC," we are saying that even this is an unwarranted extrapolation.
We can even go further in striking down impermissible statements. Not only can we not say "Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC," we cannot even say that Caesar existed, not because we can't be certain of it, but because we don't have any knowledge of Caesar! Furthermore, we don't have knowledge of anything in the universe outside of our mind except what directly grants us knowledge. But wait! At the beginning, we stipulated various metaphysical statements that guided our theorizing--how could we have formulated those statements if we can't even have knowledge of the objects we were describing?
The situation does not improve if we relax the standard for what the object of our knowledge is by going back some more stages in the chain of causation or by saying that something can give us knowledge of something causally unconnected (except perhaps going back to the beginning of time). We still have knowledge only of specific things and cannot grasp the whole.
Well, maybe we can rectify this situation by saying that we know of all the stages in the chain of causation leading to our knowledge and all the effects of these causes, whether these effects led to our knowledge or not. In this case, as soon as we know one thing, we know of everything. We might change this to make it slightly less ridiculous, perhaps by saying that we don't immediately have knowledge of everything, but after a certain amount of knowledge has been formed, we have constructed knowledge of everything. However, even leaving aside the obvious absurdity of knowing of everything, we still could not make the statements we gave at the beginning because we couldn't grasp the unity of all things. Thus, we could not say there a universe exists, let alone anything about its properties.
The solution to this contradiction is to realize that we have implicitly assumed that some things are withing existing. The unity of all things is but does not exist; rather, it is a mental construction. More fundamentally, the laws that govern the behavior of objects cannot exist, yet they are nonetheless. When we said that a specific place in space was the mind, we used another mental construction. Thus, even in attempting to create the most materialistic metaphysics possible, we have necessarily employed non-physical objects.
But wait! I left the issue of a purely random universe hanging--how can I deal with that possibility. First, my initial objection stands: we begin our theorizing with a random universe because to do so involves having a theory of knowledge already. Second, the issue of the objects of knowledge remains. If knowledge is acquired randomly, we still could not have knowledge of things which do not exist, such as the unity of the universe.
These objections are fatal, but using a non-materialistic theory of knowledge can give us some extra insight. If knowledge is not physical (along with the concomitants mind, consciousness, intuition, etc.), then we can meaningfully speak of randomness as unpredictability. In a weak form, this means simply that we lack sufficient knowledge to systematically predict events correctly. We might have ideas about what will happen, but we don't know for certain until it happens. To this I raise no serious objection at the present time. However, the stronger form, that no causal relations exist, creates problems. Dealing with this claim requires a great deal of argument, and this post is already rather long as is. At this point, I will say simply that no one actually believes this and leave it to Immanuel Kant and Hans-Hermann Hoppe to explain why.
At this point, I am confident that I have demonstrated the necessity of objects which do not exist, but nonetheless have being, though I suspect I'll be accused of begging the question. Criticism is welcome.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Marriage and the State
Today I went to a debate between two distinguished law professors with the subject "Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution." I was a bit annoyed that there was almost no discussion of the Constitution and absolutely no mention of the role of federalism in this controversy. My sympathies were more on the side of the professor defending traditional marriage, but I got the distinct impression that most of the audience was of the opposite inclination. Thus, I was rather impressed with the professor's courage in standing up in front of a hostile audience and effectively defending his position. That being said, I disagree with both of the debaters in an unconventional manner: I think the State should get out of the business of marriage, and that this would be to the advantage of traditional marriage.
To help explain the first part of my position, consider the following: currently, the State requires that every child attend a State-approved school for a number of years. At these schools, children study natural science, including the theory of evolution. Some people believe that an alternative idea, called intelligent design, should be taught alongside evolution. There is a great deal of vituperative exchange between the two camps, and each tries to sway public opinion and influence policymakers in their favor.
Now surely this issue requires a fair bit of knowledge regarding biology and the philosophy of science to judge properly. However, the only reason this is an issue for the public is that some people believe that their children will be forced to study ideas which they consider false. (There are, of course, some people who object to any child being taught something they consider false whether they are forced to or not, but it is to be hoped that they would not resort to the sword to correct any such heathens' practices.) If we remove the requirement that children attend a State-approved school, then this issue vanishes as children are instead taught, or not taught, on an individual basis whatever their parents wish to teach.
Returning to the problem of gay marriage, currently the State demands that those who wish to get married must receive license from the State in order to do so. Thus, to whom the State grants this permission has become a issue concerning the entire body politic. Surely, as with education, the superior answer is to remove the State from the picture so that people may "marry" in whatever way they choose.
My claim is actually a bit more subtle than that--rather than all standards for what constitutes marriage being abandoned, the task of performing such a determinations would be returned to society at large. By removing the State from this matter, people could claim to be "married", but their claims would have to be accepted by the people around them in order to be considered genuine. Put more succinctly, people must consider unions legitimate in order to accept them.
In case I didn't make this clear above, I am not in favor of gay marriage, whether under the current State-based system or under any other system. This is not because I have anything against gay people, either as individuals or as a collective. Rather, I simply have a fairly firm idea of marriage that happens to exclude them: marriage is a specific relationship between a man and a woman sanctioned by custom or religion. This is a historically based idea, but I think it also should make some intuitive sense. When we speak of the "marriage of X with Y", there is the connotation that X and Y are different in some significant way. We would think it very odd to speak of the "marriage of red with red", and I think in a like manner that the "marriage of man with man" or "marriage of woman with woman" would seem somehow wrong. This is not intended as a water-tight argument, merely as an explanatory reason.
But I claimed above that I think freeing up marriage would somehow make the position of traditional marriage stronger--how could that be? Right now, traditional marriage is fighting on open ground against a much more energetic and numerous force. By retreating to a more fortified position, we can let the enemy forces batter themselves into oblivion and claim the field when they are destroyed. In plainer language, we cannot win our case in the field of positive law because our case rests more on tradition, something which carries very little weight in the political realm. When we don't have to make legal arguments for why we should not reinvent a fundamental and natural aspect of civilization, I think we will ultimately be able to hold our ground better.
Now, this does involve ceding some territory to gay marriage. If same-sex relationships are considered acceptable, then they will be accepted. However, I do not expect that they will generally be considered on par with traditional marriage, which will continue to hold an elevated position in our society by virtue of its standing in tradition and its sort of natural basis. This also allows us to avoid the feared slippery slope. The reason why incest, polygamy, and other fetishes are not accepted by society is because people do not find these things acceptable. No explicit justification for this is required, though it certainly can help.
To help explain the first part of my position, consider the following: currently, the State requires that every child attend a State-approved school for a number of years. At these schools, children study natural science, including the theory of evolution. Some people believe that an alternative idea, called intelligent design, should be taught alongside evolution. There is a great deal of vituperative exchange between the two camps, and each tries to sway public opinion and influence policymakers in their favor.
Now surely this issue requires a fair bit of knowledge regarding biology and the philosophy of science to judge properly. However, the only reason this is an issue for the public is that some people believe that their children will be forced to study ideas which they consider false. (There are, of course, some people who object to any child being taught something they consider false whether they are forced to or not, but it is to be hoped that they would not resort to the sword to correct any such heathens' practices.) If we remove the requirement that children attend a State-approved school, then this issue vanishes as children are instead taught, or not taught, on an individual basis whatever their parents wish to teach.
Returning to the problem of gay marriage, currently the State demands that those who wish to get married must receive license from the State in order to do so. Thus, to whom the State grants this permission has become a issue concerning the entire body politic. Surely, as with education, the superior answer is to remove the State from the picture so that people may "marry" in whatever way they choose.
My claim is actually a bit more subtle than that--rather than all standards for what constitutes marriage being abandoned, the task of performing such a determinations would be returned to society at large. By removing the State from this matter, people could claim to be "married", but their claims would have to be accepted by the people around them in order to be considered genuine. Put more succinctly, people must consider unions legitimate in order to accept them.
In case I didn't make this clear above, I am not in favor of gay marriage, whether under the current State-based system or under any other system. This is not because I have anything against gay people, either as individuals or as a collective. Rather, I simply have a fairly firm idea of marriage that happens to exclude them: marriage is a specific relationship between a man and a woman sanctioned by custom or religion. This is a historically based idea, but I think it also should make some intuitive sense. When we speak of the "marriage of X with Y", there is the connotation that X and Y are different in some significant way. We would think it very odd to speak of the "marriage of red with red", and I think in a like manner that the "marriage of man with man" or "marriage of woman with woman" would seem somehow wrong. This is not intended as a water-tight argument, merely as an explanatory reason.
But I claimed above that I think freeing up marriage would somehow make the position of traditional marriage stronger--how could that be? Right now, traditional marriage is fighting on open ground against a much more energetic and numerous force. By retreating to a more fortified position, we can let the enemy forces batter themselves into oblivion and claim the field when they are destroyed. In plainer language, we cannot win our case in the field of positive law because our case rests more on tradition, something which carries very little weight in the political realm. When we don't have to make legal arguments for why we should not reinvent a fundamental and natural aspect of civilization, I think we will ultimately be able to hold our ground better.
Now, this does involve ceding some territory to gay marriage. If same-sex relationships are considered acceptable, then they will be accepted. However, I do not expect that they will generally be considered on par with traditional marriage, which will continue to hold an elevated position in our society by virtue of its standing in tradition and its sort of natural basis. This also allows us to avoid the feared slippery slope. The reason why incest, polygamy, and other fetishes are not accepted by society is because people do not find these things acceptable. No explicit justification for this is required, though it certainly can help.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
How to Be a Conservative, Part II
Last time, I gave a very broad description of what Conservatism is, speaking in generalities rather than particulars and giving as little of my own interpretation as possible. Today, I'm digging a bit deeper, and to do so necessarily involves revealing my own views. I also run the risk of excluding some ideas and people from Conservatism. I identify most closely with what is called Paleoconservatism, but there are plenty of people who claim, with some justice, the Conservative label who are conspicuously not Paleoconservatives, and even some Paleoncons who would disagree with me in detail. I want to say at the outset that there is nothing inherently un-Conservative about these other views according to the definition I laid out lat time.
But they're still wrong.
More seriously, what is the fundamental social problem according to Conservatism? Since we focus on the differences between people, there is an obvious answer: people disagree about things. If we want a functioning society, consisting of peaceful associations between people to their general advantage, we must find a way for these quarrelsome people to resolve their disputes without violence. Thus the fundamental social problem for Conservatism is "social order."
Another way of understanding this is to say that Conservatism is about peace, but this is potentially misleading. A Conservative is neither a personal pacifist nor categorically opposed to warfare. Indeed, given that people inevitably disagree, violence and war are all but inevitable as well. Rather, Conservatism sees, or at least wants to make, violence and war as exceptional cases.
"Surely," you might say, "everyone wants as little conflict as possible; what's so special about Conservatism in that regard?" Ah, but Conservatism doesn't have anything against conflict per se, but merely violent conflict which disrupts the processes of society. True, Conservatives would like for everyone to achieve happiness and contentment, but as perfection is denied us on this side of Paradise, this goal is utopian.
This leads to another fundamental aspect of Conservatism that I forgot to mention: an emphasis on man's finite nature. We cannot simply by act of will achieve our ends, nor can we acquire unlimited knowledge. While this may seem obvious, it is important to keep in mind that this fact is not all that important to non-Conservative ideologies; there exist people who think man is truly unlimited. The finite nature of man has many important consequences, but the most pertinent to the present discussion are that everything has costs and that some things are outside man's reach. As much as we might like a world without want or pain or sadness, riding the world of such ills is not possible, and every move toward such a world requires sacrifices that may or may not be worth making. Thus, Conservatism is the enemy of all Molochs; it does not have a supreme end or even supreme array of ends toward which it holds society must move. Even social order is not the be-all and end-all of Conservatism. Conservatives would happily destroy an existing order if that order were unjust.
Alright, so we know what Conservatism wants, but how does it propose to get there? The answer is, by establishing a set of rules for society that are conducing to social order and cooperation. The question immediately arises, how are these rules to be determined? While there are many answers to this question that might be acceptable to Conservatives, the primary source of regulation comes from tradition. As people live together in a society, they adopt rules that are conducive to the orderly function of that society. Since these rules are already in practice and have been justified by their success in the past, the Conservative sees no reason to try to reinvent the wheel.
One thing to keep in mind about social rules as Conservatives see them is that, while they are not static, they also do no change easily or quickly. Traditions are built over many years, even decades and centuries, so if there is a case today that goes against the existing tradition, it's not a new tradition but an exceptional case. If these exceptional cases become frequent, a new tradition may emerge, but this is not an instantaneous process and certainly not done by decree of the authorities, as is common today.
I have deliberately avoided using the world "law" in the preceding paragraphs, not because the law is unimportant for Conservatism, but because it is a subset of traditional rules. The law consists of those rules that are considered enforceable. However, violence is something Conservatives want to limit, so while the law as practiced does have the same origin and character as other traditions, many attempts have been made to identify what the law should be. Modern attempts at this have usually been met with skepticism by Conservatives, and rightly so, but the enterprise is not without worth. I will discuss how philosophy of law relates to Conservatism at a later time.
A corollary of social rules being based on tradition is that no one person or group of people is tasked with devising them. There is no legislature, and community leaders emerge rather than are elected. Of course, there may be a more or less explicit system for choosing leaders when one is not obvious, with large landowners, veteran soldiers, educated scholars, and prominent craftsmen being common choices. Such customs might even evolve into a basically hereditary system. The important thing is that even these elites do not alter the world, but simply make decisions for the present based on the past.
The emphasis Conservatism places on specialization also influences the rule-making process. Specifically, it leads to a hostility toward democracy. Democracy involves placing the task of determining what the social rules are in the hands of a particular body and in accord to particular procedures, either the populace as a whole or their elected representatives and by majority vote. A Conservative looks askance on empowering people who lack the knowledge to make decisions in any case, and the situation does not improve if many ignorant people are involved. A host of sales clerks is not equal to a single physician when it comes to the practice of medicine or an architect in bridge-building. You also don't notice doctors or engineers deciding how to proceed by consulting the masses--they are the ones who know what to do, not these others.
It might seem that electing representatives solves this problem. However, governing by itself, let alone governing with justice, is as much a specialized profession as medicine or construction, so unless these representatives have spent the requisite years studying how to govern, they are not much more qualified than those who elect them. In our modern world, it is not a stretch to say that governing involves familiarity with so many widely disparate fields, from economics to history to physics to many foreign cultures, that no one could possibly be qualified to do many of the things our governments attempt regularly.
Furthermore, modern democratic government does something very different from different from what Conservatives want: it legislates. Instead of making decisions for particular cases, it attempts to devise general rules applicable to many unrelated instances. That such an attempt is doomed to failure is obvious, and this is borne out by the frequent changes in the "laws" produced by democratic regimes. Conservatism sees the function of government is strictly judicial and of a particular, rather than universal, character.
Even now, I've given a very broad sketch of Conservatism, but there's still a lot to be filled in. I'm not going to do that, or at least not do it with any claim to general validity, but instead my next post will involve how you can acquire the tools to flesh out your own ideas within this framework for yourself if you're so inclined.
But they're still wrong.
More seriously, what is the fundamental social problem according to Conservatism? Since we focus on the differences between people, there is an obvious answer: people disagree about things. If we want a functioning society, consisting of peaceful associations between people to their general advantage, we must find a way for these quarrelsome people to resolve their disputes without violence. Thus the fundamental social problem for Conservatism is "social order."
Another way of understanding this is to say that Conservatism is about peace, but this is potentially misleading. A Conservative is neither a personal pacifist nor categorically opposed to warfare. Indeed, given that people inevitably disagree, violence and war are all but inevitable as well. Rather, Conservatism sees, or at least wants to make, violence and war as exceptional cases.
"Surely," you might say, "everyone wants as little conflict as possible; what's so special about Conservatism in that regard?" Ah, but Conservatism doesn't have anything against conflict per se, but merely violent conflict which disrupts the processes of society. True, Conservatives would like for everyone to achieve happiness and contentment, but as perfection is denied us on this side of Paradise, this goal is utopian.
This leads to another fundamental aspect of Conservatism that I forgot to mention: an emphasis on man's finite nature. We cannot simply by act of will achieve our ends, nor can we acquire unlimited knowledge. While this may seem obvious, it is important to keep in mind that this fact is not all that important to non-Conservative ideologies; there exist people who think man is truly unlimited. The finite nature of man has many important consequences, but the most pertinent to the present discussion are that everything has costs and that some things are outside man's reach. As much as we might like a world without want or pain or sadness, riding the world of such ills is not possible, and every move toward such a world requires sacrifices that may or may not be worth making. Thus, Conservatism is the enemy of all Molochs; it does not have a supreme end or even supreme array of ends toward which it holds society must move. Even social order is not the be-all and end-all of Conservatism. Conservatives would happily destroy an existing order if that order were unjust.
Alright, so we know what Conservatism wants, but how does it propose to get there? The answer is, by establishing a set of rules for society that are conducing to social order and cooperation. The question immediately arises, how are these rules to be determined? While there are many answers to this question that might be acceptable to Conservatives, the primary source of regulation comes from tradition. As people live together in a society, they adopt rules that are conducive to the orderly function of that society. Since these rules are already in practice and have been justified by their success in the past, the Conservative sees no reason to try to reinvent the wheel.
One thing to keep in mind about social rules as Conservatives see them is that, while they are not static, they also do no change easily or quickly. Traditions are built over many years, even decades and centuries, so if there is a case today that goes against the existing tradition, it's not a new tradition but an exceptional case. If these exceptional cases become frequent, a new tradition may emerge, but this is not an instantaneous process and certainly not done by decree of the authorities, as is common today.
I have deliberately avoided using the world "law" in the preceding paragraphs, not because the law is unimportant for Conservatism, but because it is a subset of traditional rules. The law consists of those rules that are considered enforceable. However, violence is something Conservatives want to limit, so while the law as practiced does have the same origin and character as other traditions, many attempts have been made to identify what the law should be. Modern attempts at this have usually been met with skepticism by Conservatives, and rightly so, but the enterprise is not without worth. I will discuss how philosophy of law relates to Conservatism at a later time.
A corollary of social rules being based on tradition is that no one person or group of people is tasked with devising them. There is no legislature, and community leaders emerge rather than are elected. Of course, there may be a more or less explicit system for choosing leaders when one is not obvious, with large landowners, veteran soldiers, educated scholars, and prominent craftsmen being common choices. Such customs might even evolve into a basically hereditary system. The important thing is that even these elites do not alter the world, but simply make decisions for the present based on the past.
The emphasis Conservatism places on specialization also influences the rule-making process. Specifically, it leads to a hostility toward democracy. Democracy involves placing the task of determining what the social rules are in the hands of a particular body and in accord to particular procedures, either the populace as a whole or their elected representatives and by majority vote. A Conservative looks askance on empowering people who lack the knowledge to make decisions in any case, and the situation does not improve if many ignorant people are involved. A host of sales clerks is not equal to a single physician when it comes to the practice of medicine or an architect in bridge-building. You also don't notice doctors or engineers deciding how to proceed by consulting the masses--they are the ones who know what to do, not these others.
It might seem that electing representatives solves this problem. However, governing by itself, let alone governing with justice, is as much a specialized profession as medicine or construction, so unless these representatives have spent the requisite years studying how to govern, they are not much more qualified than those who elect them. In our modern world, it is not a stretch to say that governing involves familiarity with so many widely disparate fields, from economics to history to physics to many foreign cultures, that no one could possibly be qualified to do many of the things our governments attempt regularly.
Furthermore, modern democratic government does something very different from different from what Conservatives want: it legislates. Instead of making decisions for particular cases, it attempts to devise general rules applicable to many unrelated instances. That such an attempt is doomed to failure is obvious, and this is borne out by the frequent changes in the "laws" produced by democratic regimes. Conservatism sees the function of government is strictly judicial and of a particular, rather than universal, character.
Even now, I've given a very broad sketch of Conservatism, but there's still a lot to be filled in. I'm not going to do that, or at least not do it with any claim to general validity, but instead my next post will involve how you can acquire the tools to flesh out your own ideas within this framework for yourself if you're so inclined.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
How to Be a Conservative
If you've paid any attention to political discourse these days, you've noticed that there seem to be two groups of people, Liberals and Conservatives, who never agree on anything. Supposedly, Liberals want bigger government; Conservatives smaller government. Liberals want more government involvement domestically, especially increased taxes; Conservatives want less government intervention domestically, especially lowering taxes. Liberals want a weak foreign policy; Conservatives want an aggressive foreign policy. If you've looked closely enough and long enough, you've also found that this dichotomy is false.
One thing to keep in mind is that most people who identify themselves as either Liberals or Conservatives, don't have the faintest idea what either actually means. Nor do they particularly care. Most people in general don't bother even trying to understand the world and their place in it, whether in studying history, politics, economics, or philosophy. This is not necessarily a bad thing--such studies take time and effort that most people simply don't have or would rather apply to other ends, many of which benefit us all in terms of material well-being. The problem arises when such people attempt to change their world, especially when empowered by democratic process to place other, only slightly better educated people into high office.
However, if you've felt a certain affinity for Conservatives, or simply want to try to understand them a bit better, you've come to the right place. Below, I will describe some characteristics of Conservative thought of the intellectual variety, at least as I see it. I'm sure you can find plenty of people who will say Conservatism is something other than what I describe--if they say it's more complex, they're probably right; if they say it's simpler, they're probably wrong.
I've had great difficulty arriving at a good formal definition of Conservatism. However, I have identified at least one fundamental characteristic: while the commonalities amongst people are to be understood and respected, it is ultimately the differences between them that are of greatest importance. This is not to say that all differences are important in the same way, but rather that true and complete understanding must involve apprehension of differences.
A corollary of this, at least in human relations, is a respect for quality over quantity. Conservatism rejects the idea that sufficiently many incompetents, or even ordinary people, can be substituted for even a single expert and specialist. This seems intuitively obvious as well: if we are sick, we don't turn to a host of random volunteers, but to a single skilled physician. However, this principle is a radical departure from modern orthodoxy when applied to political matters. Whereas today the proper course of action for government is, at least theoretically, to be determined by majority opinion, a Conservative would claim that the best policy should be adopted, regardless of what the majority believes, and that majority rule is certain to result in misrule.
We can clearly see that true Conservatism is not an ideology that easily blends with politics today. It is not simply an array of policy prescriptions, nor even a formula for arriving at the proper policy. While it mean seem that Conservatism would say "leave policy-making to the experts," this does not fully capture the room for nuance provided by these basic principles. Conservatism does not by itself say who the experts are; it does not say that the experts are always right; it does not say that the experts should have no oversight; and it does not say that the experts should enact whatever decisions they arrive at. It certainly does not say that the same rules are all equally viable for different cultures and societies. Two people can be firm Conservatives, but irreconcilably disagree on all manner of important issues.
If, having read through this brief examination of Conservatism, you think you agree with it and want to know more, I'll provide further details in a later post.
One thing to keep in mind is that most people who identify themselves as either Liberals or Conservatives, don't have the faintest idea what either actually means. Nor do they particularly care. Most people in general don't bother even trying to understand the world and their place in it, whether in studying history, politics, economics, or philosophy. This is not necessarily a bad thing--such studies take time and effort that most people simply don't have or would rather apply to other ends, many of which benefit us all in terms of material well-being. The problem arises when such people attempt to change their world, especially when empowered by democratic process to place other, only slightly better educated people into high office.
However, if you've felt a certain affinity for Conservatives, or simply want to try to understand them a bit better, you've come to the right place. Below, I will describe some characteristics of Conservative thought of the intellectual variety, at least as I see it. I'm sure you can find plenty of people who will say Conservatism is something other than what I describe--if they say it's more complex, they're probably right; if they say it's simpler, they're probably wrong.
I've had great difficulty arriving at a good formal definition of Conservatism. However, I have identified at least one fundamental characteristic: while the commonalities amongst people are to be understood and respected, it is ultimately the differences between them that are of greatest importance. This is not to say that all differences are important in the same way, but rather that true and complete understanding must involve apprehension of differences.
A corollary of this, at least in human relations, is a respect for quality over quantity. Conservatism rejects the idea that sufficiently many incompetents, or even ordinary people, can be substituted for even a single expert and specialist. This seems intuitively obvious as well: if we are sick, we don't turn to a host of random volunteers, but to a single skilled physician. However, this principle is a radical departure from modern orthodoxy when applied to political matters. Whereas today the proper course of action for government is, at least theoretically, to be determined by majority opinion, a Conservative would claim that the best policy should be adopted, regardless of what the majority believes, and that majority rule is certain to result in misrule.
We can clearly see that true Conservatism is not an ideology that easily blends with politics today. It is not simply an array of policy prescriptions, nor even a formula for arriving at the proper policy. While it mean seem that Conservatism would say "leave policy-making to the experts," this does not fully capture the room for nuance provided by these basic principles. Conservatism does not by itself say who the experts are; it does not say that the experts are always right; it does not say that the experts should have no oversight; and it does not say that the experts should enact whatever decisions they arrive at. It certainly does not say that the same rules are all equally viable for different cultures and societies. Two people can be firm Conservatives, but irreconcilably disagree on all manner of important issues.
If, having read through this brief examination of Conservatism, you think you agree with it and want to know more, I'll provide further details in a later post.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
What this Blog Is and Is Not
At its base, this blog is a place for me to rant. Topics will mostly be economics and philosophy, with some history, politics, and probably a fair bit of mathematics thrown in for good measure. My economics are radically free market, philosophy rationalist, and politics a mix of conservatism and libertarianism. What precisely I mean by those things and how they interrelate will be my major focus.
At this point, it might be advisable to say something about my influences. My main inspiration on all subjects is Hans-Hermann Hoppe. This is not to say, of course, that I agree with Hoppe on everything, but I certainly think he is one of the greatest philosophers and economists of all time.
Other economists I draw from include Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, and Thomas Sowell. There are plenty of others I like very much, but these are three of the main ones. Additionally, I'm a great fan of Joseph Schumpeter, so much so that I put him in the same class of excellence as Mises and Rothbard.
In philosophy, I have a good deal more research to do, but I have picked out a few favorites: Plato, Kant, and, of course, Hoppe. Frank Van Dun's work has also helped clarify legal philosophy for me.
When it comes to politics, however, my influences are a good deal more varied. My journey has been long and winding: from budding socialist to neoconservative to libertarian to anarcho-capitalist. I've listened to and have some--not necessarily much--appreciation for Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Actual intellectuals that have shaped my thoughts include Thomas Woods and Kevin Gutzman among the living, and John C. Calhoun, Erik von Keuhnelt-Leddihn, and Murray Rothbard among the deceased.
I should probably also mention that while I am firmly a libertarian today, I still remember my time as a necon and thus cognitive dissonance blunts some of my criticisms of people and decisions I previously lauded. If I ever seem to be conspicuously avoiding a subject related to neoconservatism in the past 10 years, that is a fair guess as to why.
Now, what is this blog not? It is not a forum for debating the idea of objective truth discoverable by Reason. This is not to say that discussion is not worth having, but simply that it should be done elsewhere.
This is also not a place for mere bad-mouthing of people and ideas. While many negative things about many people and ideas will be said, everything said should be justified. Justification is very important here.
Finally, while I am a fervent supporter of anarchy, I am of the private property-based variety, not the do-whatever-you-want variety. This blog is a dictatorship under the authority of me and only me. All who comment here do so at my sufferance. Be polite and informative, or I will kick you off.
I hope you enjoy what I write and spread this among your friends, and perhaps even your enemies.
At this point, it might be advisable to say something about my influences. My main inspiration on all subjects is Hans-Hermann Hoppe. This is not to say, of course, that I agree with Hoppe on everything, but I certainly think he is one of the greatest philosophers and economists of all time.
Other economists I draw from include Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, and Thomas Sowell. There are plenty of others I like very much, but these are three of the main ones. Additionally, I'm a great fan of Joseph Schumpeter, so much so that I put him in the same class of excellence as Mises and Rothbard.
In philosophy, I have a good deal more research to do, but I have picked out a few favorites: Plato, Kant, and, of course, Hoppe. Frank Van Dun's work has also helped clarify legal philosophy for me.
When it comes to politics, however, my influences are a good deal more varied. My journey has been long and winding: from budding socialist to neoconservative to libertarian to anarcho-capitalist. I've listened to and have some--not necessarily much--appreciation for Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Actual intellectuals that have shaped my thoughts include Thomas Woods and Kevin Gutzman among the living, and John C. Calhoun, Erik von Keuhnelt-Leddihn, and Murray Rothbard among the deceased.
I should probably also mention that while I am firmly a libertarian today, I still remember my time as a necon and thus cognitive dissonance blunts some of my criticisms of people and decisions I previously lauded. If I ever seem to be conspicuously avoiding a subject related to neoconservatism in the past 10 years, that is a fair guess as to why.
Now, what is this blog not? It is not a forum for debating the idea of objective truth discoverable by Reason. This is not to say that discussion is not worth having, but simply that it should be done elsewhere.
This is also not a place for mere bad-mouthing of people and ideas. While many negative things about many people and ideas will be said, everything said should be justified. Justification is very important here.
Finally, while I am a fervent supporter of anarchy, I am of the private property-based variety, not the do-whatever-you-want variety. This blog is a dictatorship under the authority of me and only me. All who comment here do so at my sufferance. Be polite and informative, or I will kick you off.
I hope you enjoy what I write and spread this among your friends, and perhaps even your enemies.
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