Marx's Labor Theory of Value for Kicks


Labor-time does not equal value in terms of wages or production price, according to Marx; he asserts that prices-–under capitalism, of course–-including wages, do not match the actual value of the labor required to produce the item/good/commodity. Mark-up, profits, and the supply-demand factors (monopoly, gluts, scarcity, consumption as a whole, etc.) compound the problem. Additionally Marx himself admits (reviewing some of the material--count me as one who thinks Capital needed like some severe editing) that he has no rough and ready conversion tables, or exchange rules, for the labor-commodity, which seems a bit strange, since he insists workers are always shorted by management/owners; he seems to rely on some objective labor-value, without being able to specify what that is, or how it is precisely measured. Thus, he seems to undermine his own argument: however, there's evidence showing that executive salaries have soared over the last few decades, while the average worker's wage has not kept pace (so is that a matter strictly of economics, or efficiency, or some putative labor-management equilibrium, Doktor Marx? or perhaps something like distributive ethics (tho' distributive ethics has nothing to do with the crypto-monarchism of some pathetic sentimental eco-phuck like Al Gore...........).

There are other problems with the LTV. Gold has a great exchange value, but that is not the end of the story, and its value is hardly measurable in labor hours (i.e Jed stumbles upon a nugget out in the hills–no real work required). That is perhaps obvious as well, but gold’s value (historically as well) really is not simply a matter of it being difficult and costly in labor hours to mine, but has something to do with status, prestige, Power…………….



Karl




-------------------------------------


Use/exchange value

Marx usually avoids "normativity": he does not prescribe; he describes. And like other economists, he has a problem defining, or quantifying, shall we say, utility, and its relation to consumption, or even supply and demand. Water and food–pure use value, right– could be far more valuable than diamonds in many “real world” situations (a drought, or war, riot, etc). Yet in a stable market, obviously the diamond’s exchange value far exceeds that of necessaries such as water.

By commodification he generally means mass production of goods (which have use value, and sometimes exchange value as well–as with precious metals), does he not; or commodification as sort of a phenomena of free-market, industrial capitalism. So commodification, supported by capital (and by labor) may result in various market imbalances –gluts, scarcity, over-under pricing, etc.–sometimes to the benefit of the owners, but not always.

An essential aspect of Marxism, then, concerns how items/goods/resources which have high use value–foods, fuels, textiles, lumber, etc.–become commodities, along with the items which have only exchange value–jewels, and really money itself, and what that mass production depends upon, or requires in terms of labor–the exploitation “factor” then somewhat provisional (tho' orthodox marxists might take issue with that). He is still somewhat mercantilist–even contracturalist— in the sense of suggesting that a society based on the exchange of “use value” items–items produced/grown/manufactured by the laborer/owner himself–would be preferable to that of the mass production/industry of capitalism. But instead of the pastoral dreams of a Jeffersonian contracturalist (even one who might agree to the elimination of finance/banking), Marx would have the State manage those contracts, and that’s where any self-respecting anarchist should reach for his revolver………….


Marxism and the State


From Marx’s notes to English workers:

“….leaving aside the so-called “rights” of property, I assert that the economical development of society, the increase and concentration of people, the very circumstances that compel the capitalist farmer to apply to agriculture collective and organised labour, and to have recourse to machinery and similar contrivances, will more and more render the nationalisation of land a “Social Necessity”, against which no amount of talk about the rights of property can be of any avail. The imperative wants of society will and must be satisfied, changes dictated by social necessity will work their own way, and sooner or later adapt legislation to their interests.”"”

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/04/nationalisation-land.htm

Lenin develops this idea in State and Revolution, making numerous references to M & E. I am not saying it’s prima facie incorrect, but at least call a spade a spade. Marx’s somewhat “agrarian” aspects are among the more cogent sections of his theories, if somewhat utopian.

A few sentences later:

“”National centralisation of the means of production will become the national basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers, carrying on the social business on a common and rational plan.”"

Centralization seems fairly close to what one might call statism–or maybe not. Marx offers his lengthy diagnosis of capitalism (from a historical and economic perspective), and then offers a cure. Neither diagnosis (the labor theory of value, really—which is not some immutable law) nor cure should be accepted as dogma, though I believe he was a better diagnostician than healer. Class struggle as dialectic itself presents all sorts of problems. And looking at value as defined strictly by the cost of production (iddn’t that orthodox marxism?) presents problems. Ditchdiggers work a lot harder than do civil engineers, yet most humans would say the guy working out the load bearing equations etc. does perform work, and really does something more valuable–even in “social” terms–than the guys collecting the stone (or refining it into steel, etc.) . How does one quantify the value of different types of work, whether intellectual or laboring? I’m not really sure, but making some assumption of the equality of all work (or workers) is not merely utopian, but naivete of the highest sort (I think Keynes thought that as well). Yes, take down the barons, the financiers, the aristocrats (or wannabe-aristocrat scum like George Martini), the theocratic frauds, executives, etc. but even in New Harmony, doctors should earn more than nurses; teachers more than custodians.

The quoted essay (and others) indicates that Marx was advocating the nationalization of the means of production, in regards to property, agriculture, manufacturing. I don’t think he’s thinking of stalinist 5 year plans, but it’s still a type of statism.


I’m not sure we are now chatting about diagnosis, or cure, however. A nasty statist bureaucracy co-exists with the corporate and financial powers in many parts of America, doesn’t it. Imagine a kinder, gentler Maoism where the Peoples work the fields for part of the day, and then a bit of factory or technical work, and later something like piano practice, etc… Of course that happens (if it happens at all) after churches have been burnt down, the great financiers, industrialists, technological barons are all arrested, etc. (tho’ not killed, but like given meds and sentenced to some pleasant re-education camps) and “marriage” has been made illegal, and womenfolk work alongside the menfolk. Si Se Puede! VIL himself wrote some interesting things on womens’ lib., and a requirement that females enter the workforce.


---------------

Labor as Cost of Production

Marx does not offer any magic formula for quantifying the cost of production, for converting various sorts of the labor-commodity into “real” value. So invoking Capital as authoritative misses the point: few “real” economists take the a labor theory of value seriously , at least as specified by Marx. 8 hours of making sofas = how many bags of potatoes, or apples, oats, or fuel, lumber, etc? What about 8 hours of writing java code, or writing in French? Who decides on the various exchanges (or wages, prices, bartering-rules), even in a socialist economy? Utility creeps in, at all stages. The labor theory of value in many cases seems correctly applied, but it is not a precisely defined equation or formula, nor is exploitation. At some point economic problems, problems of distribution, property, division of labor relate to something like “ethics.”


Socialists often seem to think that if workers merely take in higher wages (so that the mysterious labor-value equals what they are “supposed” to be paid–whatever that is—instead of the market wage/price), and are made owners (at least in part), then everything is cool, and the technostructure remains intact. The problem of defining “socially necessary” labor remains mostly untouched, nor is there any real substantive critique of corporations, finance, management, urbanity. A socialized or publicly-owned petroleum “business” might be better for the refinery workers than capitalist petroleum business, but it’s still a racket, destructive to the environment, requiring all sorts of skilled labor, technology etc. It seems a bit naive and reductionist to think that simply making the workers owners, or conversely, requiring management to do some labor, “fixes” things (and the marxist “fix” again usually begs certain ethical questions, however much some some comrades fancy those crypto-Hegelian abstractions of value, commodity, etc.). Perhaps others might experience certain Humean doubts as well while reading econometrics, whether traditional econ. or marxista—as in who the F. cares, even about some supposed equilibrium or efficiency. For some of us, just having a few bright progressives in the CA Assembly (or House, etc.) arguing for higher capital gains and property taxes would be a big step in the right direction; the worker’s paradise can wait.

--------------------------------------------
Deutsch Uebung:

""""Erstens: da im folgenden Satz die „äußeren Mittel zur Befriedigung seiner Bedürfnisse“ oder „äußeren Güter“ sich verwandeln in „Dinge der Außenwelt“, so erhält dadurch das erste eingeschachtelte Verhältnis folgende Gestalt: der Mensch steht im Verhältnis zu Dingen der Außenwelt als Mittel zur Befriedigung seiner Bedürfnisse.


"""First, in the next sentence, the outer things that satisfy his needs, or outer goods, that transform into things in the outer-world, and obtains thereby the first ----??--- relation in the following form: men remain in relation to the things of the outer-world as a means of satisfying their needs...............""""" (phuck)

Aber die Menschen beginnen keineswegs damit, „in diesem theoretischen Verhältnis zu Dingen der Außenwelt zu stehen“. Sie fangen, wie jedes Tier, damit an, zu essen, zu trinken etc., also nicht in einem Verhältnis zu „stehen“, sondern sich aktiv zu verhalten, sich gewisser Dinge der Außenwelt zu bemächtigen durch die Tat, und so ihr Bedürfnis zu befriedigen. (Sie beginnen also mit der Produktion.) Durch die Wiederholung dieses Prozesses prägt sich die Eigenschaft dieser Dinge, ihre „Bedürfnisse zu befriedigen“, ihrem Hirn ein, die Menschen wie Tiere lernen auch „theoretisch“ die äußern Dinge, die zur Befriedigung ihrer Bedürfnisse dienen, vor allen andern unterscheiden. Auf gewissem Grad der Fortentwicklung, nachdem unterdes auch ihre Bedürfnisse und die Tätigkeiten, wodurch sie befriedigt werden, sich vermehrt und weiterentwickelt haben, werden sie auch bei der ganzen Klasse diese erfahrungsmäßig von der übrigen Außenwelt unterschiednen Dinge sprachlich taufen. Dies tritt notwendig ein, da sie im Produktionsprozeß—i.e. Aneignungsprozeß dieser Dinge—fortdauernd in einem werktätigen Umgang unter sich und mit diesen Dingen stehn und bald auch im Kampf mit andern um diese Dinge zu ringen haben. Aber diese sprachliche Bezeichnung drückt durchaus nur aus als Vorstellung, was wiederholte Bestätigung zur Erfahrung gemacht hat, nämlich daß den in einem gewissen gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhang bereits lebenden Menschen (dies der Sprache wegen notwendige Voraussetzung) gewisse äußere Dinge zur Befriedigung ihrer Bedürfnisse dienen. Die Menschen legen diesen Dingen nur einen besondern (generic) Namen bei, weil sie bereits wissen, daß dieselben zur Befriedigung ihrer Bedürfnisse dienen, weil sie ihrer durch mehr oder minder oft wiederholte Tätigkeit habhaft zu werden und sie daher auch in ihrem Besitz zu erhalten suchen; sie nennen sie vielleicht „Gut“ oder sonst etwas, was ausdrückt, daß sie praktisch diese Dinge gebrauchen, daß diese Dinge ihnen nützlich, und geben dem Ding diesen Nützlichkeitscharakter als von ihm besessen, obgleich es einem Schaf schwerlich als eine seiner „nützlichen“ Eigenschaften vorkäme, daß es vom Menschen eßbar ist."""""


(gut gluck)


Perhaps there are other independent thinkers in blog land who sense that KM over-complicated things, rather egregiously: the endless discussion of exchange/use value, the commodity, pricing, labor, production etc. often seems to overlook distribution. Hobbes, 200 years BC (Before Capital) more or less posits equitable distribution–of goods, property, work— as one of his givens—really quite a socialist assumption. That may have been sort of a token offering, but one could, it seems, work from various distributive sorts of assumptions, and produce a rather sophisticated, and even quantitative critique of capitalism–without lapsing into some Proudhon-like utopianism. Much of anti-capitalist but non-marxist writing (such as Galbraith, and even Keynes to an extent) relates more to distribution—than to the problems of production and value. For physicalists–and Hobbes himself obviously physicalist—any values, even relating to work, exchange, wages, property etc. would be negotiated, with an eye to “just” distribution. And ultimately exploitation, whatever form it takes, relates to unequal distribution, more than to problems of exchange or utility. Not real fancy ( Marx’s Hegelian roots should always be held suspect anyways. Looking at those byzantine discussions on Die Waren again I detect Hegel’s ghost).

The labor theory of value could be, arguably, the “essence” of Marx: and not the worst concept to proceed from, even with the above-mentioned flaws. The LTV should be read as a type of empiricism–even British Empiricism—in essence. Marx is responding of course to Smith and Ricardo, offering his update of Ricardo’s LTV (even Locke had discussed a form of the LTV as well). So a real issue remains regarding whether say Ricardo’s version of the LTV (or other more “traditional” economists) is a more accurate model than that of Marx (or other radicals). I don’t always understand the distinction—-Ricardo DOES seem sort of correct that the price of labor would relate to the cost of production; it becomes a matter of which side you are looking at. Management tends to see labor as a liability (which is of course often wrong, exploitative, etc), while the worker feels he is being ripped off—though many workers will do well without working for a company as a wage slave, or they operate as an independent contractor etc. Which is to say, if plumbers, electricians, computer programmers, etc. (proletariat, right) are doing well (and in many places they are), then reforms have worked; Marxism does seems a bit antiquated in some regards to skilled/technical labor: though may be somewhat relevant to unskilled/peasants (say the people who assemble Apple computers in Brazil for a few bucks a day, on NIke shoes in the phillipines, or clothes in the LA garment district for that matter).

Grün, mit viel des Goldes:


Dave Rothschild, Eco-Baron


I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.


I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Thomas Jefferson


Thomas Jefferson

Ayers on "Ethical" statements (for idiots, links oder rechts)


""""""It is impossible to find a criterion for determining the validity of ethical judgements. Not because they have an 'absolute' value mysteriously independent of sense-experience, but because they have no objective validity whatsoever. If a sentence makes no statement, there is no sense in asking whether it is true or false. Pure expressions of feeling do not come under the category of truth or falsehood.

The orthodox subjectivist holds that ethical propositions are about the speaker's feelings. If this is so, they could be true or false depending on whether the speaker had the relevant feelings. I can say "I am bored" by tone or gesture without speaking at all, or may be lying about my feelings. We say that ethical statements are excitants of feeling which do not necessarily involve any assertions.

We hold that it is impossible to dispute about questions of value, and that no-one really ever does so. This may seem paradoxical, but when someone disagrees with us about moral value we do not attempt to show that he has wrong ethical feelings. We attempt to show that he is mistaken about the facts of the case, or we employ general arguments about which actions produce what effect.


Yikes...Watch out for the Leopard, Billy!

But if our opponent has had different moral conditioning from ourselves so that, even when he acknowledges all the facts he still disagrees, we say that it is impossible to argue with him because he has a distorted moral sense. Our judgement that it is so is itself a moral judgement, and so outside the scope of argument. We finally resort to mere abuse. We praise or condemn in the light of our own feelings.

If anyone doubts this, let him try to construct an argument about values which does not reduce itself to an argument about logic or empirical fact. All that one may legitimately enquire is, What are the moral habits of a given person or group, and what causes them to have these? This is a job for the Social Sciences.""""


You disagree? Prove him wrong.

USA Patriot Act of 2001: Triumph of the Snitch

Though some blog-o-crats refer to the Patriot Act as evidence of Bush's corruption, nearly ALL the major democrats in the House and Senate signed off on the Pat. Act (which authorized various J. Edgar-like policies, such as warrantless eavesdropping, and Net snooping), as they did on the War Effort act. Queen Feinstone, leading dem. chickenhawk, also signed off on Bush's tax cuts for the American monarchy. This has been noted routinely--even ad nauseum--by various independents, even somewhat leftist ones, to little or no avail.

Yes, BushCo HAS done a great deal of damage to the Constitution, and to Due Process (and the Pat. Act does seems to contradict the 14th Amendment, not that many have noted that): the Bush rightists were, however, aided and abetted in nearly every case by the Democrats. The Hypocrisy-o-Meter reading for a DiFi, or Hillary, or Kerry's a bit higher than for most GOPers, since the Demos Par-tay leaders have in many instances turned around and attacked BushCo for the very policies that they supported. But those sort of FACTS regarding the demos' inconsistencies and weak compromises generally don't hinder the usual Kossack lapdog or DU'ster when he's got a buzz on and his PC dart board set up online.

VotingRecords

Live Earth, Inc.

Bubblegum porn-pop for Mama Earth--with Chairman Gore-do, the corporate "liberal" Guru of the moment, in command. Pass the tri-tip and Jim Beam, and put some Stan Kenton on the CD, Esmeraldissima. The old freak Thoreau hisself--no sentimentalist or leftist-populist-- would have most likely broken with the Sap-o-crats. (And another juicy cadenza from Sarah Brightwoman, and Stan would probably have his piano launched from a catapult, and then join the sunni muslims---or the Wehrmacht) Even Chris Cornell, the RHCP (Macy Gray's band outrocks RHCP, or those pathetic phucks known as the Police), or the great Spinal Tap doing Stonehenge can't redeem it; er, maybe if Chris did a Soundgarden medley......never mind.

And sponsored by Chevvvy!: now alll PC. Yes Chevvy Yukon, with about 9 mpg. Nothin' but Green.

Gonzo ala Hitchens

"Hitchens admits to drinking heavily; in 2003 he wrote that his daily intake of alcohol was enough "to kill or stun the average mule." He noted that many great writers "did some of their finest work when blotto, smashed, polluted, shitfaced, squiffy, whiffled, and three sheets to the wind." According to The Guardian, George Galloway remarked to Hitchens outside the US Senate, "You're a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay [...] Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink"."

Right the F. on.

Freedom of Info. Act: a good idea in principle




""""We ultimately got our wish in the Freedom of Information Act, signed by a reluctant President Johnson on Independence Day 1966, and first implemented 40 years ago today. FOIA is essentially democracy's x-ray. It's the only way that the American people can look into the black-box of government policy making and make sure the government is doing what it says it's doing or should be doing."""


Like the ACLU itself, the FOIA seems rather significant, at least in principle, but it obviously has not done much in terms of preventing political skullduggery--whether that of links oder rechts. And the "scope" of the FOIA remains a slightly unclear (though most likely 1000s of pages of legalese outline the specifics of the Act): does it apply across the board to all politicians working for the federal government (and the Peoples, supposedly)-- Or only the intelligence-related--CIA, FBI, etc.? Perhaps the FOIA could be enforced in other countries as well--implementing a FOIA in Russia or China, or islamic states as well seems like an ethical course of action, if slightly utopian. (anyone who has read a bit of bio. on Bertrand Russell will recall that the aged Russell initiated a Tribunal which would putatively enforce FOIA-like policies across the globe--an intellectual's World Court if you will---during the height of 'Nam. Chomsky, then still quite a sharp-witted gent, was in agreement)

Additionally, it seems reasonable that the FOIA would require monitoring of communications of elected and/or public officials, at all levels (even State--county? local?). Proposition 59, in California, was supposed to allow the public access to political communications of elected official, but does not seem to be having much effect either. Keeping King Arnold on a wire 24/7--i.e., monitoring ALL of his communications, whether spoken, e-mailed, phoned, or written--- is not such a bad idea (and keep Feds, State and County officials on a wire, as well as Pelosicrats, or the wannabe-Bukharins who control most of Blogland, for that matter).

Reds: the non-Hollywood version

""""Censorship was quickly imposed (by the Bolsheviks), and it was up to the Cheka to confiscate the literature of dissident workers: "[O]n 17 November the Central Executive Committee passed a decree giving the bolsheviks control over all newsprint and wide powers of closing down newspapers critical of the regime..." (Leonard Shapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union). Workers were re-forming independent soviets; the Cheka broke them up. Independent newspapers criticized Lenin's government; the Cheka closed them down, until the Bolshevik-controlled Pravda and Izvestia had a monopoly on the supply of news. Shapiro asserts that "The refusal to come to terms with the socialists and the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly led to the logical result that revolutionary terror would now be directed not only against traditional enemies, such as the bourgeoisie or right-wing opponents, but against anyone, be he socialist, worker or peasant, who opposed Bolshevik rule."[19]"""""



Perp (VI Lenin's mug shot)



As was the case with the nazis and many other totalitarian regimes, one of the Bolsheviks' first acts was to control the flow of information and communication: not so different from how many blog-police now monitor discussion, debate, and dissent via moderation, censorship, deletion--as with one of the most moderated and controlled bogus leftist sites online, the Huffington Post. (Soviet communists are scary; Brentwood communists ala Arianna and Comrade Warren and Co, scarier). Of course most American cafe leftists--'Burbs apparatchiks--- don't know phuck about orthodox marxism (socially necessary labor anyone? Guess that puts Ho-wood out of work--or StarClucks), the history of the October revolution, or what really went down: the Bolsheviks more or less destroyed any possibility of democratic socialism when they ended parliamentary voting, imprisoned their enemies, and began to seize large tracts of property (how many Californian "leftists" would care to have the State "appropriate" their little slice of paradise out in Putaville---). The control of the press coincided with the creation of the Cheka--purges (and many socialists and non-communist leftists were killed) started not with Stalin as is commonly thought by many leftist dupes, but with Lenin's direct orders to kill thousands following the attempt on his life. The cafe-istas have apparently never bothered to read Bertrand Russell's comments on the Bolsheviks, or the writings of Kropotkin, Dewey (who went from supporter to foe of the soviets), Orwell, etc. etc. Like Che Guevara, VI Lenin's now jus' another hepcat at Cafe a Gauche.

Science: Real (EO Wilson), and Bogus (Al Gore)

"With sociobiology prospering, Wilson has carried his research into the full arena of human knowledge, publishing the hugely ambitious Consilience in 1998, in which he developed his ideas about gene-culture co-evolution further and resurrected CP Snow's efforts to conjoin the "two cultures". In fact, Wilson's arguments are more fundamental and persuasive than Snow's; works on evolution, like Sociobiology and Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, have been absorbed into western cultural life as neatly as any neo-Darwinist could have predicted.

"He is," says Ian McEwan, "a scientific materialist who warmly embraces the diversity of human achievement - including religion and art, which he sees in evolutionary terms. One of his tasks has been to further the Enlightenment project of absorbing the social sciences into science proper; another has been to find a sound ethical basis for ecological thinking. He is fundamentally a rational optimist who shows us the beauty of the narrative of life on earth. He is living proof that materialism need not be a bleak world view.""

EOWilson



I read Wilson’s Consilience a few years ago and was somewhat impressed, though he may over-simplify a few issues (in regards to ethics and the biological evidence for species-altruism, for one). While he offers quite a bit of support for his socio-biological ideas, he, like his colleague Dawkins (tho' Doc Dawkins a bit more strident in tone than EO), tends to a sort of reductionism which might irritate some political or ethically-oriented writers--(and few liberal hacks shrieking 24/7 about what they take to be "ethics" have troubled with Hume on the fact-value distinction, or Bentham 101, or the cliffsnotes to Plato's Republic for that matter). Most philosophical types who I am acquainted with who bothered to read Consilience objected to it, but they are rarely able to formulate their objections. Many philosophers tend to be sort of Kantian, if not theists, more often than they are materialists; thus, Darwin, if not biology as a whole, is taken to be wrong-- or at least questionable--owing to its materialist, deterministic grounds. Or they are Humean sorts of skeptics and subjectivists, and while generally supportive of the methods and ends of the physical sciences, they often point out the contingent and provisional nature of much inductive research, even that of biology and medicine.

We here at Contingencies, however, contend there are no good grounds for upholding Kantian idealism (or theology for that matter), nor for immaterial conceptions of mind, nor for the more extreme forms of Humean skepticism (--tho' in many situations, doubts about causality or any absolute inductive knowledge ARE more than warranted, as in the "social sciences"). And obviously Darwinian accounts of evolution and natural selection as well as Mendelian genetics and many other modern biological concepts have been established. Thus the burden rests on idealists to disprove Darwin, if not materialism, which they have failed to do; the Intelligent Design argument, however subtle and complex, being the latest theological fiasco--tho' the IDT people (who are NOT the same as the fundies or biblethumpers who have made use of IDT) raised one valid point-- Darwinism still has not provided a complete account of evolution: Father Darwin was no biochemist, for one. Yet there is a sort of naive Darwinian leftist, nearly as pernicious as the fundamentalist or dogmatic xtian (or muslim, jew etc.), who quotes Darwin and then some marxist-multiculturalist BS --or, Osiris forbid, Al Gore--as if they were equivalent. Hah. Darwinism does not offer any comforting assurances or utopian ideology for the liberal--or conservative--do-gooder.


and now for something completely different from Big Al:

"The climate crisis offers us the chance to experience what few generations in history have had the privilege of experiencing: a generational mission; a compelling moral purpose; a shared cause; and the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict of politics and to embrace a genuine moral and spiritual challenge."

SO much for unbiased research, data-gathering, and the sound biological science that Wilson practices. By what means were the problems associated with biodiversity, justifying altruism, sustainability, global warming (and the big issue of proving "anthropic" cause---some evidence suggests global warming and ozone depletion are natural phenomena) converted into a "generational mission," a "moral purpose" or "spiritual challenge"? Maybe they became so in Gore's mystical vision of the protestant-buddhist Verde. Big Al unlikely knows nitrogen oxide from nirvana, but that doesn't stop the Gore-Bot liberal nurseys from worshipping him. Cactus Ed Abbey would hisself have had a effective solution for the pathetic phucks who take Gore to be some scientist---or philosopher: pocka pocka pocka.

Tom Jefferson, enemy of the State

"Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice."

Rather optimistic generalization, TJ: and in need of bare-bones quantification (men [and women] are animals, yet only some men are rational animals, etc.). Regardless, few are the contemporary American politicians who possess the spine to offer even interesting and somewhat eloquent platitudes. TJ: neither mormon, muslim, mafioso (whether links oder rechts) or baptist biblethumper---or Marx-thumper for that matter.

The magick-tones of MERZHANOV. Pops Merz is great: and those who have ears to hear know that the mysterious Maestro Scriabin--of the church of the Solar flare-- was about the wiggiest ivory-tickler evah.

Bach in the D.C. Metro



A few months ago, The Washington Post conducted an "experiment in context, perception and priorities": the Post staff asked renowned concert violinist Joshua Bell to play Bach in the D.C. Metro on his Stradivarius, which he agreed to. The Bach-Bell experiment, as Post reporter Gene Weingarten wrote, was "an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"


The answer, not surprisingly, was, "No." During the 45 minutes of Bell's rush hour performance of a Bach chaconne, only a few people stopped to listen, and the artist, who regularly sells out the world's great concert halls, raked in $32.17 for his efforts. We leave the readers of Contingencies to realize the implications f this experiment for themselves (a hint to the correct interpretation: Chandala)

V for Veblen


"With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper”

"In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth.”

"The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature”

"All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.

"In point of substantial merit the law school belongs in the modern university no more than a school of fencing or dancing”

“The walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure”

"Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure"

"The propensity for emulation": das stimmt, Herr Veblen. Lemmings, in other words, links oder rechts.

Kant's 3rd

Few people who have made it through Kant's Critique of Pure Reason would deny that the 3rd Antinomy--in brief, the Freedom/Nature dialectic--possesses a certain Beethoven-like sublimity. Kant holds that the strictly determined laws of nature, and freedom (i.e. human intentionality) to be irreconcilable and depend on two separate concepts of causality. Some have gone as far as to argue that the Big 3rd really leads to Hegelian dialectic, . thus to the inverted Hegel, Marx, and dialectical and/or economic materialism (and there are some of us who think Papa Marx was following in Hobbes' footsteps [and Smith and Ricardo, obviously] as much as he was following those of Hegel). Zizek invokes the 3rd Antinomy in The Parallax View on occasion, as a contrast to the Lacanian/marxist hyperbole--and there are, surprisingly, a few entertaining bon mots in TPV, about every 25 pages or so.

There are reasons, however, to object to the 3rd Antinomy (and really to much of Kant--anyone care to provide a necessary argument for the synthetic a priori?), regardless of the continentalist philosophers' traditional reverence for the 3rd. The freedom/nature dichotomy does seem to suggest a type of archaic dualism (and there are more than a few Cartesian aspects to the 1st critique, as in the Deduction of the Categories). Humans are economic creatures: not merely robots (or primates--as even Marx grants), yet nonetheless their acts are determined to a large extent (ie, like as determined as McBauerlumper heading off to the lunch counter at noon). The abstraction of “Freedom” is also itself certainly questionable; does Kant mean human consciousness as a whole, or intention, or---some transcendent Geist, perhaps? We here at Contingencies suggest that by "Freedom" (Freiheit) Kant intended, er, something like “intention”, though hardly anyone, at least in psychology or cognitive science, would argue that intention stands apart from humans' biological and neurological endowment. Moreover, determinism has not ever really been refuted; if anything, genetics and bio-chemistry tend to confirm deterministic views---though the apparent "anomaly" of human consciousness remains an issue, at least for some (Jefferson sort of sums up the freedom/determinism issue thusly: "Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice." Rational, and with rights, maybe TJ, but animal nonetheless). Theists and theistically-inclined philosophers, or immaterialist-mystics of some sort, of course continue to make transcendental claims for intention and consciousness ("Free will" remains one of the favorite terms of biblethumpers). As model and metaphor, the 3rd has a definite power, but one could read that metaphorical power as somewhat deceptive, if not dangerous.


Starting at least with Wm. James, consciousness was identified with the brain, instead of the metaphysicians' Mind, or Res Cogitans, Idea, etc. That’s not to say that James or the S-R people, and the behaviorists solved the problem of intention, but one doesn't simply toss the entire tradition of empirical psychology out the window (unless one is a renowned parisian postmodernist perhaps). Kantian or Cartesian views of the Ego/Mind/Self are not very prevalent except for a few philosophers, theologians or maybe people like Chomsky. But even Chomsky asserted that his language faculty forms part of the "biological endowment" of humans. The Chomster's rationalism is not equivalent to the Kantian or Cartesian ghost.

There can hardly be any doubt that consciousness is predicated on the biochemistry of the brain. Lobotomies, drugs, alcohol, sex, even food, demonstrate “external realism,” as Searle refers to it: nature has a causal relation to our thinking, to consciousness, regardless of metaphysicians' doubts (or the doubts of the Catholic church).

The 3rd Antinomy may be a powerful model, or explanatory hypothesis, or for that matter, interesting conceptual poetry of some type. But the freedom/nature dichotomy is not a fact in the sense that, say, evolution is a fact, or hunger is a fact, or that gravity is fact, or the physics of electricity is fact. There are semantic problems with the very word "freedom." What does the word “freedom” really refer to in Kant’s 3rd Ant.? The freedom of humans to act in certain ways? Freedom is a quality or attribute; not an object in the sense the brain is an object. We say someone is free. But one could not really point to the freedom itself. Freedom is a strange word, and concept. It describes some situation, a state of a person, a state of affairs; it means something like, not bound, not encumbered, but those terms are not so definable either. (Maria has a sensation of hunger, and decides to go to lunch: her decision may seem freely chosen to some extent, but she certainly does not choose whether she is hungry or not.) And you’ll find, if you work at it, that much of Kantian metaphysics has that problem– the terminology does not point to anything that can be readily defined; it can be conceptually described but not really correlated with any existing thing.

Regardless of BF Skinner's faults and oversights, Skinner’s critique of “mentalism” (which he thought philosophers, theologians, and most belle-lettrists were generally guilty of) should at least be considered, until cognitivists and brain scientists begin to offer some convincing accounts of thinking, intention, language, perception and the knowledge-accumulation process itself (---and Skinner's crony WVO Quine also had problems with the Idea idea---as well as essences, abstract entities, a prioricity, etc.). Indeed, as BF realized, Freedom, and a naive Freedom-fetish (rather common to both right and left), lies at the root of many social, economic, and, one might argue, environmental problems.

美利堅合眾國

Billy Pitt, DU's own Marat du jour ( Cheney and moral relativism)



The entire Kos/DU/Salon/Slate, et al liberal whine festival seems closer to old hick methodist tracts (Dick Cheney--he's the....Devil!), or perhaps to Bolshevik broadsides (down with the booj-wah Oppressor!) than to un-biased, rational political writing. Billy Pitt, DU's own Marat du jour, is a master of this sort of hysterical manipulation, emotional pandering and bogus leftist rage, which is not so far from a sans cullottes or Maoist sort of murderous resentment (or in Nietzsche's term, "ressentiment").

Here are more blogger sans cullottes offering up their street-marxist belches. The wannabe Bukharins assert there is a fallacy of moral equivalence. There is no such fallacy, assclowns; McPuto wants to attack moral relativism, but doesn't know how to proceed (and moral relativism shouldn't really bother self-proclaimed Darwinists anyway---or if it does, perhaps you should like arrest a lion after it pounces on a gazelle, Crimefighter). The problem is that of assuming some transcendental Justice binding on all, when one could barely define what the word Justice means, or for that matter provide some evidence of moral facts (obviously in any platonic--or theological sense--a WR Pitt or McPuto is headed for a rather unpleasant district of the Malebolge, say next to the betrayers of the public trust, not far from Heroes and Ho's, and Mohammed). Like most drug-addled Kossacks, the clown doesn't know Kant from cannabis sativa, or Hobbes from his Hemp macrame (and a few chapters of Leviathan will serve to illustrate the problem of defining "just" or "Good," apart from self-interest).

Cheney made another faux-pas. Oh well. He's a scoundrel--he plays hard-ball, as communists or muslims do. And a majority of Americans voted him and Dubya into office. Unless Billy Pitt can produce outright evidence of unconstitutional or criminal acts on the part of Bush Admin., he should, like, STFU (or perhaps take on an equally sinister politico such as Dianne Feinstone). Better Dick Cheney than some prattling white marxist n-gers such as Billy Pitt.

from Ditzby, another Konfused Kossack

"""""Al Gore – a man who knows something about the Internet – wrote in his book, The Assault on Reason, “The Internet is perhaps the greatest source of hope for reestablishing an open communications environment in which the conversation of democracy can flourish. It is the most interactive medium in history, with the greatest potential for connecting individuals to one another and to the universe of knowledge.” So while we may not be Stalinists, the Netroots is a revolution – a revolutionary, participatory democracy.""""


Yes, the Great Stoner Liberals, being guided to Beulahland.com by Chairman Al, who have no problem censoring, editing, deleting, moderating each and every post which deviates from the par-tay line: that is the DailyKos KGB-lite, perhaps one of the most controlled sites in the Blogosphere. Ditzby is a typical Kos rhetoric spouter who fancies herself as some reincarnation of JK Galbraith. She offers great generalizations, predictable sentiments, ID politics, various fallacies–the usual progressive-blogger hype–no real data or specific points or fact-based journalism. It’s like a leftist pep rally speech, or lyrics to bad 60s folk muzak.

However much Christopher Hitchens may irritate some “leftists” (though in ways his writing is more authentically progressive than the usual Kossack grunts), he perceives the reality of Islamic terrorism and the jihadists (recall the Danish cartoon fiasco), and he understands that a bit of conservative pragmatism in the Middle East serves our purposes better than the moral absolutism and pacifism of naive leftists does (and that pragmatism doesn’t necessarily mean approving of GOP economic or social policies or theocracy–). And of course, most of the leading Dems–Pelosi, Hillary, DiFI, Kerry, et al. signed off on the War Effort as well: a point forgotten every day in Dem.com.

What's really amazing is that these cheap sentimental hacks and irrationalists actually think they are secular liberals in the model of Jefferson and Madison. Hah: they don't know John Locke from Tone-Loc, Hobbes from Sy the Liar Hersh, Rousseau from Ramakrishna; for that matter, they never bothered with even the cliffsnotes to Plato's Republic (which TJ and most of the Founders knew up and down, and could point out its flaws as well). Moreover, Jefferson had no problem taking on the Barbary pirates--the muslim terrorists of his day.

"The essence of technology is by no means anything technological."

"...we shall never experience our relationship to the essence of technology so long as we merely conceive and push forward the technological, put up with it, or evade it. Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it, to which today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology."
(Heidegger, QCT)

Best Way to Celebrate Earth Day

(from Belch.com, an occasionally amusing libertarian site. And thankfully free of the pseudo-science and feel-good corporate greenism of the Peoples of the Gore-acle)

El Pollo Gore-O

"""The very best way to celebrate the eco-religionist day of “Earth Day” is to burn up over a half-bag of charcoal to make the best tasting chicken ever.


Preparing the Grill

"""The chicken must be slow cooked. Using about 75% of the normal charcoal for grilling, spread the hot coals on two sides of the grill, leaving a large gap in the center. The chicken will cook in an aluminum pan over the cooler center of the charcoal, using the heat from the covered smoker like an oven to cook the chicken. If you have a smoker box (if you are serious about grilling, you should get one), the smoker box and your smoke chips should be placed in the center of the charcoal, touching one side of the hot coals to get the smoke started. ((Jack Daniels’ shredded Oak Barrel wood chips add a great smoke flavor of whiskey)).



Preparing the Rub

Grind together the following:
1 TSP Sea Salt
1 TSP Garlic Salt
1 TBL of finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 TSP Black Peppercorns
1 TSP Smoked Paprika

(extra Contingencies secret sauce---mucho cilantro, ground up habanera peppers, and a few dashes of Jose Cuervo)

Preparing the Chicken

Depending on the size of your grill, you may not be able to get a chicken larger than 4 pounds. Remove the giblets and rinse and pat dry the chicken. Lightly coat the chicken with olive oil. Sprinkle your rub onto the chicken and press it into the skin.

Take a can of Budweiser Beer and drink or drain a little less than half. Place a whole stalk of fresh rosemary into the remaining beer.

When the coals are hot, place a shallow aluminum pan in the center of the grill. Place the opened beer can with the rosemary in the center of the pan. Lower the rubbed chicken’s rump over the open beer can so the can and the two legs form a tripod to keep the chicken upright on the grill. Cover the grill with the lid and cook for about 1 and a half hours or until the thickest part of the thigh and breast are 175 degrees Fahrenheit. The beer will steam and flavor the chicken.



When the chicken is ready, carefully remove the chicken from the beercan. I use a fork and tongs. The beer will be extremely hot, so don’t spill it on you. Let the chicken cool for about ten minutes and serve. (Substitute mutton, or kid goat for chicken for a delightful alternative)
(Contingencies Leisure Department also recommends completing the feast with a shot or two of Jim Beam, a Punch cigar, and perhaps a few puffs of your favorite selection of chronic, with your phamily and friends. And don't fergit to support P.E.T.A. (People Eating Tasty Animals))

"No one
is such a LIAR as the indignant man."


26. """"Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a
privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority--
where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;--
exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to
such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the
great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men,
does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours
of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and
solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes;
supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this
burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it,
and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his
citadel, one thing is then certain: he was not made, he was not
predestined for knowledge. For as such, he would one day have to
say to himself: "The devil take my good taste! but 'the rule' is
more interesting than the exception--than myself, the exception!"
And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would go "inside." The
long and serious study of the AVERAGE man--and consequently much
disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all
intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals):--that
constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every
philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and
disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite
child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable
auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task; I mean so-
called cynics, those who simply recognize the animal, the
commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the same time
have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk
of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES--sometimes they
wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the
only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty;
and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer
cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes
shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out.
There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust--
namely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such
indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe
Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man
of his century--he was far profounder than Voltaire, and
consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more
frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed
on an ape's body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base
soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors
and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without
bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with
two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one sees,
seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity
as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any
one speaks "badly"--and not even "ill"--of man, then ought the
lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he
ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk
without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who
perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or,
in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed,
morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self-
satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more
ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one
is such a LIAR as the indignant man.""""

(F.W. Nietzsche, from Beyond Good and Evil)

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

Bertrand Russell

Fatwa-burgers


"Scientists are sometimes suspected of arrogance. Sagan commends to us by contrast the humility of the Roman Catholic Church which, as early as 1992, was ready to pardon Galileo and admit publicly that the Earth does revolve around the Sun. We must hope that this outspoken magnanimity will not cause offence or ‘hurt’ to “the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz” who, in 1993, “issued an edict, or fatwa, declaring that the world is flat. Anyone of the round persuasion does not believe in God and should be punished”. Arrogance? Scientists are amateurs in arrogance."

This is Richard Dawkins reviewing a book by Sagan. However quotidian Carl Sagan's writings may have been, Sagan was never one for mincing words with irrationalists---even supposedly scientific and leftist ones who confuse the history of Islam with some obscure episode of Monty Python (yes, the Ottoman Turk episode!). Many of the wannabe-Darwinists and bourgeois skeptics apparently discovered atheism like a year or two ago when the corporate media became infatuated with the Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris crew: others read and understood Candide say 20+ years ago (as well as Darwin, Nietzsche, B. Russell, SJ Gould, etc.: if not the Dawkins of 1650, Thomas bloody Hobbes, pal of Galilleo and Descartes, who probably knew as much about the physical sciences as Chas. Darwin, one-time seminarian, did--and certainly far more about secular politics and economic materialism). Bon chance teaching Darwin or Dawkins (or Hobbes) in muslim countries; and many of the Daily Kos-like corporate liberals and Trotsky-lites (or perhaps Meyer-Lansky-lites) haven't quite realized that the Koran is at least as irrational and sanguine a text as Screepture is.

Hitchens/Jefferson/Bible/Koran

(Patriotism: "The last refuge of a scoundrel". Dr. Johnson)

"As to the invocation of Jefferson, we know that when he and James Madison first proposed the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom (the frame and basis of the later First Amendment to the Constitution) in 1779, the preamble began, "Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free." Patrick Henry and other devout Christians attempted to substitute the words "Jesus Christ" for "Almighty God" in this opening passage and were overwhelmingly voted down. This vote was interpreted by Jefferson to mean that Virginia's representatives wanted the law "to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahomedan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination." Quite right, too, and so far so good, even if the term Mahomedan would not be used today, and even if Jefferson's own private sympathies were with the last named in that list."

The Contingencies staff does not endorse the writings of Mr. Hitchens (except as an example of a rather pungent, secular prose style), but he has read his Jefferson and Founding Fathers rather closely (as well as Voltaire, Hume, and French encyclopedists--the real intellectual forces behind American--and French Rev.s); indeed Hitch. wrote a rather nice book on Jefferson (which we are reading at our leisure) which would not go over well at the Cafe a Gauche. TJ might object to some of the rightists' infringement on Due Process (and to zealots, whether Muslim, Xtian, Mormonal or jewish), yet anyone who thinks TJ would be siding with the likes of Damascus Nancy and Co., or the multiculturalist left as a whole, like, needs to lay off the bongs and tofu-burgers, and the WhatIf game for a while. And anyone who has read even a few tales of Nate Hawthorne soon realizes that the American experiment, including the Jeffersonian, was hardly ever a glorious thing: more like a farm-boys' beer blast against some outgunned colonists.

Hitchens/Slate

"Marcus Welby"


Not a Doktor, but attempts to play one, online! (and uh while selling t-shirts for QuantumCorp).

WBY

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

Yeah Mr. Yeats: passionate-intensity.com

12 Democratic Senators do the right thing, for once. (opposed the "amnesty" bill and huge increase in foreign workers):

Baucus (D-Mont.)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-Calif.)
Byrd (D-WV)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Landrieu (D-La.)
McCaskill (D-Mo.)
Pryor (D-Ark.)
Rockefeller(D-WV)
Sanders (I-Vt.)
Tester (D-Mont.)
Webb (D-Va.)

Babs Boxer outclassing even McCain-ia and Jorge Bush, who both supported Big Teddy K's (Kennedy, not Kacynzki) latest bureaucratic swindle. And Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-Nev.), doing the usual Southwestern democrat vote pandering to hispanics, sounded rather discouraged after losing the cloture vote 45-50. Some anti-immigration folks believe that he won’t try to pass the Bush/Kennedy Comprehensive Amnesty Bill again this year. So---whoever wants to put the wall up on the Border ASAP, and some armed INS gents, vote for him (even if a f-n MormBot)

Sam Pistol Practice

William Rivers Pitt-style populism

"....a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."(from Shakespeare's Macbeth)

Demographics are sort of the hack-journalist's stock in trade. Someone, somewhere does research, conducts polls, gathers stats on citizens' opinions on Bush or Britney Spears, and the Bill Pitts of the world depend on those demographics to prop up some polemic du jour (reliability of course an issue: some polls are more representative and unbiased than others. But that doesn't usually stop the polemicist). The polemicist then spices up his "research"--say, using a quote from Macbeth (an amusing source, since the rapacious Lord Macbeth--and his Lady--in ways seem like prototypes for say Bill and Hillary Clinton. At any rate, machiavellian ruthlessness works for links oder rechts: as the Bard knew, and methinks Bill Shakespeare was not exactly a member of the Labour party circa 1600).

The belle-lettres are quite important, since the WR Pitt style polemicist wants to conjure up some emotion, some DailyKos like rage, some Democratic Underground righteous indignation: the demographics are there to alarm the political consumer, just as some bad news about property values might scare some. It's like a type of political marketplace: Bush/Cheney's popularity index.

Admittedly Bush/Cheney seem fairly sinister, from all appearances (or at least a bit duplicitous): but not so much more so than Hillarians or Pelosicrats, if truth be told (or Putin and various Islamic fanatics, for that matter). The more interesting issue, however, involves the real implications of those ever-changing approval ratings: and we here at Contingencies suggest that the popularity indices don't mean shiete, more or less, and the "do you support the war or not" polls are also mostly meaningless.

When the Iraqi war effort begun, some 75% of Walmartopolis approved. Now it's only like 30% (some say more, some a bit less). But do those approval ratings have anything to do with the success or failure of the US Military, assuming that Jane Q. Public knows enough to make an informed decision? No. Tragic war is, but Jane's sense of tragedy has NO relationship to the success or failure of the specific tactics of the US Military.

Political polls mean about as much as --as little as---ratings of the current favorite Bubblegum Blockbusters, Inc. or Top 40 do. They simply measure subjective preference, and anyone who thinks that is an accurate measurement of political effectiveness or "Good" is about as confused as someone who mistakes Al Gore for a scientist.

Socialism, Kim Robinson style.

The do-gooder marxists have even made an entry into the realm of science fiction. Imagine RA Heinlein's response to some of the following words of wisdom from Comrade Kim:



"""A minimum share of 51% of the surplus value of one’s work should be returned to one, this value to be measured by objective and transparent accounting as defined by law.

The previous two points combined would tend to provide the greatest good for the greatest number, by distributing the wealth more equitably among those who have created it."""

Ah nice and subtle updating of Marx's Capital, Mr. Kim, with some hints of utilitarianism (always sure to impress a few stoner-frat boys who vaguely remember that cliffsnotes rant about the "greatest good for the greatest number"). And to be honest, not completely without merit. Those perfidious owners, managers, capitalists, bourgeois financiers! And the good proletariat (and for examples of the goodness of workers' revolution one should recall those supremely good 5 year plans of Stalin, or Mao's cultural revolution, etc. eh corpses serving the state as good manure). So are all of KS Robinson's fans out in Cyberia ready to lend a hand with say the Cali citrus or cotton harvest? Or like slaughter their own meat? Bake their own bread? UH, divy up their property holdings (the few well-to-do KSR fans)? Sew their own clothes??? Build their own CPUs? Help end the stock market? Ich denke nicht. And any would-be space-colonists face similar problems (i.e. consider the H20 and food needed to supply even a small mission to Mars: at least 6 months, and enough for time spent on Mars (any ice harvest also incredibly problematic), as well as for return trip...Take your extra tanker full of protein pills, and water, fuel, supplies, and what, pump your excrement into space ---)

And unlike Big Monkey Karl, Kim the little monkey doesn't bother discussing how that labor time translates into wealth: how does one quantify surplus labor, Comrade Kim? Oh wait it's an "objective and transparent accounting." A ditchdigger, con mucho trabajo, obviously works much harder, physically speaking, than a civil engineer. But Mr. Engineer, spinning a few integrals, does do a sort of work which Vato the Ditchdigger doesn't have a clue about. So who sets the value of that work, Mr. Kim? Perhaps the Peoples do.

Heinlein would have reached for his Luger. That said, KSR puts forth a few interesting if obvious political ideas: Pynchon he ain't. Funny that it's mostly a few sort of greenish libertarians who are drawn to his writing: most of them don't understand what the socialism entails (no cushy office jobs, McDweeb--even for PHP gurus)

""Population stabilization:

Human population stabilized at some level to be determined by carrying capacity studies and foundational axioms. Best results here so far have resulted from increase in women’s rights and education, also a goal in itself, thus a powerful positive feedback loop with chance for results within a single generation."""
Context/ultimate goal: Permaculture


Uh huh. Proof or data for those "results", comrade Kim? One big happy multicultural family. Heinlein now heads for the Bahnhof: Ansteigen an Den Zug, schweine....................

Don't let Snitches--whether Gestapo, KGB, or needing medication---ruin the Net



McCain, who on occasion tries to pass himself off as a moderate, has gone on record as being in favor of a censored Net (in other words, a Net comprised of only corporate sites). No wonder the New Worlds stoner fascists approve of him.

WTF? Oh it's Senator Carol on meds

According to numerous witnesses, California's favorite lesbian State Senator, Carol Midgen, drove erratically for 30 miles along Interstate 80, and then finally smashed into a car, causing serious injuries to numerous people. She later claimed her driving problems resulted from a "very powerful regimen of medication." Whoa.

The major networks barely mentioned the crash at all. Pourquoi? And why wasn't the hag arrested? One might offer various speculations, but the most reasonable explanation may be that the media is controlled by dyke-friendly stalinists who will do anything to keep their "side" from being cast in a poor light.

Homie David Hume


“
"""In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. "" (From the Treatise of Human Nature).
”
As a secularist, Hume holds that values and virtues, however beneficial to society, are not at all necessary; they are conventions: one could just as easily be attracted to and stimulated by, say, witnessing the invasion of Basra, and define that as a good, as by giving a few shekels to Santa in front of K-mart. Hume's virtue ethics is based on self-interest and pleasure; and justice is not for Hume objective or a universal. ( most hysterical moralists of left and right--even so called "Darwinists"--- never quite grasped Hume's is-ought distinction). Ethics then for Humeans is constructive, stipulative, and alas somewhat subjective (most read him as a precursor to Bentham and Mill) . So how does what is termed "ethics"--or expanding the scope, even democracy--- work if large proportions of the population are criminals and sadists? What did an ethical person do in the Old West, or during the rise of the fascists or stalinists, or in 20s Chicago when Al Capon-ay ruled the city and the cops and judges were "in the pocket"? We here at Contingencies suggest bourgeois ethics (or Big Al Gore style corporate liberalism) depends on a faulty premise that people will, more often than not, do what is rational or proper in the conventional sense, and that is not at all a premise Hume would grant (or should), nor would Malthus or Darwin or BF Skinner, or William S. Burroughs for that matter. Ethics in Vegas might entail robbing casinos.

""Where men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense, which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities."

No to Grunt Rights

A few confused members of the Red Stoner Mafia (over at New Worlds) believe that Grunts (who voluntarily enlist in US Military) have the right to complain publicly about the war (one SPC Milo in Iraq has taken to voicing his complaints on a blog, and the Kos comrades are using that for their daily leftist Phun avec FiFi). Unless there were some outrageous, Ludendorffian sort of commander in charge or a My Lai sort of situtation, the enlisted man really does not have any grounds to complain, except for gross incompetence (though perhaps he later goes on to write a literary variation on "War is Hell," etc.).

The US soldier enlists voluntarily: and one doesn't need to read the Recruiter's fine print on the Fed. contract to realize that the enlistee agrees to obey orders--even if those orders call for the enlistee to participate in combat, or be involved in perilous situations, or fire at the enemy at will. Agreeing to military service does not entail joining the republican party, but those who do sign up should be aware they will be following orders from people who are most likely conservative ( a point lost on Private Milo). Following orders from his commanding officers, Sarge says to the greenhorns, "take Hamburger Hill," and SPC Greenhorn follows orders. If not, Sarge should (and indeed may have the right per code) to terminate SPC Greenhorn's employment for the USA via his .45 on grounds of insubordination.

Thumbs down, man

Logo for Ron Paul campaign (and supporters)

U.S. Constitution: First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Does that right to freedom of expression apply to blogs and websites? Hint: Yeah.
Until bloggers argue for real, democratic sites ACROSS THE ENTIRE NET (i.e. non-moderated, or at least group editorial policies,), Blogland will continue to resemble a J.Edgar Hoover report if not KGB policy manual.


Even a confused leftist such as Chomsky understands the necessity of free and open communication:

""Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (say, Voltaire) it is a truism, hardly deserving discussion, that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended.""" (Noam Chomsky)

Carnap (& Hume) for Cali Consumers

From "Philosophy and Logical Syntax":

""The opinion that metaphysical propositions have no sense because they do not concern any facts, has already been expressed by Hume. He writes in the last chapter of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (published in the year 1748) as follows: "It seems to me, that the only objects of the abstract sciences or of demonstration, are quantity and number ...All other enquiries of men regard only matter of fact and existence; and these are evidently incapable of demonstration ...When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume, of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." We agree with this view of Hume, which says - translated into our terminology - that only the propositions of mathematics and empirical science have sense, and that all other propositions are without sense.""

SO much for fundies, islamofascists---or moralist-leftists and apparatchiks common to the Kremlin.com's (aka DailyKos , DU, etc.)......................


Verstehen Sie Das?
Carnap

Bobby Rat




Altar boy who ushered in the teary-eyed, statist Left, RFK was a pal of J. Edgar, Nixon, and at least for a time, Joe McCarthy. Good riddance, carpetbagger. (and I wager Thomas Jefferson would have agreed). Ishallah, Sirhan.

Top 10 uses for the corpse of Jerry Falwell

10. Pin-yata
9. bowling pin
8. crash test dummy
7. Tele-tubbie grave party
6. Alpo processing plant
5. inexpensive fertilizer
4. catapult ammunition
3. parachute-less skydiver test
2. skull-mug harvest
1. shark bait


Hitchens as usual skewers the fundie rather effectively (a charlatan, a "Chaucerian fraud"). Aye Mr. Hitchens: the Pardoner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkAPaEMwyKU

Cure for theocrats



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_%28book%29

Grotesque Disregard (How Not to Write, continued)

Righteous Indignation du jour

Imagine like a middle-aged Jim Morrison, stoned and not-so-immaculate, meets Jerry Falwell. Rightist moralists are bad enough: but when the rightist moralist sucks up a few too many bongs and takes side with the Mommycrats: a cyber-libertarian can only say, like, STFU, even if C.L. doesn't care for BushCO--certainly not GOP econ. policies (some libertarians actually make an exception for anti-statism and support higher taxes on ueber- wealthy)--- and agrees with a few of the yawps (it's not likely to interfere with "Aldous"s' hustle, but the Lancet people said only 1/3 of the estimated deaths (not verified, btw, McLizard-King) were attributable to US/Brit. forces).

Those few cynics (including some who read and understood Gulliver's Travels once in their life, unlike the McLizardKings of NW) with enough spine and intelligence to denounce such phonies are slowly being eliminated from both left and rightist sites--dissent now referred to, in 90s dweeb terms, as "trolling" by the over-grown adolescents, pansies and emotional wrecks who operate most blogs and websites at this point (typical leftist narcissists, like their fundie cousins, usually never quite realized what trolls really were--)

Hitchens on the politics of Hell-fire

Slate now offers, for the discriminating and non-sentimental sort of skeptic, excerpts from Christopher Hitchens' new book: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Hitchens/Slate/Xtians

"""We do not believe in heaven or hell, yet no statistic will ever find that without these blandishments and threats we commit more crimes of greed or violence than the faithful. (In fact, if a proper statistical inquiry could ever be made, I am sure the evidence would be the other way.) We are reconciled to living only once, except through our children, for whom we are perfectly happy to notice that we must make way, and room. We speculate that it is at least possible that, once people accepted the fact of their short and struggling lives, they might behave better toward each other and not worse. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true—that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow ..."""

Mahster Hitchens raises an important if somewhat obvious point (obvious to anyone who ever bothered with the cliffsnotes to Hume) in opposition to those religious conservatives who suggest that without threat of Hell-Fire, society falls into decay or anarchy (of course that never stopped centuries of warfare waged by xtians, muslims, jews, etc.). CH however arrogant does have a certain gift for putting forth skeptical arguments in a coherent fashion (and quoting some of Hitchens' bon mots will generally piss off both biblethumping idiots and whiny-ass liberals). And whether you agree with him or not (or his politics) one might respect his courage (he, like his pal Rushdie, also lives under threat from the muslim nuts, if not from some zealous Catholics or fundies).

Kurt Vonnegut on the death of eloquence



"""I'm writing about the death of eloquence. Eloquence was so ordinary back then, in the time of Shakespeare. In contrast to Shakespearean speech, I was watching one of those television talk shows the other night where people air their disagreements with other people. There is a scene in Othello where Iago wants to get Cassio drunk on alcohol and.... ......""

"So Iago says, "Come, lieutenant, I have a stoup of wine; and here without are a brace of Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello." Cassio turns down the drink and says, "Not tonight, good Iago; I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment." And then we get back to what I saw the other guy say on tv — well, I read his lips actually, because we don't get anything real on our televisions. And this talk show guy said, "Fuck you — you know what I'm saying?" [Laughs] I just don't think people get off on language anymore. Language used to be an elevated art. It used to be for people what music can be. But people don't learn to do that anymore, so eloquence is merely a matter of waste now. Who needs a good vocabulary and proper English? Eloquence — it's dead and who needs it? We use shorthand nowadays. Fuck you — you know what I'm saying? [Laughs] """"

Indeed, Mr. V . As with the scrawlings of his literary ancestor Twain, Vonnegut's screeds have been approved by Contingencies: KVSpeak may not have been sufficiently posh-- or marxist--- for east coast lit. snobs, yet still, shall we say, Jeffersonian (and KV, Cornell guy, was fairly well read in sciences, reportedly). Better some yankee cynicism--- even bad, stoner yankee cynicism-- than English lit. melodrama, or space operas for that mattter (or Catholics, Inc.) . We don't care for all of his writing---Slaughterhouse 5 may have been overrated (the Dresden sections are pretty powerful)--- but Breakfast of Champions not a bad book (and possibly a parody of Updike?). Dwayne Hoover is alive and well, and defending Dick Cheney in some bar. JG Ballard approved of KV, apparently. A few years ago, Vonnegut also penned an interesting column on Nelson Algren, one of America's legends of the literary underground (as KV noted, Sinatra made far more from "Man with the Golden Arm" than Algren did). So it goes.

(and note, Vonnegut fans, how many so-called "liberal" bloggers didn't even bother to mention Kurt's death: that's par for the course for the new sort of cyber-apparatchik).

"Are we better off without religion?"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/audio_video/podcasts/article1583399.ece

Richard Dawkins, the delightfully fiendish Christopher Hitchens, and Grayling vs. Roger Scruton (a great windbag in the Kantian tradition) and some other pious tories. Reports indicate that the bad guys (D. & H.)) proved victorious.

"Christian: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor." (A. Bierce)

What is a lie to a Darwinian materialist?


Vincit omnia veritas

Lying could be quite useful, genetically speaking, for a mafioso, while on trial, to save himself (and his family, cronies, business etc.). Say Guido ordered his boys to off some nosy-detective, and they do so, and then Guido lies about his guilt ("plead the fifth, paysano") when on trial (as of course many people accused of crimes do) and then goes to trial, but is acquitted, and in effect gets away with Moider, returns to his warehouse, and continues with his business, advances the gene pool a bit more via kids with Velma, etc. What does the strict Darwinian say? Guido succeeded, in a sense, by lying (a "don't get caught" meme, in contemporary parlance), and many criminals who lie about their guilt (at least ones with the right defense attorneys) do succeed; thus lying could in many instances be a positive trait. We here at Contingencies (and we do not advocate Catholics, Inc. as an alternative to DarwinCorp.) assume that most rational humans would object to Guido's lie, but those who hold to purely Darwinist or genetic determinism would appear to have no grounds for any such objections.


What is a lie to a pragmatist?


Pragmatists, idealists (at least some), mystics, and postmodernists generally assert that truth is not a matter of confirming some alleged facts, "out there", in an objective, empirical world. There are various differences between these groups, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that they uphold some version of William James concept of pragmatism: that truth always has some relation to usefulness, whether in regards to sciences, social sciences, humanities, etc.

The Cash Value of Truth model, has of course been criticized, and not without reason. While in some contexts--say medicine--utility would seem to be critical (--testing the functionality of a drug, say)--in others, whether history or law, or various social sciences, any modifications of the actual facts to fit some ideology might conceivably result in highly unethical situations. Bertrand Russell noted this problem in regards to Dewey's pragmatist ideas. If the pragmatist's goal is to create a harmonious community, or even harmonious classroom, or well-integrated self, then it would seem the pragmatist might "shape" facts (say historical, or economic facts, or even literary narratives) to fit his pedagogy--making the students see the world through rose-tinted glasses, more or less (or perhaps red-tinted glasses, in marxist indoctrination centers). And if the end result was a harmonious community and well-balanced individuals (or even a supremely efficient proletarian State), then pragmatists would grant, it would seem, that the right thing had been done. And other sorts of similar absurdities, possibly Orwellian, resulting from pragmatism (or any ideology where truth is solely a matter of functionality) across the board could be realized.

Fritz Nietzsche on Dames

(Anglocized from the Deutsch)

"When a woman becomes a scholar there is usually something wrong with her sexual organs."

"You go to a woman? Carry thy whip"

"A woman does not want the truth; what is truth to women? From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile to women than the truth - her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and beauty."

"God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment — but many other things ceased as well! Woman was God’s second mistake."

Das stimmt. Doc FN generally scores nearly as high on the Chuckleometer as half-hour of comedy from homie Mike Richards.

One amusing Americun flick

Leibniz for Dummies“ There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, its reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths, until we come to those which are primary."

Verstehen Sie das, Kerl? Ja f-n wohl

Stevie Schwenson, the Galifornian J-Edgar, Pink-slipped

Another little Moderatrix (with his new boy Friday Sperber) doing his best for the maoists at Ginger's Warehouse, Stevie Schwsenson would do well to, like, find a new job maybe back in Podunkville before the shite hits the fan.

Grotesque Disregard (How Not to Write, continued)

Righteous Indignation du jour

Sort of like Jim Morrison, stoned and not-so-immaculate, meets Jerry Falwell. Rightist moralists are bad enough: but when the rightist moralist sucks up a few too many bongs and takes side with the Mommycrats: a cyber-libertarian can only say, like, STFU, even if C.L. doesn't care for BushCO--certainly not GOP econ. policies (some libertarians actually make an exception for anti-statism and support higher taxes on ueber- wealthy)--- and agrees with a few of the yawps (it's not likely to interfere with "Aldous"s' hustle, but the Lancet people said only 1/3 of the estimated deaths (not verified, btw, McLizard-King) were attributable to US/Brit. forces).

Gene Roddenberry, Snitch


Americans have for years been indoctrinated with the humanist and secularist vision of Gene Roddenberry; as the Vietnam war raged in the late 60s and students rioted in the streets of the US and Europe, Roddenberry was able to sell his optimistic pop sci-fi vision across the cathode ray tubes of the world. Kirk, Spock, Bones: American geeks have for years emulated them nearly as much as they emulated rock stars. Yet most Trekkies are probably unaware that their pulp guru Roddenberry was for years an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. And before Officer Gene managed to get Star Trek aloft, there was...Dragnet, and Highway Patrol (perhaps there are others who might prefer the occasionally noirish Highway Patrol to the NeverNeverLand of ST). Roddenberry also acted as technical consultant for the LA District Attorney while writing scripts and even passed the sergeant's exam in his first attempt. (and many of the ST plots are obvious lifts of greek myths, Shakespeare [probably at least 2-3 riffs from the Tempest] or other sci-fi ala Orwell or Huxley--one could fairly easily demonstrate how the Ho-wood sci-fi industry has turned a tidy profit on Aldous Huxley for decades).

Roddenberry also was a B-17 pilot during WWII, and not the worst of humans, but really closer to an L-Ron Hubbard huckster than to a great intellectual figure; even the pulp space operas of Heinlein, however gawky and occasionally rightist-militaristic, rather superior--certainly in terms of hard science--to the touchy-feely Star Trek spectacle; most Heinlein fans, however, don't really understand what the RAH code consists of (think a hick Nietzsche meets, oh, Oppenheimer). That many naive, middle of the road "liberals" view Roddenberry as some type of visionary should not be that surprising: he's the Good Cop (with the great LAPD squad car, the Starship Enterprise, tragic-hero lite Capn. Kirk and PC socialist Federation) that many liberals (and crimefighter conservatives) dream of being, either explicitly or not.

Les bons mots de Cactus Ed Abbey

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

“Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.”

“The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.”

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”

“That which today calls itself science gives us more and more information, and indigestible glut of information, and less and less understanding.”

“In the modern techno-industrial culture, it is possible to proceed from infancy into senility without ever knowing manhood”

“The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.”

“No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.”

Orwell on the real motives of pacifists

"The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …"

(from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism).

Das Stimmt, Mr. Orwell. The Pacifist may overtly claim to be opposing war in general, but he's all-too-often assisting the other side by his kvetching and resistance, or possibly (as Orwell suggests) he wishes to implement--re-implement, as it were--the great marxist state (and of course obtain for himself a Par-tay membership), and anything which lessens, say, the power of the US military, increases the likelihood of the success of the pacifist's real statist agenda: and rest assured that there are few if no Islamic pacifists.

How not to write



From one of the geniuses du jour of DemocraticUnderground:

"Suddenly, one of the arab kids stood up and held up his hands in an obvious gesture of truce. We held our fire; I walked out to meet him in the middle of the battlefield. As we approached each other, I could see that he was bleeding as badly as I was. We met in the middle, and just looked at each other for a few minutes, breathing heavily. He reached in his pocket, and pulled out a knife -- and then also pulled out some sort of desert fruit. To this day, I have no idea what it was. He swiftly peeled it, cut off a slice, and handed it to me. It was delicious."



This would not make it past the metro editor of the Tulsa Herald. This would not fly in a Hardy Boys story; this would not be accepted for publication at the most obscure e-zine or lit. rag to be found in cyberia. Not only that, there's no way to establish that the narrative is genuine; it could quite possibly be an invention, if not a lie. But dupes of the left (i.e. DU) and right (i.e. the right-wing coaches-on-acid of New Worlds ) take this to be some type of deep literary truth, when it's about the equivalent of "All we need iz Luv" (or as Walker Percy termed the motto of the opportunistic protestant turned New Ager--- "Love...or Die").


"The War ended immediately. All the other kids from both sides wandered out, took a slice of the strange fruit, and tried to communicate with each other somehow. Some of us spoke a rudimentary Arabic, but none of the arab kids spoke English -- we did our best. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the desert together, all thoughts of conflict forgotten. I remember my mother's shock at seeing my blood-encrusted face and shirt -- I had completely forgotten about it by then."

Colloquial, arrogant, indulgent: CalibanSpeak---or, better, another Cyber-Caliban aspiring to sophistication. Michener's worst personal narrative trumps this sort of sentimental, egotistic prose. (Und der Klown versteht nicht ein Wort von Deutsch noch von Französisch). It's the writing of a thug who never bothered with Shakespeare nor Swift nor Bertrand Russell.


Those few cynics (including some who read and understood Gulliver's Travels once in their life, unlike Caliban of Araby here) with enough spine and intelligence to denounce such frauds are slowly being eliminated from both left and rightist sites--dissent now referred to in 90s dweeb terms as "trolling" by the over-grown adolescents, pansies and emotional wrecks who operate most blogs and websites at this point (of course, the typical leftist narcissist, like his fundie cuz, never quite realized what trolls really were--)



"The degree of one's emotion varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts -- the less you know the hotter you get." Russell

New Pynchon




("Among other things, it deals with the four children of Webb Traverse, a bomb-throwing anarchist who's assassinated by mercenaries working for an evil plutocrat named Scarsdale Vibe...")


Looking forward to Maestro TP's latest fulgurescence.

Kripke's error


"Kripke's error is basically one that is symptomatic of all modern analytic philosophy...overattachment to modal considerations, trying get it to do the work that only Bayesian analysis can do properly. Bertrand Russell said it best--"There is only one world, the 'real' world." Philosophers should have listened. The meaning of (even non-literal) utterances reduces to the transmission of information, and everything you ever wanted to know about transmission of information can be found in conditional probabilities. The space you're forced to deal with is the space of ways the world might *be* (for all I or you know), not ways the world "might have been.""

Very astute observation--conditional probabilities are not places; contingent events-to-come are not worlds.

The Meme meme

"Pride, the never failing vice of fools" Pope

There is so much involved with Dawkins' claim: one, what really is a meme? For a scientific materialist, ultimately a meme is neurological (and I wager there ay even be lurkers about here who could ID the cognitive residence, so to speak). In regards to human consciousness (tho' memetics has been supposedly observed among other mammals), memetics has its shortcomings: Dawkins and his followers hardly
provide a worked-out account of perception, or of conceptualization--the Thought-formation (nor does anyone , really as of yet, though cognitive scientists have been attempting to do so for decades). Memetics, like naive Darwinism (tho' Dawkins and Dennett are not so naive) , thus tends to affirm rather reductive accounts of consciousness (tho' I am not asserting memetics is not true: simply that it takes much for granted--like cognition for one). And, putting aside questions regarding the cognitive assumptions of memetics (there may be some snooty cognitivist-behaviorists working on that issue somewhere) couldn't "machiavellian" memes (say, kill or be killed, or "by any means necessary") often be as functional as non-machiavellian (altruism, cooperation, etc.)? Indeed they are.

But what does the memeticist say? Like the pragmatist, the evo. psych's code of functionality--or, of adaptation-- is purely descriptive: this idea-strategy seems to work--this one doesn't. So in some (many) circumstances, machiavellianism will do as well as altruism--rather unpleasant news to all those dupes who thought Truth, Justice, benevolence were sort of universals, or at least, worthy ideals. Which is to say, lacking anything but evolutionary explanations, "social darwinism", will remain an issue, even for the most sophisticated of evo. psych types (or their remora-like followers in the humanities). I am not a worshipper of Chomsky's somewhat Cartesian rationalism--or all of his politics (9-11 changed much)-- but there may be worse programmes than Chomsky's anti-reductionist view of language and thought--whether in terms of opposing behaviorism, or his few comments contra-evo. psych. And there are also grounds to object to lumping together all ideas or concepts in the meme class, as well: a certain musical sound--say, Debussyan harmony--might have worked memetically for some time (from concerts, to film scores, advertisements, etc), but an integral or even Modus Ponens are not really similar to musical or architectural "pattern" memes--integrals and Modus Ponens are true (at least if calculated correctly), regardless of functionality (though they may function as well). Are aesthetics and knowledge both memetic? That seems a bit strange to say--tho' perhaps at some point, mathematics itself might be read as some type of evolutionary behavior--and those who uphold Quine's "Two Dogmas" view of all knowledge--including logic/math--as synthetic a posteriori might agree (reluctantly). Dennett makes some suggestions along those lines in Darwins' D.I.--which I am slowly reading--he's OK, but not the most eloquent of writers.