Preliminary Discourse on Mindfulness, Freedom, and the Soul’s Origin and Journey

[Read Part II]

My approach to God, while drawing inspiration from the Trinitarian Christian god, envisions the latter as, incidentally, symbolizing God and His relationship to the universe. I indeed approach God as an infinite, eternal, substantial, volitional, and conscious field of ideational singular models that completely incarnates itself into the universe while remaining completely external to the universe, completely ideational, and completely subject to a vertical (rather than horizontal) time; and which is not only completely sheltered from any forced effect (whether ideational or material), with one or more efficient causes, in its willingness but traversed, animated, efficiently-caused, and unified by a sorting, actualizing, pulse that both stands as the acting part of God’s will and as the apparatus, the Logos, through which God incarnates Himself while remaining distinct from His incarnation.

In the Trinity, I envision the Father as the symbol of the infinite, eternal, substantial, volitional, and conscious field of ideational singular models as that field both incarnates itself into the universe and remains distinct from the universe; the Son as the symbol of the universe as the latter is both the ideational field’s incarnation and an entity distinct from the ideational field; and the Holy Spirit as the symbol of the sorting, actualizing, pulse through which God incarnates Himself into the universe and yet remains distinct from the universe. The present discourse, which stands as a direct continuation to my “Preliminary considerations on the dignity of man, the Idea of the Good, and the knowledge of essences,” intends to bring whole new preliminary considerations on my part on a number of topics including the substance, emergence, creation, the Chi, war, predestination, mindfulness, freedom, decentralized competition, the pineal gland, and the soul’s (earthly) journey and (divine) origin. On that occasion, I will deliver an assessment of what Benedictus de Spinoza, René Descartes, and Aleister Crowley (and a few other philosophers) respectively wrote on some of those topics.

Beforehand a few remarks concerning my respective definition for some of my concepts should be made. A moment-relative property in an entity (whether ideational—or material) is a property (whether existential—or non-existential) that deals with the point (or points) in time at which the entity itself or one or more properties in the entity are taking place; whether time for the entity is horizontal—or vertical. In an entity (whether ideational—or material), a property preexistent to one or more other properties is a property for which one chronological point, at least, in its existence is chronologically anterior to the existence of the other property or properties in question; whether its existence is already extinguished before the existence of the other property or properties in question. An entity preexistent to one or more other entities (whether it occupies the same realm as the one or more other entities in questions) is an entity for which one chronological point, at least, in its existence is chronologically anterior to (the existence of) the other entity or entities in question; whether its existence is already extinguished before the existence of the one or more other entities in question.

In a realm of reality taken in isolation (whether it is the ideational realm—or the material one), any extrinsically contingent or extrinsically necessary property existing in an entity at some point has strictly three kinds of cause, which are all operating for any extrinsically contingent or extrinsically necessary property in any entity. Namely a relational cause (i.e., one or more relations on the entity’s part at some point before), an existential cause (i.e., the existence of the entity both presently and at the anterior point), and an intrinsically necessary cause (i.e., an intrinsically necessary property in the entity at the anterior point). What’s more, in a realm of reality taken in isolation (whether it is the ideational realm—or the material one), any extrinsically contingent or extrinsically necessary entity existing at some point has strictly three kinds of cause. Namely a relational cause (i.e., one or more relations on another entity’s part: at some point before the concerned caused entity’s existence, except in a few cases), an existential cause (i.e., the existence of the other entity and hypothetically of some other entities which it is having one or more relations with: at the anterior point, except in a few cases), and an intrinsically necessary cause (i.e., an intrinsically necessary property in the other entity and hypothetically in those hypothetical other entities: at the anterior point, except in a few cases).

The relational cause for some (extrinsically necessary or extrinsically contingent) property or entity is that kind of cause that can also be called the “efficient cause.” Saying of an entity that it is an efficient cause (were it the only efficient cause) for one or more extrinsically contingent or extrinsically necessary other entities is a convenient way of saying that one or more relations on that entity’s part are efficient causes (were the relations in question only between the entity and itself) for the one or more entities in question; just like saying of an entity that it is an efficient cause (were it the only efficient cause) for one or more extrinsically contingent or extrinsically necessary properties in that entity or in one or more other entities is a convenient way of saying that one or more relations on that entity’s part are efficient causes (were the relations in question only between the entity and itself) for the properties in question. An efficiently uncaused property is one with no efficient cause; what is only the case of any (strong-kind or weak-kind) intrinsically necessary property.

An efficiently uncaused entity is one with no efficient cause; what is only the case of any (eternal or self-produced) intrinsically necessary entity and the case of that modality of an extrinsically contingent entity that is a randomly self-produced entity. A self-produced entity (whether it is intrinsically necessary) is a temporal-starting-endowed entity that is, besides, self-caused and efficiently uncaused (whether it is intrinsically necessary). When it comes to those extrinsically necessary entities that are the supramundane souls and the ideational essences (whether their realm is taken in isolation), the combination between relational, existential, and intrinsically necessary causes which results into their existence (in the ideational realm) is both internal to the ideational realm and temporally simultaneous to their existence (in the ideational realm). When it comes to those material entities (including the universe) that are considered from the angle of their incarnation-relationship to God, the combination between relational, existential, and intrinsically necessary causes which results into their existence (in the material realm) is both internal to the ideational realm and temporally simultaneous (in the ideational realm) to their existence (in the material realm). Ditto for the properties in those material entities that are considered from the angle of their incarnation-relationship to God.

Any entity (whether it is ideational—or material) is both a caused and causing entity: more precisely, a caused (though not systemically an efficiently caused) and efficiently causing entity. Any act of creation falls within production; but not any act of production falls within creation. Production is to be taken in the sense for a cause (whether it is relational, existential, or intrinsically necessary) of causing the existence of one or more properties that are (not eternal but instead) endowed with a temporal beginning; or the existence of one or more entities that are (not eternal but instead) endowed with a temporal beginning.

As for creation, it is to be taken in the sense of the fact for a cause (whether it is relational, existential, or intrinsically necessary) of producing one or more (temporal-starting-endowed) properties other than moment-relative that are (completely or partly) novel with respect to what characterizes the (existential or non-existential) properties other than moment-relative that have been witnessed in the entities having been witnessed in the concerned realm of reality (i.e., the existential or non-existential properties other than moment-relative that are characteristic of the entities that either are or used to be or have been being in the concerned realm of reality); or the existence of one or more (temporal-starting-endowed) entities that are (completely or partly) novel in their properties (other than moment-relative) with respect to what characterizes the existential or non-existential properties other than moment-relative that have been witnessed in the entities having been witnessed in the concerned realm of reality.

Not only any efficiently caused entity (i.e., any entity with one or more efficient causes) that is temporal-starting-endowed is a produced entity (i.e., a caused entity that is endowed with a temporal beginning); but, reciprocally, any produced entity is an efficiently caused entity that is temporal-starting-endowed. Not only any efficiently uncaused entity (i.e., any entity devoid of the slightest efficient cause) is a self-caused entity (i.e., a caused entity that is randomly self-produced or intrinsically necessary); but, reciprocally, any self-caused entity is an efficiently uncaused entity.

A self-produced entity (i.e., a self-caused entity whose existence is, besides, endowed with a temporal beginning) and a substance (i.e., a self-caused entity whose existence is, besides, intrinsically necessary and, at every point, endowed with a strong intrinsically necessary eternity remaining throughout the entity’s existence by strong intrinsic necessity) are two distinct modalities of a self-caused entity; but both a self-produced entity and a substance are efficiently uncaused.

Any entity that is (completely or partly) novel in its properties (other than moment-relative) with respect to what characterizes the existential or non-existential properties other than moment-relative that have been witnessed in the entities having been witnessed in the concerned realm of reality falls within emergent entities in the concerned realm of reality; just like any property other than moment-relative that is (completely or partly) novel with respect to what characterizes the (existential or non-existential) properties other than moment-relative that have been witnessed in the entities having been witnessed in the concerned realm of reality falls within emergent properties in the concerned realm of reality.

Any emergent entity is either ideational or material; just like any emergent property is either a property in an ideational entity or one in a material entity. In a few lines, I will deal more closely with the concept of emergence; and with the respective concepts of existential and non-existential properties. It is worth clarifying that, while the way one understands some concept lies in the way one identifies (what one believes to be) all or part of the properties in the concept’s object, the way one defines some concept lies in the way one identifies (what one believes to be) the whole of the constitutive properties in the concept’s object. One’s “understanding of some concept” and one’s “approach to some concept” are phrases that can be used interchangeably.

Emergence and Creation: The Substance and the Chi

A material entity is an entity endowed with some kind of firmness, consistency (for instance: a quark, the void, an idea in a parrot’s mind, a movie, or the Chi); just like an ideational entity (i.e., an Idea) is an entity devoid of any firmness, consistency. A property is what is characteristic of an entity (whether the entity in question is ideational—or material) at some point (whether time for the entity in question is horizontal—or vertical). Any property is either existential or non-existential. A non-existential property in an entity (i.e., a property in the entity that is not relative to the entity’s mode of existence) is either compositional or formal or a composite of form and of composition; what is tantamount to saying: a composite of formal and compositional properties. An existential property is a property that is, if not relative to the entity’s existence’s origin or relative to whether and how the entity’s existence is (at some point) permanent or provisory, at least relative to the entity’s mode of existence, i.e., the entity’s way of existing. A strong existential property is a property that, among the properties relative to the entity’s mode of existence, deals with the entity’s existence’s origin or deals with whether and how the entity’s existence is (at some point) permanent or provisory.

Just like any strong existential property in a material entity is part of the entity’s substantial natural material essence, any strong existential property in an entity (whether it is ideational) is remaining throughout the entity’s existence by intrinsic necessity of the strong kind, i.e., remaining throughout the entity’s existence with the entity’s existence at some point being a necessary, sufficient, condition for its remaining throughout the entity’s existence. An eternal entity is one with no (temporal) beginning and with no (temporal) ending; what falls within the entity’s strong existential properties. Not any eternal entity is an intrinsically necessary entity; but any eternal entity is eternal (at some point) in a strong intrinsically necessary mode and remains eternal (throughout its existence) by strong intrinsic necessity.

A substance is an intrinsically necessary eternal entity whose eternity at some point not only occurs in a strong intrinsically necessary mode but remains throughout its existence by intrinsic necessity of the strong kind. Not any intrinsically necessary entity is a substance; but any entity eternal by strong intrinsic necessity (at some point) is remaining eternal (throughout its existence) by strong intrinsic necessity (and reciprocally). An innate property in an entity (whether it is ideational—or material) is one that is, if not remaining in the entity throughout the entity’s existence, at least accompanied with the strong existential property of a temporal beginning for the entity and present in the entity at the moment of the entity’s temporal beginning; just like an eternal property in an entity (whether it is ideational—or material) is one that, besides remaining in the entity throughout the entity’s existence by strong intrinsic necessity, takes place within an entity both eternal in a strong intrinsically necessary mode and eternal in a strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode.

A property that is arising at some point in an entity is a property in the entity that is neither innate nor eternal in the concerned entity; just like an entity that is arising at some point is an entity (in some realm of reality) that is neither innate nor eternal in the concerned realm. Any property eternal in an entity is present at some point by strong intrinsic necessity and remaining (and eternal) in the entity throughout the entity’s existence by strong intrinsic necessity; just like any entity eternal in a realm of reality is eternal at some point by strong intrinsic necessity and remaining eternal by strong intrinsic necessity.

In an entity (whether it is ideational—or material), whether its realm is taken in isolation, a property other than moment-relative that is irreducible to all or part of the preexistent properties other than moment-relative in the entity is one that is neither completely characterized identically to any of the preexistent properties other than moment-relative in the entity nor completely characterized identically to a combination between all or part of the preexistent properties other than moment-relative in the entity (whether all or part of the preexistent properties other than moment-relative are still existent—or now inexistent); just like, in a realm of reality (whether it is ideational—or material), whether that realm is taken in isolation, an entity that is irreducible in its properties other than moment-relative to all or part of the properties other than moment-relative in those preexistent entities causing efficiently its existence is one for which one of its properties other than moment-relative, at least, is neither completely characterized identically to all or part of the properties other than moment-relative found in the set of those preexistent entities causing efficiently its existence nor completely characterized identically to a combination between all or part of the properties other than moment-relative found in the set of those preexistent entities causing efficiently its existence (whether all or part of those entities are still existent—or now inexistent).

An emergent property in an entity (whether it is ideational—or material) is a property other than moment-relative that is, if not irreducible to all or part of the preexistent properties other than moment-relative in the entity, at least arising at some point in the entity (instead of being innate or eternal in the entity); just like an emergent material entity is a material entity that is, if not arising at some point in the universe (instead of being the universe itself or one of the very first entities chronologically in the universe), at least irreducible in its properties (witnessed over the course of its existence) other than moment-relative to all or part of the properties other than moment-relative in those preexistent entities causing efficiently its existence.

A strong emergent property and a strong emergent material entity are respectively a property other than moment-relative that, besides arising at some point in the concerned entity (instead of being innate or eternal in the entity), is irreducible to all or part of the preexistent properties other than moment-relative in the entity; and a material entity that, besides being irreducible in its properties other than moment-relative to all or part of the properties other than moment-relative in those preexistent entities causing efficiently its existence, is arising at some point in the universe (instead of being the universe itself or innate in the universe).

Any emergent property is either a quality (i.e., a non-existential property) other than moment-relative or an existential property other than moment-relative; but not any quality other than moment-relative nor any existential property other than moment-relative fall within emergent properties. An emergent entity (whether it is ideational—or material) is an entity that is, if not arising at some point in its realm of reality, at least irreducible in its properties (witnessed over the course of its existence) other than moment-relative to all or part of the properties other than moment-relative in those preexistent entities causing efficiently its existence; just like an emergent ideational entity is an ideational entity that is not only eternal but irreducible in its properties (witnessed over the course of its existence) other than moment-relative to all or part of the properties other than moment-relative in those preexistent entities causing efficiently its existence.

A strong emergent property and an emergent entity are both introducing—when (and only when) the strong emergent property in question and one property, at least, in the emergent entity in question are characterized in a way that is then unprecedented (whether completely or partly) in the concerned realm of reality—a certain novelty (whether complete—or partial) in the field of what characterizes the properties other than moment-relative that have been witnessed in the entities having been witnessed in the concerned realm (i.e., the properties other than moment-relative that are characteristic of entities that either are or used to be or have been being in the concerned realm).

Any novelty (whether complete—or partial) introduced (at some point) in the field of what characterizes the existential or non-existential properties other than moment-relative that have been witnessed in the ideational or material realm’s entities having been witnessed (i.e., the properties other than moment-relative that are characteristic of entities that either are or used to be or have been being in the ideational or material realm) is introduced by (and through) an (other than moment-relative) property that is either a strong emergent property or a property in an emergent entity or a property that is both; but not any strong emergent property introduces some novelty in that field, no more than does any emergent entity.

The universe is both an extrinsically contingent emergent material entity from the angle of its relationship to the nothingness chronologically prior to the universe; and, from the angle of its relationship to God, an extrinsically necessary emergent material entity (distinct from God and yet identical to Him) whose incarnation-relationship to God is an eternal (rather than emergent) property in God Himself. Whether it is from the angle of its relationship to the chronologically anterior nothingness or from the angle of its relationship to God, the universe isn’t an intrinsically necessary entity endowed (at every point) with an eternity both intrinsically necessary in a strong mode and intrinsically necessarily remaining in a strong mode (i.e., a substance); no more than it is, generally speaking, an intrinsically necessary entity.

In the field of philosophy, translating into one’s language another philosopher’s concepts consists of expressing the latter’s concepts—and the way they’re understood and defined in the latter—through one’s concepts (such as one understands and defines them) in a way that nonetheless stays completely faithful to what are that someone else’s concepts and his understanding and definition of his concepts. To put it completely in my language, Spinoza’s approach to God in Ethics correctly portrays Him as an intrinsically necessary entity eternal in a strong intrinsically necessary mode whose eternity is remaining (throughout His existence) by intrinsic necessity of the strong kind, and which is composed (at every point) of an infinite number of non-existential constitutive properties; and as the only entity that is composed (at every point) of an infinite number of non-existential constitutive properties—and as the only entity that is a substance, i.e., the only entity that is endowed (at every point) with an intrinsically necessary existence and with an eternity both intrinsically necessary in a strong mode and remaining in a strong intrinsically necessary mode throughout the entity’s existence.

That approach nonetheless commits a mistake that lies in its confusing the being an eternal entity and the being an entity with no temporal ending; and in its confusing the being an intrinsically necessary entity with no temporal ending and the being an entity devoid of any temporal ending. Any eternal entity (as is the case of a substance) and any entity devoid of any temporal ending (as is the case of a substance) are respectively eternal—and devoid of any temporal ending—in a strong intrinsically necessary and strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode; but, just like an eternal entity is only a modality (i.e., only a certain kind) of an entity with no temporal ending, an intrinsically necessary entity with no temporal ending is only a modality of an entity devoid of any temporal ending.

Though the universe cannot end in time (whether it is with regard to the nothingness—or with regard to God), it is an extrinsically contingent (rather than intrinsically necessary) entity with regard to the nothingness chronologically anterior to the universe; and, with regard to God, an extrinsically (rather than intrinsically) necessary entity. Accordingly the fact of being devoid of any temporal ending is not (as Spinoza wrongly asserts) unique to the eternal entity that is a substance; though there is indeed only one substance as Spinoza rightly asserts. Another mistake Spinoza’s approach to God commits lies in its confusing the being an efficiently uncaused entity and the being an intrinsically necessary eternal entity whose eternity takes place in a strong intrinsically necessary and strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode (i.e., a substance); and in its confusing the being an intrinsically necessary entity and the being a substance.

An extrinsically contingent and efficiently uncaused entity (i.e., a self-produced entity) and an intrinsically necessary and efficiently uncaused entity (whether it is a substance) are two distinct modalities of an efficiently uncaused entity; just like an intrinsically necessarily eternal (in a strong mode), intrinsically necessarily remaining eternal (in a strong mode), and intrinsically necessary entity—and an intrinsically necessary entity that is, if not devoid of any temporal ending, at least endowed with a temporal beginning—are two distinct modalities of an efficiently uncaused entity. The universe and God are respectively an efficiently uncaused entity of an extrinsically contingent kind (with regard to the nothingness chronologically prior to the universe) and an efficiently uncaused entity of an intrinsically necessary kind; just like God and the universe’s very first components chronologically (such as the quarks and the Chi) are respectively an efficiently uncaused and intrinsically necessary entity of an intrinsically necessarily remaining eternal (in a strong mode) kind and (with regard to the nothingness chronologically prior to the universe) efficiently uncaused entities that are intrinsically necessary but devoid of any eternity at any point.

Accordingly, the fact of being intrinsically necessary is not (as Spinoza wrongly asserts) unique to the substance; though there is indeed only one substance. Yet another mistake in Spinoza’s approach to God lies in its misunderstanding God’s complete coincidence with the universe to exclude the slightest degree and form of independence of God with regard to the universe. God is both completely identical and completely external to the universe—in that He gets completely incarnated into the universe while remaining completely distinct from the latter. Yet another mistake in Spinoza’s approach to God lies in his misunderstanding time for God to be horizontal (rather than vertical); and in its misunderstanding God’s non-existential constitutive properties to exclude any ideational property.

Though God (as Spinoza rightly asserts) is indeed the only substance, God finds itself placed under a vertical (rather than horizontal) time; and its non-existential constitutive properties find themselves to be exclusively composed of ideational properties (including ideational essences). Neither the “extension” realm nor the “thought” realm nor the indeterminate other realms which Spinoza thinks to be non-existential constitutive properties in God qualify as ideational realms (in my language).

Another mistake in Spinoza’s approach to God lies in its misunderstanding God’s non-existential constitutive properties to be both infinite and of an infinite number; and God’s non-existential properties not to be all constitutive. Though the substance is indeed composed of an infinite number of non-existential constitutive properties (since the ideational essences are of an infinite number), Spinoza as much misses the fact that all the substance’s non-existential properties are constitutive as he misses the fact that not all of them are infinite.

Yet another mistake in Spinoza’s approach to God lies in its misunderstanding God not to be endowed with some willingness and not to expect something from the human. Though God is indeed identical to the unique substance (as Spinoza rightly asserts), the substance is (at every point) a volitional entity (i.e., an entity endowed with willingness) and even a conscious volitional entity (i.e., an entity endowed with conscious willingness); and a conscious volitional entity that expects something from the human. Namely that the human, through rendering himself sufficiently like-divine in the material realm, render his soul completely divine in the ideational realm. I will not discuss here whether the notion of entities or properties that are arising at some point (instead of being innate or eternal) or irreducible is lacking (were it partly) in Spinoza’s philosophy; but the cosmos in Spinoza, besides being identified to God in a way that wrongly excludes any externality of God with regard to the cosmos, is just as wrongly envisioned as a perfect and achieved entity that excludes the slightest novelty (with respect to the existential or non-existential properties other than moment-relative that have been witnessed in the entities having been witnessed within the cosmos).

The fact for the human of being “in the image of God” is to be taken in the sense for the human of being endowed (in his substantial natural material essence) with a grandly (but not completely) self-determined willingness with regard to matter; of being in a position, not to remedy the cosmic order (were it partly), but instead to bring reparation and completion to the universe in strict conformity with the universe’s underlying order and laws; and of being in a position to know reality and the universe in a way that is irremediably perfectible.

The Spinozian approach to God is a complete offense to Him in that it demeans Him to the level of nature instead of envisioning nature as His incarnation or product or even as an emergent property in Him; just like the Spinozian approach to the human grandly (though not-completely) offenses what, in the human being, is “in the image of God.” It denies just as much the slightest degree of self-determination in the human will with regard to the efficient causes at work in nature as the slightest possibility of novelty (with respect to the existential or non-existential properties other than moment-relative that have been witnessed in the entities that have been witnessed) and therefore of creation in the realm of nature as the slightest role to be played for the human’s creation with regard to an allegedly perfect nature where nothing would be to be repaired nor to be perfected.

The Spinozian offense to what, in the human being, is “in the image of God” remains incomplete in that Spinoza, instead of envisioning the human as able to reach perfect knowledge of the nature, holds him for irremediable unable to have the slightest knowledge of any other “attribute” in the “substance” than the “thought” and than the “extension.”

As concerns creation on a human’s part, it is worth noting that, while an idea created in a human’s mind (or, for instance, in a dachshund’s mind) is a produced idea introducing some novelty (either complete or partial) in the field of what characterizes the properties (other than moment-relative) having been witnessed in those ideas having been witnessed in the universe, a creative idea created in a human’s mind (or, for instance, in a dachshund’s mind) is an inspirationally produced idea introducing some novelty (either complete or partial) in the field of what characterizes the properties (other than moment-relative) having been witnessed in those ideas having been witnessed in the universe. In other words, a creative idea (created in a human’s mind or, for instance, in a dachshund’s mind) is a modality of a created idea—namely that it is a created idea the efficient cause of which lies in an inspiration-relationship of the mind in question with respect to all or part of those entities having been witnessed in the concerned realm of reality. Not only not any creation on a human’s part consists of a created idea; but not any created idea on a human’s part consists either of a creative idea.

An exploit is to be taken in the sense of an act that is jointly exceptionally creative (i.e., characterized with the mind’s creation of one or more exceptionally creative ideas), exceptionally successful (i.e., characterized with the complete fulfillment of an exceptionally hard goal), and exceptionally endangering for one’s subsistence. The Spinozian ethics, in that it exclusively situates the human’s happiness in the “persevering in one’s being” here below, is a (complete) offense to what in the human’s happiness cannot be reached in an earthly lifetime exclusively or primarily dedicated to the persevering in one’s material existence. That part in the human’s happiness, the highest, noblest, part, which lies in the accomplishment of exploits (i.e., the accomplishment of acts that are jointly exceptionally creative, exceptionally successful, and exceptionally endangering for one’s subsistence), is basically dismissed in what can be called Spinoza’s “conatus ethics,” which is basically an ethics of mediocrity.

Just like the entities are subdivided between those inhabiting the ideational realm and those inhabiting the material realm (which stands as the materially incarnated ideational realm), the Being (i.e., what allows for the entities to exist without being itself an entity) contains both a realm correspondent to the ideational entities; and a realm correspondent to the material entities, which stands as the material incarnation of the latter realm. “The materially incarnated Being” and “the ideational Being” are convenient ways of designating respectively that realm of the Being correspondent to the material entities; and that realm of the Being correspondent to the ideational entities.

Any intrinsically necessary entity is an emergent entity; but not any extrinsically necessary entity is an emergent entity, no more than any emergent entity is an intrinsically necessary entity. Though the universe is God’s incarnation, the universe’s ideational essence does not lie in God Himself—but instead in the Idea of the universe, which is not only infinite and incomplete but in constant updating. Just like any material entity other than the universe stands as the incarnation of some ideational essence, any material entity other than the Chi and other than the universe stands as the incarnation of some finite and achieved ideational essence.

The Chi stands as the incarnation of what I previously called (following Plato) the “Idea of the Good,” which would be more judiciously called the “Idea of the Chi” and that is genuinely the sorting, actualizing, pulse at work in the ideational field; but the Idea of the Chi, though it gets incarnated (like any Idea other than the Idea of the universe), is jointly infinite (like the Idea of the universe—but unlike any Idea other than the Chi’s Idea and than the universe’s Idea), incomplete (like the Idea of the universe—but unlike any Idea other than the Chi’s Idea and than the universe’s Idea), and in constant updating (like the Idea of the universe—but unlike any Idea other than the Chi’s Idea and than the universe’s Idea).

I approach that entity known in Chinese and Japanese ontologies to be the “Chi” as a material entity (internal to the universe) that can be described as mere energy enveloping, at every point, every other entity in the universe; and which, without causing itself the slightest property or entity, makes it possible to cause the emergent properties (including the strong emergent properties) present (at some point) within some entity (whether innate—or arising) present (at some point) in the universe and makes it possible to cause some entity (whether innate—or arising) present (at some point) in the universe (including those entities in the universe that are emergent).

Just like the Chi stands as the incarnation of the sorting, actualizing, pulse through which, at every point in the ideational realm (for which time is strictly vertical), some ideational models see their correspondent hypothetical material entities being introduced, concretized, in the material realm and others their correspondent hypothetical material entities being denied, not-concretized, in the material realm, the sorting, actualizing, pulse itself stands as the Idea of the Chi, i.e., the Chi’s ideational essence. A mistake in the Spinozian approach to the substance is to confuse the being a substantial entity and the being an entity eternal in a strong intrinsically necessary and strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode. Though there is indeed only one substance (as Spinoza rightly asserts), an intrinsically necessary entity eternal in a strong intrinsically necessary and strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode (i.e., a substance) is only a modality of an entity eternal in a strong intrinsically necessary and strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode.

Just like the Idea of the Chi is an eternal (in a strong intrinsically necessary and strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode) but extrinsically necessary emergent entity whose efficient cause lies in the substance that is God, the ideational essences other than the Idea of the Chi are eternal (in a strong intrinsically necessary and strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode) but extrinsically necessary emergent entities the efficient cause of which lies in the Idea of the Chi. Just like the Chi stands as the transition between the materially incarnated Being and the other material entities (including the universe), God stands as the transition between the ideational Being and the ideational essences (including the Idea of the Chi).

The universe is a God-production (i.e., a temporal-starting-endowed entity whose efficient cause lies in God) and even a God-creation (i.e., a temporal-starting-endowed entity whose efficient cause lies in God and whose introduction in the material realm has been bringing novelty there in terms of what characterizes the properties other than moment-relative); but it is so not in that the universe would be in God an emergent property (and even strong emergent property introducing such novelty in the material realm) that finds its efficient cause in God—but instead in that the universe stands as a God-incarnation. More precisely, the universe is God-created neither as a product (i.e., a production to which its efficient cause or causes remain strictly external) nor as an emergent property; but instead as a production in which God gets completely incarnated while remaining completely external to His incarnation. In any entity, the whole is only the unified sum of the parts: except in the case of the universe and in the case of the substance.

As much the substance taken as a whole as its parts (and therefore the ideational essences it contains) are eternal in a strong intrinsically necessary mode and strong intrinsically necessarily remaining mode; but the substance taken as a whole exists independently of its parts though simultaneously to its parts, to which it communicates its eternity intrinsically necessary of the strong kind and remaining throughout existence by strong intrinsic necessity.

When considered independently of their incarnation-relationship to God, as much the universe taken as a whole as its very first parts (i.e., those of its parts that, including the Chi, appeared with the “big bang”) are self-created; but the universe taken as a whole exists as much simultaneously to its parts as independently of its parts: including its very first parts, which are intrinsically necessary while the universe itself is extrinsically contingent. The substance, as it is intrinsically necessary, is self-caused and efficiently uncaused; but the substance, as it is not only intrinsically necessary but remaining eternal throughout its existence by intrinsic necessity of the strong kind, is not only self-caused and efficiently uncaused but devoid of any self-produced character. The incarnation-relationship from God into the universe is, in God, neither an efficiently uncaused strong-emergent relational property nor, generally speaking, an emergent relational property; though it is indeed efficiently uncaused.

While the universe (when considered from the angle of its incarnation-relationship to God) is an emergent extrinsically necessary entity finding in God its efficient cause, which is not only irreducible (in its properties other than moment-relative) to (all or part of the properties other than moment-relative in) God but introducing novelty (in terms of what characterizes the properties other than moment-relative) in the material realm, the incarnation-relationship from God into the universe is, for its part, an eternal and strong-kind intrinsically necessary relational property.

When considered from the angle of its relationship to the nothingness chronologically prior to the universe, the latter is an extrinsically contingent emergent entity whose existence is even devoid of any efficient cause; but, when considered from the angle of its relationship to God, the universe is an extrinsically necessary emergent entity whose existence is the forced rather than random effect of the combination (concomitantly to the universe’s material existence in the strictly vertical time applying to the ideational realm) between God’s existence, God’s incarnation-relationship to the universe, and the character of that incarnation-relationship as an eternal and strong-kind intrinsically necessary property in God.

When considered from the angle of its relationship to the nothingness chronologically prior to the universe, the Chi is an intrinsically necessary emergent entity whose existence is therefore devoid of any efficient cause; but, when considered from the angle of its relationship to God, the Chi is an extrinsically necessary emergent entity whose existence is the forced rather than random effect of the combination (concomitantly to the Chi’s material existence in the strictly vertical time applying to the ideational realm) between God’s existence, God’s incarnation-relationship to the universe, and the character of that incarnation-relationship as an eternal and strong-kind intrinsically necessary property in God.

The Role of Genetic Similitude in a Society’s Cohesion—and in Providence’s Outworking

The way the sorting, actualizing, pulse operates in the ideational realm expresses a part of God’s will, but only a part precisely. Namely that part of God’s will that is acting (i.e., using means for the purpose of goals); and which must be distinguished from that part of His will that involves goals without involving any means. The Providence is to be taken in the sense of the acting part of God’s will as His will’s acting part is at work in cosmic and human history. War is to be taken in the sense of a physical, coercive, struggle between groups (whether the latter are groups of living beings).

When he presented war as “the world’s only hygiene,” Marinetti would have done better to present it as “one of the world’s hygienes,” alongside famine and epidemics notably. Above all, he should have specified that the hygiene of war is “God’s hygiene for His incarnation as the latter is a world tirelessly in search of progress in order and complexity.” For war is one of the hygienic apparatuses (and even one of the privileged ones) through which the Providence strives to maximize as much as possible the probability in the universe (throughout the universe’s existence) that the least sophisticated groups in terms of order and complexity (both internal and at the level of intergroup relations) at some point, instead of encumbering God for the rest of the universe’s days, end up disappearing in the short run or, failing that, in the long run.

Also, war is one of the incentive apparatuses (and even one of the privileged ones) through which God strives to maximize as much as possible the probability in the universe (throughout the universe’s existence) that geniuses in the cognitive field be promoted (rather than devalued) in society; and, accordingly, their sexual reproduction (and therefore their genetic frequency) favored rather than hindered in society. Another incentive apparatus through which the Providence strives to maximize as much as possible the probability in the universe (throughout the universe’s existence) that geniuses in the cognitive field be promoted (rather than devalued) in society consists of a culture that values (instead of disdaining), if not the search for exploit in the military field, at least the transposition of the search for military exploit to the cognitive field; in other words, a culture that values (instead of disdaining), if not the search for exploit on the military battlefield, at least the search for exploit on the respective cognitive battlefield of painters, mathematicians, engineers, writers, philosophers, physicists, or movie directors (among other examples). I will come back to those two incentive apparatuses later.

In addition to its character as hygiene for the world, a nevertheless fallible hygiene, war is one of the laws which God (infallibly) wanted for this world and which He (infallibly) wanted to frame the human’s reparation and completion of the divine creation. With regard to those wars implemented among societies of living beings, they as much involve societies characterized by a degree of kin-relatedness such that their members form an “extended family” or even a single family (or what is strongly or moderately a single family) as societies whose members form neither an “extended family” nor (were it only to some strong or moderate extent) a family stricto sensu.

Just like a group whose all members, at some point, are kin-related (to each other) is to be taken in the sense of a group whose members, at some point, are all biological brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, sons, daughters, or first cousins with each other, a group whose all members, at some point, are kin-related (to each other) to some extent (rather than to a complete extent) is to be taken in the sense of a group whose members, to some extent (rather than to a complete extent), are all biological brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, sons, daughters, or first cousins with each other at some point.

Just like the degree of kin-relatedness at some point in some group is to be taken in the sense of the degree to which people in the group in question are all kin-related (to each other) at some point, the degree of genetic similitude at some point in some group is to be taken in the sense of the degree to which the respective sets of genes present in each of the members of the group in question have similitude with each other at some point.

Setting aside the case of a hypothetical future group whose reproduction would occur through cloning (whether solely or partly), the level of genetic similitude in some group is necessarily a reflection (and measurement) at the genetic level of the level of kin-relatedness in the group in question. The levels of kin-relatedness and of genetic similitude are both part of the substantial natural material essence in any group of living beings. The notion that selection over the course of biological evolution (i.e., over the course of the evolution of the respective genomes in each of the individual members of the different species) only occurs at the level of the individual’s genes and at the level of those genes shared in individuals who are completely kin-related or, failing that, kin-related to a strong or moderate extent can be understood in two distinct ways strictly.

On the one hand, a modality of the notion in question claiming that the struggle for life and reproduction (whether it occurs in a coercive, physical, way) only involves individuals facing other individuals and groups whose members are, at every point, all kin-related (were it only to a strong or moderate extent—rather than to a complete extent) facing other groups of that kind. On the other hand, a modality claiming that survival in the short run (i.e., over the scale of a few decades) is impossible to any group whose members are neither completely nor strongly nor moderately all kin-related to each other. Both modalities are wrong. While the former is disproved by the fact that, in some species (including the human), the intergroup struggle for survival occurs between groups who are not systemically composed strictly of individuals who are, at least to some strong or moderate extent, all kin-related to each other, the latter is disproved by the fact that, in some species (including the human), the intergroup struggle for survival doesn’t witness—whether it is in the long run or in the short run—a systematically compromised situation nor a systematic disintegration of those groups whose members are not, were it only to some strong or moderate extent, all kin-related to each other.

A commonly invoked argument in favor of the claim that, in humans, those groups whose members are not all, were it only to some strong or moderate extent, kin-related are unlikely (though not unable stricto sensu) to survive in the short run is that a gene or team of genes can favor instead of compromising its propagation in the decades yet to come (and, generally speaking, in the centuries or millennia yet to come) only through predisposing the individual to one or more behavioral patterns favoring instead of compromising said propagation.

Yet the fact that such groups sometimes manage to survive in the short run (or even in the long run, i.e., in the centuries or millennia yet to come) doesn’t only disprove the claim that those groups whose members are not all, were it only to some strong or moderate extent, kin-related to each other are unable to survive in the short run. It also corroborates the claim that, in humans, a gene or team of genes can favor instead of compromising its propagation in the long run (and therefore in the short run) not systemically through predisposing the individual to one or more behavioral patterns that favor instead of compromising the propagation of its genes or, failing that, those of its genes shared with a group whose members, whether completely or to an extent that is strong or moderate, are all kin-related to each other; but instead through predisposing the individual to one or more behavioral patterns that favor instead of compromising the propagation of those genes it shares with (and in) a group whose members, while being not all kin-related to each other to an extent that is either complete or strong or moderate, still possess some level of genetic similitude that allows speaking of the concerned group as an “enlarged kinship,” “extended family.”

Society is to be taken in the sense of that kind of group (not necessarily human), sometimes called a “superorganism,” that unites (and encompasses) children, parents, and grandparents; and which hypothetically falls within some larger group like, say, an empire. In view of a number of male partners for a queen oscillating between three and eight in the vespula maculifrons, or between four and ten for a queen in the acromyrmex octospinosus (hence a genetic similitude between sisters around 33%), or even between seven and twenty for a queen in the apis mellifera (hence a genetic similitude between workers around 30%), societies in the hymenoptera are not all a case of a society whose all members are completely (or, at least, strongly or moderately) kin-related to each other.

A thus corroborated claim is that the duplicative success (in the very next decades) of those genes shared among the members of a hymenoptera society, instead of being systemically the result of kin selection (i.e., the result of that kind of group selection dealing with the genes common to some group in which the degree of kin-relatedness is either complete or strong or moderate), is not systemically proportionate to the degree to which people in a hymenoptera society are all kin-related to each other. Yet it seems that, in some species like the wasp, the ant, the bee, and the human, the duplicative success of those genes shared among the members of a society can be the result of a kind of group-selection dealing with those genes common to groups whose members, without being all kin-related to each other to a degree that is either complete or strong or moderate, nevertheless possess a certain degree of genetic similitude which remains strong enough to allow speaking of said members as forming an “extended family,” “enlarged kinship.”

Group cohesion for an individual in some group is to be taken in the sense of the joint fact of identifying oneself as a member of that group one happens to belong to, of acting on behalf of one’s perceived group-interests (i.e., the interests of one’s group such as one perceives them), of privileging in one’s relationships (including economic and professional) the other individual members within one’s group, of behaving in a way that favors (instead of compromising) the survival of one’s group (were it through compromising one’s own survival or one’s reproduction), and of being faithful, docile, with respect to the axiological and organizational principles foundational in one’s group.

The average level of group-cohesion in a group’s individual members is part of the group’s substantial natural material essence. It is regrettable that, all too often, the (other) investigations of the genetic and instinctual underpinnings of a society’s group-cohesion (i.e., group-cohesion among the members of a given society) in homo sapiens remain anchored in the confusion between group-selection and kin-selection; and in the mistaken approach to the intensity of group-cohesion in a given human society as (positively) proportionate to the degree of genetic similitude in the concerned society.

The differences between human societies in the degree of intra-society genetic similitude are no more systemically at the origin of the differences between human societies in the intensity of intra-society group-cohesion than the inter-species differences in the intra-species average degree of genetic similitude in the intra-species societies are systemically at the origin of the inter-species differences in the intra-species average degree of group-cohesion in the intra-species societies.

It is true that a complete degree of genetic similitude in some society (whether it is one human) and a high degree of genetic similitude in some society (whether it is one human) cannot but result respectively into a correspondingly complete degree of group-cohesion—and a correspondingly high or complete degree of group-cohesion—in the concerned society; but it is just as true that a low degree of genetic similitude in a human society doesn’t result into a correspondingly low degree of group-cohesion in said society systemically.

In the human, those societies who manage to survive (whether it is in the short run only or in the long run), what necessarily requires a degree of group-cohesion that is either strong or complete, are societies who are, if not composed of people all kin-related to each other to an extent that is complete, strong, or moderate, at least composed of people in which group-cohesion is strong or complete. In the human, just like those societies in which group-cohesion in people is complete (and those societies in which group-cohesion in people is high) are not systemically societies in which all people are kin-related to an extent that is either complete or strong or moderate, those societies in which the displayed degree of genetic similitude is such that their members form what can be called extended kinships are systemically societies in which the extent to which people are all kin-related to each other is neither complete nor strong nor moderate.

What’s more, in the human, those societies in which group cohesion is complete include (strictly) as much societies with an either complete or strong or moderate level of kin-relatedness as societies who—instead of approaching or forming a (single) kinship stricto sensu—are forming an extended kinship as societies who are neither approaching a single kinship nor forming a single kinship nor forming an extended kinship. Likewise those societies in the human in which group-cohesion in people is high include (strictly) as much societies with an either complete or strong or moderate level of kin-relatedness as societies who—instead of approaching or forming a (single) kinship stricto sensu—are forming an extended kinship as societies who are neither approaching a single kinship nor forming a single kinship nor forming an extended kinship.

Whatever the degree of group-cohesion and whatever the degree of genetic similitude, it nonetheless turns out that, in the human (and perhaps in some other species), culture is never totally independent from genetics. Culture is to be taken in the sense of the set of those behavioral patterns in a society that are inculcated in the society in question (whether it is one human). Some of the cultural patterns (but not all) in a society are part of the society’s substantial natural material essence.

When it comes to a culture totally or partly endowed with an endogenous origin, culture is not only able to contradict, in part, the average genetic features—but wholly able to include patterns that have no connection to genetics (setting aside the issue of knowing whether such patterns can be in contradiction with genetics). More precisely, it is then, on the one hand, wholly able to include behavioral patterns that are not genetically rooted at all (setting aside the issue of knowing whether such patterns can be in contradiction with genetics); on the other hand, unable to contradict the slightest average biological-ability in the group but able to contradict a part (but only a part) of those average genetic features that are about emotions and emotional needs (rather than about abilities).

When it comes to a culture totally endowed with a foreign origin, culture is wholly able to include patterns with no connection to genetics (setting aside the issue of knowing whether such patterns can be in contradiction with genetics); but, also, it is wholly able to contradict the average genetic features—except that it cannot go against the average levels of biological-abilities.

In turn, culture (whether its origin is completely exogenous—or instead completely or partly endogenous) has an effect on genetics in that it hampers the social integration (and therefore sexual reproduction) of those individuals unsuited to the established cultural patterns; in that it influences the tenor of the fertility gap in those individuals managing to reproduce; and in that it influences the propagative success of a certain genetic mutation through influencing the ability of those individuals endowed with the genetic mutation in question to reproduce (and their reproduction’s magnitude). It is regrettable that the (other) investigations of the gene-culture coevolution (i.e., the mutual influence between gene and culture over the course of their respective evolutions) all too often overlook the complexity of said coevolution, treating (more or less surreptitiously) a group’s culture at some point as strictly equal to the group’s average genetic features at that point in time.

In humans, just like one way a gene or team of genes can favor instead of compromising its duplication (in the long run besides in the short run, i.e., over the scale of several centuries or millennia besides over the scale of several decades) is through predisposing the individual to one or more behavioral patterns that favor instead of compromising the propagation of those genes it shares with (and in) a group whose members, while being not all kin-related to each other (were it only to some strong or moderate extent), still possess some level of genetic similitude allowing to speak of them as forming an extended kinship, one way the duplication of a gene or team of genes can be compromised rather than favored (in the short run besides in the long run) is through the individual’s inhabiting a society whose members, besides being not all kin-related to each other to a degree that is either complete or strong or moderate, exhibit some level of genetic similitude that is not sufficient to allowing to speak of them as forming an extended kinship.

A human society whose members exhibit neither a level of genetic similitude that allows speaking of them as forming an enlarged family nor a level of genetic similitude that allows speaking of them as forming or approaching a single family is necessarily compromising (rather than helpful) in the short as much in the long run to the duplication of the genes present in its members; regardless of whether the society in question manages to survive (over the scale of several centuries or millennia or, failing that, over the scale of several decades) and regardless of whether group-cohesion is strong in the society in question. Group-identification here means the fact of identifying oneself as a member of some group (whether the latter is real).

I assume that two instincts for group-identification successively emerged over the course of the biological evolution of homo sapiens: two instincts which are now superposed and in conflict with each other. Namely an earlier instinct for group-identification to one’s kinship—and a tardier instinct for group-identification to indeterminate groups whose level of genetic dissimilitude exceeds the level found in a kinship or in a group whose members are all kin-related to some strong or moderate extent.

At first, the tardier instinct for group-identification was a blessing (rather than a curse) to the long-run duplication of genes in humans in that it contributed (and was necessary) to the constitution of societies with a strong or complete group-cohesion who, while being not restricted to kinship nor to some strong or moderate level of kin-relatedness, exhibit a level of genetic similitude that remains strong enough to allow speaking of those societies as being extended kinships.

Over time, that instinct, thus becoming both a blessing and a curse to the duplication of genes (whether it is in the long run or in the short run), ended up contributing to the constitution of societies with a strong or complete group-cohesion who, besides being not restricted to people kin-related to an either strong or moderate or complete degree, don’t qualify either as extended kinships; what has been compromising (rather than helpful) to the duplicative success of genes in the short as much in the long run in that it has been allowing for such societies to survive in the long run (besides in the short run) at the expense of the duplicative success in question.

In the cosmos taken independently of its incarnation-relationship to God, the emergence of that second instinct for group-identification that is the instinct for group-identification to (indeterminate) groups standing below any level of kin-relatedness that is either strong or moderate or complete is only a double-edged sword to the duplication of genes; but in the cosmos as incarnation, the cosmos as God incarnated, the emergence of such instinct is also a cunning of God. More precisely, a trick on His part falling within His wider strategy of detaching the human society, if not from any enlarged kinship, at least from any strong, moderate, or complete level of kin-relatedness, in order to bring about (and experiment) unprecedentedly high and sophisticate new forms of order, complexity, in the cosmos.


Grégoire Canlorbe is an independent scholar, based in Paris. Besides conducting a series of academic interviews with social scientists, physicists, and cultural figures, he has authored a number of metapolitical and philosophical articles. He also worked on a (currently finalized) conversation book with the philosopher, Howard Bloom. See his website.


Featured image: “The Undiscovered Country/The City of Light,” by Evelyn De Morgan; painted in 1894.

Read Part II

Watch Your Language!

We are in an intellectual war with the leftists, liberals, progressives, socialists, fascists and other enemies of a civilized order. In this battle, language is important. Those of us who favor private property rights, economic liberty, limited government, have given in, linguistically, on all too many battlegrounds.

Why do we have to call them progressives? They are, more accurately, regressives. Their ideal is the economics of Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and the old USSR. What is progressive about that?

Why must we use the appellation “Ms.”, which is in effect, if not by intention, although it may be that too, an attempt to undermine the institution of marriage? How so? Well, Mrs. should be an honorific, at least in a society that values this arrangement. Ms. blurs the distinction between the married and unmarried.

The counterargument is that what is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander too. If we are to distinguish women by marital status, so, too, ought we to do so for men. It might sound antiquated, but, in former decades precisely this was practiced: “mister” was for married men, “master” for bachelors. Of course, the latter word is now fraught with danger, given the rampant political correctness of the regressives. For them, “master” harkens back to the days of the “curious institution” as does pretty much everything else they dislike under the sun. Presumably, unless we fight to retain what is still left of the English language, the Masters degree will soon end. No longer will there be chess masters and grandmasters.

Then, there is the issue that their own linguistic choices of but a few years ago have now become forbidden. Broken field runners in football have nothing on these people. For example Kyle Cornell a 26 year old radio host was fired from his job for characterizing Kamala Harris as a colored person, rather than a person of color. His subsequent apologies garnered him nothing.

Colored person? Person of color? To the uninitiated, apart from the word order, it sounds just about the same. It is difficult in the extreme to see why the former is despicable, while the latter is acceptable. This is even more baffling, given that the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is still in operation, and no one, not even the most fervent cultural Marxist, would characterize that organization as racist.

The word “Negro” was a perfectly acceptable appellation several decades ago. But woe betide any white person from using it nowadays. Racism, here we come. However, what are we to make of the United Negro College Fund Inc? Could they be racist? Heaven forfend. James Baldwin famously stated that “urban renewal means Negro removal.” Should we now cancel him?
Then, there is the “N” word, which I dare not spell out, even though rap “musicians” seemingly employ it every third sentence. Sometimes, this word is even employed in the very title of a rap group: NWA.

The regressives (less pejoratively, leftists, which is equally accurate) are moving us back toward, socialism, toward fascism, toward feudalism. There, privilege, political pull, are the order of the day. Privilege does not mean wealthy. It means being given an unfair advantage, as for example when teachers unions ride roughshod over private, charter and home schooling; hotels attack AirBnB; taxi companies undermine Lyft and Uber; beauticians make it all but impossible for hair braiders to operate. It is only laissez faire capitalism that is truly progressive. It allows for new ways of satisfying customers, not stultifying entrepreneurs with new ideas.

Affirmative action should be called negative action, insofar as its hurts its supposed beneficiaries. Even some black people are loath to visit African-American doctors. They don’t know if they passed all their exams under their own steam, or were “affirmatively” licensed. When college students are placed in the same class with those with 400 points higher on their SAT scores, the results are not positive. Ask Amy Wax about that. These “beneficiaries” do so badly in competition with their fellow students that requirements are not relaxed; they are pretty much jettisoned entirely.

The English Department of Rutgers University has gone so far as to practically embrace Ebonics. It is now widely bruited about that 2+2=4 is based on white supremacism, as is the advice to work hard, be aware of the future and promote intact families. Linguistics are not solely responsible for this de-civilization, but they play a part.

Further, not all poor countries are “developing.” Some are. Some are stagnant. Others are retrogressing. Why not call them all “underdeveloped.” And “rent seeking” must go. Those crony capitalists are not seeking rent, like landlords, car rental agencies. They are seeking booty.

This besmirching of language must stop. Equity is not equality. It is fairness, not egalitarianism. Social justice is unjust. War is not peace. Freedom is not slavery. Ignorance is not strength. One more pet peeve: why are “blue states” leftish, and “red states” rightish? Surely, we should reverse this on the ground that our friends the regressives are much closer to communist red than are conservatives and libertarians.

Why is all this worth mentioning? No, I take that back; why is it of the utmost importance that we resist the left’s continual attempt to alter linguistics?

For one thing, language mirrors thought. If certain words, expressions, are verboten, then it is more difficult, maybe impossible in the extreme, to think in certain ways. If we all use “Ms.” then it is far more challenging and demanding to extol the virtues of intact families. If we all characterize these socialists as “progressives” their nostrums become easier to swallow. Those advocates are progressive! How bad can their vision be?

For another, there are only two ways to fight for our freedom; physically and verbally. All men of good will (not people of good will; “men” includes both male and female) vastly prefer the latter. But in accepting the linguistics of those on the left, we debate them in effect with one hand tied behind our backs. Let them for a change utilize our way of speaking.
Easier said than done, of course.

Those of us who refuse to use “Ms,” who do not honor them by calling them “progressives,” who see nothing wrong with the name of the NAACP will face stiff opposition. We will be labeled racists, sexists, fascists, etc. But if we all do it… In unity there is strength. We should hang together, or we will hang separately. Oh, wait, I don’t think it is politically correct for a white person to mention that word. Mea culpa. A thousand pardons.

I don’t say we will win the hearts and minds of the populace if we stick to our guns (so to speak! So to speak!) and try to regain the language. I only say that if we do not, we will continue to be fighting with one hand behind our backs.

Walter E. Block is Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics, College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans, and senior fellow at the Mises Institute. He earned his PhD in economics at Columbia University in 1972. He has taught at Rutgers, SUNY Stony Brook, Baruch CUNY, Holy Cross and the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of more than 600 refereed articles in professional journals, two dozen books, and thousands of op eds (including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and numerous others). He lectures widely on college campuses, delivers seminars around the world and appears regularly on television and radio shows. He is the Schlarbaum Laureate, Mises Institute, 2011; and has won the Loyola University Research Award (2005, 2008) and the Mises Institute’s Rothbard Medal of Freedom, 2005; and the Dux Academicus award, Loyola University, 2007. Prof. Block counts among his friends Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard.

The image shows, “Bill of Rights,” by Howard Chandler Christy, painted in 1942.

Privatize The Highways

There were problems with highway closures at both ends of Canada. The crisis is over for now, but perhaps we can learn something from this difficulty. Indeed, it will occur again.

Things were so bad in Newfoundland that military troops had to be brought in to engage in blizzard cleanup. Part of this effort was devoted to road clearance.

What is going on at the other end of Canada? A few days ago, there were highway closures in relatively balmy British Columbia. In the Lower Mainland parts of Highway One were covered with sheets of black ice. There were more accidents than you can shake a stick at, particularly in the section of this major roadway between Chilliwack and Abbotsford, B.C.

What was the word from the B.C. Ministry of Transportation? There were lots of excuses, good ones, but gridlock, slowdowns, jack-knifed trucks and fender benders were the order of the day.

According to Ministry of Transportation South Coast regional director Ashok Bhatti: “We are using calcium chloride and a combination of techniques, but it has been challenging … We are hitting it with everything we’ve got.”

He continued: Work has been done overnight, but to no avail. With temperatures below -15C and winds that blow salt and sand off the road, no solution was in the offing.

In the event, safety and transportation were restored when the temperatures rose, and, thanks to the rain, the ice, snow and slush were swept away.

Notice what is missing here? There was no vestige of competition. The presumption of the Ministry was that they were in charge, there was no possible other option, they were doing their best to rectify the situation.

Other firms in other industries, too, face difficult tasks. This occurs all throughout the warp and woof of the economy. Sometimes failure occurs elsewhere as well. But, in the private sector, there is always a “fail-safe” mechanism undergirding the entire process: competition. If a given firm faltered, there would be others anxious and eager to take its place. Moreover, different companies could try alternative strategies. If one of them worked, others could follow suit.

But not on the nation’s highways. There, monopoly, central planning, was the only possibility.

What might have been done had competition been allowed. That is, if there were privately owned highways?

One possibility would be the “conga line:” a long line of specially fitted tractors, one after the other, brushing away the ice. This is the technique utilized at some airports. These vehicles travel at a snail’s pace, but at least roadway connections could remain open. “Slow but sure” is perhaps better than nothing at all. If need be, it would not be beyond the scope of private enterprise to use actual military style tanks as snow plows.

Another is to place metal that can be heated just below the concrete of the roadway. People with sloped driveways use this method of melting the snow and ice. The difficulty here is that this is a tremendously expensive option. Costs could be reduced by treating only one lane in this manner instead of all three, but, even so, the expenses would be vast. Would it be worthwhile to maintain automobile travel and reduce accidents? This is something only the free marketplace can answer. This is at basis an entrepreneurial matter.

Are There Other Options?

It is difficult for a mere economist to anticipate the market. If shoes had always been the province of government, and a wild and crazy free enterprise economist had advocated privatization, the objections would come thick and fast. How would resources be allocated between sneakers, slippers, boots and other kinds of footwear? Where would shoe stores be located? How many of them would there be? Who would supply shoe laces?

In the event the market addresses all these difficulties, these are non-problems. And so would it be in the case of roads. Yes, highways are long thin things. People think their provision must necessarily fall to the government. But railroads exhibit similar geographical elements. Privatization in that realm is not unknown.

There are perhaps more important reasons for engaging in this process than black ice. In Canada, some 4,000 people perish each year in motor vehicle accidents. Competition between road owners, as in the case of every other good and service known to man, would undoubtedly lead to improvements in this regard too. Fatalities are not at all the product of drunken driving, speed, vehicle malfunction, driver inattention; those are only proximate causes.

The ultimate cause is the inability of the road managers to deal with these challenges. How could they do so? This can only be speculative, as in the case of shoes, but, perhaps private highway owners could address not velocity, but its variance. Instead of minima and maxima speed limits for the entire highway, do so for each lane.

For example, 120 kilometers in the left lane, 100 in the middle, and 80 on the right. Would this reduce traffic fatalities. Hard to tell. The problem is, such experiments are not now undertaken. They would be, under free enterprise.

Walter E. Block is Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics, College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans, and senior fellow at the Mises Institute. He earned his PhD in economics at Columbia University in 1972. He has taught at Rutgers, SUNY Stony Brook, Baruch CUNY, Holy Cross and the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of more than 600 refereed articles in professional journals, two dozen books, and thousands of op eds (including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and numerous others). He lectures widely on college campuses, delivers seminars around the world and appears regularly on television and radio shows. He is the Schlarbaum Laureate, Mises Institute, 2011; and has won the Loyola University Research Award (2005, 2008) and the Mises Institute’s Rothbard Medal of Freedom, 2005; and the Dux Academicus award, Loyola University, 2007. Prof. Block counts among his friends Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard. He was converted to libertarianism by Ayn Rand. Block is old enough to have played chess with Friedrich Hayek and once met Ludwig von Mises, and shook his hand. Block has never washed that hand since. So, if you shake his hand (it’s pretty dirty, but what the heck) you channel Mises.

The image shows, “A Cart on the Snowy Road at Honfleur,” by Claude Monet, painted 1865 or 1867.

Do We Still Have Enemies, Part III

III. Material Conditions of the Media

So, if “we” still have an enemy it is not those who challenge our cultures, for only in opposition to them do our groups have any meaning. Instead one must come to recognise that it is only through the group’s positive attributes, namely material conditions, that one can finds the true definition of who “we” are and therefore who our enemies are.

Thus, what truly endangers a group is not cultural outsiders, but those who deny the reality of material conditions as defining the group and see to hide it from us through a media-based ideology.

It was Marx who wrote in German Ideology “in all ideology men and their relations appear upside down, as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life process as the reversal of objects on the retina does from their directly physical life process” It can still be true to say that media is the domain of dispute even if the target of the cultural weapons that the media produces are not the true enemies of the exclusive “we”.

If as Marx suggested, the “superstructures” of every person’s life are defined by the “infrastructure” to which they are exposed then one starts to realise then the true division which exists in our society is not the one defined by cultures, for that is a symbiotic division, instead it is a division which runs along the lines of media infrastructure.

Effectively there are two tactics which can be adopted by the media in the liberal order to distract the exclusive “we” from realising who the true enemy is.

The first is to distract us from the truth by creating an illusionary enemy. The media/culture industry does this through a variety of means but draws strongly always on the idea of the cultural enemy to distract us. Social media in particular endlessly presents the Muslim, the black man, the person of another political orientation as being the enemy.

What has become popularly described as fake news, feeds people disinformation which says that a group with some different culture is the fundamental enemy of the group, without needing to say it explicitly. Although as has already been demonstrated they are needed for other cultural groups to have meaning.

But then the second, perhaps far more insidious method, is that in admitting that the enemy on the screen is an illusion to promote the idea that there is no struggle at all, that there are no enemies to fight against. To tell those people who try to fight against an enemy then they are ill, just as Nietzsche predicted of the last men.

But quickly, one realises that there is a whole industry of media production which supports every step of the process and who are interested in making people believe that they are one of millions, if not billions of universally alike consumers without an enemy, so as to keep providing you with the illusion of catharsis in the false enemy.

Marx identified religion as the central ideology of his time which was both false and a weapon of the oppressors to the proletariat in their place. It does not seem unreasonable to propose that it is now the media which is the new ideology designed to make all believe that they are consumers when in fact they still face the same class struggle, defined by the material conditions of their lives as they always did.

Thus, what one comes to realise is that the true enemy is not someone facing the same struggle within a different culture. What one comes to realise is that in our age it is not a person, but a system of things populated by certain people. No longer does one exist in a proletariat-bourgeoisie or serf-master dichotomy, but rather one exists against a system of thing.

As Marcuse wrote “the society which … undertakes the technological transformation of nature alters the base of domination by gradually replacing personal dependence … with dependence on the objective order of things”

Every time one clicks on a YouTube clip, or uses Facebook, or Twitter, or Netflix “we” are giving ourselves over to an economic enemy which is exploiting us by stealth, by dominating our leisure time and creating a false sense of dependency on a media system. The enemy therefore is not an individual or group of individuals, but it is the system as a whole which has created at ideology which fundamentally undermines the value of truth by telling us that there are no enemies.

However, there are some who profit by that system and others who are exploited by it and therefore we are not all universal consumers. It is still the case that some of us are exploited and other exploiters (even if only unconsciously) and therefore “we” are not everyone.

When all is considered in tandem it becomes evident that we still have enemies although they may now appear in a different light and in a different domain. It is now media, which as the principal weapon of the system of economic oppression and which now forms the central locus for the struggle. It may for the moment appear to many that media forms some neutral space, but even now the veil is beginning to fall off from that false ideology.

As Carl Schmitt said “the newly won neutral domain has become immediately another arena of struggle” To respond a little more directly to the research question posed at the start of this essay, the fact of this ideological lie of universalism which emanates from the media industry and the exploitation committed by the media industry means that there is not an identifiable “neutral domain” at this time, that “we” are not everyone and that therefore we still have enemies.

 

The photo shows a detail from “The fin de siècle newspaper proprietor,” an illustration by Frederick Burr Opper, printed March 7, 1894. Notice the term, “fake news.”

The Memory Palace Of Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges in “Funes the Memorious” describes Funes as “not very capable of thought.” This observation certainly serves to undermine Socrates notion that knowledge is recollection of an innate wisdom. In the same paragraph, Borges continues: “To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract.”

These three categories are precisely constituents of knowledge and the process of recollection that Socrates explores, and they are precisely the processes that are missing in Funes.

Funes is a compiler of information. Bu having a perfect memory he has the capability of storing vast amounts of knowledge. However, he cannot abstract or generalize these facts. He cannot see the pattern that these facts fall into, or create.

When Socrates states that wisdom is intimately linked to recollection, he is clearly giving us a cause for consciousness. Funes, by merely recording perfectly, does is not aware as to what constitutes consciousness.

Funes is like a computer that can store vast amounts of information, yet it cannot think. Information in and of itself is not wisdom.

Wisdom comes from recollection, because when we recollect we construct patterns of thought, we seek similarities, we seek meaning that will congeal facts into a process of consciousness, allowing us to understand what it is that makes us aware.

As well, by stressing the importance of recollection in the process of acquiring wisdom, Socrates is also valorizing imagination.

Thus to possess consciousness is to possess imagination. This is precisely the difference between pure storage of information, and the imaginative use of that information.

As well, when we recollect something, we immediately re-construct that fact into a symbol or metaphor that becomes a cue to our own understanding of reality.

Because Funes has a perfect memory, and most of us do not, he cannot give the past a distinct identity, which independent from the external world that we ourselves inhabit. Socrates allows for the construction of precisely this world.

Through the imaginative process, which is also the act of recollection, we remember something imperfectly, and then proceed to construct thoughts that qualify this recollection, thereby arriving at imaginative thought.

And this precisely what Funes does not possess. He is a vast archive of information, a library, where information is certainly stored, but where imagination must be brought into play in order to transform, and therefore construct, facts into wisdom. Here we can ask, does a library have a memory? Or memory brought into the library by consciousness.

As well, it is important to realize that by stating that Funes if not capable of thought, Borges is also setting Funes as an opposite to the Socratic principle of wisdom.

Where Socrates describes consciousness as linked to memory in that recollection is an active re-construction of reality, and is therefore imagination – Funes is not part of consciousness; he is merely a “storage facility.”

Funes memory is merely an exact copy of external reality. It is perfect. Socrates’ process of recollection on the other hand is completely different from Funes’ memory. Socrates is speaking about consciousness, which is imperfect and inherently selective. Imperfect memory actively seeks out imagination and creativity – which is very the definition of thought.

In effect, Funes’ incapability of thought is in direct opposition to Socrates who links memory with recollection, and thereby consciousness and creative thought.

 

The photo shows, “Wedding on the Roof Garden,” by Dodo (Dörte Clara Wolff), painted in 1929.

Franz Kafka’s Modernity

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis eerily captures the effects of various dehumanizing influences on the modern European family brought about in the name of economic surviva.

Gregor’s “metamorphosis” into an insect represents in vivid terms how a human being can imagine himself separated from the world in which he belongs, his very selfhood placed in jeopardy by his own family.

One of the most important aspects of the novella comes about at Gregor’s death, namely the role of the family. Gregor’s relationship with his parents is troubling. There is resentment between Gregor and his father.

When Gregor joins his family in the parlor, his father throws apples at him; one of them becomes embedded in his back and leaves him crippled, and eventually kills him. Instead of taking pity on his son, as one might expect, his father grows abusive.

Gregor’s mother faints at the very sight of him in his altered state. Her rejection of him is demoralizing. Grete continues to feed her brother.

Even in his present condition, Gregor still plans for Grete’s future, hoping to be able to send her to a music conservatory where she can continue to study violin. Having abandoned hopes of pursuing his own future, this giant insect absurdly puts all of his energies into getting his sister into a music conservatory.

Ironically, Gregor’s family becomes more self-sufficient as a result of his plight. His father has gone back to work. He no longer appears as an angry, disabled old man, but rather has undergone a metamorphosis of sorts into a bank messenger “holding himself very erect.”

Gregor’s mother sews piecework, and his sister has become a salesgirl. As they become more immersed in their new roles, the family members become increasingly indifferent to Gregor.

Grete begins to spend less time cleaning Gregor’s now filthy room, and is less attentive to his needs for food. The family has even begun to use his room for storage, making navigation extremely difficult for Gregor.

Gregor’s family is continuing to grow more resentful of him as they each grow to become more self–reliant and confident. Aware of their resentment, Gregor lies in his room and thinks “back on his family with deep emotion and love” until his death one night.”

After his death, the family members act as if they’ve been freed. “Well,” said Mr. Samsa, “now we can thank God.”

His parents and sister take off from work, which Gregor would never had done while he was supporting them, and take a streetcar out to the country to plan for a new future—another change.

Kafka weaves absurdity throughout his tale in obvious and subtle ways. Despite the fact that Gregor has been cast aside, so to speak, by his family, he still thinks of them lovingly. It can even be assumed that he died of a broken heart.

An interesting undercurrent of the story involves the changes that “flip-flop” between Gregor and his father. Gregor was strong as a result of his father’s failure. He crippled his father’s self-esteem and took over the father’s position in the family.

After the catastrophe, the same sequence took place in reverse. Gregor became weak and dependent, and his father maimed and ultimately killed him. As well, Grete became strong and beautiful. The family is happier after they are freed of Gregor’s stifling love.

It is Grete who succinctly sums up Gregor’s oppressive affection: “You just have to get rid of the idea that it’s Gregor. Believing it for so long, that is our real misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would have realized long ago that it isn’t possible for human beings to live with such a creature….But as it is, this animal prosecutes us…”

On the primary level, the “metamorphosis” involves Gregor, and his becoming an insect. However, as we read the story more closely, we discover a broader and deeper level of transformation – for ultimately, this story is profoundly embedded in the myth of death and resurrection.

Thus, it is with Gregor’s death that we see a resurrection on various levels, for it is this resurrection that is the metamorphosis of the story.

First of all, we realize that Gregor frees himself from the enslavement of his world. Thus, his death is not merely a meaningless fall of an insect; it is an act of liberation.

In fact, Gregor dies a very peaceful death, for he is utterly reconciled with himself, his death, ad his world: “He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister’s. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.”

It is important to note that Gregor’s death takes place just as a new day is dawning; and it also takes place at the end of the March, just as the sterility of winter is giving way to new life in April.

The second level of the transformation takes place in Gregor’s parents. They have become self-sufficient, strong, and vibrant. While Gregor was alive, they were cacooned as if in a chrysalis.

In fact, Gregor’s father actively destroys his influence when he hurls the apples at him, one of which lodges in his back, perhaps leading to his death.

With Gregor’s death, they are freed of Gregor’s prison and they walk out of the house into the liberating light of spring and the promise of new life: “The car, in which they were the only passengers, was completely filled with warm sunshine. Leaning back comfortably in their seats, they discussed their prospects for the time to come, and it seemed on closer examination that these weren’t bad at all, for all three positions…were exceedingly advantageous and especially promising for the future.”

Lastly, it is Grete who is metamorphosed. No longer is she under Gregor’s wing; she has become a beautiful, young, vibrant woman. Like her father, she too actively sought the destruction of Gregor, as she realized that Gregor had to go; that was “the only answer.”

In the train ride together, her parents instantly realize the change that has come over their daughter. No longer is she pale and weak, but she has “blossomed into a good-looking shapely girl;” and her parents will soon “find her a good husband.”

All three have awakened from a nightmare into a dream: “And it was a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions when at the end of the ride their daughter got up first and stretched her young body.”

If we extend the analogy of the insect world (suggested by Gregor’s transformation), we see that each member of the Samsa household has emerged from a larval stage into maturity, and hence freedom.

Gregor emerged from his larval stage and became an insect, through which he could free himself from the prison of his days. Mr. and Mrs. Samsa emerge and become independent and strong, and are freed from Gregor’s stifling love and worrisome care. And finally, Grete emerges as a beautiful, young woman, who brings with her the full promise of rebirth in the spring.

 

The photo shows, “The Matchseller,” by Otto Dix, painted in 1920.

A Defense of Free Speech

Into blind darkness enter they that worship ignorance; into darkness greater than that, as it were, they that delight in knowledge (Isa Upanishad).

On March 20th, 2018, Faith Goldy was going to give a presentation at Wilfrid Laurier Universities’ Paul Martin Center.

LSOI (Laurier’s Society for Open Inquiry), the group hosting the event, claims that they invited five professors to challenge her views, but that none of them accepted. Thus, the debate was turned into a presentation.

Yet, before Goldy could give her controversial presentation the fire alarm was pulled. With the sound of alarms, Goldy left the campus and adjourned to the adjacent Veteran’s Green Park with her audience.

LSOI promised that they would invite Goldy back for a second appearance. 

This promise underscores the need to make a definitive judgement as to whether the WLU should allow Faith Goldy, and others like her, to be able to speak on campus.

I argue that it is in the interest of the school to rule in favor of allowing the speaker to return and give her presentation uninterrupted.

The university should allow the presentation because otherwise they may fall prey to dogmatism, the regulation of speech may lead to inequities, and free speech is in the interest of the marginalized groups they seek to protect.

Before diving into the ethics, I wish to discuss Faith Goldy’s position. She describes Euro-Canadians as the “native people” of Canada. She proposes a solution to stop the “ethnocide of the White race” and save European Canadian Identity.

One of her claims is that “High IQ Chinese are taking over the class rooms,” and that universities should do the opposite of affirmative action to Asian applicants, i.e. select against them in the admission process.

Commonly accused of being a “white supremacist” she counters that the reason for her measures are the opposite of white supremacy. She does not think that White people are the smarter superior race, on the contrary, it is because Asians, Jews and Indians are smarter “races” she takes her discriminatory stance.

This discriminatory stance is to “save” White people from becoming subservient to new “masters.” Also, she adopts what many would call an anti-Semitic stance.

Goldy says, “the first time we got an immigrant over-class was in 1881 with the great wave of Ashkenazi Jews” (who are “literally the smartest race on the planet”) came to Canada.

But wait, there’s more.

I want to make it clear that these are Faith Goldy’s views and not my own. It would be deceitful and unjust to omit these views to reader when discussing this controversy, especially when I seek to defend her presence here at WLU. For my own part, I abhor this line reasoning.

But, this article is not about what I think of Faith Goldy, it is about the effects that come with regulation of free speech.

The first reason why the university should allow freedom of speech is because it negates a slippery slope into dogmatism.

Universities are meant to be the anvil of new ideas, paradigm shifts, and revolutionary ways of thinking. When institutions regulate the speech of their constituencies, they tend to build their own echo chamber.

The fallout of this policy is that it creates a continuous cycle of reinforcing the status quo. As John Stuart Mill points out, dogmatism presupposes one’s own righteous stance on an issue.

Historically, it is hard for intellectuals to claim any level of infallibility in regard to evaluating “Nazi” points of view. In fact, people forget that the original Nazis were part the university intellectuals of their day.

The Einsatzgruppen were swarmed with highly educated members. Dr. Ohlendorf, one of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen even had two PHD’s.

Intellectuals may be wise, but they’re not infallible. As long as that is the case they can never justify dogmatic policies for what are often grey areas.

Even if they are correct about Faith Goldy, who is to say they will continue to give correct evaluations of the speakers after her? Dogmatism is avoided completely when one ceases to regulate speech.

The second reason why universities should allow controversial speakers to discuss is because they may have a few good points to make, even if they are racist bigots.

There is always the possibility of a “diamond in the rough” when it comes to notorious orators regardless as to whether they are racists.

For example, many of the pro-slavery arguments that came from South of the United States were despicable. But even these Southerners made some good points that the US Northerners were afraid to confront.

The pro-Slavers contrasted the well-being of their slaves with the wretched lives of black factory workers in of the North.

Pro-Slavers might have been dead wrong about everything else, but they made great point when they showed that the horrors of industrial capitalism for blacks were not that far off from the conditions of a Southern slave.

If the North seriously confronted that statement, they might not have waited till the 1960’s (over 100 years later) to initiate social programs against poverty.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. That saying might be true for Goldy and other controversial speakers after her.

The third reason why controversial speakers like Goldy should be allowed to speak is because the violation of rights such as free speech endanger the public good in the long run.

Politics can be unpredictable.

You might have a party in power who “justly” silences the “unjust.” But what happens when power changes hands?

After initial censorship, that the silencing of others has been normalized, so now who is going to stop the misusing of that power?

The forth reason why free speech should be allowed is because it dissolves hate speech in the long run.

Dialogue is the crucible of changing thought. The best way to destroy hate speech is by argument, reason, and public discourse.

John Stuart Mill points out how if we do not fearlessly discuss truth then it loses its lively quality and becomes a dead dogma.

Speech is more then just fact and fiction, communication is the fabric that holds our societal consensus together. If we cease to be engaged in grappling with what we believe in as a society, then we might forget why we believe in the values we profess.

As time passes and truths become unquestioned, we forget over the generations why we believe them.

Members of our community begin to stray ideologically from the truths we have established in the past. Free speech is how we recover those members who have been lead astray.

For example, take Harvey Milk’s famous Hope Speech in 1977. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay congressman in the USA. He was a civil rights leader for the gay community.

After years of toil, abuse, and violence the gay community questioned the continued protest as opposed to going back in the closet.

In his Hope Speech, Harvey encouraged them to hang on to hope. Here, he extended his sympathy to the hardships of the gay community.

But at the same time, he utilized the power of free speech when he told them “unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people’s opinion.” 

Far from telling the LGTBQ+ community to remain silent, he told them to speak out.

He advised them all to come out of the closet, so that they could show the world that they were not pedophiles or a sexual menace, but that they were people like anybody else.

Free speech may seem like it is against the wishes of the marginalized, but, it is their most powerful weapon. Can we really afford to take that away because some members of the population feel offended and unsafe?

The whole point of a PRIDE parade was to offend the sensitive conservative onlooker. The flamboyant display was meant to be an act of provocation to the members of society who preferred that gays remain behind closed doors.

The idea was to be proud instead of being ashamed.

Once upon a time, it was the LGBTQ+ community who were seen as the dangerous misfits who made the world unsafe for society.

John Stuart Mill and Milk were right. They knew that free speech led to ideological cohesion, not fragmented hate. Truth brings people together more than it drives them apart.

Free speech allows for the hateful to be confronted.

When it is illegal to express ones hate in public then one keeps it a secret. When this happens, hate is preserved behind closed doors and whispered behind the backs of future victims.

The hateful do not change their minds just because we make it illegal for them to hold a hateful stance. Instead they simply go on unopposed.

For example, if I was a racist and the school made it illegal for me to express my racist views, then I would never bring it up in public.

My hateful opinion would go unchallenged and I would simply become a secret racist who went around committing quiet acts of racism.

If I am allowed to express myself, then I increase the chance that others will confront my views. This increases the possibility of swaying hatful people through dialogue to reasonable positions.

The worse thing we could do is let hate to speak out unchallenged. When society failed to mobilize an ideological counter to Faith Goldy, we missed our chance to shed light on the darkness of her thoughts.

I’m not saying we would change her mind, but we might have changed the minds of audience members grappling with these demons.

I concede that there are times when one should break the law to do what’s right. I sympathize with the person who pulled the fire alarm on that day. But was this person really doing what was best for society by pulling the fire alarm?

I do not think so.

I argue that allowing free speech was the right thing to do, not shutting down dialogue. Because a true conscientious objector breaks the law for the good of society, and this person did more harm than good, thus I deny labeling them as a true conscientious objector.

I would not be surprised if they thought that they were doing the right thing, but they were misled.

These are the reasons why I think Wilfrid Laurier University should allow Faith Goldy to speak again upon her return.

It’s not because I agree with her views. On the contrary, I think they are horrible. But if we regulate free speech we fall into the greater darkness of dogmatism. Intellectuals are smart, but they are far from infallible.

Free speech may take a while to prove its worth, but in the long run it becomes the safe guard of the marginalized. It is the arguably the most powerful tool for keeping society engaged and on the same page.

Furthermore, it is our obligation as citizens to take on these speakers. We should not support these horrible views, rather we owe it to the marginalized to stand up on their behalf by debating these orators.

More importantly, we owe it to members of the community who are struggling with these ideas and those who have been blinded by them. Since Socrates, our task has been to take people out of the cave of illusory shadows and show them the light (even if they make us drink hemlock for doing so).

 

The photo shows, “What Freedom!” by Ilya Repin, painted in 1903.

How Should We Think?

The enduring emphasis of skill in the educational system emphasizes two kinds of thinking, while neglecting a third kind.

Skill is closely related to know-how, or technical knowledge, and to analytical, or scientific, knowledge. The former is repetitive and performative, in that a skill is repeated in order to produce the same result.

Scientific knowledge seeks to explain or predict; it can do no more. For example, many children are prodigies with mathematics or music, in that they have acquired the skill to repeat notes or numerical patterns.

Their expertise, or skill, is marvelous to witness – but no one turns to them for guidance on issues of freedom, individuality, or responsible government. Why? Because we know that skills are not higher-level thinking.

In the same way, a physicist understands fully how to establish models that can test natural laws and predict what nature may or may not do – but we do not consult this person about matters pertaining to the good society, or love. Why? Because physics is analytical and cannot be used to understand goodness or love.

Despite these obvious handicaps in scientific and technical knowledge, we still demand that higher education worry only about training workers. While everyone is functioning smoothly in industry – who is looking after the functioning of society?

Perhaps the reason for voter apathy, for example, and low voter turn-out may directly be related to this question.

There is a third kind of knowledge, which may be labeled practical wisdom. It is not technical, explanatory, or predictive. It is concerned with ideals, with formulating judgments and making decisions, and it directly relates to the way we encounter the world around us and the way we participate in society.

In other words, there is a specific kind of thinking which directly relates to the good society. Practical wisdom is about ideals. Life is always greater than tangible, material things.

Indeed, what is more important to human beings – happiness or skill? To worry about skills is to desire to become a robot. To worry about happiness is to understand our humanity – because to be happy each of us must reflect upon what truth is and what goodness is, and each of us must create meaning in our lives.

Skills can do neither of these things. To be happy, to have meaning and value, we need to think critically, in the true sense of the term.

 

The photo shows, “Maud Cook,” by Thomas Eakins, painted in 1895.

Fair Trade Coffee?

Fair-trade coffee as a product which is being produced and consumed within a complex of values such as ethics, economic disparity, geographical boundaries, political realities, and environmental considerations.

And this complex involves the largest consumers of coffee who live in the richer northern hemisphere of this planet, and the various growers of coffee who inevitably live in the poorer, and often impoverished southern hemisphere, such as, Mexico.

But is appears that fair-trade coffee has forced the consumer to make ethical choices about personal consumption, since eating can no longer be a neutral act – it involves a whole array of forces that must be negotiated before coffee can be poured into a cup.

In the area of food production, globalization has meant that an industrial model has replaced the traditional family farm. Food is no longer produced by a farmer, but by large conglomerates whose aim is to produce food on an immense scale in order to minimize cost and increase profit.

This means that the bulk of the food we eat is produced not by farmers but labourers or workers who simply tend crops on land owned by conglomerates. Even when small farmers do grow product, such as coffee, they usually must sell it middlemen who are part of the conglomerate structure, since they have no other method to sell what they have grown.

And in this industrial structure, the profit is at the top-end; the worker in the field simply gets a wage. In effect, the very role of the family farm has been eradicated by this industrial model of food production, since the individual cannot access the marketing structures of the conglomerate food growing operation.

Moreover, by selling to the conglomerates, the individual farmer does not control the fluctuation of commodity prices that is the reality of trade when carried out in vast quantities. All too often, individual farmers tend to one-crop operations. For example, in North America, most farmers grow corn to be used as feed for the massive beef and dairy industries. Most farmers do not grow food that can be sold directly to consumers.

Food, as a result, is now produced in a highly centralized fashion, and distributed to the consumer by equally large grocery store chains, which also share the same corporate structure as that practised by the producers of food – namely, bulk production to lower production cost and increase profit.

Such vast structures in food production and distribution has led to dissent – those that see such structures as inherently unethical, in that the production of food has been taken away from the individual farmer and placed into the hands of food factories, for lack of a better term.

One such form of dissent is the “fair-trade” movement, which seeks to restructure the production and distribution of food (as well as other items) so that the family-farm can again be made important in the job of feeding people. Briefly, the fair-trade movement suggests that the “conglomeratization” of food production is inherently an ethical issue – that it is unfair that the money is made at the top-end of the food production chain, while those that actually get their hands dirty, literally, and cultivate the crops, see very little of that profit, other than their wages.

As well, this often meant that the imbalance further distanced the have and have-not nations of the world, with the haves being in the northern hemisphere and the have-nots being in the southern hemisphere. It was in Europe that this dissent first acquired a formal organization under the term, “alternative trade organizations,” or ATOs.

The purpose of these ATOs would be to purchase goods from family-farms or farming cooperatives, more of than not in the southern hemisphere, and then establish a system of distribution of these goods in the northern hemisphere.

These ATOs would also do two things. First, they would get rid of the various middle-men who profited from food production by simply facilitating the movement of goods from source to consumer (such middle-men are part of the food conglomerates); and second, they would instil in the consumer the sense that eating, or consumption, is not a neutral act – it can either be ethical or unethical.

The point being that by consuming goods distributed by the conglomerates, one was enriching the rich, and therefore being unethical, while on the other by purchasing fair-trade goods one consumed ethically, by ensuring that labour was properly paid for, and profit shared in direct opposition to the tradition industrial mode – the bulk of it going to the bottom-end, that is, at the level of the individual consumer.

The largest fair-trade commodity, and the first to be handled using the ATO model, is coffee, which is a product that clearly highlights the level of economic disparity between the coffee consumer (almost always in the rich northern hemisphere), and the coffee grower (always located in the impoverished southern hemisphere).

This means that coffee has become an important cultural product, in which social values, economics, and politics have blended. Since the issues of economics and politics lie well beyond the scope of this paper (although they cannot fully be treated as bearing no influence on the topic at hand), the focus will primarily be on the social values that are set into motion each time a cup of free-trade coffee is drunk. And these social values are clearly demonstrated at the level of consumption.

Ethics is the most important value that comes to the fore. When a consumer sees the label “fair-trade coffee” in the context of other, non-fair-trade coffee, there is a subtle manipulation at play.

The consumer is being told that free-trade coffee is not a product of the conglomerate, the immense “coffee factory.” Rather, by purchasing fair-trade coffee, the consumer is being asked to support a structure that markedly works against the conglomerate. In other words, the consumer is being made aware of an important fact – that spending money is not only a form of personal acquisition – it is also an ethical act – that money must be spent in such a way that it gives equal value to all.

There is a big difference between the terms “value” and “profit.” On an immediate level, “profit” lies at the heart of the industrial model and is intimately linked to another important term, “growth.” Industry needs to continually grow in order to maintain its profitability.

This is why there is always a stress on growth, so that the one year must show greater gains than the previous year. Not showing such gain means stagnation – that one year is as same the as previous. “Value,” on the other hand, means involves an altogether different emphasis. Instead of “growth,” the stress is on “sustainability” – the notion that production should be maintained at a certain level.

Sustaining the livelihood of an individual farmer carries an entirely different set of assumptions than growth and profitability in industry. Therefore, the consumer is asked to contribute, by purchasing fair-trade coffee, towards sustainability – and at the same to walk away from the industrial model.

However, this choice becomes a complex one when retailers who are conglomerates themselves become involved. For example, what does fair-trade coffee become when being sold at Starbucks? And is sustainability possible if large retailers demand more and more fair-trade coffee? Or the danger that the profit model will be re-manipulated?

Perhaps in response to this involvement of large retailers, there has been a further refinement of fair-trade coffee – namely, “shade coffee,” which is coffee grown beneath the canopy of forests, since the coffee plant is shade-loving. Shade coffee has brought the issue of the environment in the choice that the consumer must make. And sustainability means not only sustaining the individual farmer, but sustaining the environment.

The opposite of shade coffee is sun coffee which is a plant that has been genetically altered to yield a higher crop. But, sun coffee requires cleared land that then needs to be heavily fertilized.

Sun coffee is having a devastating effect on the environment – it is contributing to the disappearance of various species of birds. Shade coffee, on the other hand, uses traditional approaches to growing coffee beneath trees and is therefore environmentally friendly, as it encourages biodiversity, and is often grown on family farms.

Since shade coffee needs the canopy of trees to grow, the participation of large retailers in marketing and selling shade coffee will mean greater environmental sustainability, since trees will not have to cut down.

But will this mean the small coffee farmer can also be sustained? It would appear that slapping ethical labels on food is part and parcel of our continuing moral decline – we want to be good, but we no longer know how to be good – and this opens us up to all kinds of economic exploitation.

 

The photo shops, “Automat,” by Edward Hopper, painted in 1927.