@Bert: Wow, that Nietzsche quote is amazing. I need to get off my butt and read Nietzsche and Stirner.
Sometimes I get lost in Nietzsche, which I put on his rather elusive writing style.
A part of Amidst Birds of Prey
Oh Zarathustra, Cruelest nimrod! Recently still a hunter of God, The snare of all virtue, The arrow of evil! Now — Hunted by yourself, Your own prey, Bored into yourself ... Now — Alone with yourself, Paired in your own knowledge, Amid a hundred reflections Before your false self, Amid a hundred dubious Memories, Weary from every hurt, Chilled by every frost, Strangled by your own rope, Self-knower! Self-hangman! Why did you bind yourself With the rope of your wisdom? Why did you seduce yourself Into the paradise of the ancient serpent? Why did you crawl into yourself In you—into you?
There's a different translation the band Blood Axis used that I prefer a bit more
Oh Zarathustra Cruelest nimrod! Of late still a hunter of God A spider's web, to capture virtue An arrow of evil Now hunted by thyself Thine own prey Caught in the grip of thine own soul Now lonely to me and thee Twofold in thine own knowledge 'Mid a hundred mirrors False to thyself 'Mid a hundred memories Uncertain and weary from every wound shivering at every frost Throttled in thine own noose Self-knower Self-hangman
One of my favorite poems.
“If we affirm one moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event - and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.” ~ Nietzsche, The Will to Power
The State . . . is the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of humanity. It shatters the universal solidarity of all men on the earth, and brings some of them into association only for the purpose of destroying, conquering, and enslaving all the rest ... This flagrant negation of humanity which constitutes the very essence of the State is, from the standpoint of the State, its supreme duty and its greatest virtue . . . Thus, to offend, to oppress, to despoil, to plunder, to assassinate or enslave one's fellowman is ordinarily regarded as a crime. In public life, on the other hand, from the standpoint of patriotism, when these things are done for the greater glory of the State, for the preservation or the extension of its power, it is all transformed into duty and virtue. And this virtue, this duty, are obligatory for each patriotic citizen; everyone if supposed to exercise them not against foreigners only but against one's own fellow citizens . . . whenever the welfare of the State demands it. This explains why, since the birth of the State, the world of politics has always been and continues to be the stage for unlimited rascality and brigandage . . . This explains why the entire history of ancient and modern states is merely a series of revolting crimes; why kings and ministers, past and present, of all times and all countries -- statesmen, diplomats, bureaucrats, and warriors -- if judged from the standpoint of simple morality and human justice, have a hundred, a thousand times over earned their sentence to hard labour or to the gallows. There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: 'for reasons of state.'
The State . . . is the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of humanity. It shatters the universal solidarity of all men on the earth, and brings some of them into association only for the purpose of destroying, conquering, and enslaving all the rest ...
This flagrant negation of humanity which constitutes the very essence of the State is, from the standpoint of the State, its supreme duty and its greatest virtue . . . Thus, to offend, to oppress, to despoil, to plunder, to assassinate or enslave one's fellowman is ordinarily regarded as a crime. In public life, on the other hand, from the standpoint of patriotism, when these things are done for the greater glory of the State, for the preservation or the extension of its power, it is all transformed into duty and virtue. And this virtue, this duty, are obligatory for each patriotic citizen; everyone if supposed to exercise them not against foreigners only but against one's own fellow citizens . . . whenever the welfare of the State demands it.
This explains why, since the birth of the State, the world of politics has always been and continues to be the stage for unlimited rascality and brigandage . . . This explains why the entire history of ancient and modern states is merely a series of revolting crimes; why kings and ministers, past and present, of all times and all countries -- statesmen, diplomats, bureaucrats, and warriors -- if judged from the standpoint of simple morality and human justice, have a hundred, a thousand times over earned their sentence to hard labour or to the gallows. There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: 'for reasons of state.'
~ Mikhail Bakunin
He got that right, FOTH
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it even with the best right but without inner constraint proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring to the point of recklessness. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life brings with it in any case, not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes lonely, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing one like that comes to grief, this happens so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it nor sympathize. And he cannot go back any longer. Nor can he go back to the pity of men.-
- Beyond Good and Evil
I should have been taking notes while reading this, there were some interesting lines on the subject of will and choice.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
-Mencken
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
So, looking back, as people are prone to do at this time of year, we can clearly see the telltale signs of the financial disaster that struck the financial markets last autumn: the terrible credit crunch, the "frozen" credit that portended a complete economic "meltdown" unless the government took drastic measures to head it off. (The government's spokespersons and the media's talking heads never got straight whether the thing was very cold or very hot, as they reached for horrifying metaphors in all directions at once.)
-Robert Higgs
[T]he inequality of fortune . . . introduces among men a degree of authority and subordination which could not possibly exist before. It thereby introduces some degree of that civil government which is indispensably necessary for its own preservation . . . [and] to maintain and secure that authority and subordination. The rich, in particular, are necessarily interested to support that order of things which can alone secure them in the possession of their own advantages. Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs . . . [T]he maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. * * * In a society of an hundred thousand families, there will perhaps be one hundred who don't labour at all, and who yet, either by violence, or by the more orderly oppression of law, employ a greater part of the labour of society than any other ten thousand in it. The division of what remains, too, after this enormous defalcation, is by no means made in proportion to the labour of each individual. On the contrary those who labour most get least. The opulent merchant, who spends a great part of his time in luxury and entertainments, enjoys a much greater proportion of the profits of his traffic, than all the Clerks and Accountants who do the business. These last, again, enjoying a great deal of leisure, and suffering scarce any other hardship besides the confinement of attendance, enjoy a much greater share of the produce, than three times an equal number of artisans, who, under their direction, labour much more severely and assiduously. The artisan again, tho' he works generally under cover, protected from the injuries of the weather, at his ease and assisted by the convenience of innumerable machines, enjoys a much greater share than the poor labourer who has the soil and the seasons to struggle with, and, who while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all the other members of the common wealth, and bears, as it were, upon his shoulders the whole fabric of human society, seems himself to be buried out of sight in the lowest foundations of the building. * * * Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.
[T]he inequality of fortune . . . introduces among men a degree of authority and subordination which could not possibly exist before. It thereby introduces some degree of that civil government which is indispensably necessary for its own preservation . . . [and] to maintain and secure that authority and subordination. The rich, in particular, are necessarily interested to support that order of things which can alone secure them in the possession of their own advantages. Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs . . . [T]he maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
* * *
In a society of an hundred thousand families, there will perhaps be one hundred who don't labour at all, and who yet, either by violence, or by the more orderly oppression of law, employ a greater part of the labour of society than any other ten thousand in it. The division of what remains, too, after this enormous defalcation, is by no means made in proportion to the labour of each individual. On the contrary those who labour most get least. The opulent merchant, who spends a great part of his time in luxury and entertainments, enjoys a much greater proportion of the profits of his traffic, than all the Clerks and Accountants who do the business. These last, again, enjoying a great deal of leisure, and suffering scarce any other hardship besides the confinement of attendance, enjoy a much greater share of the produce, than three times an equal number of artisans, who, under their direction, labour much more severely and assiduously. The artisan again, tho' he works generally under cover, protected from the injuries of the weather, at his ease and assisted by the convenience of innumerable machines, enjoys a much greater share than the poor labourer who has the soil and the seasons to struggle with, and, who while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all the other members of the common wealth, and bears, as it were, upon his shoulders the whole fabric of human society, seems himself to be buried out of sight in the lowest foundations of the building.
Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.
~ Adam Smith
Non-violence is not a quality to be evolved or expressed to order. It is an inward growth depending for sustenance upon intense individual effort. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Of all the times Adam Smith is quoted, how often do you figure it accurately reflects his context and argument?
I'm reading David Hart's thesis on French liberals Charles Dunoyer and Charles Comte. It'd be nice if their works were some day translated and published in English, but Hart has plenty of excerpts.
In short, the factory owner, the banker, the judge, the soldier, men of all the professions, can be men of industry since they are able to direct their abilities to activities which are very useful, very productive, and very suited to increasing the faculties of such or such a race. But if the soldier puts his sword in the service of despotism, if the judge sells his conscience to it, if the banker lends it his money, if the factory owner buys unjust privileges from it, it is clear that they ought to be given another name. Likewise, one cannot call a "man of industry" the man from Nantes who engages in the black slave trade, or the man from Tripoli who trades in whites, or the munitions manufacturer who rents his ships to the murderers of the Greeks, or the imperial officer who assists them with his sword, or the money trader who offers his services to all solvent tyrannies, or the man of state who deals with his advisers. In whatever manner one participates in a harmful action, one is not a "man of industry" if one takes part. I am not saying that there is always virtue in producing. What I do say is that crime is never productive. I say that as a result of a bad action there is destruction or displacement of wealth but never an increase in the world's total wealth. In one word I say that brigandage, by whatever instruments it employs or whatever way it uses them, ought always to be distinguished very carefully from industry.
-Dunoyer
By "legal regime" is meant exclusively the state of a people who only obey the laws of their own nature, those laws which contribute to their own development and prosperity. By "arbitrary regime" is meant the state of all people who are subject to a harmful power no matter how this power is exercised. It is evident that a government falls into arbitrariness the moment it commands or forbids actions which are not required or prohibited by the laws of our nature. It is of little importance whether these orders or prohibitions are written or not written, and whether they are or are not observed in all cases where they apply. These circumstances do not make arbitrariness disappear. The name "law" ought to be exclusively reserved for those powers which are part of the nature of man or the nature of things, and which are not in the power of any individual to alter. The orders or prohibitions of government are more properly called "ordonnances" and have been so called for centuries.
If we observe the factors which cause one part of the human species to act upon other parts we find among the principle causes the desire to obtain physical enjoyments and the desire to avoid pain of the same kind. It is in order to avoid the pain of labor and to obtain plentiful subsistance, agreeable clothing and spacious accommodation that some men come to possess other men called slaves. It is to achieve the same end that, in all nations, one part of the population dominates or seeks to dominate the others, and it is to avoid the more or less burdensome physical evils that the group of men called the governed, subjects or slaves obey or attempt to avoid the action imposed upon them. The history of the human species is comprised, in one word, of struggles which have arisen from the desire to seize the physical enjoyments of the entire species and to impose upon others all the pain of the same kind.
-Comte
“There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.” ~ Warren Buffet
Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the wall Rome is above the nations, but thou art over all Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day Mithras, God of the Noontide, thy heather swims in the heat Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet Now in the ungirt hour, now ere we blink and drowse Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn Mithras, Lord of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies Look on thy children in darkness, oh take our sacrifice Many roads thou hast fashioned, all of them lead to the light Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright
Something a bit different, A Song to Mithras by Rudard Kipling.
It is true that widely accepted ideas are never the personal property of their so-called author; on the contary, he is the bond-servant of his ideas. Impressive ideas which are hailed as truths have something peculiar to themselves. Although they come into being at a definite time, they are and have always been timeless; they arise from that realm of procreative, psychic life out of which the ephemeral mind of the single human being grows like a plant that blossoms, bears fruit and seed, and then withers and dies. Ideas spring from a source that is not contained within one man's personal life. We do not create them; they create us.
- Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
'What is the use of discussing a man's abstract right to food or to medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In this deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor."
Edmund Burke
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
In this age, the word philosophy has little meaning unless accompanied by some other qualifying term. The body of philosophy has been broken up into numerous isms more or less antagonistic, which have become so concerned with the effort to disprove each other's fallacies that the sublimer issues of divine order and human destiny have suffered deplorable neglect. The ideal function of philosophy is to serve as the stabilizing influence in human thought. By virtue of its intrinsic nature it should prevent man from ever establishing unreasonable codes of life. Philosophers themselves, however, have frustrated the ends of philosophy by exceeding in their woolgathering those untrained minds whom they are supposed to lead in the straight and narrow path of rational thinking.
Manly P. Hall - Introduction, The Secret Teachings of All Ages
That an unjust action has more demerit than an ungenerous one: That a generous action has more merit than a merely just one: That no man ought to be blamed for what it was not in his power to hinder: That we ought not to do to others what we would think unjust or unfair to be done to us in like circumstances.
-Thomas Reid
If it were necessary to raise the sum required from those who individually agreed in the necessity of war, we should have the strongest guarantee for the preservation of peace.... Compulsory taxation means everywhere the persistent probability of a war made by the ambitions or passions of politicians.
Between the some purposes and the all purposes I can find no settled boundary. You cannot draw, and no living man can draw, a [line demarcating the just and unjust use of force]. If you sat down with Mr. Gladstone today to do it, tomorrow his exigencies would have eaten out the line, and its authority would be gone, at all events for our planet. Do not let us play with these things, and build up pleasant fictions that are of no value. Either a state of liberty-that is, a state where no physical force is applied by man to man-is the moral one, or we must recognize force as rightly applied by those who possess it for all purposes that they think right.
Sir F. Stephen... tells us not to employ compulsion, even if calculated to obtain a good object, if it involves 'too great an expense.' What possible binding power is there in such a rule over the minds of men? Where is the common standard of measurement? Who sees with the same eyes the accompanying expense or the resulting good? It is far better to look the truth in the face and to say that when you sanction force for good purposes you sanction it for all occasions which the holders of power think good.
If you tie a man's hands there is nothing moral about his not committing murder. Such an abstaining from murder is a mechanical act; and just the same in kind, though less in degree, are all the acts which men are compelled to do under penalties imposed upon them by their fellow-men. Those who would drive their fellow-men into the perfomance of any good actions do not see that the very elements of morality-the free act following on the free choice-are as much absent in those upon whom they practice their legislation as in a flock of sheep penned in by hurdles. You cannot see too clearly that force and reason-which last is the essence of the moral act-are at the two opposite poles. When you act by reason you are not acting under the compulsion of other men; when you act under compulsion you are not acting under the guidance of reason.
The man who compels his neighbor is not the man who reasons with and convinces him, who seeks to influence him by example, who rouses him to make exertions to save himself. He takes upon himself to treat him, not as a being with reason, but as an animal in whom reason is not. The old saying, that any fool can govern with bayonets, is one of the truest sayings which this generation has inherited and neglected. Any fool can reform the surface of things, can drive children by the hundreds of thousands into schools, can drive prostitutes out of public sight, can drive dram drinking into cellars, can provide out of public funds pensions for the old, hospitals for the sick, and lodging houses for the poor, can call into existence a public department and a population of officials and inspectors, provided that he has the handling of money that does not belong to him, and a people not trained to inquire beyond the present moment, and ready to applaud what has a surface look of philanthroty; but what is the good of it all when he has done it? To be compelled into virtue is only to live in order to die of dry rot.
-Auberon Herbert
@Michael J Green: Holy crap those are some good quotes...
Something I made.
After the annihilation of faith Feuerbach thinks to put in to the supposedly safe harbor of love. "The first and highest law must be the love of man to man. Homo homini Deus est -- this is the supreme practical maxim, this is the turning point of the world's history." But, properly speaking, only the god is changed -- the deus; love has remained: there love to the superhuman God, here love to the human God, to homo as Deus. Therefore man is to me -- sacred. And everything "truly human" is to me -- sacred! "Marriage is sacred of itself. And so it is with all moral relations. Friendship is and must be sacred for you, and property, and marriage, and the good of every man, but sacred in and of itself." Haven't we the priest again there? Who is his God? Man with a great M! What is the divine? The human! Then the predicate has indeed only been changed into the subject, and, instead of the sentence "God is love," they say "love is divine"; instead of "God has become man," "Man has become God," etc. It is nothing more or less than a new -- religion. "All moral relations are ethical, are cultivated with a moral mind, only where of themselves (without religious consecration by the priest's blessing) they are counted religious. " Feuerbach's proposition, "Theology is anthropology," means only "religion must be ethics, ethics alone is religion."
- Max Stirner, The Ego and His Own
vive might have a better grasp of this than I do, but for the first part of (The Spirit, The Possessed) he seems to be criticizing atheists as well. My girlfriend and I were talking about some atheists who's religion is that of science and man, and ironically enough capital M Man. I found this passage rather fitting, because the mentality and dogmatism can be the same, just the other end of the spectrum. The line "Man has become God," etc. It is nothing more or less than a new -- religion, seems to hit the mark on this. Just as a fundamentalist the atheist may also have "fixed ideas," that would make him "possessed" by ideology.
Anyone who denies the Law of Non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as to not be burned.
Ibn Sina.
(I think Vichy may have had this as a quote at one point in time)
Just as a fundamentalist the atheist may also have "fixed ideas," that would make him "possessed" by ideology.
I spent my first decade on the Internet debating atheists (as a devout Christian). I'm no longer a devout Christian but I can assure you that most of the atheists I debated were extremely confused, ideological and had a cornucopia of bungled metaphysics.
Here's a simple question for you: If you were the Pope - and you had as your goal the conversion of the whole world to the Catholic faith - would you rather non-Catholics to believe in many deities (polytheism) or zero deities (atheism)? It seems to me that zero (atheism) is a lot closer to one (monotheism) than 10 or 100 (polytheism, multi-denominational religion, etc.) is.
Clayton -
It seems to me that zero (atheism) is a lot closer to one (monotheism) than 10 or 100 (polytheism, multi-denominational religion, etc.) is.
There's numerically close and there's conceptually close. You want the latter.
Thought this deserved a double post:
How many people here have read Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography/political manifesto? If not, here are some interesting quotes:
http://www.stormfront.org/books/mein_kampf/mkv1ch02.html
I am firmly convinced to-day that, generally speaking, it is in youth that men lay the essential groundwork of their creative thought, wherever that creative thought exists. I make a distinction between the wisdom of age – which can only arise from the greater profundity and foresight that are based on the experiences of a long life – and the creative genius of youth, which blossoms out in thought and ideas with inexhaustible fertility, without being able to put these into practice immediately, because of their very superabundance. These furnish the building materials and plans for the future; and it is from them that age takes the stones and builds the edifice, unless the so-called wisdom of the years may have smothered the creative genius of youth.
…
everyone who has raised himself through his own efforts to a social level higher than that to which he formerly belonged. In the case of such a person the hard struggle through which he passes often destroys his normal human sympathy. His own fight for existence kills his sensibility for the misery of those who have been left behind.
The country lad who migrates to the big city feels attracted by what has been described as easy work – which it may be in reality – and few working hours. He is especially entranced by the magic glimmer spread over the big cities. Accustomed in the country to earn a steady wage, he has been taught not to quit his former post until a new one is at least in sight. As there is a great scarcity of agricultural labour, the probability of long unemployment in the country has been very small. It is a mistake to presume that the lad who leaves the countryside for the town is not made of such sound material as those who remain at home to work on the land. On the contrary, experience shows that it is the more healthy and more vigorous that emigrate, and not the reverse. Among these emigrants I include not merely those who emigrate to America, but also the servant boy in the country who decides to leave his native village and migrate to the big city where he will be a stranger. He is ready to take the risk of an uncertain fate. In most cases he comes to town with a little money in his pocket and for the first few days he is not discouraged if he should not have the good fortune to find work. But if he finds a job and then loses it in a little while, the case is much worse. To find work anew, especially in winter, is often difficult and indeed sometimes impossible. For the first few weeks life is still bearable He receives his out-of-work money from his trade union and is thus enabled to carry on. But when the last of his own money is gone and his trade union ceases to pay out because of the prolonged unemployment, then comes the real distress. He now loiters about and is hungry. Often he pawns or sells the last of his belongings. His clothes begin to get shabby and with the increasing poverty of his outward appearance he descends to a lower social level and mixes up with a class of human beings through whom his mind is now poisoned, in addition to his physical misery. Then he has nowhere to sleep and if that happens in winter, which is very often the case, he is in dire distress. Finally he gets work. But the old story repeats itself. A second time the same thing happens. Then a third time; and now it is probably much worse. Little by little he becomes indifferent to this everlasting insecurity. Finally he grows used to the repetition. Thus even a man who is normally of industrious habits grows careless in his whole attitude towards life and gradually becomes an instrument in the hands of unscrupulous people who exploit him for the sake of their own ignoble aims. He has been so often thrown out of employment through no fault of his own that he is now more or less indifferent whether the strike in which he takes part be for the purpose of securing his economic rights or be aimed at the destruction of the State, the whole social order and even civilization itself. Though the idea of going on strike may not be to his natural liking, yet he joins in it out of sheer indifference. I saw this process exemplified before my eyes in thousands of cases.
Let the reader try to picture the following:
There is a lodging in a cellar and this lodging consists of two damp rooms. In these rooms a workman and his family live – seven people in all. Let us assume that one of the children is a boy of three years. That is the age at which children first become conscious of the impressions which they receive. In the case of highly gifted people traces of the impressions received in those early years last in the memory up to an advanced age. Now the narrowness and congestion of those living quarters do not conduce to pleasant inter-relations. Thus quarrels and fits of mutual anger arise. These people can hardly be said to live with one another, but rather down on top of one another. The small misunderstandings which disappear of themselves in a home where there is enough space for people to go apart from one another for a while, here become the source of chronic disputes. As far as the children are concerned the situation is tolerable from this point of view. In such conditions they are constantly quarrelling with one another, but the quarrels are quickly and entirely forgotten. But when the parents fall out with one another these daily bickerings often descend to rudeness such as cannot be adequately imagined. The results of such experiences must become apparent later on in the children. One must have practical experience of such a milieu so as to be able to picture the state of affairs that arises from these mutual recriminations when the father physically assaults the mother and maltreats her in a fit of drunken rage. At the age of six the child can no longer ignore those sordid details which even an adult would find revolting. Infected with moral poison, bodily undernourished, and the poor little head filled with vermin, the young ‘citizen’ goes to the primary school. With difficulty he barely learns to read and write. There is no possibility of learning any lessons at home. Quite the contrary. The father and mother themselves talk before the children in the most disparaging way about the teacher and the school and they are much more inclined to insult the teachers than to put their offspring across the knee and knock sound reason into him. What the little fellow hears at home does not tend to increase respect for his human surroundings. Here nothing good is said of human nature as a whole and every institution, from the school to the government, is reviled. Whether religion and morals are concerned or the State and the social order, it is all the same; they are all scoffed at. When the young lad leaves school, at the age of fourteen, it would be difficult to say what are the most striking features of his character, incredible ignorance in so far as real knowledge is concerned or cynical impudence combined with an attitude towards morality which is really startling at so young an age.
What station in life can such a person fill, to whom nothing is sacred, who has never experienced anything noble but, on the contrary, has been intimately acquainted with the lowest kind of human existence? This child of three has got into the habit of reviling all authority by the time he is fifteen. He has been acquainted only with moral filth and vileness, everything being excluded that might stimulate his thought towards higher things. And now this young specimen of humanity enters the school of life.
He leads the same kind of life which was exemplified for him by his father during his childhood. He loiters about and comes home at all hours. He now even black-guards that broken-hearted being who gave him birth. He curses God and the world and finally ends up in a House of Correction for young people. There he gets the final polish.
And his bourgeois contemporaries are astonished at the lack of ‘patriotic enthusiasm’ which this young ‘citizen’ manifests.
reading had probably a different significance for me from that which it has for the average run of our so-called ‘intellectuals’. I know people who read interminably, book after book, from page to page, and yet I should not call them ‘well-read people’. Of course they ‘know’ an immense amount; but their brain seems incapable of assorting and classifying the material which they have gathered from books. They have not the faculty of distinguishing between what is useful and useless in a book; so that they may retain the former in their minds and if possible skip over the latter while reading it, if that be not possible, then – when once read – throw it overboard as useless ballast. Reading is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses. Thus each one procures for himself the implements and materials necessary for the fulfilment of his calling in life, no matter whether this be the elementary task of earning one’s daily bread or a calling that responds to higher human aspirations. Such is the first purpose of reading. And the second purpose is to give a general knowledge of the world in which we live. In both cases, however, the material which one has acquired through reading must not be stored up in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the successive chapters of the book; but each little piece of knowledge thus gained must be treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into a mosaic, so that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces and particles that help to form a general world-picture in the brain of the reader.
http://www.stormfront.org/books/mein_kampf/mkv1ch03.html
Surely nobody believes that these chosen representatives of the nation are the choice spirits or first-class intellects. Nobody, I hope, is foolish enough to pretend that hundreds of statesmen can emerge from papers placed in the ballot box by electors who are anything else but averagely intelligent. The absurd notion that men of genius are born out of universal suffrage cannot be too strongly repudiated. In the first place, those times may be really called blessed when one genuine statesman makes his appearance among a people. Such statesmen do not appear all at once in hundreds or more. Secondly, among the broad masses there is instinctively a definite antipathy towards every outstanding genius. There is a better chance of seeing a camel pass through the eye of a needle than of seeing a really great man ‘discovered’ through an election.
http://www.stormfront.org/books/mein_kampf/mkv1ch10.html
in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.
The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people. In no case have great movements been set afoot by the syrupy effusions of æsthetic littérateurs and drawing-room heroes. The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of glowing passion; but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others. It is only through the capacity for passionate feeling that chosen leaders can wield the power of the word which, like hammer blows, will open the door to the hearts of the people. He who is not capable of passionate feeling and speech was never chosen by Providence to be the herald of its will. Therefore a writer should stick to his ink-bottle and busy himself with theoretical questions if he has the requisite ability and knowledge. He has not been born or chosen to be a leader. A movement which has great ends to achieve must carefully guard against the danger of losing contact with the masses of the people. Every problem encountered must be examined from this viewpoint first of all and the decision to be made must always be in harmony with this principle. The movement must avoid everything which might lessen or weaken its power of influencing the masses; not from demagogical motives but because of the simple fact that no great idea, no matter how sublime and exalted it may appear, can be realized in practice without the effective power which resides in the popular masses. Stern reality alone must mark the way to the goal.
Only he who has experienced in his own inner life what it means to be German and yet to be denied the right of belonging to his fatherland can appreciate the profound nostalgia which that enforced exile causes. It is a perpetual heartache, and there is no place for joy and contentment until the doors of paternal home are thrown open and all those through whose veins kindred blood is flowing will find peace and rest in their common Reich.
http://www.stormfront.org/books/mein_kampf/mkv1ch04.html
If we consider the question of what those forces actually are which are necessary to the creation and preservation of a State, we shall find that they are: The capacity and readiness to sacrifice the individual to the common welfare. That these qualities have nothing at all to do with economics can be proved by referring to the simple fact that man does not sacrifice himself for material interests. In other words, he will die for an ideal but not for a business. The marvellous gift for public psychology which the English have was never shown better than the way in which they presented their case in the World War. We were fighting for our bread; but the English declared that they were fighting for ‘freedom’, and not at all for their own freedom. Oh, no, but for the freedom of the small nations. German people laughed at that effrontery and were angered by it; but in doing so they showed how political thought had declined among our so-called diplomats in Germany even before the War. These diplomatists did not have the slightest notion of what that force was which brought men to face death of their own free will and determination.
A State has never arisen from commercial causes for the purpose of peacefully serving commercial ends; but States have always arisen from the instinct to maintain the racial group
http://www.stormfront.org/books/mein_kampf/mkv1ch06.html
The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. If this principle be forgotten and if an attempt be made to be abstract and general, the propaganda will turn out ineffective; for the public will not be able to digest or retain what is offered to them in this way . . . What, for example, should we say of a poster which purported to advertise some new brand of soap by insisting on the excellent qualities of the competitive brands? We should naturally shake our heads. And it ought to be just the same in a similar kind of political advertisement. The aim of propaganda is not to try to pass judgment on conflicting rights, giving each its due, but exclusively to emphasize the right which we are asserting. Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side.
It was a fundamental mistake to discuss the question of who was responsible for the outbreak of the war and declare that the sole responsibility could not be attributed to Germany. The sole responsibility should have been laid on the shoulders of the enemy, without any discussion whatsoever.
And what was the consequence of these half-measures? The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. As soon as our own propaganda made the slightest suggestion that the enemy had a certain amount of justice on his side, then we laid down the basis on which the justice of our own cause could be questioned. The masses are not in a position to discern where the enemy’s fault ends and where our own begins. In such a case they become hesitant and distrustful, especially when the enemy does not make the same mistake but heaps all the blame on his adversary. Could there be any clearer proof of this than the fact that finally our own people believed what was said by the enemy’s propaganda, which was uniform and consistent in its assertions, rather than what our own propaganda said? And that, of course, was increased by the mania for objectivity which addicts our people. Everybody began to be careful about doing an injustice to the enemy, even at the cost of seriously injuring, and even ruining his own people and State.
Naturally the masses were not conscious of the fact that those in authority had failed to study the subject from this angle.
The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Its notions are never partly this and partly that. English propaganda especially understood this in a marvellous way and put what they understood into practice. They allowed no half-measures which might have given rise to some doubt.
Proof of how brilliantly they understood that the feeling of the masses is something primitive was shown in their policy of publishing tales of horror and outrages which fitted in with the real horrors of the time, thereby cleverly and ruthlessly preparing the ground for moral solidarity at the front, even in times of great defeats. Further, the way in which they pilloried the German enemy as solely responsible for the war – which was a brutal and absolute falsehood – and the way in which they proclaimed his guilt was excellently calculated to reach the masses, realizing that these are always extremist in their feelings. And thus it was that this atrocious lie was positively believed.
The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda is well illustrated by the fact that after four-and-a-half years, not only was the enemy still carrying on his propagandist work, but it was already undermining the stamina of our people at home.
That our propaganda did not achieve similar results is not to be wondered at, because it had the germs of inefficiency lodged in its very being by reason of its ambiguity. And because of the very nature of its content one could not expect it to make the necessary impression on the masses.
http://www.stormfront.org/books/mein_kampf/mkv2ch06.html
An orator receives continuous guidance from the people before whom he speaks. This helps him to correct the direction of his speech; for he can always gauge, by the faces of his hearers, how far they follow and understand him, and whether his words are producing the desired effect. But the writer does not know his reader at all. Therefore, from the outset he does not address himself to a definite human group of persons which he has before his eyes but must write in a general way. Hence, up to a certain extent he must fail in psychological finesse and flexibility.
http://www.stormfront.org/books/mein_kampf/mkv2ch15.html
Here at the end of this second volume let me again bring those men to the memory of the adherents and champions of our ideals, as heroes who, in the full consciousness of what they were doing, sacrificed their lives for us all. We must never fail to recall those names in order to encourage the weak and wavering among us when duty calls, that duty which they fulfilled with absolute faith, even to its extreme consequences.
In regards to the thread on the French Revolution (bold mine).
The Revolution was not directed against the established, but against the establishment in question, against a particular establishment. It did away with this ruler, not with the ruler -- on the contrary, the French were ruled most inexorably; it killed the old vicious rulers, but wanted to confer on the virtuous ones a securely established position, i. e., it simply set virtue in the place of vice. (Vice and virtue, again, are on their part distinguished from each other only as a wild young fellow from a Philistine.) Etc. To this day the revolutionary principle has gone no farther than to assail only one or another particular establishment, i.e. be reformatory. Much as may be improved, strongly as "discreet progress" may be adhered to, always there is only a new master set in the old one's place, and the overturning is a -- building up. We are still at the distinction of the young Philistine from the old one. The Revolution began in bourgeois fashion with the uprising of the third estate, the middle class; in bourgeois fashion it dries away. It was not the individual man -- and he alone is Man -- that became free, but the citizen, the citoyen, the political man, who for that very reason is not Man but a specimen of the human species, and more particularly a specimen of the species Citizen, a free citizen. In the Revolution it was not the individual who acted so as to affect the world's history, but a people; the nation, the sovereign nation, wanted to effect everything. A fancied I, an idea, e. g. the nation is, appears acting; the individuals contribute themselves as tools of this idea, and act as "citizens."
The Revolution was not directed against the established, but against the establishment in question, against a particular establishment. It did away with this ruler, not with the ruler -- on the contrary, the French were ruled most inexorably; it killed the old vicious rulers, but wanted to confer on the virtuous ones a securely established position, i. e., it simply set virtue in the place of vice. (Vice and virtue, again, are on their part distinguished from each other only as a wild young fellow from a Philistine.) Etc.
To this day the revolutionary principle has gone no farther than to assail only one or another particular establishment, i.e. be reformatory. Much as may be improved, strongly as "discreet progress" may be adhered to, always there is only a new master set in the old one's place, and the overturning is a -- building up. We are still at the distinction of the young Philistine from the old one. The Revolution began in bourgeois fashion with the uprising of the third estate, the middle class; in bourgeois fashion it dries away. It was not the individual man -- and he alone is Man -- that became free, but the citizen, the citoyen, the political man, who for that very reason is not Man but a specimen of the human species, and more particularly a specimen of the species Citizen, a free citizen.
In the Revolution it was not the individual who acted so as to affect the world's history, but a people; the nation, the sovereign nation, wanted to effect everything. A fancied I, an idea, e. g. the nation is, appears acting; the individuals contribute themselves as tools of this idea, and act as "citizens."
And another.
The laborer will utilize society for his egoistic ends as the commoner does the State. You have only an egoistic end after all, your welfare, is the humane liberal's reproach to the Socialist; take up a purely human interest, then I will be your companion. "But to this there belongs a consciousness stronger, more comprehensive, than a laborer-consciousness." "The laborer makes nothing, therefore he has nothing; but he makes nothing because his labor is always a labor that remains individual, calculated strictly for his own want, a labor day by day." In opposition to this one might, e. g., consider the fact that Gutenberg's labor did not remain individual, but begot innumerable children, and still lives today; it was calculated for the want of humanity, and was an eternal, imperishable labor.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/context3.htm
In conspiracy books, government bureaucrats — CIA, FBI, military — are very malevolent, and very competent. They carry out their evil schemes with stainless steel efficiency: forging and planting evidence, intimidating witnesses, subverting potentially hostile investigations, killing off people who "know something" dangerous to them. And while they leave a lot of suspicion in their wake, they somehow have never left any hard evidence that would prove a conspiracy beyond doubt. Yet these are the same guys who not only couldn't win the Vietnam War, they couldn't even knock off Castro.
"Of course, the Marxians say, every crisis must be worse and worse; the Russians, they say, have no trade cycle. Of course the Russians don’t; they have a depression all the time." - Mises
I think his birthday is this week so,
One of the more chilling quote I know of:
"Что делать? "
"Shto delat’?"
"What to do?"
Vladimir Lenin,( taken from the Chernyshevsky novel of the same name).
Arguably unworthy of this thread, but I recently watched "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and greatly enjoyed it. It also honestly has some of the greatest undertones of individualistic self-determination that I have ever seen. Literally the entire series could be taken as an allegory for the breaking of tradition and blind authority in favor of individual action, as well as a description of the systems which facilitate, and prevent this from happening. Honestly what it makes me think of the most is existentialism.
From an event inside the main character's mind at the end of the series:
1. Do they think the same about the truth that 2+2=4?
2. I am a big believer in the influence of self hate on ones life, causing great destruction. The book Compassion and Self Hate, by T. I. Rubin, lays it all out [albeit in biggish size words].
Rubin writes that it takes heroic effort to be rid of self hate, so Shinji better be prepared to be in for the long haul.
1. What they are talking about is entirely subjective happiness, the discussion material for the episode. Shinji is constantly trapped by what others think of him, and he fails to realize the extent of his own freedom and ability to achieve his own happiness. Throughout the series he consistently abides by the "truths" of others, for instance: "you should do X" or "I like it when you do Y" and then accepting it as his truth, that which he should do. Furthermore his incessant belief that he must be accepted by his father who in turn rejects him ever more heavily leads him deeper into self hatred, although we learn later that his father in turn rejects Shinji because he didn't belive that he (the father) was worthy of Shinji's love, leading to a viscious cycle.
Due to this Shinji continually chases after many of the same ghosts throughout the series, either being blinded by his own weakness and refuses to act, during which time his friend is almost killed because of his refusal to fight. The alternative is Shinji's blind adherence to authority because of his refusal to fully think for himself, killing his lover (although it was probably the right thing to do) for all the wrong reasons: I.E because he is ordered to do so, rather than accepting that it had to be done. This in turn leads to greater self hate and violence against one of the very people he is hoping to save against himself
The concept of "truth" is used entirely in the area of self-happiness and personal opinion. Are rainy days bad? Depends on who you are, and you must decide whether or not this is the case, rather than accepting the "common" view of the matter. Even if you reach the same conclusion, you have finally reached it for all the right reasons, which is the only way that one can truly be happy with ones decision.
2. Sounds like an interesting book, I'll look into it. The series focuses a lot on the matter, as I have already described. Unfortunately we never really learn whether or not Shinji accepts himself, and I fear that, although all the material is there within his mind to grasp it, he never accepts the full nihilism of the universe and his ultimate duty to himself to achieve his own happiness. Furthermore the events of the movie could make one question whether or not Shinji really takes his own words to heart.
Random quotes I have saved over the years, not related to economics unfortunately, but I thought I'll share them anyway.
The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own. -- Aldous Huxley
It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only twenty seconds of war to destroy him. --Baudouin I
Call on God, but row away from the rocks. -- Indian proverb
It is technology at its purest: utter simplicity generating infinite complexity. Paul Mungo/Bryan Glough
One must be forever drunken, if you would not feel the horrible burden of time that bruises your shoulders and bends you to the earth, you must be drunken without cease, with wine, with poetry, with what you please, be drunken without end. Baudelaire
Amy Goodman said when I saw her speak at the college here, "You have to ask, If we had state controlled media, would it be any different?"
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - A. Einstein
"Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security."
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” —Ancient Persian Mass
"On the topic of labels, you [an environmentalist] repeatedly call me a member of “the right”. Again, on what grounds? I am not a reactionary in the sense of not wanting social change: I make this abundantly clear throughout my book. I am not a hierarchy lover in the sense of trusting the central authority of the state: quite the opposite. I am not a conservative who defends large monopolies, public or private: I celebrate the way competition causes creative destruction that benefits the consumer against the interest of entrenched producers. I do not preach what the rich want to hear — the rich want to hear the gospel of Monbiot, that technological change is bad, that the hoi polloi should stop clogging up airports, that expensive home-grown organic food is the way to go, that big business and big civil service should be in charge. So in what sense am I on the right? I am a social and economic liberal: I believe that economic liberty leads to greater opportunities for the poor to become less poor, which is why I am in favour of it. Market liberalism and social liberalism go hand in hand in my view."
-Matt Ridley
He in whose head or heart or both the State is seated, he who is possessed by the State, or the believer in the State, is a politician, and remains such to all eternity. "The State is the most necessary means for the complete development of mankind." It assuredly has been so as long as we wanted to develop mankind; but, if we want to develop ourselves, it can be to us only a means of hindrance. Can State and people still be reformed and bettered now? As little as the nobility, the clergy, the church, etc.: they can be abrogated, annihilated, done away with, not reformed. Can I change a piece of nonsense into sense by reforming it, or must I drop it outright? Henceforth what is to be done is no longer about the State (the form of the State, etc.), but about me. With this all questions about the prince's power, the constitution, etc., sink into their true abyss and their true nothingness. I, this nothing, shall put forth my creations from myself.
- The Ego and His Own
I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction.
-Newton's Principia (General Scholium, 1713)
Hypotheses non fingo: I contrive no hypotheses
If I had a cake and ate it, it can be concluded that I do not have it anymore. HHH
"As it is, however, they seem to have read backwards the parable of the talents. Not to the agent of proved efficiency do they consign further duties, but to the negligent and blundering agent. Private enterprise has done much, and done it well. Private enterprise has cleared, drained, and fertilized the country, and built the towns; has. excavated mines, laid out roads, dug canals, and embanked railways; has invented, and brought to perfection ploughs., looms, steam-engines, printing-presses, and machines innumerable; has built our ships, our vast manufactories, our docks; has established banks, insurance societies, and the newspaper press; has covered the sea with lines of steam-vessels, and the land with electric telegraphs. Private enterprise has brought agriculture, manufactures, and commerce to their present height, and is now developing them with increasing rapidity. Therefore, do not trust private enterprise. On the other hand, the State so fulfils its judicial function as to ruin many, delude others, and frighten away those who most need succor; its national defences are so extravagantly and yet inefficiently administered as to call forth almost daily complaint, expostulation, or ridicule; and as the nation's steward, it obtains from some of our vast public estates a minus revenue. Therefore, trust the State. Slight the good and faithful servant, and promote the unprofitable one from one talent to ten."
- Herbert Spencer, 'Over-Legislation' in The Man Versus the State.
"Most people think the state is a necessary evil. They are half right. It is not necessary."
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
‘Rational expectations ’ remains for me a sort of monster living in a cave. I have never
ventured into the cave to see what he is like, but I am always uneasily aware that he may
come out and eat me. If you will allow me to stir the cauldron of mixed metaphors with a
real flourish, I shall suggest that ‘rational expectations ’ is neo-classical theory clutching
at the last straw.
Observable circumstances offer us suggestions as to what may be the sequel of this act
or that one. How can we know what invisible circumstances may take effect in time-tocome,
of which no hint can now be gained? I take it that ‘rational expectations ’ assumes
that we can work out what will happen as a consequence of this or that course of action.
I should rather say that at most we can hope to set bounds to what can happen, at best
and at worst, within a stated length of time from ‘the present ’, and can invent an endless
diversity of possibilities lying between them.
I fear that for your purpose I am a broken reed"
G L S Shackle
Mises on education:
“It is not generally realised that education can never be more than indoctrination with theories and ideas already developed. Education, whatever benefits it may confer, is transmission of traditional doctrines and valuations; it is by necessity conservative. It produces imitation and routine, not improvement and progress. Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them”
This packs a hell of a punch to any asshole intellectual whofancies himself a "radical"