FYI - Against Autonomy (September 2013 book)

[Brant Gaede]

Females generally tend to think collectively more than males do. This is why the feminized collectivist ideology of liberalism attracts more females than the individualistic masculine ideology of conservatism. And the males that collectivism does attract think like females.Greg

You mean like Nazis, Communist dictators and thugs, Pol Pot and minions, Mao ditto, the Spartans,...?

Ellen

You're right, Ellen.

I neglected to include the usual disclaimer that I'm not talking about the dead past in other countries, but am speaking of America right here and right now. Today the Democratic party appeals far more to single (or divorced) liberal females than do all of the conservative parties combined.

Greg

You're saying your talk doesn't travel because you say it doesn't travel.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Greg, correction noted.

Today the Democratic party appeals far more to single (or divorced) liberal females than do all of the conservative parties combined.

Are there statistics on that? (There probably are. I'm asking from curiosity.)

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

This post is to park some links so as to have them handy.

I'm trying to track down the German guy who's quoted among the endorsements for Against Autonomy copied in post #3.

Google search on "Michael Quante, Munster, Germany, Short Literature Notices"

PowerBASIC thread

Google search on "Michael Quante, Short Literature Notices"

A Companion to the Philosophy of Action - Chapter 66, on Hegel, is by a Michael Quante.

from pg. xvi, Notes on Contributors:

Michael Quante is Professor of Practical Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University in Münster and has previously been Professor of Practical and Modern Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cologne (20052009) and Professor for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy at the University Duisburg-Essen (20042005). He is associated editor of the journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. His books include Hegel's Concept of Action (Cambridge University Press, 2004; original German publication 1993), Personales Leben und men- schlicher Tod (Suhrkamp, 2002), Person (De Gruyter, 2007), Karl Marx: Ökonomisch- Philosophische Manuskripte (Suhrkamp, 2009). He also co-edited with Dean Moyar Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Review by a Michael Quante of a book about autonomy in biomedical ethics by Elisabeth Hildt

HERE is the FULL REVIEW. It appeared in Med Health Care and Philos (2013) 16:317-322, DOI 10.1007/s11019-0139476-2.

Ellen

[moralist]

Greg, correction noted.

Today the Democratic party appeals far more to single (or divorced) liberal females than do all of the conservative parties combined.

Are there statistics on that? (There probably are. I'm asking from curiosity.)

Ellen

Statistics can only be two things: Either they confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong.

But just in case... one brief click brought up this: Gallup poll: 150,000 people

That is so freaking obvious only an idiot would argue against it. Liberalism is primarily a feminine ideology... while conservatism is primarily a masculine ideology.

This was just one quality that made Ayn Rand so truly remarkable:

She was a woman who could think like a man.

Greg

[Ellen Stuttle]

Statistics can only be two things:

Either they confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong.

That statement of course is nuts. But thanks for the chart.

Ellen

[moralist]

You're saying your talk doesn't travel because you say it doesn't travel.

Yes. I live here and now so I speak of here and now, because here and now is the only place where things actually happen. So what I say pertains to America... today. America is a moral anomaly in this world. Even today as it degenerates, there is still no other nation on Earth like it.

Greg

[moralist]

Statistics can only be two things:

Either they confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong.

That statement of course is nuts.

That's just your intellect talking... not your common sense.

But thanks for the chart.

Even you can't argue against that clearly overwhelming evidence.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

You're saying your talk doesn't travel because you say it doesn't travel.

Yes. I live here and now so I speak of here and now, because here and now is the only place where things actually happen. So what I say pertains to America... today. America is a moral anomaly in this world. Even today as it degenerates, there is still no other nation on Earth like it.

Greg

You're lucky you're not a female for if the tribe understood you were impregnable they might mistake you for a virgin and throw you into that volcano belching fire behind you.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Even you can't argue against that clearly overwhelming evidence.

Greg

Oh, oh. Mother nature has nothing on Ellen.

--Brant

not when it comes to this

[moralist]

You're saying your talk doesn't travel because you say it doesn't travel.

Yes. I live here and now so I speak of here and now, because here and now is the only place where things actually happen. So what I say pertains to America... today. America is a moral anomaly in this world. Even today as it degenerates, there is still no other nation on Earth like it.

Greg

You're lucky you're not a female for if the tribe understood you were impregnable they might mistake you for a virgin and throw you into that volcano belching fire behind you.

--Brant

Only in the dead past where the blind scribes dwell... not in America today.

Greg

[Frediano]

Ellen:

I've ordered the book, thank you. The 'Boomers' starting to come of age in the 60s and 70s are sometimes today regarded as a monolithic thinking whole. I don't remember it that way at all; I think it was the first of increasingly divided generations of Americans. What was once an external struggle became an internal struggle, and although the seeds of that internal struggle were festering for most of the 20th century, it was the Boomer generation that saw that erupt into a widespread internal conflict.

I was surprised to discover that Education and the Barricades is still in print. I'll take a look at it again myself.

I likewise don't remember the 60s and 70s as displaying "monolithic thinking." The era seems to me a time of splintering - Yeats' "Second Coming" - anything approaching a unified world view falling apart.

Ellen

Ellen:

Me, stretching an analogy too far, as usual, follows: We fracture boulders of the 'wrong' shape into smaller rocks. We grind some of those smaller rocks into screening. We then use cement to create an aggregate, which can be reformed -- literally poured into a mold -- into our vision of the right shape. Constructivists reconstruct after deconstructing.

The paradox of modern freedom had erupted in the midst of a world of ancient tribalists; the idea of a state limited by free association -- a state defending our right to be free from each other by force -- was an idea so powerful that it earned the fealty of a nation of free people willing to paradoxically mob up to defend that idea that they were all free from each other.

To the tribalists, with their fealty to their atavistic herd mentality genes, this was a dangerous idea loose in the world, one which was an existential threat to the supremacy of the tribe uber alles under the whims of elites. It was a boulder of the wrong shape looming over the village. It had to go.

And so, human lives as aggregate, their freedom blown apart, to serve the visions of some for their self-assigned noble cause: the destruction of human freedom, the resurrection of the tribe uber alles under the whim of elites; the elite gig must be protected at all costs, or else they might need to get a vocation other than 'rule others using value/resources and even lives provided by those same others."

Because after all, "S"ociety=God, as in, Durkheim's summary in Religious Formes:

Society is not at all the illogical or a-logical, incoherent and fantastic being which has too often been considered. Quite on the contrary, the collective consciousness is the highest form of psychic life, since it is the consciousness of consciousness. Being placed outside of and above individual and local contingencies, it sees things only in their permanent and essential aspects, which it crystallizes into communicable ideas. At the same time that it sees from above, it sees farther; at every moment of time it embraces all known reality; that is why it alone can furnish the minds with the moulds which are applicable to the totality of things and which make it possible to think of them.

That church educates its acolytes in the Ivies, then licenses them to roll their eyes into the back of their heads and divine from that which is placed outside of and above individual and local contingencies...that is why it alone(with a little help from emperor wannabe elites, our own old tribal men in theocratic robes)can furnish the minds with the moulds, and so on, and fill them with the deconstructed aggregate of the human lives of their ... once free peers, united by their freedom.

Because the one thing that can unite meat eaters and vegans, artists and businessmen, PETA and Outback Steakhouse, farmers and urbanites, jocks and goths, red and blue, deontologists and consequentialists, on ad infinitum, is their right to live free from each other except under a model of free association.

regards,

Fred

[Frediano]

Ellen:

From your link Review by a Michael Quante of a book about autonomy in biomedical ethics by Elisabeth Hildt

Although the diversity of subjects and methods gives the impression that neuro-medicine cannot be a unified subject of biomedical ethics we should revise this impression since in it we ultimately deal with the question, “wer wir als Menschen sind, wie wir sein wollen und was wir akzeptieren können, wollen und sollten”

Translated: since in it we ultimately deal with the question"who we are as human beings, as we want to be and what we can accept, want and should"

What I see in that is the aggressive political variant of my meta-definition of religion.

My meta-definition of religion: any pondering of the questions "Why am I here, and what am I supposed to be doing as a result of that?"

My definition does not assume there is a singular answer to those questions; as individuals, we all answer those questions implicitly; our individual answer is our individual life. To me, if and when any of us consciously ponder those questions then we are engaged in religion. Indistinguishable from philosophy? Precisely as it is in many university departmental taxonomies...

Some may freely, as in, under a model of free association, seek socius to ponder those questions, and accept group answers. Those are churches, plural, and long may they wave in freedom.

But note how subtly those questions can be aggressively politicized(as in, his assertion of what 'we' are about, above:) "Why are we here, and what are we supposed to be doing now as a result of that?" The implication is not the 'we' of this one of many churches, plural, but the 'should' for all of mankind. Religion as politics on the way to war.

It is a religious assertion that there is only one answer to those fundamental questions. The naked assertion of that leg-lifting 'we' -- that assertion would be applicable to a totalitarian theocracy.

It is that assertion that needs to be questioned. Is there only one answer to those questions, sufficient to justify enforcing that singular answer by force onto others? When is, and when is not, coercive force justified?

Example: are speed limits coercive paternalism without justification, and what is the justification? To me, the justification is ultimately to inhibit forced association. When we speed down the highway, we subject others to our potentially lethal deployment of kinetic energy/momentum. But speed limits are inhibitions, not prohibitions. Just as double yellow lines, no matter how thickly painted, are not prohibitions. We could but don't enforce speed limiters on automobiles. We are still free to purchase automobiles capable of 150 mph+ in a nation with no Autobahn. If a need arises for speed, we are free to speed. When our inability to control that speed forces association of our incompetence into the lives of others, there are legal consequences. Few regard speed limits or double yellow lines as coercive paternalism, so it is clear that mankind is able to wrestle with these concepts without resorting to that.

Clean air laws? An example of the state applying coercion...in order to prohibit forced association with the impacts of the commerce of others. Justified based on a readily discoverable principal of freedom.

Contrast with other laws in our 'mixed' economy state that themselves serve to force association.

A free state is not a state without laws: a free state is a state with laws themselves restricted to laws consistent with freedom, and not the unchecked whims of elite emperor wanabes. Yet, a nation that cannot define freedom cannot defend freedom, and that includes, limiting itself to laws consistent with freedom. This erosion continues with every unchecked assertion thrown up by the existentially terrified enemies of freedom.

regards,

Fred

[Ellen Stuttle]

Statistics can only be two things:

Either they confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong.

That statement of course is nuts.

That's just your intellect talking... not your common sense.

What's talking here, your intellect or your common sense? Or is the statistic wrong? And if your common sense already knew the answer, why did you consult a poll?

Recent polls indicate that the Obodomites are beginning to realize what they did.

Greg

Also, you merely guess, and usually so far you've guessed wrongly, what my intellect and/or common sense tell me.

For instance:

But thanks for the chart.

Even you can't argue against that clearly overwhelming evidence.

Greg

I wasn't arguing against it. However, it isn't "clearly overwhelming evidence" for anything.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen:

From your link Review by a Michael Quante of a book about autonomy in biomedical ethics by Elisabeth Hildt

Although the diversity of subjects and methods gives the impression that neuro-medicine cannot be a unified subject of biomedical ethics we should revise this impression since in it we ultimately deal with the question, wer wir als Menschen sind, wie wir sein wollen und was wir akzeptieren können, wollen und sollten

Translated: since in it we ultimately deal with the question"who we are as human beings, as we want to be and what we can accept, want and should"

What I see in that is the aggressive political variant of my meta-definition of religion.

My meta-definition of religion: any pondering of the questions "Why am I here, and what am I supposed to be doing as a result of that?"

My definition does not assume there is a singular answer to those questions; as individuals, we all answer those questions implicitly; our individual answer is our individual life. To me, if and when any of us consciously ponder those questions then we are engaged in religion. Indistinguishable from philosophy? Precisely as it is in many university departmental taxonomies...

Some may freely, as in, under a model of free association, seek socius to ponder those questions, and accept group answers. Those are churches, plural, and long may they wave in freedom.

But note how subtly those questions can be aggressively politicized(as in, his assertion of what 'we' are about, above:) "Why are we here, and what are we supposed to be doing now as a result of that?" The implication is not the 'we' of this one of many churches, plural, but the 'should' for all of mankind. Religion as politics on the way to war.

It is a religious assertion that there is only one answer to those fundamental questions. The naked assertion of that leg-lifting 'we' -- that assertion would be applicable to a totalitarian theocracy.

I haven't had time yet to read either of the reviews by Michael Quante which I linked. I only quickly skimmed them. The impression I pick up is very much along the lines you're saying. Same from a couple other things of his I found. I think Quante is subtly pushing for state control of medical decisions, maybe even with a "eugenics" underlay.

I hadn't heard of him, and was curious to find out why a quote from him would be used in the endorsements for Against Autonomy. Presumably, his is a name that "those in the club" would recognize. Seems that he's got a substantial number of publications, and a large interest in biomedical ethics - as well as in Hegel, on whom he's written several books and multiple articles.

Ellen

PS: I'll be back with further comments next week. Haven't time today.

[moralist]

Statistics can only be two things:

Either they confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong.

That statement of course is nuts.

That's just your intellect talking... not your common sense.

What's talking here, your intellect or your common sense?

Common sense. Thoughts are not trustworthy, and emotions even less.

Or is the statistic wrong?

The statistic is undeniably correct, and affirms common sense. Although nowadays it's not so common, having been replaced by government institutionalized intellect worship.

And if your common sense already knew the answer, why did you consult a poll?

It wasn't for my sake, Ellen. It was for yours because you had requested it.

Recent polls indicate that the Obodomites are beginning to realize what they did.Greg

Also, you merely guess, and usually so far you've guessed wrongly, what my intellect and/or common sense tell me.

Obama has been losing the support of his left.

(creators. com)

March 2014

OBAMA IS LOSING HIS BASE

by Dick Morris

The polls this week are a disaster for Barack Obama. Scott Rasmussen has his approval dropping to 45 percent, after several weeks at 49 percent. John Zogby has it even lower — at 42 percent.

Beneath the superficial data lies even worse news for the president. Not only is he losing support, but he is losing his political base. Young people — under 30 — long a key element of his support, give him no better than break-even ratings with 41 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving of the job he is doing according to Zogby. And only 75 percent of Democrats, who have supported Obama strongly in the past, now approve of the job he is doing.

Zogby reports that this low approval by his fellow partisans represents a slide of more than 10 points over the summer. Even blacks are becoming tepid in their backing for Obama, with only 74 percent approving of the job he is doing (also a drop of more than 10 points). Hispanics, who voted for Obama by a margin of more than 40 points, now break even, 36-36, on their rating of his job in office.

Independents, the key swing group in our politics, now deliver a sharply negative 37-50 verdict on Obama's performance in office, and the elderly also give him negative ratings by 42-51.

Now that Obama, weakened with lower ratings, confronts his party in Congress, he has few good options.

He obviously cannot get 60 votes for his health care proposals in their current form. No Republican will support them, and it is unlikely that moderate Democrats will vote with him.

If he tries to pass the program with 50 votes using reconciliation procedures, he may also fail.

(snip)

[eva matthews]

Ellen:

From your link Review by a Michael Quante of a book about autonomy in biomedical ethics by Elisabeth Hildt

Although the diversity of subjects and methods gives the impression that neuro-medicine cannot be a unified subject of biomedical ethics we should revise this impression since in it we ultimately deal with the question, wer wir als Menschen sind, wie wir sein wollen und was wir akzeptieren können, wollen und sollten

Translated: since in it we ultimately deal with the question"who we are as human beings, as we want to be and what we can accept, want and should"

What I see in that is the aggressive political variant of my meta-definition of religion.

My meta-definition of religion: any pondering of the questions "Why am I here, and what am I supposed to be doing as a result of that?"

My definition does not assume there is a singular answer to those questions; as individuals, we all answer those questions implicitly; our individual answer is our individual life. To me, if and when any of us consciously ponder those questions then we are engaged in religion. Indistinguishable from philosophy? Precisely as it is in many university departmental taxonomies...

Some may freely, as in, under a model of free association, seek socius to ponder those questions, and accept group answers. Those are churches, plural, and long may they wave in freedom.

But note how subtly those questions can be aggressively politicized(as in, his assertion of what 'we' are about, above:) "Why are we here, and what are we supposed to be doing now as a result of that?" The implication is not the 'we' of this one of many churches, plural, but the 'should' for all of mankind. Religion as politics on the way to war.

It is a religious assertion that there is only one answer to those fundamental questions. The naked assertion of that leg-lifting 'we' -- that assertion would be applicable to a totalitarian theocracy.

I haven't had time yet to read either of the reviews by Michael Quante which I linked. I only quickly skimmed them. The impression I pick up is very much along the lines you're saying. Same from a couple other things of his I found. I think Quante is subtly pushing for state control of medical decisions, maybe even with a "eugenics" underlay.

I hadn't heard of him, and was curious to find out why a quote from him would be used in the endorsements for Against Autonomy. Presumably, his is a name that "those in the club" would recognize. Seems that he's got a substantial number of publications, and a large interest in biomedical ethics - as well as in Hegel, on whom he's written several books and multiple articles.

Ellen

PS: I'll be back with further comments next week. Haven't time today.

Uncle Fred,

You really need to get over this 'tribalism' thing of yours. It's a bad metaphor.

'Tribe' is the social organization that refers to a hunter-gatherer-milpa farming subsistence group. It's religions tend to be somewhat animistic--a worship of natural forces--for obvious reasons.

Lkiewise, group coherence is rigidly enforced. When you're out there on horseback trying to hunt down buffalo, everyone has a job to do.

Many large 'state' societies have been known to break down into tribals due to either positive or negative change in economic circumstance. For example, the Sioux broke down into tribalism with the arrival of the horse, thanks to the Spanish, ostensibly because riding a horse is more fun than extended farming.

Others, in Amazonia, were not so lucky, Huge cities were destroyed by the Spanish presence (garlic, germs, steel), thereby resulting in all the different groups known and loved by the anthros here at Dust Bunny U.

So the lack of individuality in the modern world has modern roots-- the question here being, to what exytent do we need to conform? That for its own sake only reinforces authority and power. By consequence, it's evil because it has no rational basis set within the context of economic survival.

EM

.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Greg,

Re post #40, you sure get things mixed up. Your infallible Conscience dictating, I suppose.

Note, the poll I was asking you about in the following questions is one you referred to on a different thread, not one you posted in response to a question from me.

What's talking here, your intellect or your common sense? Or is the statistic wrong? And if your common sense already knew the answer, why did you consult a poll?

Recent polls indicate that the Obodomites are beginning to realize what they did.

Greg

Ellen

[moralist]

Greg,

Re post #40, you sure get things mixed up. Your infallible Conscience dictating, I suppose.

Note, the poll I was asking you about in the following questions is one you referred to on a different thread, not one you posted in response to a question from me.

You expect a guy to read the mind of a female?

You need to be more clear in what you request. Specifically what were you asking?

I had said that the Obodomites are discovering what they did, and then I posted a Rasmussen chart of Obama's sagging support and quoted a Dick Morris article making the case that Obama is losing his leftist base.

Greg

[Ellen Stuttle]

You expect a guy to read the mind of a female?

I expect you to read what you yourself posted.

On March 9, at 12:33 am, you wrote on this thread:

Statistics can only be two things:

Either they confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong.

On March 9, at 3:47 pm, on the "layoff letter" thread, you wrote:

Recent polls indicate that the Obodomites are beginning to realize what they did.

I.e., first, in the morning of March 9, you say that unless statistics "confirm what you already know by your own common sense," they're wrong.

Then, in the afternoon of March 9, you consult statistics yourself.

Hence my questions:

"What's talking here, your intellect or your common sense? Or is the statistic wrong? And if your common sense already knew the answer, why did you consult a poll?"

Ellen

[moralist]

You expect a guy to read the mind of a female?

I expect you to read what you yourself posted.

On March 9, at 12:33 am, you wrote on this thread:

Statistics can only be two things:

Either they confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong.

On March 9, at 3:47 pm, on the "layoff letter" thread, you wrote:

Recent polls indicate that the Obodomites are beginning to realize what they did.

I.e., first, in the morning of March 9, you say that unless statistics "confirm what you already know by your own common sense," they're wrong.

Then, in the afternoon of March 9, you consult statistics yourself.

So what is your point? They only confirm what I already know by my own common sense? Kind of straining at a gnat aren't you?

Hence my questions:

"What's talking here, your intellect or your common sense? Or is the statistic wrong? And if your common sense already knew the answer, why did you consult a poll?"

Ellen

Again... the poll was only to confirmation the point I already know by common sense. It was only posted for your benefit and not mine, because you put more faith in polls more than in your own common sense.

Greg

[studiodekadent]

I don't understand how the thesis can be that individuals can make poor decisions so we must leave it up to other individuals to make the decisions for us??

That's because you're ignoring the fundamental assumption behind paternalistic policies:

"The rubes are unwashed, uneducated Fucking NASCAR Retards who need to be governed by people who know better."

There are both conservative and progressive versions of this (I use "progressive" because genuine "liberals" (even in the sense of "social liberals", ala Glenn Greenwald) do not share this assumption).

In essence, you're missing the fact that paternalism is based on elitism. We can't all be fathers because some of us are stupid kids.

Elitism is really what hollowed out the good parts of the American left... it killed their antiauthoritarian/countercultural streak. As a result, today's left bears zero resemblance to the socially tolerant, "sex, drugs, rock and roll, pro-choice, anti-war" beliefs of the 60's/70's American counterculture.

As for who we can blame... the US Progressive tradition has always embraced technocracy and elitism. We can also blame the Frankfurt School and Marxist "false consciousness" argumentation, which characterized the masses as dumb and easily-manipulated by mass media/advertising/etc. and thus had to be 'rescued' by their 'betters.'

[moralist]

Elitism is really what hollowed out the good parts of the American left...

I see that exactly the opposite.

Elitism can only exist with a general population of degenerates who are incapable of properly ordering their own lives. Contempt for the indecent is both earned and deserved.

Greg

[studiodekadent]

Elitism is really what hollowed out the good parts of the American left...

I see that exactly the opposite.

Elitism can only exist with a general population of degenerates who are incapable of properly ordering their own lives. Contempt for the indecent is both earned and deserved.

Greg

So you believe the anti-authoritarian, skeptical-of-the-state components of American liberalism are the BAD parts, and that the "I'm going to use the government to make you a better person" parts are the GOOD parts?

Frankly I disagree. There is no evidence at all that the moral character of human beings (in general) has gone down over time (the whole "what's the matter with kids these days?" thing started under Plato and has been consistently disproven by every successive generation.. in spite of the old religionist stasist neophobes claiming that Batman made kids gay and video games cause school shootings, civilization has not collapsed). The idea that the "general population" are degenerates is heinously prejudiced, and the idea that the general population are "incapable" of "properly ordering their own lives" is the enemy of the classical liberal, enlightenment individualist tradition.

Contempt for the contemptible is indeed deserved, but the majority of human beings do not deserve contempt. They may be mistaken on some issues, but they are not necessarily degenerates.

Throughout human history, elitism has ALWAYS been the enemy of freedom. Freedom (in the classical liberal sense, i.e. the libertarian sense) has always been the right to control your OWN life and live it on your OWN terms. It has always referred to a universal self-sovereignty. Elitism opposes this on both levels by being a particularist violation of self-sovereignty.

Even Ayn Rand was not, in fact, an 'elitist'. She wrote heroic novels but in her nonfiction works she displayed a great deal of confidence in the common man. She believed the common man was good, simply not philosophically informed. It should be noted that in both Fountainhead and Atlas, Rand's villains were members of the social elite. And she insisted on universal self-sovereignty.

Compare this to the Progressives who believe "enlightened intellectuals" should control society. Compare this to the Frankfurt Schoolers who believe pop music and TV shows and advertising indoctrinate people with false consciousness. Compare this to Feudalism's aristocracies.

Which tradition begins with "all men are created equal" and then says that as a result they have an equal right to their own lives on their own terms (the absolute liberty of all restrained by the like liberty of each), and which tradition begins by annointing "superior people" (whether that annointment is performed by a God or a specific university department is irrelevant) to control the lives of the Fucking NASCAR Retards?

Elitism is not our friend.

[Frediano]

Elitism is really what hollowed out the good parts of the American left...

I see that exactly the opposite.

Elitism can only exist with a general population of degenerates who are incapable of properly ordering their own lives. Contempt for the indecent is both earned and deserved.

Greg

So you believe the anti-authoritarian, skeptical-of-the-state components of American liberalism are the BAD parts, and that the "I'm going to use the government to make you a better person" parts are the GOOD parts?

Frankly I disagree. There is no evidence at all that the moral character of human beings (in general) has gone down over time (the whole "what's the matter with kids these days?" thing started under Plato and has been consistently disproven by every successive generation.. in spite of the old religionist stasist neophobes claiming that Batman made kids gay and video games cause school shootings, civilization has not collapsed). The idea that the "general population" are degenerates is heinously prejudiced, and the idea that the general population are "incapable" of "properly ordering their own lives" is the enemy of the classical liberal, enlightenment individualist tradition.

Contempt for the contemptible is indeed deserved, but the majority of human beings do not deserve contempt. They may be mistaken on some issues, but they are not necessarily degenerates.

Throughout human history, elitism has ALWAYS been the enemy of freedom. Freedom (in the classical liberal sense, i.e. the libertarian sense) has always been the right to control your OWN life and live it on your OWN terms. It has always referred to a universal self-sovereignty. Elitism opposes this on both levels by being a particularist violation of self-sovereignty.

Even Ayn Rand was not, in fact, an 'elitist'. She wrote heroic novels but in her nonfiction works she displayed a great deal of confidence in the common man. She believed the common man was good, simply not philosophically informed. It should be noted that in both Fountainhead and Atlas, Rand's villains were members of the social elite. And she insisted on universal self-sovereignty.

Compare this to the Progressives who believe "enlightened intellectuals" should control society. Compare this to the Frankfurt Schoolers who believe pop music and TV shows and advertising indoctrinate people with false consciousness. Compare this to Feudalism's aristocracies.

Which tradition begins with "all men are created equal" and then says that as a result they have an equal right to their own lives on their own terms (the absolute liberty of all restrained by the like liberty of each), and which tradition begins by annointing "superior people" (whether that annointment is performed by a God or a specific university department is irrelevant) to control the lives of the Fucking NASCAR Retards?

Elitism is not our friend.

Yes, and instead of holding PM telethons("Let's help Cass's Kids") for paternalistic megalomania, and treating its victims, we hold elections. We -could- hold elections without also making them the crack houses of PM, but that would require the realization that staffing the machinery of state is more like jury duty than American Idol. Jurors make life and death and liberty decisions over their peers every day, and we select the pool of jurors that we vet randomly from voter lists and so on. We still vet the pool, but that pool doesn't have the bias of being selected from that segment of our peers with a huge desire to make life and death and liberty decisions over their peers.

Not so for the political circus from which emerge our American Idol/Leader Maximus. The impetus that brings the clowns into the tent is the urge to rule others, and that results in a distinct bias in how we select our state plumbers, who we need to keep the plumbing of state clean and free flowing. They come into the process believing they are pursuing a scepter, not a plunger.

A "Let's Help Cass's Kids" PM telethon over Labor Day might help.

[Frediano]

Ellen:

From your link Review by a Michael Quante of a book about autonomy in biomedical ethics by Elisabeth Hildt

Although the diversity of subjects and methods gives the impression that neuro-medicine cannot be a unified subject of biomedical ethics we should revise this impression since in it we ultimately deal with the question, wer wir als Menschen sind, wie wir sein wollen und was wir akzeptieren können, wollen und sollten

Translated: since in it we ultimately deal with the question"who we are as human beings, as we want to be and what we can accept, want and should"

What I see in that is the aggressive political variant of my meta-definition of religion.

My meta-definition of religion: any pondering of the questions "Why am I here, and what am I supposed to be doing as a result of that?"

My definition does not assume there is a singular answer to those questions; as individuals, we all answer those questions implicitly; our individual answer is our individual life. To me, if and when any of us consciously ponder those questions then we are engaged in religion. Indistinguishable from philosophy? Precisely as it is in many university departmental taxonomies...

Some may freely, as in, under a model of free association, seek socius to ponder those questions, and accept group answers. Those are churches, plural, and long may they wave in freedom.

But note how subtly those questions can be aggressively politicized(as in, his assertion of what 'we' are about, above:) "Why are we here, and what are we supposed to be doing now as a result of that?" The implication is not the 'we' of this one of many churches, plural, but the 'should' for all of mankind. Religion as politics on the way to war.

It is a religious assertion that there is only one answer to those fundamental questions. The naked assertion of that leg-lifting 'we' -- that assertion would be applicable to a totalitarian theocracy.

I haven't had time yet to read either of the reviews by Michael Quante which I linked. I only quickly skimmed them. The impression I pick up is very much along the lines you're saying. Same from a couple other things of his I found. I think Quante is subtly pushing for state control of medical decisions, maybe even with a "eugenics" underlay.

I hadn't heard of him, and was curious to find out why a quote from him would be used in the endorsements for Against Autonomy. Presumably, his is a name that "those in the club" would recognize. Seems that he's got a substantial number of publications, and a large interest in biomedical ethics - as well as in Hegel, on whom he's written several books and multiple articles.

Ellen

PS: I'll be back with further comments next week. Haven't time today.

Uncle Fred,

You really need to get over this 'tribalism' thing of yours. It's a bad metaphor.

'Tribe' is the social organization that refers to a hunter-gatherer-milpa farming subsistence group. It's religions tend to be somewhat animistic--a worship of natural forces--for obvious reasons.

Lkiewise, group coherence is rigidly enforced. When you're out there on horseback trying to hunt down buffalo, everyone has a job to do.

Many large 'state' societies have been known to break down into tribals due to either positive or negative change in economic circumstance. For example, the Sioux broke down into tribalism with the arrival of the horse, thanks to the Spanish, ostensibly because riding a horse is more fun than extended farming.

Others, in Amazonia, were not so lucky, Huge cities were destroyed by the Spanish presence (garlic, germs, steel), thereby resulting in all the different groups known and loved by the anthros here at Dust Bunny U.

So the lack of individuality in the modern world has modern roots-- the question here being, to what exytent do we need to conform? That for its own sake only reinforces authority and power. By consequence, it's evil because it has no rational basis set within the context of economic survival.

EM

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Eva:

re: You really need to get over this 'tribalism' thing of yours.

And of course, by the projection of that young emperor-in-training imperative, what you meant to convey is the fact that I really don't need to do any such thing. What you meant to convey is, you don't like the metaphor for mobbed up herd mentality collectivism/group think, the tribe uber alles.

Well no shit.

The 'anthros' at my Dust Bunny U. were nothing short of hilarious. They were the ones trying to hard sell me the insight that the film "Nanook of the North" was all about the devastation of capitalism ravaging the soul of mankind. The emperor-in-locus in my case always showed up to precept wearing a disconnected 35mm SLR lens strung around his neck with a multicolored string/lanyard. Often, i the middle of one of his Marxist tirades, he would be so overcome with his urge to project his art that he would stop suddenly, grab the lens, and jarringly frame the reality around him, as if he was Godard --dammit -- setting up the next shot in his opus grande, "How I saved the World From These Nascent Little RatCake Capitalists By Feeding Them My Bullshit."

Some of the chicks thought he was really 'groovy' when he did that. And some of the guys. It probably got him laid, even though he was kind of a sad sack chubber. Bless his little heart.

Armand Hill was in that class; it was his major. He played some great basketball.

Love to hear more about the anthros at your Dust Bunny U. Right after I watch ESPN. March Madness is coming up, and that memory of Armand Hill, the anthro, reminded me.

Oncle F.