zantonavitch

This whole business of appeasing evil and surrendering free speech to the world's ultra-weak foreign dictators began with Salman Rushdie and his novel The Satanic Verses in 1989. The almost militarily-defenseless tyranny of Iran dared to issue open death threats to Rushdie [ironic name!], and Britain and America did essentially nothing to punish this outrage. Since then the Muslims have done a lot more censorship, such as the t'v' show South Park blanking out of Mohammad's image in 2010, and those highly-threatened Danish cartoons of Mohammad in 2006. Regarding this last, most U.S. newspapers were too cowardly to run them, including The New York Times. This is all an open invitation to enslavement.

Now the communists of North Korea are getting into the act. They even dared to steal millions of dollars of movie property, as well as a trove of private email communications. How soon before the far more powerful Russians and Chinese realize how pathetic and vulnerable America and the West really are?

This will never end. It's simply not possible to abandon principle and appease evil enough. No matter how submissive and pathetic we are -- no matter how much we surrender all our honor, pride, and self-esteem -- the demands for censorship will continue on to infinity. Either America and the West stand up for ourselves at some point, or all of our freedom of speech -- and much more -- will get surrendered to the forces of tyranny and evil.

This is pretty much the most minimal and fraudulent "crime" ever. Even watching the current movie The Interview with Seth Rogan and James Franco would be essentially a very light and trivial phenomenon. Why hasn't the whole world invaded North Korea and executed all of their absurdist ultra-monster leaders?

Does America have any pride or honor or self-respect?

North Korea has, in effect, just declared war on the United States. The moment we discovered the true identities of the Sony computer hackers, and the new-9/11 threateners, we should have bombed 5 of their movie studios and 50 of their movie theaters out of existence. Better yet, all of the dictatorial leadership's homes and offices should have been destroyed, along with 10 of their best communist party headquarters, and all of their nuclear weapons facilities.

There should be an immediate special White House screening and super-gala, featuring the movie The Interview, with all of the film's stars and makers. There should also be many government-sponsored movie shorts instantly created showing Kim Dung-un and company getting killed, tortured, raped, and humiliated beyond all endurance.

North Korea should also be swamped with an ocean of ultra-powerful offshore radio and t'v' broadcasts mocking and insulting communism, tyranny, the Great Leader, the Dear Leader, and the current noxious insect Fuhrer. That slave state should also be carpet-bombed with millions of computer memory sticks showing the whole movie which instigated this event, dubbed into Korean, plus the subtitled original version. It should end with a two-second clip of President Obama telling Kim Dung-un: "Go fuck yourself!"

This is war. America should defend itself.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jeb-bush-actively-explore-possibility-running-president/story?id=27633330

Another low-grade destroyer of liberty, America, and the world. Jeb Bush is like Mitt Romney and John McCain -- another Republican who has essentially zero belief in libertarianism. We have at least some hope with Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee.

I think there's a lot of sexual malfunction and unhappiness in Western society today. The predator and assailant Bill Cosby seems to have gotten a ton of women in his time. On the one hand, Good Guys today fail to seduce women at a rate anywhere near Cosby. On the other hand, Good Women let themselves be seduced by the likes of him in giant numbers. And drugged and raped. And then they don't complain about it for 40 years. Everyone loses -- decent men and decent women. The only triumphant figure is the fiend and monster Bill Cosby (and Mike Tyson, William Kennedy Smith, Bill Clinton, etc). With this near universal sexual failure, men and women today strike me as morons and lowlifes.

Just a drive-by post ignorant and uninterested in the context created by the thread. It is also full of garbage assumptions--garbage as yet to be shown--so far a bunch of feeding frenzy allegations and even blame the victim. "Men and women today" caps off this noxious nonsense. There are billions of them, don't you know?

--Brant

Agreed. Lots of BS smuggled into one short post.

The Bill Cosby incident doesn't say a lot about the unhealthiness and unhappiness of the philosophy, psychology, and culture of sexuality in Western Society today? Current thinking on this subject seems way off to me. It's part and parcel of today's ugly, slanderous, and badly-misguided campaign against "rape culture" on America's colleges. We're a long way from rationality and truth on all of this.

An outstanding psychologist and philosopher who made many important intellectual discoveries, and who made the world a notably better and happier place!

I think there's a lot of sexual malfunction and unhappiness in Western society today. The predator and assailant Bill Cosby seems to have gotten a ton of women in his time. On the one hand, Good Guys today fail to seduce women at a rate anywhere near Cosby. On the other hand, Good Women let themselves be seduced by the likes of him in giant numbers. And drugged and raped. And then they don't complain about it for 40 years. Everyone loses -- decent men and decent women. The only triumphant figure is the fiend and monster Bill Cosby (and Mike Tyson, William Kennedy Smith, Bill Clinton, etc). With this near universal sexual failure, men and women today strike me as morons and lowlifes.

Selene -- That Milton Friedman video in post #42 seems to emphatically agree with me. The 1960s "Great Society" expansion of the Welfare State and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 combine to produce low-quality immigrants which radically degrade the quality of America.

This is black racism, pure and simple. But virtually everyone is afraid to note and condemn it. Both whites and blacks evade the issue at great length with tricky lies.

Altho' it's hard to generalize, prior to the nightmarish Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 America's immigrants were mostly high-quality, entrepreneurial types. Since then, it's been the opposite. And the United States has been simply transformed. Look at the demographics. I think the current illegal immigrants are even worse for the country. And they and their citizen offspring heavily vote anti-freedom and anti-capitalism; their political ideals are mostly socialism and Big Brother.

Amnesty for five million low-quality, religious, altruistic, socialist, racist, anti-American, ungrateful parasites who promise to take out via public services and welfare benefits far more than they ever put in via taxes. How does this help the country?

Progress is the result of the activities of the intellectual and moral elite -- not the masses.

What does that mean?

And what did you mean by "the Holy Individual?"

Philosophy and powerful thinkers rule the world. And people shouldn't worship or serve the gods or masses.

Mankind has always been doomed and probably deserves to be, by your reckoning?

All living creatures, human beings, and the Holy Individual tend to ascend. But this improvement always seems to be a matter of "two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one..."

Progress is the result of the activities of the intellectual and moral elite -- not the masses. The massman seems to be permanently ignorant and depraved: a kind of low animal usually given over to the lowest common denominator. By themselves they seem doomed, and like they deserve this fate.

If this is really the philosophy and level of understanding of America's best students, then mankind is doomed. And it deserves to be.

REVIEW

Ethics

I can recommend this section while disagreeing with an awful lot and seeing its confirming religious tone and stricture. Rand's Objectivist Ethics is much more complete and substantial, though in itself quite incomplete and too inclusive. I expected a lot more here but there's still a lot to think about in only twelve pages, for the author's specialty is condensation. What's to think most about is the overall gross deficiency of this section. Ethics are the heart of Objectivism as presented by Rand. Not here.

--Brant

note: there's a lot of religious tone and stricture in Objectivism too

Ah, a briefly positive remark from Brant in his first sentence! And yes, one of my specialities is condensation/conciseness. But it may well be that this section was too short, as noted. Only 9 of 99 mini-essays in my book deal with ethics (altho' many not in this section do range around, and touch upon it for sure). I'm a political junkie. Rand too probably excessively wrote about politics. This subject is admittedly something which the individual can't do a lot about, and where new knowledge doesn't much benefit him. But ethics, in contrast, is something which the individual strongly controls in his life, and can directly gain from.

Still, I'm proud of my pointing out the limits of the examined life and of compassion. Never read that before from an Objectivist! And my Ten Commandments were meant for all people for all time. If anyone can point out a better list from someone else, or can add and subtract a few dictates from mine, I'd be grateful. And no, I don't always live up to them myself.

As elsewhere, many of these short, hard-hitting, fearless essays constitute a gloss on Objectivist, classical liberal, and Helleno-Roman theory -- not a specific agreement or disagreement. My approach to these issues is unique, and I hope helpful, and food for thought.

But I still think this book evidences a ferocious and unyielding pursuit of the truth -- not a religious tone as suggested above. Not like Rand and the cult "Objectivists." My approach and style is different.

I truly like studying the difficult and controversial issues, and I do so in a manner which isn't merely "politically incorrect," but "philosophically incorrect" too. I wish the reviewer had spent more time citing actual sentences which he thought mistaken in analysis. Perhaps he could have corrected my errors.

REVIEW

Metaphysics and Epistemology

Reality exists. Man using reason learns of and knows reality both generally and in many particulars.

You can claw this information out of this section of Mr. Zantonavitch's book or you can read the above two sentences. Better yet, read Ayn Rand.

Do not read this book to learn about axioms. I found it confusing and obscuring.

So far, no footnotes, same as Rand, so we aren't going to be dealing with scholarship but a fountainhead of thinking.

--Brant

It may seem as if this section of the book features simple, direct reason and clear, solid common sense regarding reason and reality, thinking and truth. And in most respects that's accurate. But it isn't remotely copied from Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, or Rand. I wrote it without research, or referring back to any of these powerful liberal thinkers. I just tried to make it true and relatively wide-ranging, without specifically attempting to go beyond them (usually), or contradict them (usually), or reconfirm them. I simply dealt with the issues regarding truth-determination which seemed to be most important: foundational epistemology with a bit of metaphysics inevitably throw in.

If it almost all seems to be obviously true, that's only because I made it so. I say many things Rand doesn't. And even when I agree, I say it rather differently (sometimes deliberately). Hopefully this is helpful to the would-be pure liberal. And hopefully it quietly devastates my sworn enemies of Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel.

My epistemology is a lot easier to follow along with than Rand's. So my 10 pages constitute a kind of gloss on her 150. Not a specific agreement or disagreement.

It may be worth noting that most of this stuff was written in a kind of fury. I truly despise thse two subjects. I figure all "metaphysicians" are liars, and so too pretty much all epistemologists. All fatuous double-talkers and empty, pretentious, blow-hard know-nothings. All scamsters and monsters. You're a fool if you ever read along, or give them any credence or respect. They'll ruin your life in a heartbeat.

I'm a little disturbed at the way this section was reviewed: so briefly, alas!; and all grouped together into one piece. This section of the book features four essays which are rather conventional (by my standards), but which ferociously attempt to cut to the chase regarding all of truth -- all of reason and reality. But the last two mini-essays are historical. I point out exactly how epistemology goes wrong, naming names. And I identify the root of all evil. No other famous philosopher or Objectivist has done this. It would have been interesting to see if Brant agreed or disagreed!

The reviewer concludes with: "So far, no footnotes, same as Rand, so we aren't going to be dealing with scholarship but a fountainhead of thinking." Exactly! Or so I hope.

REVIEW Pure Liberal Fire by Kyrel Zantonavitch

Introduction

The author claims to be a "pure liberal -- the only one on this earth." This is the "new and perfected version of classical liberalism."

I'll take his word for it. I'll not examine whether he's a megalomaniac, deluded or objectively truthful. I don't care. I'm not interested in perfection regardless. I'll simply examine these ideas of his which are not exclusive to him as a person. I do point out, however, that from being the only one to the existence of others of this ilk only takes a few more paragraphs. This is not a good portent. The first paragraph needs to be rewritten to get rid of the contradiction. Or the other paragraph, if the author hates any intimation of modesty.

Not yet enough reason to buy this book, but the review has only just started. So far it is a set up for a religious tract, a notion of which I hope to be quickly disabused.

Instead of reviewing this book essay by essay--there are 98 of them--I will review it section by section, of which there are eight. Next review will be on "Metaphysics and Epistemology." Look for it by this weekend or even by tomorrow.

--Brant

To my way of thinking, the philosophy and culture of Western liberalism began with the Greeks 2600 years ago. Along with science, they invented the rudiments of the epistemology of reason, ethics of individualism, and politics of freedom. Their lifestyle was far the richest and best to-date. The Romans improved Greek thought somewhat. Then came skepticism of reason, religious domination, and a Dark Age. The Italian and European Renaissance brought back liberal philosophy and culture, and even advanced them slightly, in my view. The European Enlightenment did even better. Then came more skepticism of reason, socialist domination, and the current Dark Age. But the Austrian economists fought back against this, as did the ultra-genius Ayn Rand, and their libertarian off-shoots. That's where we are today.

But even Rand wasn't 100% committed to, or convinced by, the epistemology of reason, ethics of individualism, and politics of freedom. Epistemologically she was a scientific skeptic who doubted relativity, evolution, and the Big Bang. And she created a semi-cult. All of this violates reason, and thus liberalism. Ethically, she wanted loyalist followers more than independent friends, and created a semi-cult. This violates individualism, and thus liberalism. Politically, she believed in coercive subpoenas, libel censorship, and couldn't fund gov't without forcible taxation. This violates freedom, and thus liberalism. So she and her philosophic followers fall a bit short of meeting the immensely high Liberal Standard. I don't.

Hence the arrogance and megalomania of calling myself a "pure liberal -- the only one on this earth." It seems to be true! But strong, careful, independent, free-thinking Objectivists aren't all that inferior. Especially if they've read and absorbed my book.

I think the world has been ascending towards liberal philosophy and culture for 30 years now. Quietly, the planet is experiencing a Second Renaissance. This includes the thinking of the conservatives, progressives, Austrians, libertarians, and Objectivists. Even the Christians, Muslims, Chinese, and Indians. So sometimes in my book I write as if the New Liberals are already here.

I write with a lot of fire, fury, and fervor. So I've been told. Seems normal to me, believe it or not. I just try to write in an energetic and non-dull manner. I'm not sure why everyone is so afraid of me. But I hope the supposed "religious" tenure identified above is that of an intellectual revolutionary -- not a religious fanatic. Religion is a very false and evil version of philosophy. It gains its power and fervor via emotion and craziness -- not rational persuasiveness. This last is my goal. If people think my book has too much passion in it, I hope they'll ignore all that, and just focus on the reasoned arguments offered inside.

My thanks to Brant Gaede for his review of my book! I'll try to address his various points when I decently can.

Trying to find the time....each essay needs the same attention as a longer one would and there are so many of them

Gotta give me something specific and solid. Something I can work with. Even a single sentence you (or anyone else) think false, or consider mere unproven assertion, would help!

No one compels anyone to be a follower of any philosophy. It is a matter of choice. If you believe in Free Will then you cannot blame a philosopher for the folly of those who follow him (if his philosophy is defective).

But I do. Ideas matter. False ideas hurt. Evil philosophers cause evil in the world. Even long after they're dead.

Kant died in 1804. He is not responsible for anything that happened thereafter. If you want to blame people blame his followers.

Does responsibility for one's writings end at death? Is no-one responsible for their intellectual legacy, neither good nor bad? Doesn't their powerful impact continue, and their profound ideas live on? I think the world is a far, far better place today for all the writings of the philosophical liberals of the past 2600 years. I think humanity is vastly uplifted -- and life is much sweeter today -- due to the good works and true writings of Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Smith, Voltaire, Jefferson, Mises, Hayek, and Rand. Too bad they didn't do even better, and there weren't even more of them!

Kyrel's book, with its hundred plus 98 essays, needs a hundred 98 plus expansions. Many of those won't withstand that and go "poof," but so what? I strongly expect many will live long and prosper, but not if left in their present form strewn across the landscape like so many abandoned babies crying out for their mothers' comfort and milk.

Brant -- Which are the five or ten -- or at least two or three -- mini-essays which need the most expansion? Which are the ones most crying out for mother's comfort and milk? It would help me if you could state something specific and clear. I'm virtually certain I can provide some solid expatiation here.

I hope nitwit lowlife Binswanger is celebrating all these new immigrants over at his closely-censored discussion forum. The short-term and long-term cost to America -- financial, political, and cultural -- is going to be enormous.

Neither Kant nor any philosopher is the most evil man in history. Ideas move the world, but evil has not required the service of philosophy for its ideas. Neither Napoleon nor Stalin nor Hilter needed Kant’s ideas to win their ancient evils. Moreover, as Eichmann had to admit, when it came to the mass murders, he knew damn well that that was contrary Kant’s imperative to treat people as ends in themselves. Kant was not a proponent of irrationality (nor of enthusiasm in religion). He was a champion of reason so far as he comprehended it. He was a champion of modern science. He is difficult, but he is not talking gibberish. Your quote of his infamous remark about the crooked timber of humanity was a conception of human nature not one whit worse than was taught from Luther to every child in his or her catechism instruction (whether Lutheran, Pietist, or Reformed), and it was Luther and the teachings of the Bible that was, at least to WWII, the far greater influence, good and bad, on the people making war and death camps.

I have immense respect for Stephen Boydstun. He seems considerably smarter and better educated than myself. I certainly welcome his contribution to the discussion. And yet...I just don't agree with a large part of the above view regarding the power of ideas in human history and practical affairs. In my judgment:

Philosophy rules the world. Political leaders don't. Not even great kings, powerful dictators, or highly persuasive and beloved prime ministers and presidents.

However powerful these political leaders may seem, they are almost slaves to the ideological theories in their head, with minimal room to innovate, deviate, operate, and maneuver. They have little free will available to exercise. And their interior, driving philosophy is almost always the most prominent and dominant belief in that part of the world. Deep thinkers pretty much control all.

As Ayn Rand frequently said: "Ideas matter." [1] And as John Maynard Keynes once observed: "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." [2] Especially a philosophical scribbler.

Heinrich Heine predicted Adolf Hitler more than a century before this dictator ever presided over the destruction of a large part of our planet. Heine stated resonantly: "Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder [will cause] a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history.... At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll." [3]

Hitler is widely hated as a monster and destroyer beyond compare. And yet he was also a silly twit and goofball who in many senses had no real authority or power. For all his unchallenged political and military command, Hitler was a contemptible little twerp, not respected by a single person of quality, who in many regards had essentially no impact upon the world. The theories and ideals of fascism, socialism, nationalism, altruism, self-sacrifice, etc. badly hurt the peoples of the world. Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, and the other Nazi leaders mostly didn't.

Similarly, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad -- with all their false and evil ideas and values -- did tremendous damage to the planet during the WW II era. And the deep-thinking Germans Immanuel Kant, Johann Fichte, Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx did even more.

The 20^th century horrors nominally perpetrated by the virtually impotent government leaders of fascism and socialism -- by the tyrannical rulers of Germany, Japan, Russia, and China -- couldn't have happened without the ideology, and mental evil, upon which these material horrors were founded. Nor, on the other hand, could these physical nightmares have been much avoided. Philosophy dictated the course of events.

However good or bad individual government leaders are, they have little impact upon their nations and the world, whether for good or ill. They are overwhelmingly the playthings of the most pervasive and dominant ideology of their place and time.

However odd it may seem at first glance, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao -- along with Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Osama bin Laden -- were not orginal actors. They were much more like puppets on a string. They were almost entirely dominated, and ordered about, by the obscure, behind-the-curtains intellectuals. Thus these fiends never really hurt the world.

But as for the profound, powerful, influential, all-controlling philosophers of the anti-Enlightenment, Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Hegel -- they damaged the hell out of mankind! And the terrible, almost-phantomless pain continues still.

Henry David Thoreau once noted: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." [4] I strike at the root.

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

[1] The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, Ayn Rand, 1971

[2] The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes, 1936

[3] The History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, Heinrich Heine, 1834

[4] Walden, Henry David Thoreau, 1854