CAPITULATION IS NOT AN OPTION. Never negotiate with the devil. Jesus already ransomed Himself for our salvation. We win by getting out of God’s way in this eternal war.
Interesting stream of consciousness prose poem, Mathew; not sure what to make of it but Gertrude Himmelfarb's work on Victorian mores, manners and morals and Norbert Elias’s “The Civilizing Process” come to mind.
As a Voluntaryist, your meme “Statism: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory” was a pleasant surprise. Does this mean you are a Voluntaryist too? www.voluntaryist.com That would be a rare find on Substack.
Add this to your anti-Statist cache:
“Statism: the brilliant idea that we give a small group of people the right to kidnap, steal from, and kill us, so that we can be ‘protected’ from people who kidnap, steal from, and kill us.” Author Unknown
I cannot understand most of what you have written here. Can you translate this for me?:
“That's because you've been trained to think of it all wrong. Honor and etiquette are
at the root of the struggle between freedom and totalitarianism. Correctly framed,
they are technology that allowed for the scaling of healthy community.”
This seems to me mainly post-modern haze to amaze: concealing as revealing—palliative prose.
What central idea do you want me to understand here?
Thanks ahead for the clarification.
You seem concerned regarding war and children, so if you have not read Lloyd deMause and his Psychohistory gathering, I invite you to: www.psychohistory.com The title of his last book downloadable free on this website says it concisely: “The Origins of War in Child Abuse.” A series of his quotes that I hope will draw you to him:
“The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care. The source of most human violence and suffering has been a hidden children's holocaust throughout history, whereby billions of innocent human beings have been routinely murdered, bound, starved, raped, mutilated, battered, and tortured by their parents and other caregivers, so that they grow up as emotionally crippled adults and become vengeful time bombs who periodically restage their early traumas in sacrificial rites called wars. The evolution of the psyche is first of all accomplished by removing terrible abuses of children and their resulting developmental distortions, allowing the psyche to produce historical novelty and achieve its own inherent human growth path. Culture evolves through the increase of love and freedom for children. Can we afford not to teach parenting? What more important task can we devote our resources to? History is now a race between too slowly improving childrearing and too fast evolving destructive technology. The crucial task of future generations will be to raise loved children who grow up to be peaceful, rather than walking time bombs. Self-mastery must replace the mastery of others. Global suicide must not continue to be our goal.” Lloyd deMause
Robert Heinlein wrote that good manners are like oil for an engine. Yes it runs without oil for a bit. But if you don't want it to seize up or fly apart, try some lubricant between the parts. In the same analogy, rudeness is like throwing sand into the engine. Again it might still go, but it might fail and need an overhaul. I don't have my books with me but it's prolly in the Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
One of my education questions is how much oversight of children is needed. How much risk should children be allowed? If a family only has one or two children, the parents can hardly afford to allow much risk. But with 12 children, more risk can be tolerated and allow the line to propagate. I'm not discounting the tragedy of parents burying their children, but it's a benefit to humanity to have more people who have high survival rates and reproduction rates.
Ok, I hope your ball park is built on the foundation of the Non-Aggression Principle by which I mean, any and all use of first physical force or direct threat of force (except to save a person from unintentional physical harm) is immoral which then makes all governments immoral? The best explanation I have found for the Voluntaryist position is “The Philosophy of Liberty”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GazZBvHhgQ&t=5s
If you have not watched it (8 minutes) I hope you will and come away a high Voluntaryist.
Attaching honor and etiquette to voluntaryism moves it away from simple anarchism and non-productive chaos toward self discipline, responsibility, consideration of others, and the "consent of the governed."
Voluntaryism sounds good but doesn't work well in practice, like communism. On "Survivor," for example, some group members laze around and let others do the work. As another example, what if Canada invaded - they've been eyeing our beaches for some time - and no one volunteered to defend the beaches?
As for post-modern hazing, I don't know what that is.
Anarchism is not defined by chaos. It is defined by a lack of institutional servitude. Leaping to chaos as a conclusion puts the cart before the horse.
That would be Anarchism, but Anarchy is defined one way as "a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority or other controlling systems."
Anarchy would strictly imply no self governance either, due to "disorder," "absence," and "other controlling systems."
On the other hand, as a political term, anarchy implies no official governance and also as chaos in the utter absence of order. I don't think there can ever be an utter absence of order, although "anarchism" does devolve into chaos occasionally, as in mob rule and may exhibit an utter disregard of both political and personal order.
Consider ten starving people on a life raft. Who gets eaten first? Personal freedom within a rule structure works best for most because people do not consistently make universal decisions that are best for all.
As for myself, rules and laws and signs and authorities do not apply to me. I am above the law.
As a responsible anarchist, I believe only in the Golden Rule.
But I take your point as being more correct than not.
Your reply precisely and ironically, fits my description that you did not understand: “post-modern hazing”.
This is my punny (haze means both mistily obscure/confused as well as to harass/confound), and I hope pithy, phrase that is meant to express my exasperation and mix of amazement and amusement that arises when I read your words or those of Matthew’s in this article I began commenting on.
Both of your writings I term “post-modern” by which I mean either intentionally or unintentionally, obfuscatory and confused and without much meaning.
Your words are a perfect example of “post-modern hazing”:
“Attaching honor and etiquette to voluntaryism moves it away from simple anarchism”
WHAT IS SIMPLE ANARCHISM? AND HOW CAN HONOR AND ETTIQUETTE MOVE IT AWAY FROM WHATEVER THIS IS?
“and non-productive chaos toward self discipline, consideration of others, and the "consent of the governed."
WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO ARTICULATE HERE, IT MAKES NO SENSE?
Voluntaryism sounds good but doesn't work well in practice, like communism.
WHAT!? EVERY DAY I ASSUME YOU FREELY TRADE WITH SOMEONE TO OBTAIN YOUR FOOD AND SHELTER RATHER THAN STEAL IT AS COMMUNISM DOES?
On "Survivor," for example, some group members laze around and let others do the work.
VOLUNTARYISM MEANS YOU TAKE RESPONSIBLY FOR YOUR OWN SUPPORT.
As another example, what if Canada invaded - they've been eyeing our beaches for some time - and no one volunteered to defend the beaches?
READ “THE MARKET FOR LIBERTY” TO FIND PLAUSIBLE SCENARIOS OF VOLUNTARY PROTECTION COLLECTIVES FREE DOWNLOAD
"Antisocial personality disorder is sometimes identified interchangeably as sociopathy or psychopathy. Research suggests that 4% of the population is "sociopathic," and 5-15% is “almost psychopathic."
"Our society is moving in the direction of permitting, reinforcing, and in some cases actually valuing some of the traits listed in the Psychopathy Checklist.” —Robert Hare
The Book of Genesis announces humans are made in the image of God, however, techno/fascist pyschos intend to modify that image so it reflects their own psychopathic misanthropic self. 🙀
The eternal spiritual battle continues... Just a thought from an agnostic.
I've been thinking along similar lines for my next episode but maybe with some important differences. What Davids Graeber and Wengrow talk about in their book, The Dawn of Everything, is that most people who weren't in arm's reach of the potentate (which they tried to not be) just ignored the edicts. Because there was no mechanism of enforcement. What a top-down hierarchy does is put in a way that everyone needs to, not just follow the king, but second-guess what would be most pleasing. That's how the pyramid of bootlickers stomps on everyone below to get to the top.
So the advice from Moses' FiL, the Pharaoh, aka God, is good for him but not so much for everyone else. If Moses is too busy to settle every dispute, some might leave him out of them, especially if he's so arbitrary neither side knows which way it could go.
I haven't put on Substack yet my research showing that Abraham was the mercenary warlord Abdi-Ashirta, represented as a jackal because he put down sovereignty rebellions in order to poach the Pharaoh's lands from the vassal lords. Genesis ends with Joseph, the multicolored turncoat, stealing the seed from the peasant farmers for the Pharaoh's granaries, as the pyramids were called. Instead of giving it back, he induces a famine that turns them all into indentured servants, pledging their livestock, land, labor and children in perpetuity.
Was it the slaves or the rulers who were kicked out of Egypt? How did they have enough gold to make a statue of a cow? I think the story we've been told is inside-out. The heroes were really the villains and the villains were the heroes.
Good food for thought here, but the biggest piece of this is the undermining of objective truth, especially as it relates to morality. As we have wandered down this path (not randomly, there is of course a highly orchestrated process occurring) of "your truth isn't MY truth" & where we ALL get to make up our own gender, what is left to base true connection/relationship/society upon?
I will be posting soon on this issue in some detail. As we have left the foundation of Christian morality in this ... former Republic ... we lack any true north. As John Mellencamp sang "if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything."
Interesting point, because 'tolerance' in itself demands moral relativism as it claims that all moral values have to be "tolerated". But that is self-defeating because I can say "Well, MY moral values condemn tolerance!" So what is the response? If the person pushes back against my view, he/she is being INTOLERANT of my belief.
The real problem is that logic & critical thinking are no longer embraced or even taught in school, so any sort of nonsense like this gets passed off as being 'thoughtful & progressive.' I hope this makes sense, I just wasted the past few hours doing my taxes and I'm a little bit nuts from trying to find ways to NOT pay the PrintingPress.gov any more than absolutely necessary ;)
I disagree that the OT story shows good advice from Moses's father in law. It is not that it's not good to spread out the governance to the local level, but having Moses choose all those judges is still top down governance. People have to choose their own local judges before there is effective governance. Government has to be bottom up to be effective.
I believe in bottom-up governance, too. But during a moment when people are centralizing their focus, attention, and hope, the step of putting the power back to them seems like a good first step.
Wow, such a good essay. Saved to bookmarks so I can re-read it.
Edit: Is sociopathy and/or psychopathy the great filter of the human species? Will we overcome it and thrive or succumb and disappear thus finally solving the Fermi paradox?
My best explanation for psychopathy is that the tribe generally needed one for certain circumstances, but that the elders needed to control the psychopath and not give him too much authority. But there was escape velocity of psychopaths in the modern world with untethered corporations and other sieves for psychopathy, so they essentially took over. Sociopaths are those who celebrate the psychopaths in order to rise in their networks. They are not wise enough not to promote them, and become themselves more psychopathic through experience.
No, I don't think this solves the Fermi paradox. I think that humanity will find a way, Bitcoin or otherwise, to bring the tribe home again.
We will not overcome it as long as there are people (sheeple) out there chastising us as "haters" for fighting back. I had that honor for responding that these actions are unforgivable and need be punished. Only the demise of evil will save us.
And thinking of unwarranted chiefs, here is something that irritates me (Mark Steyn too): politicians out of office retaining their office designations. President Bush... Secretary Clinton... Senator Leahy... etc. US version of English peerage. Dukes, Earls and the whole lot. Not for me. They are all either Mr, Mrs or Miss... just like me.
Way back when some of us were committed to netiquette, bringing some manners to online exchanges. It was supposed to reduce flame wars. Might have. Hard to say.
Building a civilisation (we should!) is easier if people adopt civilised behaviour.
Well written, Matt. People are too easily played. The devil knows how to exploit vice.
dont give up
CAPITULATION IS NOT AN OPTION. Never negotiate with the devil. Jesus already ransomed Himself for our salvation. We win by getting out of God’s way in this eternal war.
As our favorite psychopath famously said "Humans are hackable animals". No, surprisingly, not Bill Gates. Yuval Noah Harari.
Do not comply.
Interesting stream of consciousness prose poem, Mathew; not sure what to make of it but Gertrude Himmelfarb's work on Victorian mores, manners and morals and Norbert Elias’s “The Civilizing Process” come to mind.
As a Voluntaryist, your meme “Statism: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory” was a pleasant surprise. Does this mean you are a Voluntaryist too? www.voluntaryist.com That would be a rare find on Substack.
Add this to your anti-Statist cache:
“Statism: the brilliant idea that we give a small group of people the right to kidnap, steal from, and kill us, so that we can be ‘protected’ from people who kidnap, steal from, and kill us.” Author Unknown
I cannot understand most of what you have written here. Can you translate this for me?:
“That's because you've been trained to think of it all wrong. Honor and etiquette are
at the root of the struggle between freedom and totalitarianism. Correctly framed,
they are technology that allowed for the scaling of healthy community.”
This seems to me mainly post-modern haze to amaze: concealing as revealing—palliative prose.
What central idea do you want me to understand here?
Thanks ahead for the clarification.
You seem concerned regarding war and children, so if you have not read Lloyd deMause and his Psychohistory gathering, I invite you to: www.psychohistory.com The title of his last book downloadable free on this website says it concisely: “The Origins of War in Child Abuse.” A series of his quotes that I hope will draw you to him:
“The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care. The source of most human violence and suffering has been a hidden children's holocaust throughout history, whereby billions of innocent human beings have been routinely murdered, bound, starved, raped, mutilated, battered, and tortured by their parents and other caregivers, so that they grow up as emotionally crippled adults and become vengeful time bombs who periodically restage their early traumas in sacrificial rites called wars. The evolution of the psyche is first of all accomplished by removing terrible abuses of children and their resulting developmental distortions, allowing the psyche to produce historical novelty and achieve its own inherent human growth path. Culture evolves through the increase of love and freedom for children. Can we afford not to teach parenting? What more important task can we devote our resources to? History is now a race between too slowly improving childrearing and too fast evolving destructive technology. The crucial task of future generations will be to raise loved children who grow up to be peaceful, rather than walking time bombs. Self-mastery must replace the mastery of others. Global suicide must not continue to be our goal.” Lloyd deMause
Keep safe and free.
This is a whole lot for one comment.
I am in the ballpark of the voluntarysts. I believe in high liberty from a community oriented perspective.
I completely agree that teaching adults to parent is crucial. This is much of my mission now with education.
Robert Heinlein wrote that good manners are like oil for an engine. Yes it runs without oil for a bit. But if you don't want it to seize up or fly apart, try some lubricant between the parts. In the same analogy, rudeness is like throwing sand into the engine. Again it might still go, but it might fail and need an overhaul. I don't have my books with me but it's prolly in the Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
One of my education questions is how much oversight of children is needed. How much risk should children be allowed? If a family only has one or two children, the parents can hardly afford to allow much risk. But with 12 children, more risk can be tolerated and allow the line to propagate. I'm not discounting the tragedy of parents burying their children, but it's a benefit to humanity to have more people who have high survival rates and reproduction rates.
Ok, I hope your ball park is built on the foundation of the Non-Aggression Principle by which I mean, any and all use of first physical force or direct threat of force (except to save a person from unintentional physical harm) is immoral which then makes all governments immoral? The best explanation I have found for the Voluntaryist position is “The Philosophy of Liberty”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GazZBvHhgQ&t=5s
If you have not watched it (8 minutes) I hope you will and come away a high Voluntaryist.
One of my missions is teaching-learning Responsible Freedom which is Voluntaryism to all ages with my Responsibly Free School www.responsiblyfreeschool.com and my ongoing online tutorial: The Philosophy of Responsible Freedom https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/the-philosophy-of-responsible-freedom which I hope you will join one weekend.
Stay safe and free.
Wouldn't voluntaryism be Anarchism, without honor and etiquette?
I do not understand what you mean.
I define Anarchism etymologically as "No Ruler" which is identical to my meaning of Voluntaryism.
You are proposing these are different? And even if they were what do either of them have to do with honor and etiquette except as post-modern hazing?
Attaching honor and etiquette to voluntaryism moves it away from simple anarchism and non-productive chaos toward self discipline, responsibility, consideration of others, and the "consent of the governed."
Voluntaryism sounds good but doesn't work well in practice, like communism. On "Survivor," for example, some group members laze around and let others do the work. As another example, what if Canada invaded - they've been eyeing our beaches for some time - and no one volunteered to defend the beaches?
As for post-modern hazing, I don't know what that is.
Anarchism is not defined by chaos. It is defined by a lack of institutional servitude. Leaping to chaos as a conclusion puts the cart before the horse.
That would be Anarchism, but Anarchy is defined one way as "a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority or other controlling systems."
Anarchy would strictly imply no self governance either, due to "disorder," "absence," and "other controlling systems."
On the other hand, as a political term, anarchy implies no official governance and also as chaos in the utter absence of order. I don't think there can ever be an utter absence of order, although "anarchism" does devolve into chaos occasionally, as in mob rule and may exhibit an utter disregard of both political and personal order.
Consider ten starving people on a life raft. Who gets eaten first? Personal freedom within a rule structure works best for most because people do not consistently make universal decisions that are best for all.
As for myself, rules and laws and signs and authorities do not apply to me. I am above the law.
As a responsible anarchist, I believe only in the Golden Rule.
But I take your point as being more correct than not.
Your reply precisely and ironically, fits my description that you did not understand: “post-modern hazing”.
This is my punny (haze means both mistily obscure/confused as well as to harass/confound), and I hope pithy, phrase that is meant to express my exasperation and mix of amazement and amusement that arises when I read your words or those of Matthew’s in this article I began commenting on.
Both of your writings I term “post-modern” by which I mean either intentionally or unintentionally, obfuscatory and confused and without much meaning.
Your words are a perfect example of “post-modern hazing”:
“Attaching honor and etiquette to voluntaryism moves it away from simple anarchism”
WHAT IS SIMPLE ANARCHISM? AND HOW CAN HONOR AND ETTIQUETTE MOVE IT AWAY FROM WHATEVER THIS IS?
“and non-productive chaos toward self discipline, consideration of others, and the "consent of the governed."
WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO ARTICULATE HERE, IT MAKES NO SENSE?
Voluntaryism sounds good but doesn't work well in practice, like communism.
WHAT!? EVERY DAY I ASSUME YOU FREELY TRADE WITH SOMEONE TO OBTAIN YOUR FOOD AND SHELTER RATHER THAN STEAL IT AS COMMUNISM DOES?
On "Survivor," for example, some group members laze around and let others do the work.
VOLUNTARYISM MEANS YOU TAKE RESPONSIBLY FOR YOUR OWN SUPPORT.
As another example, what if Canada invaded - they've been eyeing our beaches for some time - and no one volunteered to defend the beaches?
READ “THE MARKET FOR LIBERTY” TO FIND PLAUSIBLE SCENARIOS OF VOLUNTARY PROTECTION COLLECTIVES FREE DOWNLOAD
https://freekeene.com/2008/02/07/the-market-for-liberty-pdf/
"Antisocial personality disorder is sometimes identified interchangeably as sociopathy or psychopathy. Research suggests that 4% of the population is "sociopathic," and 5-15% is “almost psychopathic."
"Our society is moving in the direction of permitting, reinforcing, and in some cases actually valuing some of the traits listed in the Psychopathy Checklist.” —Robert Hare
The Book of Genesis announces humans are made in the image of God, however, techno/fascist pyschos intend to modify that image so it reflects their own psychopathic misanthropic self. 🙀
The eternal spiritual battle continues... Just a thought from an agnostic.
Brilliant, as usual... (BORING! 🤣)
Very interesting follow on to my previous read by Mark Crispin Miller.
https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/they-wont-have-to-vaccinate-us-once?publication_id=383085&post_id=115200315&isFreemail=true
Civilization is doomed.
Someone must buy those spoons...
The Fed, I think. Hard to imagine anyone else putting those on the balance sheet.
LOL
I've been thinking along similar lines for my next episode but maybe with some important differences. What Davids Graeber and Wengrow talk about in their book, The Dawn of Everything, is that most people who weren't in arm's reach of the potentate (which they tried to not be) just ignored the edicts. Because there was no mechanism of enforcement. What a top-down hierarchy does is put in a way that everyone needs to, not just follow the king, but second-guess what would be most pleasing. That's how the pyramid of bootlickers stomps on everyone below to get to the top.
So the advice from Moses' FiL, the Pharaoh, aka God, is good for him but not so much for everyone else. If Moses is too busy to settle every dispute, some might leave him out of them, especially if he's so arbitrary neither side knows which way it could go.
I haven't put on Substack yet my research showing that Abraham was the mercenary warlord Abdi-Ashirta, represented as a jackal because he put down sovereignty rebellions in order to poach the Pharaoh's lands from the vassal lords. Genesis ends with Joseph, the multicolored turncoat, stealing the seed from the peasant farmers for the Pharaoh's granaries, as the pyramids were called. Instead of giving it back, he induces a famine that turns them all into indentured servants, pledging their livestock, land, labor and children in perpetuity.
Was it the slaves or the rulers who were kicked out of Egypt? How did they have enough gold to make a statue of a cow? I think the story we've been told is inside-out. The heroes were really the villains and the villains were the heroes.
Good food for thought here, but the biggest piece of this is the undermining of objective truth, especially as it relates to morality. As we have wandered down this path (not randomly, there is of course a highly orchestrated process occurring) of "your truth isn't MY truth" & where we ALL get to make up our own gender, what is left to base true connection/relationship/society upon?
I will be posting soon on this issue in some detail. As we have left the foundation of Christian morality in this ... former Republic ... we lack any true north. As John Mellencamp sang "if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything."
Has tolerance as a virtue allowed this societal destruction?
Interesting point, because 'tolerance' in itself demands moral relativism as it claims that all moral values have to be "tolerated". But that is self-defeating because I can say "Well, MY moral values condemn tolerance!" So what is the response? If the person pushes back against my view, he/she is being INTOLERANT of my belief.
The real problem is that logic & critical thinking are no longer embraced or even taught in school, so any sort of nonsense like this gets passed off as being 'thoughtful & progressive.' I hope this makes sense, I just wasted the past few hours doing my taxes and I'm a little bit nuts from trying to find ways to NOT pay the PrintingPress.gov any more than absolutely necessary ;)
I disagree that the OT story shows good advice from Moses's father in law. It is not that it's not good to spread out the governance to the local level, but having Moses choose all those judges is still top down governance. People have to choose their own local judges before there is effective governance. Government has to be bottom up to be effective.
I believe in bottom-up governance, too. But during a moment when people are centralizing their focus, attention, and hope, the step of putting the power back to them seems like a good first step.
Wow, such a good essay. Saved to bookmarks so I can re-read it.
Edit: Is sociopathy and/or psychopathy the great filter of the human species? Will we overcome it and thrive or succumb and disappear thus finally solving the Fermi paradox?
My best explanation for psychopathy is that the tribe generally needed one for certain circumstances, but that the elders needed to control the psychopath and not give him too much authority. But there was escape velocity of psychopaths in the modern world with untethered corporations and other sieves for psychopathy, so they essentially took over. Sociopaths are those who celebrate the psychopaths in order to rise in their networks. They are not wise enough not to promote them, and become themselves more psychopathic through experience.
No, I don't think this solves the Fermi paradox. I think that humanity will find a way, Bitcoin or otherwise, to bring the tribe home again.
Thank you for answering the question I didn't know how to formulate properly ;)
🤞
We will not overcome it as long as there are people (sheeple) out there chastising us as "haters" for fighting back. I had that honor for responding that these actions are unforgivable and need be punished. Only the demise of evil will save us.
Yet another excellent post, thank you!
Thank you
And thinking of unwarranted chiefs, here is something that irritates me (Mark Steyn too): politicians out of office retaining their office designations. President Bush... Secretary Clinton... Senator Leahy... etc. US version of English peerage. Dukes, Earls and the whole lot. Not for me. They are all either Mr, Mrs or Miss... just like me.
Reading about the Dunbar circles really shows the importance of thinking about scale. Reminds me of Joe Norman's (normonics) Twitter commentary.
Have heard/spoke with him before?
Same guy: https://appliedcomplexity.substack.com/about
Way back when some of us were committed to netiquette, bringing some manners to online exchanges. It was supposed to reduce flame wars. Might have. Hard to say.
Building a civilisation (we should!) is easier if people adopt civilised behaviour.
I always like reading your take on things.