My Ethical Stance

 It may be helpful for me to define some technical terms that I will be using in my argument.

Psychological egoism is a descriptive set of terms that claims that people are wholly, or mostly and naturally motivated by selfish or self-centered aims.

I coined the phrase psychological altruism as a descriptive term claiming that people are wholly or primarily motivated by concern for others rather than themselves.

Rational egoism is the ethical theory that it is rational for people to act in their own self-interest. This is a normative claim for how people ought to act.

I am coining the phrase rational altruism to propose that altruists could argue that it is normative, desirable, and rational for people to act so that the interests of others are given higher priority in their personal calculations than their self-interest.

Ethical egoism is the normative theory that people should and are justified in pursuing their self-interest.

Ethical altruism is the normative theory that people should live for others rather than themselves.

First, I am an ontological and ethical moderate. What this axiom declares is that most conditions, states, persons, things, cultures, and material objects are a motley of different particles, traits, or drives. Usually, detecting and stating what is each of these things and immaterial things is listing their various components, but in their major to minor percentages of participation in the essence of the thing or state. When I describe a person or moral state with a definitive adjective, I am actually identifying a primary not sole trait as dominant. No human is a trait purely or solely, and nor is that desirable because the pursuit of purity breeds extremism, fanaticism, and violence, and these are vicious goals.

Second, I believe people are born wicked. We are wicked because we genetically are psychological altruist primarily, and psychological egoists slightly or secondarily. We are naturally lovers of hate, cruelty, tyranny, chaos, destruction, and violence. Part of our natures, the recessive aspect, is weak but can be trained and strengthened to the point that that willing agent's will and character are loving and virtuous.

Third, I will crudely, sweepingly characterize how Ayn Rand sees things, and how I so characterize people. This exercise is to be illustrative, and indicative, not a wholesale or completely accurate depiction of her views.

Ayn Rand regards selfishness, egoism and self-interest as good, and unselfishness, altruism and other-interest as wicked. She is right overall, though excessive selfishness can be wicked, and sensible altruism can be good.

Let me tie all of this together.

Rand is not clearly a psychological egoist but Bernard Mandeville is. I am not a psychological egoist, but am a psychological altruist. Because people have no self-esteem, run in packs, and serve the group's interests above their own, they are basically evil, little huddled collectivists.

The Mother and Father are rational egoists and loners, and Satan and Lera are irrational altruists and joiners. The Good Couple are good, and the latter Evil Couple are wicked.

I suggest that the self-actualizing individual is a mature rational egoist that is training his recessive, fragile flaccid egoistic self to grow strong, loving, confident, competent, and good.

Normatively, I promote ethical egoism in the agent, more than ethical altruism, but some group-interest must be maintained, protected, and included in the decisions and daily life of each individuator. 

Normatively, rational egoism more than irrational, poor instinctive altruism is emphasized, but rational altruism has its place.

 

 

Jordan Peterson On Therapy

 

 Jordan Peterson appears to me to be an expert an depth psychology, and he uses dream interpretation with his clients in therapy, but his actual therapy appears roughly existentialist to me. 

He argues that there are core psychoses, neuroses, and other psychological disorders that people suffer from, but I believe that he is offering that wallowing for years in self-pity and obsessing about such personal disabilities and limitations does lead to nowhere.

An important first step is to discover who and what you are, and the range, number, and scope of your disabilities (all of us are naturally or environmentally conditioned with varying severity of disability and ability). Then your next step is to accept the truth about you and everything, and then resolve to make the best of it and do something about improving things significantly.

Recovery or mental health is accepting radical metaphysical truth about the world and your place in it. You have free will and personal power to take responsibility and to overcome the suffering and malevolence (generated by you, by nature and by others in the human community) that permeate life.

The more responsibility that you take on, the more meaning you will realize and enjoy, and enhanced person ethical character, feeling happier and at ease in your conscience, will be some of the benefits of your taking responsibility. You might even invite God into your life.

I would add that my program of personal maverization dovetails rather nicely with Peterson's therapeutic approach.

I believe that we are called by God and the Good Spirits to maverize radically and yet within the dispassionate purview of applied practical wisdom. Only in near pure state of honesty, liberty, and love, can we self-realize effectively.

This state of liberty requires a social/institutional/political/societal regime through which individual is not controlled and tyrannized by the clique, the hierarchies in his life, nor the presence of soft or hard authoritarian government agencies.

Only reasonable and just laws should curb his behavior and decisions. Politically correct or woke brackets around private and public expression of thought, word or deed must be denounced, dethroned, legally emasculated, and cast aside.

The natural right to offend others (This is a strange way of stating that we have a natural right to express freely, or with near absolute freedom, our thoughts in whatever words chosen.) transcends and trumps the feelings and protected class status of sundry socially constructed victim groups that have legitimately or frivolously taken offense. 

They should be not discriminated in any way, but individual compliance must be strictly voluntary. Social, institutional, and legal constraints against alleged or actual offensive agents is to be banned.

None should victimize others, nor be victimized or accept being victimized nor enslaved by anyone. Also, each of us is bound by a natural obligation to try not offending others--at least in a non-trivial sense.

The primary emphasis on individuals and their rights and liberty must be championed, our first priority.

You Matter

 Jordan Peterson, in his book BEYOND ORDER 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE, writes that the good or evil committed by each agent matters more than we ever realize to make the world a better or worse place.

It occurred to me that he is right as usual, but that his statement about our ethical actions really mattering is a declaration as to the immense value and worth of each human being, and what we do really does matter, and that mirrors directly why what one does or does not do matters.

Rule V

 On Page 141 of his book, BEYOND ORDER 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE, Jordan Peterson lays out Rule V: "Do not do what you hate."

He will explain what it means in the rest of that chapter, but, initially, for me it meas you should do what you love to do, what you were meant to do, your life-calling, what gives you great joy as you succeed at what you love to do.

If you are mediocre and irresponsible, and settle for living as an average soul, then you wil do what you hate, but what living the role that others assigned to you, as you live by rules that are not orgnaic to your dream and needs. Live your life, not your group's version of the life that you should lead--this likely is Jordan's message in Rule V.

Peterson's Antidote

 I prefer Peterson's book on chaos more than his book on order. The first book seems more original, more informative and the second book, though entertaining, is repetitive and is more derivative. Still, in his third book, BEYOND ORDER 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE, on Page 134, he hits gold: "What is the antidote to the suffering and malevolence of life? The highest possible goal. Willingness to adopt the maximum degree of responsibility  . . ."

We are to maverize and grow in power, love, intellectual prowess, and sheer competence, as we should personally the responsibility to live as a living angel here on earth fighting to expand good and construct and thwart evil. 

Serving God and the Good Spirits in this way is very admirable.

Stunted Development

 When one fails to grow up, to maverize, to take on adult responsibilities like individuating, working, marrying, having children, and being politically involved, one fails to become a complete person.

What is charming and age-appropriate in a child is outmoded, repulsive and restrictive in an adult.

To be godly is closer to living a mature, sensible adult engaged in living that staying at the party to long, or lingering in the shadows in a child-like fog.

RULE IV

 On Page 111 of his book, BEYOND ORDER 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE, Jordan Peter lays out Rule IV: "Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated."

As usual, Jordan is correct, but I must add that opportunity lurks  everywhere, all the time, if one is living with a strong life plan that one forwards and implements all the time, in all ways that one honestly, honorably can. The failure to detect opportunity is due to one's mental sleepiness, one's unwillingness to detect what is readily available due to willful blindness, or an unwillingness to take charge and make something of oneself.

What Jordan appears to be appealing to in Rule IV is the fact that, should the alert, observant, energetic, responsible onlooker step up to the plate where others have neglected to assert their duty and responsibility, there great opportunity awaits the willing doer, and his insight is brilliant as usual.

Lower on the page, he refers to others at work as those that are narcissistic, incompetent, malevolent and tyrannical doing little needing doing. Should the doer step up to the plate and get things done, it could open doors.

Why

 In his book, BEYOND ORDER 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE, on Page 106, Jordan Peterson writes this about asking why: "We use our past effectively when it helps us repeat desirable--and avoid repeating undesirable--experiences. We want to know what happened but, more importantly, we want to know why. Why is wisdom. Why enables us to avoid making the same mistake again and again, and if we are fortunate helps us repeat our successes."

The morally developed adult thinks more than he feels, and his rational powers motivate him to learn from history, the past, his past and his experiences. What worked is what he repeats, and what failed is an approach that he will not resort to again.

He cannot be morally developed, grow, or advance as a maverizer until he embraces pure truth, what happened and to discover why it happened. His ponderings might include the employment of subjunctive conditionals to speculate as to how he can learn from his experience, or what to avoid in the future.

To seek wisdom is to hear God's whisperings in our ear. To ask why is is the key to becoming wiser, more powerful, more successful, provided one acts directly upon what one learns.

Rule III--Jordan Peterson

 In his book Beyond Order 12 More Rules For Life, Page 89, Jordan Peterson states his Rule III: "Do Not Hide Unwanted Things In The Fog."

As a psychologist and humanitarian, Peterson wants people to know the truth, live in the truth and live the truth. By self-deceiving via pushing unwanted things into the fog, one is never forced to deal with them, and come to grips with unpleasant, detested, alarming facts and situation. 

Peterson wants us to bring all our issues, concerns and feelings out into the open for examination and cataloguing.

As painful as dealing with unwanted things is, there is not greater healing force than facing all our demons and working to discard or live with them so that we can be loving and productive going forward.

 

Nature And Cutlure Are Tropes For Jordan Peterson

 In his book Beyond Order 12 More Rules For Life, Page 75, Jordan points out that Nature and Culture are tropes for or variants of chaos and order.

Jordan the metaphusical moderate, urges the individual to be not too natural,or chaotic and destructive. Nor should he be sol cultured that he is stagnant and unchallenged and dull.

The Warning From Peterson

 Jordan Peterson, in his book Beyond Order 12 More Rules For Life, writes insightfully about what happens when revolutionaries and nihilists gleefully dismantle, undermine and work tirelessly to smash a vibrant, working, beneficial, traditional culture, society and political structure. 

On Page 70 he writes: "The relationship between this brilliant dramatic representation and how we use, misuse, the gifts of our culture is obvious: the careless demolition of tradition is the invitation to the (re) emergence of chaos.When ignorance destroys culture, monsters will emerge."

People require moral training to be good persons and that is the job of the mom and dad of each child. Order, structure and love allow each child to be taught to be a good person, and most children learn to be good.

Our lawless, savage, demonic natural moral state runs rampant when monsters emerge and only the foolish and the clueless eagerly rip of the veneer of civilization thus turning loose children to prey on society.

Jordan Peterson

 Jordan Peterson, in his book, Beyond Order 12 More Rules For life, writes this on Page 65: "You do not choose what interests you. It chooses you. Something manifests itself out of the darkness as compelling, as worth living for, following that, something moves us further down the road, to the next meaningful manifestation--and so it goes, as we continue to seek, develop, grow and thrive. It is a perilous journey but it is also the adventure of our lives."

If these words from Chapter II would pique the interest of a young maverizer, she might have found or been lured to bond with the one thing worth living for or becoming, and that may well be her life quest. She will find much pain, exhilaration and growth from chasing after it, but she will look back and rarely regret the undertaking.

The Will To Dominate

Humans are born sick, cruel, hateful, hating, depraved, and mixed up. Most people have not the least comprehension of how power and liberty are linked, and, correspondingly, how the abuse of power and tyranny are corrupting and mutually inclusive.

We are born to run in packs because we do not like ourselves and are most reluctant to stand alone. To run in packs means to submit to hierarchical social arrangements. Where people live in a caste system, each person chooses to live in a regime in which each person dominates others or is dominated by others.

As people are educated, in the future with training as individuating anarchist-supercitizens, they will prize liberty for others and themselves as their base social premise. They will take hold of their share of natural and social power, confidently, competently and courageously, and they will build lives for themselves as living angels.

Hierarchies will not disappear, but they will be much reduced in size and scope with functionaries empowered and freed up to make most of the decisions themselves that will still generally benefit the organization that they belong to.

Those that are liberated have no residual desire to dominate others or be dominated by others--nor will their powerful, keen sense of ethical duty allow them to endure sickening, caste like power-relations for more than a nanosecond. Big changes are on the way. Therefore, people deplatform and suppress my Mavellonialist message. My gentle revolution goes right to the core of their stupidity, wrongdoing and cruelty, and they fear that they wicked ways are discovered, publicized, and that their power base is shrinking.

Grocery Store

 

 I worked at the grocery store last night like I do every Wednesday night. The cashier, a Latina college nursing student, informed me that when, at her college, each time she talks to a security guard, to a secretary, to a professor, or orders lunch in the cafeteria, each time she must inform them of what is her self-assigned pronoun. This happens many times a day, every day.

The woman store manager regretted that she is referred to a a cis-female at her other, main place of work. She is not referred to as a woman period, as she would prefer to be known and accepted. She dislikes this modern description of her as a woman.

When organizations run along lines wherein CRT and this mania for in-your-face use of and compliance with continual, open speaking about multiple gender pronouns, that may nor not match one's gender at birth, this trend has swept the land.

My take is that it is a Christian country, and the majority are Christian so their traditional view that there are two genders, men and women, and that should be the end of the story.

Those that want other gender self-identifications or other self-assigned pronouns should do as they want, and I would not mind calling them what they wish to be referred to as. I disapprove of their obsession with one's gender-orientation, and constantly harping on it.

That said, the rule must be that people should speak their mind and if they "misgender" someone, then no one worries about it. We need free speech, free thought, real tolerance, and no one should walk around worrying about whom they might offend.

We need a diverse public that repudiates their group affiliations in favor of their individual worth and personality. People must refuse to be offended and be a victim. If rare, real discrimination occurs, that should be legally challenged, but taking offense over pseudo-scientific, woke gender pronouns is a growing, spreading witch hunt that needs to end right away. Lives are being coerced, controlled and

This young cashier was not offended, but thought it was weird, irrelevant, and excessive that she is required to announce her gender preference pronoun 6 times a day while on campus. The sensible reaction from this liberal, with-it modern teenager reveals that her intuitive, hesitant acceptance in expressing her reluctance to go along with such bizarre campus communicative and process rituals and exchanges, is refreshing and gives me hope in today's youth.

Her instincts are natural, moral, and realistic. Only in cults, totalitarian societies and in mass movements is there such a ubiquitous, constant, artificial, threatening and wicked emphasis on practicing adherence to accepted sloganeering and expressions as such social and business communications exchanges reflecting ideological norms, where saying the right thing, at the right time, to the right person is consistent with fearing to non-conform to official group-speak.

Those running the government, the institution, the clique, or mass movement are those that demand complete, undeviating conformity and obedience from everyone in thought, word, deed, and speech. 

This ugly, weird, insulting gender-preference pattern of enforced speaking with its specific phraseology is a literal, immediate indicator that the social and societal arrangement is declining rapidly into a totalitarian regime.

All citizens are identified collectively as one, and each individual only has worth and merit based upon her group affiliation.

Favored groups are advanced and disfavored groups are held back, held down and persecuted.

To be a conservative, heterosexual, white male Christian, capitalist, MAGA-loving, patriotic, and pro-gun rights is to be one with a target on one's back.

 Leftists are pushing their mass movement of Envirostatism/Communism and Globalism upon the American people with great success. It may already be too late to undo their revolutionary transformation of our country and its citizens.

This strange imposition of politically correct speech upon bigger and bigger groups of our population is viewed by its advocates as emblematic of their intellectual, dispositional, and moral superiority.

In fact, it is emblematic of their intellectual, dispositional, and moral inferiority as they insist that all join their cause: the obliteration of all things Americans and Western harms all and helps none.

 

They must be stopped at almost all costs.

 

 

 

Mike Lindell

Mark Levin, on his radio show last night, complained of FBI overreach and being weaponized against conservative political opponents of the Biden Administration. The weaponizing of the FBI, the CIA and NSA against political opponents is typical of what occurs in authoritarian regimes around the world. Federal police forces suppress dissent and arrest, target and lead to the imprisonment of innocent citizens.

It is dangerous, an existential threat to our republic. Some suggest that actions like their seizing Mike Lindell's phone is akin to acting as the private police of the ruling elite and the Deep State, and the only solution is to disband these federal police agencies and devolve these powers to the state and local enforcement agencies.

The FBI has a noble history, but power always corrupts elites in power, and their evil addiction to amassing more and more federal power, money, and control to themselves at the expense of the citizens--this addiction leads to the federal proclivity to wield federal police forces to suppress and intimidate a free people. 

This must end or our republic will end, replaced by a socialist dictatorship resembling the one in Venezuela, brutalizing its people there. It can and will happen here if the FBI is not thwarted. Their leadership should be fired, congressional hearings should be held, all Republican politicians should be expressing furious outrage (channeling Mitch McConnell and other ruling elite, selfish, cowardly RINOS), and any federal police officer that has violated the law should go to jail.

John Rich

 John Rich has a fantastic, fascinating, 14-minute-long Prager U video out, decrying that Wokeism has taken over Nashville and it is killing music.

He seems so wise, so authentic, so realistic. He complains that Johnny Cash or Loretta Lynn would not be able to get a venue or performing platform now.

There are a few universal axioms that govern art and creativity of any form.

1. The artist or creator must not be fettered in any way.

2. The artist must have complete freedom of expression, opinion and creative control of his art, its subject matter, its form, and content of expression. His freedom of thought and investigation must be unaltered and unchallenged.

3. Generally, the more the artist individuates and expresses his individuality as he feels necessary, without external interference, the more original, the more seminal, the more brilliant and talented will be his works of art.

4. If the public buys his art or attends his performances, so that he can get rich or rewarded, great. If not, then he had better not quit his day job.

This is why that I am a voice crying in the wilderness and I have only sold three copies of my three philosophy books, and my blog site is ignored. So be it. I write what I want and say what I want no matter who is displease, and the scared, infuriated public has deplatformed, demonized, marginalized, and turned its back on me wholesale. So be it. God bless all of them.

Just as each American citizen has a natural right to absolute or near absolute freedom of speech and artistic expression, so each singer in Nashville requires such carte blanche to write and sign exactly what she wants, and the public has the same power to accept or reject her efforts and output completely or partially, but no artist morally can accept being controlled by corporate music maker, woke or otherwise.

Rather she can write and sing her music for 20 years while retaining her day job as a physical therapist.

Failure

 I admire those with grit and iron will whose motto is that failure is not an option. I wish to qualify their stance a little, while ultimately and in essence heartily agreeing with them.

First, failure is not only an option but it an inevitability. We all experience countless failures and setbacks. Our disappointments teach us how to live, how to win, and how to cope with life and its troubles. We may even experience a deeply sad, tragic life, but victory or deep success is never giving up, never ceasing to strive to improve life for God, the Good Spirits, for others and ourselves. Trying is victory: worldly sucess is a nice extra if it works out for us.

Failure is the approach and the existential state of innaction, the outlook of a weak loser that gives up, or does not take up the fight in the first place.

But the hardy, upbeat, courageous winners that do not accept failure as their destiny: they are admirable and correct. For them, failure is not an option.

For quitters and losers failure is their destiny because they would not have it any other way.

Those Useful Fictions

 Two most useful fictions must be tropes that we live by: life is fair and we are not victims.

Now, it is so that life is not fair, and we often are victims that in turn victimize those less powerful or connected than are we.

Rather, we will maverize--once we know how to as Mavellonialism training provides for us--as we bootstrap our way to success in several arenas, life will become fairer and none can victimize us anymore. These useful fictions have become liberating realities for us.

Naturally

 Naturally we are weak, timid, cowardly and seek protection in the pack.

This simply will not do. We cannot become strong, smart, courageous and developed until we stand out from the herd and make boldly our mark.

Never Forget

 God the Father and God the Mother are our friends, but they are not our equals. With this in mind, we should not be too familiar with De, even becoming to casual towards De, even expressing disrespect and contempt.

That will not do--remember they are unbelievably power and capable of great anger and just violence. It is important never to forget to whom we are conversing with--it is vital that we never forget our place.

Showing Affection

 I went to dinner with a close friend of mine the other night, and he lamented that both of his parents were cold, non-affectionate parents, and that, though good providers, the kids grew up needy, and that affected their adult relationships and lives, often ending in broken marriages.

He and his siblings felt that if they were loved and emotionally satisfied from childhood, by generally being loved by their parents, it would have had positive benefits for their adult relationships. I think their self-appraisal was realistic and accurate.

We can shower partners, kids and pets with gifts, material possessions and plenty of spending cash, but if we do not love them easily, without condition, and express and demonstrate that love for them and enjoyment of them openly, repeatedly, and daily, the objects of our affection will wilt, suffer, and deteriorate like flowers neglected care, affection, light, fertilizer, weeding and warmth.

Being unloved and the incapacity to love is at the root of most of the world's troubles. No partner, child, pet, or flower can flourish, and be fulfilled and happy without being unconditionally, permanently loved.

There is no greater gift that we can share with God, ourselves, and them.  No gift is more useful, more beneficial.

Unbelievers

 One of the alarming trends in 2022, for thoughtful, concerned thinkers, is the trend of young people, married or not, with children or not, is the huge number of young people that do not believe in God, or at least attend church.

My friend mentions that to her adult children, and they get so angry that she shuts up immediately. She is right to raise the alarm. No society can survive without each new generation of humans swearing allegiance to God. The young people must anew become a God-fearing, God-loving, God-grounded moral majority of citizens with said arrangement fin place and adhered to. There is no viable civilization viable today or in the future unless society is populated by believers whose lives are centered in the worship of, the obedience of, and the love of God and the publicly expressed and shared reverence for God's presence in our midst.

Jung and Jordan Peterson expound at length about the archetypal craving for spiritual meaning and intimate communion with spiritual beings in existence beyond our mortal selves.

Where that religious craving is not met in a wholesome, positive way, bad, corrosive substitutes will be resorted to. If people do not believe in God, they will still worship and follow a substitute deity because the human heart cannot live in a metaphysical vacuum, for supernature like nature always fills an existent vacuum.

The substitutes have demonic origins: be it addiction to some substance or bizarre addictive behavior, a life turned over to pursuit of utter pleasure, self-indulgence or a life of pure criminal preying on others.

Other vitiating substitutes are political or other isms or causes, adopted by millions of mass movement-serving true believers. Others will worship Communism, fascism, big government. Others will join religious cults, and some will worship Satan and Lera openly.

The void will be filled. People rejecting God will always fill the void in their hearts with substitutes, that destroy their souls, and often threaten the entire world as an unintended consequence. The current failure and unwillingness to acknowledge our debt to God is a mistake with powerful and undesired outcomes up ahead.

Claim To Fame

 If your claim to fame is that you are popular, I suggest that that braggadocio is pathetic. What impresses me is how smart you have become, how artistic  you are, how you have worked your way to prosperity, how you have overcome adversity, how maverized and how loving you are.

Your popularity or social status is ordinarily a pathetic standard to judge the worth of your life and character by.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

 Several weeks agon Dennis Prager announced on his radio show that he now had come to agree that Trump Derangement Syndrome was real.

Prager's 8/24/22 announcement to this effect is describing a pattern of hysterical hatred and scapegoating opposition to a targeted person, and the campaign is unfair, warrantless, crazed, cruel, cowardly, unjustified and most consistently, viciously person against the target.

This collectivist attack on any great soul that firmly, consistently opposes their agenda and wickedness.

All the riled mob can think about is defeating, humbling, thwarting and perhaps physically attacking or killing the rebel in their midst.

The mob must win and win totally. Victory, complete success, and power-amassing are their objectives to be attained by any means. They desire to reign supreme and unopposed. They desire to be unchallenged by anyone for any reason, petty or otherwise.

There are few ploys are valuable to these children of darkness for expanding their control over people and territory, and this method is wicked and useful to them as they win and win big by any means necessary or at their disposal.

Divisive Forces

 The Democrats and the Left in 2022 strive mightily and somewhat successfully to divine us into warring tribal groups: whites vs blacks, straights vs gays, rich vs poor, conservatives vs Envirostatists, the oppressors and the oppressed. 

This postmodernist reality is false and destructive, based on contradiction and conflict as the fundamental human reality, Stephen Hicks warns.

The war of tribe against tribe allows for the grow of fanaticism and mob rule. True believers are working to bring about their Marxist revolution, the imagined heaven of earth just around the corner.

These totalists are wicked and liars: members of one's group are all good, are righteous, all truthful, and all beautiful. They can do no wrong and deserve unreserved support always.

Rival groups and tribes are all bad, all stupid, all sinful, inferior, worthless liars, ugly and sordid. They can do no right and any way that we treatment is justifiable. This is the intersectional, CRT future that the Left seeks to instantiate.

Objective Truth

Two of my favorite American Jewish intellectuals are those two geniuses, Dennis Prager and Mark Levin.

Both believe in God/ Both espouse that the Creator made the world and set up natural law to keep it running along smoothly.

Humans are born corrupt (Prager believes this but I don't know about Levin.) but have reason and free agency so human instincts are not strong enough or pervasive enough to regulate human behavior. For this reason, God gave us objective moral law to fill the gap, and each generation of children need to learn to be good and virtuous, lest society turn to crap.

Prager and Levin both believe in objective morality, objective truth that is accessible by inquisitive humans.

That these two geniuses champion that objective morality and objective truth exist and are accessible to searching humans also informs me that they are epistemological optimists.

As an ethical, ontological, and epistemological moderate, I am not as epistemologically optimistic as Prager and Levin, but I accept their views as true with a high degree of certainty.

Those that believe in objective truth and objective morality are not the same as fanatics--absolutists and totalists--liars, incorrect and vicious--that assert that they have all the answers and are always right, noble and beautiful, and that any that disagree with them or oppose them are to be crushed or wiped out by any means possible, fair or foul. 

The epistemological optimism of Prager and Levin is based on reasonableness, sensible prudence, tolerance, discourse, respect for differing opinions and tolerance of diversity of spoken and written opinions and stances on issues.

The absolutists are epistemological optimists, but their reasoning is phony, false, hostile, cruel, and domineering. All are to think as one without dissent, without exception. Those that fail to surrender to group think and utter surrender of the thinking self to the cause, these heretics will be forced to convert or be jailed, torture or die.