Hoffer's Working And Thinking On The Waterfront June 1958-May 1959, Pages 43-48

Hoffer’s Working And Thinking On The Waterfront June 1958 May 1959, Pages 43-48 I will write out what he wrote from Pages 43 through 48 and then comment on him. Here it is: Hoffer (H after this): “October 15 It is not usually the overpowering experience which sets of a flow of thought.” My response: Hoffer’s instincts are very sound, for he penetrates to the essence of things. Here is is offering proof of what I would refer to as metaphysical or natural law axiom that the middle is the way. This axiom this time is applied to the state of consciousness and right environmental conditions most conducive to sparking an upsurge of internally generated original thinking or artistic insight. It is not usually the lofty thoughts of a professional thinker, or a painting by Reuben which triggers creativity in the thinker or artist. Rather it is the ordinary, the banal, even the trivial which triggers the creative muse more than the grand and sublime source. Take note too here that Hoffer again presents a paradoxical twist in which what is reality is not the commonplace expectation or characterization of things—inspirational source is more often the every day and mandate than inspired by reading the lofty and world class poem It also likely Hoffer is suggesting that the self-realizing amateur will often think more organically and acutely than the professional thinker, the laded artist. That too is a true paradox, for reality is often not the expected, popular view of things. H: “Some trivial incident or even a mere word will pull the trigger. Hence the fact that a second-rate book may be more stimulating that a masterpiece.” My response: I often get stimulus from 2nd-rate novels of Louis L’Amour or Agatha Christie. Here is an example from Agatha Christie’s novel, The Moving Finger Pages 132 and 133, an excerpt which I will copy out and comment on to exhibit how trivial sources gave me wise ideas to ponder. Here is the excerpt from her book: “There we were in the church, and Dane Calthrop was reading the service in Latin. And in the middle of it Mrs, Dane Caltrop jumped up and cried energetically, ‘It’s got to be stopped, I tell you. It’s got to be stopped.’ For a minute or two I didn’t know whether I was asleep or awake. Then my brain cleared, and I realized I was in the drawing room of Little Furze and that Mrs. Dane Caltrop had just come through the window and was standing in front of me saying with nervous violence, ‘It has got to be stopped, I tell you.’ I jumped up. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I was asleep. What did you say.?’ Mrs. Dane Caltrop beat one fist fiercely on the palm of her other hand. ‘It’s got to be stopped. These letters! Murder! You can’t go on having poor innocent children like Agnes Woddell killed!’ ‘You’re quite right,’ I said. ‘But how do you propose to set about it?’ Mrs. Dane Caltrop said, ‘We’ve got to do something,!’ I smiled, perhaps in rather a superior fashion. ‘And what do you suggest that we should do?’ ‘Get the whole thing cleared up! I said this wasn’t a wicked place. I was wrong. It is.’” My response: Here are two Victorian women, Caltrhop and Marple, Christian and righteous, that sense evil abounding around them, and they want it punished and stopped. This moral sense is so lacking today, underpinned by a solid ethical code of objective values, and a clear sense of right and wrong, and a willingness to fight wickedness in one’s midst. That is what the virtuous and godly do to prevent Satan’s world from growing and expanding. Leave it to a novelist to make vividly these salient points without didactic lecturing. What professional ethicist could have demonstrated—better than does Christie here-a nose for evil, and the will to extirpate it, that evil is a biological, ontological, natural, immoral and spiritual force and intelligence at work in the world, and it is our Christian duty to actively oppose it. Christie: “I felt annoyed. ‘Yes, my dear woman,’ I said, not too politely, ‘but what are you going to do.’ Mrs. Dane Caltrop said, ‘Put a stop to it all, of course.’ ‘The police are doing their best.’ ‘If Agnes could be killed yesterday, their best isn’t good enough.’ ‘So you know better than they do.’ ‘Not at all. I don’t know anything at all. That’s why I’m going to call in an expert.’ I shook my head. ‘You can’t do that. Scotland Yard will only take over on a demand from the chief constable of the county. Actually they have sent Graves.’ ‘I don’t mean that kind of expert. I don’t mean someone who knows about anonymous letters or even about murder. I mean someone who knows people. Don’t you see? We want someone who knows a great deal about wickedness.’” My response: Mrs. Calthrop, the wise old lady, wasn’t settling for superficial reliance on authoritative police experts, credentialed and impressive; no she went for the amateur crime solver, Jane Marple, an uncanny expert on human psychology and on wickedness, sharp as a tack, seeking patterns, discovering them and making sense of them, as she depicts how criminal cause and effect is unfolding in each case, where the formal experts were stumped. I would argue that we need our individuating amateurs to advance human knowledge and human civilization, and I think Hoffer advocates the same. H: “Christopher Dawson in Dynamics of World History pictures H.G. Wells as a schoolmaster to whom statesman are no more than a number of troublesome and occasionally incendiary school boys. The intellectual’s taste for making history and his penchant for immortality add up to species of insanity. How strange that both society as a business corporation and society as a school are likely to be tyrannies.” My response: No matter the kind of hierarchy it is that runs society is, when intellectuals are part of or are the most powerful members of the ruling elite, then they will destroy the people and the country in their insane lust for making history and achieving immortality. They truly are scary people, to be put in charge of nothing. H: “October 16 Eight hours on the German ship (the Bamberg?) at Pier 26. I still wonder whether the German republican flag (black, red, and yellow) grates on the average German as it did after the first World War. Considering the present absorption of the Germans in private affairs and their determination to cultivate each his garden it probably matters little what the flag is. It will be a momentous turning point in the affairs of Europe if it is true that the Germans have wearied of their nationalism. Of course, the German tendency towards fanaticism may find a new dangerous outlet, though I cannot see what it would be. All day long I was musing vaguely and apprehensively about the coming vacation. I must guard myself against isolation. I shall be seeing Lili and the boy every Tuesday. I have just received two invitations to dinner, and I have to meet the editors and journalists from Southeast Asia. The main thing is not take myself seriously.” My response: If we get swelled up by our success, taking ourselves too seriously let we are losing our self-esteem, our self-loathing grows, and bad things begin to happen to us and inside us. H: “October 17 Finished the German ship at Pier 26. Seven hours. On the way home I was overcome by a fit of drowsiness. This is surprising since I had a good night’s sleep and the work during the day was fairly easy. I just read several thoughts I had copied last night. It is surprising how many words I missed. After a day’s work I find I can sketch a train of thought in bold strokes, but I can’t copy faultlessly nor can I express myself with precision.” My response: Hoffer most definitely was in a writer’s slump. H: “October 18 Eight hours at Pier 29 on a Luckenbach ship. I am replacing a regular dockman in Rekula’s gang. Most of the gang are Finns, and when I am with them they stuff me full of Finnish words. Today I learned to count up to ten, and a dozen words or so concerning the weather, ships, and the work. It occurred to me during the day in my present state of weariness I ought not to make any plans. My mind is not in good shape. After catching my breath and spending some time with myself I may be able to gauge things and decide what to do. Perhaps for the first time in my life I am looking forward to a vacation. I seem to be afraid to make an outline of what I am going to say to the intellectuals from Southeast Asia next Thursday. I ought to speak about the American worker—his readiness to work, his skill, his ability to get things done with minimum supervision, and his attitude towards the pencil pushers.” My response: American workers, blue collar especially, are dovetailed for my idea of what an anarchist individuator supercitizen would be like, be he or she white, blue or pink collar, he or she would not think highly of pencil pushers, or allow them to dominate. H: “October 19 Finished the job at Pier 29. It was a pleasant job. The Finns are the salt of the earth. The fact that my vacation starts tomorrow settled everything for me, else I probably would have trailed with the gang for weeks.” My response: There were times when Hoffer was popular and invited to join a clique somewhere or another, but he always seemed to find an excuse to break away, because a great soul must live alone, or with but a few people with who he is intimate in order to not let groups, however welcoming and friendly, begin to smother him, making his conformist, declining, non individuating. H: “What surprises me again and again in this country is the rapidity with which an experience is savored and exhausted. Each new fashion, vogue, and attitude is pushed up the hill with utter abandon, and once at the top it is allowed to roll back and into the ashcan. The senselessness of it is monumental.” My response: It occurs to me that there is something moderate, and desirably moderating about this American trend not to allow any trend to be a true belief., as a ‘truth” held by true believers. H: “It happened to me several times: just when it seemed I had lost the to grasp and hold a whole train of thought, there followed a period of rapid development. October 20 5 A.M. Concerning fanaticism in awakening Asia. If you want people to work for little or nothing you have to infect them with fanaticism.” My response: Hoffer’s truthful, original hunches never cease to amaze me. He knows like Ayn Rand does that people with self-esteem and some level of individualism require emotional and financial rewards to work hard, for the individual worker has a private self, a need for wealth, property and moderate self-esteem and all of this goes together. So too does a people on the march: the leaders or the ruling elite of their society have not the wealth to entice them to work without the rewards of wealth, property, material possessions a sturdy sense of self. So this nation without wealth, must appeal to passion and fanaticism to prod the masses to perform for they have nothing else but their allegiance to some cause, so these selfless zealots unite and will give their very lives for a word, a trope, an empty promos of future success. H: “Fervor is a substitute for skill and also for capital.” My response: The skilled, well-compensated worker is employed in America by a wealthy employer, and individualism, rationality, moderation and self-esteem all flow naturally where skill and capital tell the story of a work day for a worker and his boss. Where there is no wealth, no skill, passion and fervor will have to be resorted to. H: “When a poor country wants to modernize itself in a hurry, it must know how to induce it people to work for words. Hence the vital role ‘men of words’ play in the awakening of stagnant socieities. Thinking in my case is like sluicing poor placer dirt. You must trap every flake of gold if you are to get anything. The final lump is not a nugget but a ‘button’ made up of innumerable flakes each so slight that it floats. I am still full of the pleasure I savored while working two days with the Finns. Usually when I work with people for any length their voices keep hammering inside me after I leave them, and I feel like shaking them out of my head. With the Finns it is the other way around—the aftertaste is extremely pleasant, and you allow it to linger on. This country seems to be undergoing a decisive, transformation. I may be wrong but I detect a change in tempo, a letting goof the thundering, gaudy, relentless juggernaut. One of the results of this transformation is that the country is becoming a better place for the old. Up to now the old felt out of place—useless, unwanted, a nuisance to themselves and others. Now there is a mood for enjoying leisure. People do not feel guilty and dejected when they cease working. Axel and Ole, whom I saw while working at Pier 26, looked relaxed. They have been retired for over a year, and they seemed at peace with themselves and the world. This morning, about 7 A.M., I walked through the Golden Gate Park. Trees and flowers had sharp shapes in the morning air. The park looked somehow different from what I remembered.” My response: We can view and experience the commonplace, familiar and ordinary, from a slightly different vantage point, and that point is unlike what we knew before—no one knows every point of view to some moderation and epistemic humility might be called for. H: “In full daylight the trees blend and all you see is a mass of green against the sky. In the morning you notice the many nuances of green, and how the foliage of each species forms a different pattern: one a mass of crosses, one of circles, and one of sweeping lines. The first day of my vacation does not seem memorable. I do not feel particularly free, relaxed or expectant. Tonight I shall go to the union meeting. 12 P.M. Back from the meeting. Had an unpleasant falling-out with Selden. After the meeting we went to have a drink, and he said something about the fact that we are prone to detect in others the faults we hide in ourselves. He said: ‘I think our union officials are lazy and dishonest. Does that mean that there is in me a tendency towards laziness and dishonesty? I tried to tell him that such insights are not cut and dried, that a statement of proven facts about the outside world does not reflect an inner situation, and there are varieties of laziness and dishonesty. I did not tell him that his sin of laziness was in not making the effort to utilize the training he had been given at Stanford, and that his dishonesty manifests itself in crass self-righteousness. Instead I brought up the subject of pretentiousness. Selden is always surprised that people are not as pretentious as he had expected them to be. Why does he expect people to be pretentious? I mentioned something I had observed in him the other day. He had read a report about the cost of containerization at Matson Co. and he was telling us about it. Instead of summarizing what he had learned he made the whole thing seem terribly abstruse and complex—something that the average longshoreman could not hope to master.” My response: I know that Hoffer and Selden had a long, complex history together. He likely is correct that Selden was self-righteous and pretentious, that he made his container report complex and abstruse appearing so that he could convey how much smarter, better and superior he was to his blue collar audience, a lie, for none are much smarter or dumber, naturally better or worse than anyone else. H: “Actually, the morning papers of that day gave a straight-forward report on the subject. Even as I spoke I realized I was being tactless and stupid. Selden needs sympathy and encouragement rather than criticism. He is genuinely convinced that he has not an atom of pretense, dishonesty, or self-seeking and so on. He knows he is perfect. He is convinced that the reason the majority of longshoreman do not admire him, trust him, and vote for him is that they are stupid, malicious and dishonest. Criticism could not possibly change his opinions and attitudes. It only embitters him. The best course is to listen to him and get used to his self-righteousness. For all I know, in Selden’s present state of mind, seeing things as they are might be fatal. He perhaps has to be self-righteous in order to survive. Since I see little of him it should not be a strain on me to be uncritical. Selden fits Nietzsche’s description of the idealist: ‘A creature who has reasons for remaining in the dark about himself, and who is clever enough to remain in the dark concerning these reasons.” My response: My hunch is that Selden and Eric detested each other, and that Eric saw Selden for the angry intellectual on the make that he was, and Selden did not like that. I also suspect Lili did not like the angry quarreling between the two men in her life. One of the things that I notice with a boss who is a narcissist is his complete inability to know who he is, and he does cruel things to employees, but views himself as righteous and virtuous. He like intellectuals have no ability to face what they are, and, thus are so self-deluding and delusional, they, zealots of great passion, can hide behind altruistic claims of virtue to commit any sin or crime which they can get away with, without losing one minute of sleep over it. Never is the conscience deadest but in the psyche of the educated idealist in power pushing forward his ideological agenda, all in the name of compassion, and done to the people mandated but for their own good, he suggests.

Defending Workers' Rights

Though I am over 72 years of age, I still work full-time in a union shop, a maintenance engineer, at a small, private, religious college in Minnesota. I am a union steward and have let them know that I am a blogger (philosophyfromaworkingman.blogspot.com) very concerned about workers’ rights, and we are up against a thuggish employer out to weaken or break our union, and beat up the workers. It is an uphill battle. I sent out the following email a couple of hours ago, and I want to share it with my readers on the blog site. I will leave out the name of the university (just refer to as U for the university in question. Here is my email sent the campus President, and officers all up and down the Facilities and HR hierarchy, tot he chief union steward, and the local union council—our business agent (the union with just be referred to as The Local). Here is the email No Reign Of Terror Please 8:05 AM (8 hours ago) My supervisor in a mandatory meeting last week and in a conversation with me later that day emphatically emphasized that any union worker that disrespects in any way ever peers, bosses, lecturers, or students will be disciplined and he the supervisor will not waver from that. Let us all agree that being respectful at work is expected and desirable. But, context is everything. I suspect the supervisor and HR have worked together to devise the rolled-out, hyper-emphasis on being hyper-respectful as a mechanism for bringing into line what they construe to be unruly employees. My take on this is three reactions. First, our engineers are rarely disrespectful to anyone. If they are do something about it. We are often treated as second class citizens for being blue collar as students and other staff sometimes mistreat us but we are afraid to speak up or defend ourselves because Management too readily sides with the student or staff abusing us. We do not want to risk being fired for defending ourselves. We are often regarded as guilty until proven innocent if anyone, anywhere complains about us. What about our rights? I guess we have none. Know that the Local will defend its employees if this disrespects thing takes off as anticipated. We are assertive and express ourselves but that is normal and proper and these worker communications must not be shutdown and mislabeled as disrespect in some zealous Management attack on Labor to weaponize disrespect as a means of suppressing worker individuality, independent thinking, self-starting enthusiasm for the work and the job. Intentional or unintentional running a weaponized anti-respect campaign is also a way of maximizing Management control over every aspect of workers thoughts, words and deeds and that is totalitarian supervising, a most effective means of union-busting or union weakening.. Second, we have dedicated, skilled engineers, and if this reign of terror ensues, they will resign, move on, some will be fired. Can the U with its embarrassingly low wages find comparable replacement workers? Judging from recent hires being short on experience, qualifications and licensing, it may be unwise to wipe out great staff already here out of some weird ambition to gain control of Labor at any price by any means necessary. The students and the U will suffer as new engineers will come here for 2 or 3 years to get experience and then move next door for more money, a humane, a democratic supervisory arrangement, better opportunity for advancement. Being an engineer at the U will then be a training  ground only. Few stay and those that may be 2nd tier caliber of employees. This is where the U is headed. How can Managers so educated, personally decent, well-meaning, industrious and smart devise and implement such a stupid, mean, dehumanizing and institution-destroying campaign as this hysterical push, this manic grab for power? Third,  we are entering an age as a people where blue collar skilled technicians' job descriptions are radically evolving and blurring up against supervisory and IT job duties. The intellectual technician of the future needs better pay, paid training, democratic and tolerant supervision, more praise and rewards, more power and say in running the joint, and Management encouragement of, enjoyment of and tolerance for a free-speaking, honest worker--still respectful of course--and if this disrespect, reign of terror campaign is carried out, workers that stay will be obedient, silenced, cowed little zombies, controlled but without the zest and creativity individually stifled-hardly candidates for growing into being intellectual technicians the future demands. Will HR lead us to the Promised Land or send us back to the Pharaoh to be chained-up slaves? Ed Ramsey Workers' Rights Blogger, the Local Union Steward

Gijsbers On Realism And Antirealism

Dutch philosopher Victor Gijsbers put out a video on 5/8/24 about Truth—realism and antirealism about truth. I took notes on this short video and will write them out below, slightly edited, and comment on them—here is the video: Gijsbers (G after this): “Antirealists are pilloried by the public as not believing in truth, in being anti-truth and being the cause of much falsehood, lying and fake news. The public and some philosophers level this criticism against antirealists about truth. Philosophers and deconstructionists are criticized as being anti-truth, arguing that falsehood is a good as truth.” My response: I agree with critics of antirealists like Gijsbers. Stephen Hicks criticizes Kantians like Gijsbers as getting rid of a belief in the human being’s ability to perceive objects in the world as they actually are, and without an ability to escape our perspectival bias would mean we cannot know reality, and that is an inability to know or offer propositions about either small t truths, or big T truths, and that inability as a bad thing to advocate and conclude, let alone allow to serve as the metaphysical base line for how we conduct our research, our investigations, our very lives. G flatly denies that take that antirealists are disrespecting truth, or calling it unimportant. Philosophers who are antirealist are misunderstood by the public and other philosophers. Antirealism is not a scary anti-truth position, dismissive of truth. G: “What is realism and antirealism about truth? I offer a mathematical analogy to demonstrate what are realism and antirealism about truth, and then I will apply this paradigm to things about the world around us. We have already proved some things in math like 1+1=2. We know there are infinite amount of prime numbers. And, also, in math there are things we don’t know: e.g., something call the Twin Prime Conjecture. This is about pairs, 2 numbers apart, e.g., 3 & 5, 5 & 7, and 11 & 13—all prime pairs. Twin Prime Conjecture conjectures there are an infinite number of prime pairs. We don’t know of Twin Prime Conjecture is true or false. There is no proof that it is true; there is no proof that it is false. There are three scenarios here: One, we can prove Twin Prime Conjecture (TPC) is true. We have not done so yet, and found it yet, but let’s assume for a minute it is true, or it’s possible to prove it is true, so TPC is true, and both realists and antirealists agree here. Two, Maybe we can prove TPC is false, or it is possible to prove it is false than both realists and antirealists agree here. In both these two cases, they are true or false not just because they could be true or false, but we should be able to prove they are true or false (TPC). The mere possibility that we can prove TPC could be true or proved false, even if we do not have the proof captured yet intellectually the potential is enough to guarantee TPC is true or false.” My response: G is trying to show that antirealists liberally allow propositions like TPC to be cognitively identified as true or false, even when we have not capture the proof yet, and this intellectual generosity demonstrates that antirealists are not only against truth, but they they epistemologically go out of their way to give truth-seekers the benefit of the doubt. I think that is fine as far as it goes. G: “Three: Third possibility. Can’t prove TPC is true or false. There exists a well-established math assumption that not all mathematical claims are provable or disprovable. Some mathematical claims—we already know these are not provable or disprovable (third category). With TPC who knows? Yet realists and antirealists do not disagree about the first two categories, but disagree about the third category. Realists: there exists a preexisting, independent realm of mathematical entities. Realists: They are there, the mathematical facts are there independent of our practices of proving. So either there are or are not TPC, an infinite number of them. TPC is either true or false in objective reality, and even if we can’t prove TPC either way, TPC is still going to be true or false.” My response: I agree with the realists more than with the antirealists that TPC is either true or false whether humans practices of proving or disproving can ever solve the puzzle or not. That is my primary ontological outlook, but the moderate in me concedes the though antirealists are mostly wrong, they still have some truth to add with their skeptical, subjectivist constructions proffered. G: “Antirealist mathematical theorists argue that provability is just provability. If we can prove some claim is true, it is true. If we can prove that a claim is false it is false. But if you can prove neither—if you can’t prove the claim true, or disprove it as false about TPC, then there is no fact, and it is neither true or false.” My response: Here is where Gijsbers needs to add that, regarding mathematical proposals which can be proved true or false (now and perhaps ever) the antirealists are noncognitivists, that claims that are neither provable or disprovable are meaningless, not cognitive, not truth apt, just mere opinion or whim. Many traditionalists, like Mark Levin and Dennis Prager, argue that there is a Creator who crafted natural laws to operate and regulate the cosmos created by God. Humans are able to rationally, empirically and intuitively ascertain what is true, what is false, what is right and what is wrong, that there are moral facts, and that studying the natural world and the social world will allow us to generalize what these laws governing the universe and human society are. This is both a cognitivist and realist set of premises. The danger is the noncognitivists and antirealists so depreciate traditional acceptance of Platonic, acceptable Forms or universals like Love, Beauty, Goodness, Evil and God, that humans have lost their traditional values, now with no spiritual, natural, rational or historical standards to lead civilized lives, so evil and barbarism and tyranny will abound were antirealism and noncognitivism to be accepted as the ontological and epistemological tropes guiding our declining into postmodernist Leftism. G: “The realist asserts that that any math claim is true or false independent of if we can prove it. The antirealist counters that if we can’t prove it to be true or disprove it as false, the claim is not having the property of truth. So it is neither true or false. Realists postulate an independent realm of mathematical facts. They accept not that these proofs and disproofs are just our methods of proof, and these define what mathematical truth and falsehood is, and anything that doesn’t fall under our methods of proof are neither true or false. Which of these 2 positions is better? I’ll not try to decide that but I want to point out that there is at least one problem the realist faces that the antirealist doesn’t, and that is the realist has to explain how do we get into contact with this realm of mathematical facts. And how do we know our methods of proof are the right way of investigating this independently existing mathematical world?” My response: I think the realist is able to make contact with the independent world, not only of concrete, solid things, and by inference, imagination, research and intuition, able to make contact with the world of Form, Spirit, Logos, the a priori, infinite world intrinsically sensed by extrasensory means by Aristotle, Plato and many others. I think epistemological direct realism is at work and serves to allow human search for the nature of physical and immaterial reality to be adequately experienced, conceptualized, knowable as cognitively true or false knowledge. G: “The anitrealist does not have to face this challenge. For the antirealist mathematical truth is defined in terms of our methods of proof. And so for the antirealist there is not question of adequacy. Let us apply realism and antirealism now to the world around us. We use a very complicated set of methods involving empirical investigations, theorizing, building instruments to investigate the natural world. And we are sometimes changing, improving our methods of investigation concerning investigation about the world. Realists and antirealists agree about searching for truths. They agree about how to do it, using our best empirical methods, improving empirical methods.” My response: Gijsbers is an antirealist, not a neutral commentator as he pretends to be. He keeps reminding the viewer how much realists and antirealists have in common, but what he fails to realize or at least admit to the reader is that all of these agreeing aspects of studying reality are minor agreements in light of the huge, un-proclaimed disagreement that really is the only debate that matters. Antirealist are epistemological perspectivists, that we can never know objects out there in the world as they are in themselves. If the external world even exists, then it is not knowable, rationally apprehended by our perceptions and conceptions based upon these sensed experiences. This disagreement is unbridgeable and primary with prodigious influence and consequence. Gijsbers in the spirit of intellectual honesty and fair play for his students and the public must acknowledge this disagreement as singularly significant, and that students are being lulled into accepting the real world is ever inaccessible to their consciousness, rendering them into little Kantians and postmodernists. Eric Hoffer has well documented what happens to a people without their tradition of a good deity, traditional culture, values and a way of life predicated on the premises that objective reality is where their morals, values and faith originate from. Once deconstructionists get the young to accept this skeptical nonsense it opens the way for Satan, isms and mass movements, the very utopian dream salivated over and sought after by too many leftist professors and intellectuals. Concerning propositions that seem to be or are actually unprovable for now, or for any pondering human intellect, my response is the realist solution, that the truth or falsity of any or most proposition is known by God and the angels, and perhaps we can only learn these answers as our knowledge grows, as we get smarter as individuators, or if by divine revelation, God imparts the answer or answers to one of us seekers after truth. G: “But they do disagree about the empirical method on one hand, and on the other hand the world (I add for clarification its nature, is knowability, its very existence, Ed Says). If we follow the best imperial methods we have we will discover reality, and on this realists and antirealists agree (Do they, I doubt it, Ed says. But let me suspend judgment and allow Gijsbers to develop his argument,) G: “But there is a philosophical disagreement about which half of this story is more fundamental. The realist says the fundamental thing here is reality. And a good empirical method is one which puts us into touch with reality independently existing. Anti realists respond, yes, good empirical methods bring us into touch with reality because that’s what reality is. The fundamental idea here is a good investigation, a good empirical method or epistemic standard. Reality can be defined as that which gets uncovered when we use the best empirical method that we have. Realists think of reality: a fundamental and good method bring us into touch with reality. Antirealist: Our method, our epistemic norms, are the fundamental point here. Reality is what we come up with or find when we use those methods and norms. So there is a distinction in what is more fundamental. Is reality fundamental (Ed Says, yes!) and our norms have to live up to that. Or: our norms are fundamental and reality is what gets discovered when we follow through on those norms. When we perfectly follow through as best we can come up with. So this is not a distinction between someone who wants to search for the truth and someone who doesn’t.” My response: To be more than a little bit antirealist or quasi-realist beyond a need for both to keep us honest and humble, is to be anti-truth. G: “Both say they want to use our best empirical methods to find out about reality. It is a discussion about what is more fundamental. Our norms, or is it reality? Is reality the authority that determines if our norms are any good? Or are we the authority that determines if our norms are any good and reality is what comes out of that? Those are the two pictures that we have, the realist and the antirealist picture. So in mathematics we have a nice test case where we thought about these unprovable truths like maybe we don’t know if it’s an unprovable truth. But maybe the twin prime conjecture, right, suppose it’s unprovable. You can’t prove it. You can’t disprove it. Is it still true or false, right and the realist says yes and the antirealist says no, it’s neither true or false. I think we can come up with you know vaguely plausible scenarios like that in the empirical realm as well. Let us say there is a particle a do-nothing-on (dno), tiny particles flying through space. They do nothing and do not interact with any other particles. So, by definition they are undetectable. Are there dnos? Do they exist? Obviously we have no evidence for dnos. A realist will postulate about dnos—either they are there or not there, but we will never be able to know. Reality is independent of us, so it is still true or false that dnos exist. The antirealist: No, it is not going to be true or false if dnos exist by definition they are even beyond our best empirical methods. There’s no truth or falsity about them. There is no sense of which they are or are not part of reality. They are just outside the scope of what it is to discuss what is real. The realist declares that all is either true or false. The antirealist dismisses certain ideas as being neither true or false. In terms of authority, where does the authority for our claims come from? Everybody in a sense is going to agree that the authority for our claims come from our norms, our methods of investigation, right. If I want to tell you that this, this and this is true about the world, I’ve got to show you my method, so that’s where the authority comes from. But where do these epistemic norms get their authority? Right, this is where the realist is going to say well, the world, right, the world is going to give its authority to certain epistemic methods namely in the following way: only those epistemic methods that are good at uncovering reality have authority. Only they are good, right, only they count as generating knowledge. It’s possible for the realist to say this because they believe reality is more fundamental than the norms. In fact, it is necessary because they believe reality is the fundamental thing, and norms are trying to latch onto that. The antirealist methods and norms are going to be the primary thing and reality is what comes out of that, what we discover when we follow through on those norms. Antirealists need another story about authority. The normativity of our methods comes from us. It comes from our community, our thinking, maybe from the basic structures of the human mind-on the basic structure of finite thought in general—a Kantian story. Or maybe it comes from more historically general situations in society, our culture, our science. So that would be a more contextual story. We need some kind of story that takes us as the primary locus of authority, not independent reality as the primary locus of authority is what is needed. There is no true object but reality must be the source of our claims, claim realists. Antirealists causes worry for the realist by suggesting that realism is going to lead to skepticism.” My response: This worry, which antirealists seemingly cause for realism suggesting their confidence in their empirical knack for directly encountering the given, or objects in external reality, revealed as they actually are, is not as certain as they presume, that they can never know for sure if they experience things out there as they actually are, is an attempt to discombobulate and stop realists in their tracks that their direct realist epistemological assertion leads to vexing skeptical puzzles, suggests that realists in their objectivist epistemology are beset by skeptical worries and criticism, which antirealists with their subjectivists perspectival epistemology are able to avoid because they encounter reality indirectly as part of their subjective world-encountering experiencing. This claim the skepticism besets realists but not the antirealists themselves contradicts the overarching epistemological facts governing reality in which antirealist function as subjectivists. They are profoundly pessimistic or skeptical that they will ever know the world as it is outside of human consciousness, whereas realists or objectivists are much more optimistic, certain and confident that human can grasp or know reality in effable, clear concepts, words and propositions thereby eschewing and sloughing off skeptical concerns. G; “If reality is independent of our norms, how do we know our norms are actually adequate/ to reality? How do we know our way of investigating that what comes out of that is reality, and not something that has nothing to do with reality? It is not so easy for realism to solve that to avoid a skepticism that suggests there may be an unbridgeable gap between reality and our norms. As we discuss realism and antirealism, we also touch on skepticism, idealism, contextualizaiton. Antirealists about truth are not pro fake news, not dismissing truth, not saying our methods of investigation are perfect. No antirealists say it is just our best methods for now used in the best possible way.

Peak Experiencing

Many people fondly recall a favorite, peak experience, perhaps the only one which they will ever enjoy. Such accidental events are precious, unexpected, to be treasured and remembered always for sure. My suggestion would be that a nearly as thrilling, satisfying, if not quite so emotionally intense experience, is available to all humans who choose to so live—by self-realizing, they replace the experience of a life time with a lifetime of near peak experiences on a daily basis. If one individuates daily and continually, loving and serving God at the same time and all that while, one’s actualized talent, creativity and intelligence will grow and develop, getting better and better as the years go by, and the merited enjoyment of that journey will develop with it.

Reverse Gaslighting

It occurs to me that if one is an egoist and loves and esteems oneself, one has no motive or predilection to whisper like Iago into his master’s ear to undermine his happiness, to feed his jealousy, to upend his mind, to ruin his life. If one is a rational egoist and maverizer, then one in action should be practicing in thought, word and deed, reverse gaslighting or reverse Iagosim. What this entails is that with carefully selected, kind but honest words, both whispered or openly declared, he will work to build up the self-confidence and self-worth of every adult, peer, child or pet over who he holds sway over, is able to influence, or even comes into contact with. I can think of no better or efficient means of spreading love and happiness in the world than by not seeking any longer in one’s utterances to tear down whatever modest level of self-esteem another person or creature has managed to cling to. To practice reverse gaslighting in public or in private is to live, act and speak altruistically within an egoist morality. The reverse gaslighter is determined to undermine the psychological health of no one or no creature under his sway, and nor will he allow a malicious gaslighter to attack and undermine his own mental health or sense of well-being.

Altruism At A Glance

Altruism, if properly applied, will be embedded within an egoist ethical code, where I will construe it as productive other-dealing, by verbally and in action working to, establish, build up, reinforce, or uphold and restore another’s legitimate, wholesome self-esteem by providing upbeat, positive feedback to the other in one’s remarks and suggestions to her, to bolster her self-image—this is socially beneficial and proper.

Endless Night

Occasionally I enjoy reading or rereading an Agatha Christie novel, for light entertainment. I recently finished her novel Endless Night where Mike Rogers, the serial killer and psychopath, the villain and narrator who conspires with his lover Greta Anderson for Mike to capture and marry poor, impressionable, credulous little rich girl, Ellie Guteman to murder her for her money. The villains succeed but are caught in the end. The Rogers build their dream mansion on Gypsy’s Acre, a haunted, cursed, evil place where evil long lingered, and it seems to me that Christie believes in demons—as I do--that some spots are cursed and haunted, and unfit for inhabiting lest, the evil spirits there tempt human sinners to commit grave, serious crimes for gain. The Rogers were warned by the gypsy woman not to build there and live there, but they dismissed her dire warning, so their lives ended up being quite tragic. Far too often humans do not heed warnings as to what they should avoid and stay away from. I enjoy Christie’s remarkable character development, and how true is their hunches about human nature. For example, Santonix, the gifted architect who builds the Rogers’s mansion is part evil, so he knows how evil Mike and Greta are and what they plan, so he builds a mansion to reflect the complex relationship between the three main characters. Let me quote from Page 154 where Christie’s characterizes Santonix as a perceptive genius, almost clairvoyant who knows who people are, even better than they know themselves. He is such a developed individuator, that he has learned about himself, and through his deep, vast, wise self-knowledge, based in truth and reality, he thus is able to know others as they are, even when they have not discovered who and what they are: “’What a strange man he is,’ Ellie said thoughtfully. ‘You mean he knows the future.’ ‘No,’said Ellie, ‘I didn’t mean that. He knows people. I said it to you once before. He knows people better than they know themselves. Sometimes he hates them because of that, and sometimes he’s sorry for them. He’s not sorry for me, though,’ she added meditatively.” Then on Page 156 MIke’s mother chides him for rising above his station, that being ambitious is unnatural, accursed and somehow an affront to God who will strike down the conceited and proud, and this too seems to be a trope which Christie mentions again and again. Here is the quote from Page 156: “’Too grand for the likes of me, eh.?’ I said. ‘I didn’t say that lad.’ ‘But you thought it.’ ‘It wasn’t what you were born to, and no good comes from getting out of your station in life.’” My response: Christie the Dame, millionaire and famous individuator also is a British snob who thinks the burghers, workers and poor should accept their lot in life and not seek to better themselves, which is malarcky. Her nature is complicated and self-contradictory too.