Conservatism Defined

 Tom Shactman, in his biography of Eric Hoffer, American Iconoclast, The Life and Times of Eric Hoffer, Pages 201 and 202, writes: "In Hoffer's final decade he produced his most profound analysis of the basis of conservatism. It was a natural force, he wrote, the counterpoint to an 'innate anarchy' that got loose at various points in history and wreaked havoc but was usually kept in check by mankind's equally-innate striving 'to wrest a living from grudging nature.'

My response: Humans naturally are savage and lawless, but they also crave order so both of these warring drives are biologically originated. Our chaotic or lawless tendency is kept in check, ordinarily, in lawful civil society, democracy or tyranny of whatever kind, by most people struggling to keep food on the table, and that keeps them busy, structured with purpose and meaning in their lives.

Shactman continues: "But since then the industrial and technological revolutions that have allowed mankind to conquer nature also allowed us to banish scarcity. Quelling the need for the majority to work si hard then unleashed the current iteration of the 'innate anarchy' in the form of the 'explosion of the young, the dominance of intellectuals, the savaging of the cities, the revulsion from work.' In Hoffer's view, social order was and should always be 'the product of an equilibrium between a vigorous majority and violent minorities.' Today's 'violent minorities,' he charged, were no different from those of the past; what has changed was the majority's willingness to take action--the current 'meekness' of the majority was spurring the violent minorities to greater excesses. To counter those 'violent minorities,' order must be restored by force."

My response: Hoffer is brilliant in capture the modern mood of malaise and emotional drift now that forces of inner anarchy are no longer easily kept in check by most adults just keeping busy and fulfilled working just to keep food on the table. Now, luxury, wealth, comfort, riches and technology allow millions of people not to work at all or enjoy unearned leisure for extended periods of time.

When millions of people have nothing to do, boredom drives them to seek ideological solutions to their boredom and feelings of emptiness. The current mass movement of Progressivism/Marxism fills that slot quite nicely. 

What people need to do is to work for money, and to be taught to maverize, so that, through millions of young or idle adults self-realizing, they boredom will disappear, their self-esteem and sense of meaning will be met, and they will be disciplining and improving themselves. This keeps their inner feelings of innate anarchy and id impulses in check or sublimated.

Hoffer long yelled at the silent majority for their meekness. Counter-cultural minorities are welcome and not to be suppressed as long as they remain nonviolent, but the silent, conservative majority should oppose them openly and critically, stay armed so the violent ones are not able to bully the majority, and the majority must support their local police departments in maintaining law and order. That is reasonable, justifiable conservativism, not fascism. Where the majority are meek and cowardly, the violent minorities will keep attacking and getting bolder until they revolt and overthrow society, and they must be opposed early and often to keep them in check.

 Tom Shactman, in his biography of Eric Hoffer, American Iconoclast, The Life and Times of Eric Hoffer, Pages 201 and 202, writes: "In Hoffer's final decade he produced his most profound analysis of the basis of conservatism. It was a natural force, he wrote, the counterpoint to an 'innate anarchy' that got loose at various points in history and wreaked havoc but was usually kept in check by mankind's equally-innate striving 'to wrest a living from grudging nature.'

My response: Humans naturally are savage and lawless, but they also crave order so both of these warring drives are biologically originated. Our chaotic or lawless tendency is kept in check, ordinarily, in lawful civil society, democracy or tyranny of whatever kind, by most people struggling to keep food on the table, and that keeps them busy, structured with purpose and meaning in their lives.

Shactman continues: "But since then the industrial and technological revolutions that have allowed mankind to conquer nature also allowed us to banish scarcity. Quelling the need for the majority to work si hard then unleashed the current iteration of the 'innate anarchy' in the form of the 'explosion of the young, the dominance of intellectuals, the savaging of the cities, the revulsion from work.' In Hoffer's view, social order was and should always be 'the product of an equilibrium between a vigorous majority and violent minorities.' Today's 'violent minorities,' he charged, were no different from those of the past; what has changed was the majority's willingness to take action--the current 'meekness' of the majority was spurring the violent minorities to greater excesses. To counter those 'violent minorities,' order must be restored by force."

My response: Hoffer is brilliant in capture the modern mood of malaise and emotional drift now that forces of inner anarchy are no longer easily kept in check by most adults just keeping busy and fulfilled working just to keep food on the table. Now, luxury, wealth, comfort, riches and technology allow millions of people not to work at all or enjoy unearned leisure for extended periods of time.

When millions of people have nothing to do, boredom drives them to seek ideological solutions to their boredom and feelings of emptiness. The current mass movement of Progressivism/Marxism fills that slot quite nicely. 

What people need to do is to work for money, and to be taught to maverize, so that, through millions of young or idle adults self-realizing, they boredom will disappear, their self-esteem and sense of meaning will be met, and they will be disciplining and improving themselves. This keeps their inner feelings of innate anarchy and id impulses in check or sublimated.

Hoffer long yelled at the silent majority for their meekness. Counter-cultural minorities are welcome and not to be suppressed as long as they remain nonviolent, but the silent, conservative majority should oppose them openly and critically, stay armed so the violent ones are not able to bully the majority, and the majority must support their local police departments in maintaining law and order. That is reasonable, justifiable conservativism, not fascism. Where the majority are meek and cowardly, the violent minorities will keep attacking and getting bolder until they revolt and overthrow society, and they must be opposed early and often to keep them in check.

 

Change Is Hard

 

From the Book, Eric Hoffer: The Syndicated News Articles, Page 181: let me quote Hoffer: "The end of the 18th century marks a sharp dividing line between an immemorial static world and a world of ceaseless change. It is obvious, therefore, that change is far from being as natural and matter of fact as we imagine it to be. Moreover, an observant person will notice that even in this country change is never free of an element of irritation and elements of fear."

What is Hoffer getting at here? Though we live in times of rapid, mind-boggling change, changing and adjusting at this rate is not natural or easy for human beings. We are not born good, versatile or strong. We are corrupt, profoundly conservative, fatalistic, and resistant to change. Changing turns, us all, more or less into misfits, and that psychic state of confusion, low self-esteem and uncertainty renders us susceptible to becoming true believers, to joining revolutions, ideological cults and other totalitarian excesses that could destroy us, our society and perhaps the whole world. It is desirable that we maverize, learn to love but meter how much we change, how fast, so that it does not overwhelm us. We must be meta-aware of how we are handling such transitional times so that we at the core remain calm, at peace, rational and temperate so that change is an opportunity and not a wrecking ball. Change is very hard on us, but, if we are resilient, determined and very self-disciplined, we can strive to change without being ruined by it.

If we are classical liberals, religious and self-realizing, then we should be able to handle and even welcome steady improvement and growth. This means of changing is beneficial even welcome.

On a further note, I wonder if God is eternally becoming, changing and self-realizing while Satan is ever static, unchanging, and stuck, although regressing might be a change that Satan would approve of.

 Hoffer biographer Tom Bethell, wrote Eric Hoffer The Longshoreman Philosopher; on Page 14, " . . . Change was unpredictable so leaders should think twice before changing anything . . ."

We are basically evil, savage and lawless, and quiet, peaceful, law-abiding citizens in a free civil society that is functioning automatically and efficiently is a miracle, and wonderfully unnatural. To be an aggressive revolutionary or radical hellbent on altering what works is arrogant, cruel and nihilistic. We do not want the people upset, deracinated, and agitated. Horrible things occur when society is chaotic and uncivil.

Change and occur must and should occur, but quietly, calmly and carefully. Eric Hoffer realized this fully, as does Jordan Peterson and Mark Levin. Hoffer raised the alarm about Progressive intellectuals with no fear of violently altering and disrupting the American status quo. They self-identify as social justice warriors. Instead, too often their actual motives are revenge, tyrannical power lust and love of violence and nihilism.

 

 

 

 

To Compare And Contrast

 I am increasingly noting striking similarities--and at least one contrast--between the thinking of Jordan Peterson and Eric Hoffer.

These quotes are from American Iconoclast. by Tom Shactman on Eric Hoffer: Peterson believes humans are born sinful, and on Page 200, Shactman writes this of Hoffer: "Only such compassion can count what the 'enormities of Lenin, Stalin and Hitler' have taught us, 'that man is the origin of all evil.'"

Jordan Peterson's has two great faults, though he is a wise, good. Seminal and brilliant thinker. First, as a super-genius with an IQ of 150, Peterson advocates that there is a natural elite that rise to the top of any hierarchy, based on high intelligence, conscientiousness, and hard work

Peterson also over-emphasizes the value of hierarchies. He insists that they are inevitable, and he is correct, but if the masses would individual-live and individuate, their tolerance of hierarchies would make them more virtuous, and existent but limited, to maximize individuals' needs for space, room, liberty and elbow room to do their own thing.

Shactman is describing Hoffer in the eyes of George Will on Pages 199 and 200: "Opining that Hoffer had been one the 'most sensible voices' of the 1960s--though Will added that this was not saying much--the columnist judged him as 'charismatic,' and, adopting Hoffer's contention that talent was a species of vigor, contended that Hoffer had become more vigorous with age . . ."

Hoffer the deep conservative was recognized by Will as such and has been largely forgotten in recent years because Progressive intellectuals wanted him marginalized and forgotten for his fierce, persistent opposition to them and their elitist, tyrannical ambitions. Hoffer was charismatic, but what intrigued me the most here was Hoffer's definition of talent as a species of vigor. By interpreting this phrase, I conclude that Hoffer thought that the range of difference in talent and its potential for great creativity, in the person of average ability versus the Mensa IQ types like Jordan Peterson, is significant but not definitive. Even very average people, at 96% if their potential, can achieve fabulous creative, wonderous, original products of lasting, useful value for all humanity for all time. By my concluding that this is axiomatic for Hoffer, and myself, then for any human being, whether average or exceptionally, naturally intelligent, in performance is a matter of degree, and the blessings of self-realization are available to all that chase after it, thus talent is a species of vigor. 

Jordan Peterson has more of the traditional view that only the elite, superior few can really achieve artistic and original works of art and thought. I believe Jordan is mistaken here.

Let me quote Shactman further on the bottom of Page 201: "In Hoffer's final decade he produced the most profound analysis of the basis of conservativism. It was a natural force, he wrote, the counterpoint to an 'innate anarchy' that got loose at various points in history . . ."

Peterson wrote one book on chaos, the need to self-correct and self-discipline the self, the moral requirement for every person, to gain control of the instinct and passion-driven, out of control self. This year he went and made a counterargument, that order in one's life or in society can lead to tyranny. From Buddhism, Peterson seems to have some point about the best, most moderate life being a balance between Yin and chaos and Yang and order in one's life. 

Peterson is a moderate like I am, and Hoffer is too. Hoffer writes about the inner anarchy at work in our lives personally and in society, and the need for law and order, implicitly in our personal lives, and explicitly in communities to make life livable. Hoffer is a democrat, but he wants law and order too.

He, Peterson and I do think alike in some ways.

 

Hoffer The Conservative

 Hoffer was a true conservative for six reasons: first he loved America. Second, he supported the free market system. Third, he promoted law and order against criminals, rioters, anarchists, and violent protesters. Fourth, he believed that human nature was evil. Fifth, he adopted the tragic view of life, that we are born sinful, and that malice and suffering exist, but we can find hope, meaning and salvation in self-improvement but the struggle is life-long and hard, hard work. Sixth, and implicitly suggested, the sovereign individual is a primary contribution that the West gave to humanity.

Let me quote biographer Tom Schactman from his book on Hoffer, American Iconoclast, Page 199 : "Hoffer's real prescription for countering the decline in morals had little to do with parental toughness and fiscal rigor. To insure a more mature view of life, he wrote, required making 'the tragic sense . . . a permanent part of our inner landscape.' He argued that only by doing so it was possible for people to be more compassionate towards their fellow human beings. Having compassion was more important to society now than it ever had been, Hoffer believed; but it was an achievable goal because compassion was rooted in what happened naturally in a family . . . "

Hoffer is spot on in declaring that compassion or love is crucial for human well-being. I would define love as primarily loving God and then oneself, and then one's family and the rest of humanity, up close and as an abstraction.

Love makes all morals substantial and impactful.

 

Ayn Rand's Remarkable Statement

 Let me quote two sentences from the Introduction, pages viii & ix from Ayn Rand book, The Virtue of Selfishness; here is that remarkable statement: "Observe what this beneficiary-criterion of morality does to a man's life. The first thing he learns is that morality is his enemy; he has nothing to gain from it, he can only lose . . ."

If morality is egoism, or rational self-interest, than to inculcate young people with the common, typical ethical code of altruism, then self-interest, or morality, is his enemy. Self-denial and self-sacrifice in service to humanity are the expectations for him, and that is spreading evil in the world. Rand could not be more correct.

What is bad is called good, and what is good is called bad, and this is why moral science does not advance.

From The Syndicated News Articles

 

 

 Christopher Klim put together a book of Eric Hoffer news articles, called: Eric Hoffer: The Syndicated News Articles. I wish to quote some from Page 175 of that book. Jordan Peterson and Eric Hoffer do share some common perceptions: both accept the tragic view of life; both assert that humans are not basically good. Both loved/love American exceptionalism and are loathe to allow Leftist revolutionaries to overthrow this last best hope for humans. Peterson has cautioned that changing what can make things much worse, due to unintended consequences. Peterson told Prager that it is a miracle that we can, in the West, or anywhere, sit lawfully, civilly, and peacefully in a room with no inefficiencies, no violence, no breakdown or constant emergency status.

What Peterson is suggesting is that it is fabulous that we are all civilized enough to work together and not kill, rob, and murder each other as each tribe and group do their level best to butcher and wipe out rival groups and tribes. That in the West we have wealth, freedom, peace, justice, calm, stability, capitalism, much wealth and law and order is not only a compliment to the fantastic, established political, religious, and economic structures in place, but is real praise for and appreciation of the citizens, so decent, well-behaved, peacefully coexisting, cooperating and competing without constant civil war breaking out. These citizens are born depraved, run in evil packs, live non-individuated lives as Satan desires, and yet, they have enough free will, training and decency, enough individualism, kindness and respect for others, to keep the whole show running rather smoothly without a wrinkle. That miracle is hard won and easily lost, so revolutionaries should be kept out of power.

Hoffer, Prager, and Peterson all urge or would urge that radical reformers, seeking to fundamentally transform America like Obama did, and Biden seeks to install here, are fearlessly reckless with what they are seeking to destroy or dismantle. 

One does not tear apart what is working out of humility and fear that one's hammer blows against it will shatter the whole fragile glass bowl that is civil society. When revolutionaries work overtime to dismantle a democratic, just society, they are evil and wicked, out of ignorance, or out of malice, if they realize what they seek to bring about.

Let me quote Hoffer now: "The 20th century, which has seen unimaginable slaughter and destruction, has also seen unprecedented attempts to realize dreams, visions and wild hopes. Some of the worst tyrannies of our time were instituted by men genuinely dedicated to the welfare of humanity.

As we near the three-quarter mark of the century, it ought to be self-evident that when a society sets out to purge itself of inequities and shortcomings it should expect the worst, and ready itself for a crisis that would test its stability and stamina. Only a vigorous, orderly society can aspire to become a wholly just society overnight.

In human affairs there is no certainty that good follows from good, and evil from evil. There is always the danger that the attempt to eliminate evil would be like an ill purging that takes away the good with the bad."

Let me disabuse our Progressive foes that would accuse of being front men or stooges apologizing for a systemically racist, sexist, classist male patriarchy and tyranny. We deny these accusations as baseless and inapplicable.

We are not anti-reform. What radical, fervent ideologues on the Left or Right, religious or secular, seek is not reform, but fundamentally re-imagine sweeping changes that have no chance of succeeding, and will turn America into a poor, lawless urban jungle, or a Marxist police state. These cruel, pitiless nihilists hate themselves, and everyone else, and they seek revenge against being born by eliminating free, prospering, happy America.

What will work here is gentle reforms within the system to tweak it, and continuously make it better and more responsive to the needs of whoever requires assistance. That is the correct global approach.

Even more vital, is all working together to train nonindividuating and group-living adults and children voluntarily to individuate and individual-live. The collective outcome of such general, amazing self-improvement success stories, by the millions, would fundamentally transform America, steadily and ongoing without upsetting the apple cart, building on what we already have for a just, civilized society.

 

           

 

 

 

           

Eric Hoffer's Outlook

 In his book, American Iconoclast, biographer Tom Shactman, on Page 198, writes this of Eric Hoffer: " . . . Perhaps, more importantly, his announcement to the diary, "Self-denial is self-assertion,' never appeared in the published version, although the thought is central to Hoffer's view of himself and his philosophy of how to exist in the world. It is likely Hoffer himself eliminated the thought from the published version because it was such a naked statement of his core belief.

He was more comfortable in writing about larger themes."

I take away two thoughts from this entry. First, Hoffman was a very private person, and writing about larger themes was something he was more comfortable to share with the public than confessions of a personal nature.

Second, Hoffer never, to my knowledge, made any statements about egoist ethics and individuating, but these concepts seem implicit to me in his writing. If Shactman is right, and he likely is, and if Hoffer's view of himself was that self-denial is self-assertion, then that stand is consistent with maverizing. The self-centered focus of an individuator is not concentrating on the pursuit of pleasure, consumption, and leisure. Rather the maverizing self is a self that pushes the self hard, constantly for years, to meet ambitious teleological targets set for the self, by the self, to realize.

Professors Without Wisdom

 Dennis Prager quipped not too long ago that an 8-year-old child in a Jewish or Christian school has much more wisdom than a PhD philosophy professor that is an atheist. Dennis is right and why would that be so? It seems counterintuitive/

Let us examine what wisdom is. Wisdom in moral knowledge and truth-loving, and when it is used to judge a rationale or selected behavior, these can be accepted as moral and good, or immoral and bad. They can be sanctioned as wise, or ill-advised and foolish.

Those that seek wisdom do grow in it as instructed by God that they honor, believe in, converse with and heed.

The secular professor, bright and highly educated, is usually a Leftist ideologue. He is a bureaucrat stuck in the mid-level hierarchical slot. He is ideologically pure and runs with the members of his ideological clique. There groupthink, conformity, uniformity, and 30 years in educational institutions had bred out all independent thought and all self-esteem. All that is left is his clinging to what he has: some modest status, modest income, and respectable reputation. He is a broken, angry man without a future or sense of hope or gratitude. He is miserable, unhappy, ensnared, groupist, so the system must pay for his victimized, aggrieved status, and be overthrown to make everything right. The web of lies, rationales and illusions that his ideology have fed him, now are believed by him, and not truth, goodness or realism can penetrate his group-consciousness as a cog in the institutional machine.

US Rep. Dean Philips

 

 

 

 

 We got a brochure in the mail today from our Representative, Dean Philips. Here is what he wrote: "Washington could learn a thing or two from our kids. As your representative in Congress, I'm on a mission to repair our broken politics and restore American's faith in our government."

My response: I believe that children can learn more from their elders than they can teach their elders. Their time is to best spent being instructed by older people, by their parents, pastors, and community adults. The woke Left wants children not to learn and improve themselves but assume without warrant that it is society in need of transformation and correction. We do not need to be lectured by our children. We require for them to listen to the Founding Fathers, to grow up, work and better themselves first, and then work to help the nation be upgraded.

Philips plays the blue-dog Democrat card hard, but I imagine he votes a party line with Nancy Pelosi rather at a high percentage of the time. It is the fanaticism, the rigidity, the demonization and de-platforming their foes, the hostility, the aim for total victory over enemies, and their win-by-any-means necessary, practiced by the Democrats, that have broken Congressional civility and honorable compromise in Washington. Republicans, conservatives, and independents either fight or surrender; the Left allows no other options. The government is now an authoritarian monster, a statist Leviathan, gobbling up power and more of the economy every day. 

Faith in government cannot be restored until we severely downsize and right-size this monster so that limited government is once again a precondition to the survival of our constitutional republic. Is Philips willing to commit to doing what is necessary to restore our faith in government? Blind faith in and naive trust in governmental benevolence are foolish presuppositions held by Leftists, but no one in her right mind would mistake holding those two presuppositions are the same thing as restored faith in government.

If he wants to repair our broken politics, he will need to support gun rights by bringing forth national legislation for gun law reciprocity in all states, for stronger Castle laws, for national constitutional carry, for no restrictions on AR15s, no red flag gun legislation, no national gun registration.

If he wants to present himself to the public as Scoop Jackson next generation, how about introducing legislation of disallow any state to charge state income tax on social security benefits, and open up pipelines and drilling to bring down gas prices for working people and middle-class families, to close the borders, to increase defense spending and to balance the budget?

Philips continues: "I pursue common ground as Vice Chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and have taken action to support small businesses, cut costs for families, invest in critical infrastructure, and bring more of our tax dollars back to Minnesota."

My response: Pursuing common ground would be coming out against the January 6th continued witch hunt. Common ground would be no more fake climate change Reset. Common ground would be introducing or cosponsoring national legislation outlawing the teaching of CRT ideology to government employees, or in any school or college in America because it is institutionalized reverse racism against whites.

Bipartisanship and common ground, to the Democrats and the Left, is conflated with surrendering our conservative principles. Bipartisanship is not growing government in the interest of power-grabbing by socialists, Leftists, Statists and Marxists that now rule and dominate the Democratic Party. Dean seems to not offend them, so is he as moderate as he seems?

We need every congressman, left, right or independent, to adopt a high standard of personal honesty, ever speaking the truth in public right to the people. Each congressman must be a statesman. This is what is going on, and this is what we must do, and this is my plan, and then, in Washington, the politician keeps her promises. If she does not like a law, on principle, though her voters want it passed, she should vote against it, or resign, or wait to be primaried or defeated at the ballot box.

How do we get such high standard acting, talking, and voting heroic politicians? We become statesman-like constitutional individuating-supercitizens that run the country, order politicians how to vote, hold them accountable, so they obey us most of the time.

Dean Philips with his bland promises and colorless proclamations is not much to blame for what he is or says. He can rise to statesman level of achievement, as a politician, if we voters demand no less from him.

If things go well, it Washington, it is the efforts of individuals and voters to be praised. If things go poorly in Washington, it is the fault of all individuals and all single voters. Bureaucrats, judges, Congressman and the President will lie as much as, be as corrupted by special interest as, steal as much as, attack the people as much as they are allowed by the voters to get away with, by tyrannizing them, by exploiting them, by spying on them, by intruding in their personal lives, by oppressing them and by depriving them of their money, resources, liberty and even their lives.

Dean Philips, I have made some random suggestions for how you could become a great Congressman. I have thrown down the gauntlet. Will you pick it up? I am not betting the rent on it.

Faith in government cannot be restored until we severely downsize and right-size this monster so that limited government is once again a precondition to the survival of our constitutional republic. Is Philips willing to commit to doing what is necessary to restore our faith in government. Blind faith and naive trust in governmental benevolence are foolish presuppositions held by Leftists, but no one in her right mind would mistake assuming that holding those two presuppositions is the same thing as restored faith in government.

If he wants to repair our broken politics, he will need to support gun rights by bringing forth national legislation for gun law reciprocity in all states, for stronger Castle laws, for national constitutional carry, for no restrictions on AR15s, no red flag gun legislation, no national gun registration.

If he wants to present himself to the public as Scoop Jackson next generation, how about introducing legislation of disallow any state to charge state income tax on social security benefits, and open up pipelines and drilling to bring down gas prices for working people and middle-class families, to close the borders, to increase defense spending and to balance the budget?

Philips continues: "I pursue common ground as Vice Chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and have taken action to support small businesses, cut costs for families, invest in critical infrastructure, and bring more of our tax dollars back to Minnesota."

My response: Pursuing common ground would be coming out against the January 6th continued witch hunt. Common ground would be no more fake climate change Reset. Common ground would be introducing or cosponsoring national legislation outlawing the teaching of CRT ideology to government employees, or in any school or college in America because it is institutionalized reverse racism against whites.

Bipartisanship and common ground, to the Democrats and the Left, is conflated with surrendering our conservative principles. Bipartisanship is not growing government in the interest of power-grabbing by socialists, Leftists, Statists and Marxists that now rule and dominate the Democratic Party. Dean seems to not offend them, so is he as moderate as he seems?

We need every congressman, left, right or independent, to adopt a high standard of personal honesty, ever speaking the truth in public right to the people. Each congressman must be a statesman. This is what is going on, and this is what we must do, and this is my plan, and then, in Washington, the politician keeps her promises. If she does not like a law, on principle, though her voters want it passed, she should vote against it, or resign, or wait to be primaried or defeated at the ballot box.

How do we get such high standard acting, talking and voting heroic politicians. We become statesman-like constitutional individuating-supercitizens that run the country, order politicians how to vote, hold them accountable, so they obey us most of the time.

Dean Philips with his bland promises and colorless proclamations is not much to blame for what he is or says. He can rise to statesman level of achievment, as a politician, if we voters demand no less from him.

If things go well it Washington, it is the efforts of individuals and voters to be praised. If things go poorly in Washington, it is the fault of all individuals and all single voters. Bureaucrats, judges, Congressman and the President will lie as much as, be as corrupted by special interest as, steal as much as, attack the people as much as they are allowed by the voters to get away with, by tyrannizing them, by exploiting them, by spying on them, by intruding in their personal lives, by oppressing them and by depriving them of their money, resources, liberty and even their lives.

Dean Philips, I have made some random suggestions for how you could become a great Congressman. I have thrown down the gauntlet. Will you pick it up? I am not betting the rent on it.

My "Aha" Moment

 

 

 

I have been reading political philosophy the last few years, and many commentators quote various Founding Fathers warning that our constitutional republic here in America will only survive if the people are virtuous. 

Two days ago, I made the connection in person concretely: that a moral person can enjoy his natural right to express his personal liberty while shouldering his natural duty to regulate and restrain his personal sinful tendencies in order that his liberty not be degraded into sinful, uncivil or even criminal behavior.

Only the moral citizen can enjoy liberty without abusing it, necessitating strong federal and local government to force him to behave.

A godly person is a moral person. A godly, moral person is a wise person. His wisdom is deepened by his growing intellectually, being well-read and well-educated.

Virtuous, well-educated citizens will appreciate liberty while not abusing it, ceding self-control to external governmental agencies.

Stephen Hick's Interview

 On 12/19/21, Stephen Hicks was interviewed for an hour and ten minutes by podcasters Kevin and Truman on the podcast, Rousseau's Return: Here is what they wrote: "A while back Kevin and I of Engineering Politics had the honor of sitting down for a conversation with none other than Dr. Stephen Hicks. Dr. Hicks is a professor, thinker, author and scholar was a particular expertise in the field of Postmodernism . . . "

Here are my notes on that interview and then my responses:

Interviewers (Int): "A lot of Leftists ideas are derived from Marx and Rousseau."

Stephen Hicks (Steph): "Rousseau is more influential today than Karl Marx. Marxism won in Russia, but capitalism had a place in history in contrast to Marxism. Marxism seemed to favor some things in capitalism. its modernization, its industrialization and high technology. They wanted to see these developments and then swoop in and take over, introducing their dictatorship of the proletariat so history would be a legacy of further progress towards nirvana for the poor."

My response: what I take away from the discussion here is that Marx was in favor of science and reason whereas Rousseau disavowed them. The new socialists in rejecting science and reasons expose their postmodernist outlook.

Stph: "Jacques Rousseau was almost a century before Marx, publishing in the 1740s. He was anti-progress and anti-industrial, go back to nature kind of socialism, because as we modernize, we just get worse and worse. We need to go back to earlier times, when people lived in natural setting, tribal small communities that were pre-industrial.

Marx and Engels self-identify as scientific socialists that use empirical methods. As social scientists, they would devise general laws that made predictions and were testable.

Rousseau was anti-reason and anti-scientific epistemologically.  Science makes everything worse. Scientists were arrogant, flawed and biased in their structural study of nature. 

Now, obviously the Marxist version of socialism has been thoroughly discredited by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 so educated, disenchanted socialists have now gone back to Rosseau for inspiration, as an alternative to Marx."

My response: the new Left are anti-realist and anti-progressive. They are neo-Rousseans.

Int: "Rosseau often romanticized, idealized and glorified the bucolic tribal life of the pre-historic noble savages. Putatively, they were innocent, pure and unspoiled and in touch with nature.

Steph: "Many find modern reality, capitalism and freedom as a source of growth and opportunity, while those afraid to be on their own are scared by these potentials to better themselves. The latter seek to go back to simpler times, tribal and immersed in nature, living in units of 100 to 150 people.

Some philosophers are sensible and detect trouble in our technocracy and want to go back to tribalism to avoid a collapse of our culture."

Int: "Are you familiar with The True Believer by Eric Hoffer?"

Stph: "I am not a scholar on Hoffer but I know who he is, brilliant and great writer."

Int: "Hoffer said. 'Freedom is the rule then equality is the cry of the masses. Where equality is the rule, freedom is the cry of the few.' People find freedom in servitude. They eschew what Hayek praise that freedom is our responsibility and risk. The masses want to feel directed and controlled."

My response: Freedom is the rule in America today, and the cry of the masses and their elite rulers and mind-controllers is for equality or equity, that is, tyranny and groupism. Once equity is the law of the land, the American Way of Life will have disappeared, and the few will cry out for freedom, but will be isolated, hunted down, arrested, jailed, even executed.

Stph: "What developmental psychology and developmental morality can teach us is that some loved freedom and some run from freedom. Why are some kids born followers, escapist and timid, and others are adventuresome?"

My response: No matter their natural bent, a milieu of upbringing that fosters in them confidence, reason, independence and a sense of adventure is one that will bring about a generation of strong youngsters.

Int: "There are no rites of passage today for youngster to pass over into adulthood. Children enjoy extended adolescence today--they do not grow up fast and take on adult responsibilities Without genuine rites of passages, now that racism is conquered, they invent pseudo-moral failings to attack, like anti-racism. Networks of higher education and social networks now raise children as adult children, and families do not push children into adulthood. Kids grow up in cities with no economic role to play in the family, so they do not mature and contribute."

My response: All these causes are legitimate.

Stph: "We are reconceptualizing what it means to be a child and an adult. We are rich so youngsters need not grow up quick. We have luxury, wealth, and leisure to extend childhood. Children today are too passive, too sheltered.

Children are not turned on to by free agency and working hard to become a success in this material civilization. Marx and Rousseau criticize this worldly affluence view. Rousseau famously announced that all are born free but everywhere people are in chains.

In the Book of Genesis, the Garden of Eden story, God provided all that they needed. Once they fell from grace and were expelled, they become mortal, they had to work to make a living, the women knew the pain of childbirth. Work was a punishment and a burden."

My response: The Fall from grace was really the rise of the free individual, though mortal, suffering and required to work, he was alive to make something of himself.

Int: "What was Rousseau's influence on the French Revolution?"

Stph: "Rousseau was most influential in the 3rd phase of the Revolutionary Reign of Collectivist Terror. The leaders of this 3rd phases of the Revolution, Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Justice were deeply influenced by Rousseau. They were collectivists that dehumanized their enemies, so they could justify being cruel, ruthless, and homicidal. 

Part of the problem was that the French peasantry had ancient grudges against the elites for being oppressed, and really sought and go revenge."

My response: "Perhaps from Rousseau or from the French culture itself, the deep collectivism traditional to that society kept the ancien regime in office too long, and when it got overthrown, the revolution turned into savage, totalitarian butchery. Collectivism and fanaticism are both evil traits, and when a basically wicked people are a mass movement, no holds are barred and all moral restraints are removed, and great social evil can be born.

Notice, by contrast, the conservative American revolution run by aristocrats, far more individualistic and moderate, their revolution was much more restrained, It never got to that 2nd phase, or a 3rd phases where the Saint-Justs take over. Individualism and moderation are good traits, and that is the Anglo cultural trait.

Stph: "Leaders of the French Reign of Terror believed they could transform society, justified by  imposing a violent, bloodthirsty ideology. The relatively gentle American Revolution was Lockean and the French Revolution more Roussean. US a new country, and French had ancient rivalries and grievances to work out.

Attention: I did not include the final discussions about American universities, etc.

Derek Hunter

 Derek Hunter is a podcaster that contributes to townhall.com. He mentioned, I believe he is the source, that the polarization between Progressives and conservatives in America is so solidified now, that there is no middle ground, and no way to patch civil society back together.

The flash that came to me was this: he is correct, and the unalterable split among Americans could lead to the collapse of civil society, even civil war like what happened in Spain in the 1930s. 

Or it will lead to one side or the other achieving utter victory and total domination of the other side. These scenarios seem more likely. Here in America, Mark Levin and I are warning that Leftism (now Communism still in disguise) is a mass movement, and its followers are fanatics, true believers. Big Government is their god, the Democratic Party is their religion, and Marx is their prophet.

This mass movement has been building in America since 1910 or earlier. These people are rude, violent, nasty, bitter, resentful, hating and intolerant of dissent and opposition: they crave complete power over all Americans, wiping out any antagonistic, traditional ideas and viewpoints. No individuals will be allowed any longer. The State will nationalize everything, and the installment of Big Brother totalitarianism is their concrete objective, nothing else, though these vicious, evil people still justify their cruel subjugation of our nation under the pretext of chasing down social justice for the poor, the LGBTQ, people of color, women, non-Europeans, and those hurt by climate change and capitalism.

I went to lunch two weeks ago with an old friend. I never mentioned politics and had no intention of bringing it up. He and I tacitly agreed to disagree ten years ago about politics and remained close. I have not changed--well, not true, I have become more purely a conservative, but I did not bring it up, but he did immediately without being prompted. It was inappropriate and insulting. But he has changed too, for the worse. He sat down and attacked Trump and me out of the gate. He said he could tolerate my opinions and Republican Party but if Trump was reelected in 2024, he was moving to Canada.

Conservatives are often attacked and forced into silence by Progressives that dominate the floor at work, at the bar, in the gym and at parties. They are aggressive, mouthy, bullying, intolerant, self-righteous and confrontational. We conservatives must speak up and fight back aggressively too, or Communism will be the law of the land in 10 years or so. 

 He mouthed the usual platitudes about reasonable Republicans that reach across the aisle, compromise, show-common sense and seeking middle ground to pass legislation, The problem is that the Democrats are now pure Leftists, so almost all their legislation proposal further move us towards unconstitutional loss of rights, economic freedom, and personal privacy in favor of governmental intrusion into and directing of all aspects of our lives, on every level of government. To compromise and be moderate with these fanatics is to surrender, and allow them to wreck one's life, and everyone else's life, Compromise of that kind is immoral. They ruin all they touch. They are smug elitists that think they are smarter and better than anyone with traditional values, but they are educated fools, dumbed down into stupidity and lousy values: their policies that are wrecking everything they touch. They cannot be allowed to make any decisions because their plans are so un-American, pro-Soviet and destructive. The confidence of true believers corresponds to their horrible suggestions to be implemented as policy.

The fanatical Left and principled conservatives are at war, and they are polarized, how will it end? Either we win and they lose, and we save America, and in ten or twenty years, leaders of the Left come back to the middle as loyal opposition, and then we do deals and honorably compromise, once Communism is abandoned, defeated and such revolutionary solutions are completely discredited and opposed actively by most Americans.

Or principled conservatism loses, and the Left wins, setting up a one-Party dictatorship like Cuba and Venezuela that rules America for the next 80 years, and the whole world is plunged into darkness, as, America, humanity's last best hope, is taken out as desired by John Dewey, Herbert Marcuse and a horde of other America-haters.

18 Degrees F. Outside

 It is 18 degrees Fahrenheit, 5:38 am, here this morning, 12/18/21, here in Bloomington, Minnesota. An inch of powdery snow dropped over night. I took out the trash and noticed fresh rabbit tracks, coming from the backyard, spent the night under my truck, and then went over to the bird feeder to clean up goodies, and then went back into the backyard.

I have known for some years that bush rabbits, the ones that survive, learn to sleep over night under a car to prevent the horned owls from taking them from above. The foolish and the young learn the hard way, and pay the ultimate price, their life.

Three thoughts occur to me this morning. First, even on this frigid northern morning, this bleak, deadly, natural environment is rich and teeming with life, though much less so than in June. If we wicked but smart humans do not get around to adapting by adopting Mavellonialist values before we annihilate each other with weapons of mass destruction, that will be the end of our story, not the end of nature's creatures, even if altered by radiation. They will go on. Some new smart species will evolve upwards so that God can offer them moral values to see if they culturally and personally can get it right before they wipe each other out.

Second, my metaphysical law of moderation might be my way of noting that biologically, animals live and propagate, by eating each other to survive. All around us, nature is red in tooth and claw. Life is sustained by death, and death allows carcasses to be eaten by other predators, so that they and their young can propagate. Maybe Heidegger is right: Being comes out of Nothing, and Nothing comes out of being, as life and death are so inextricably interwoven in nature. Perhaps my presented law of moderation is some sort of true account, both descriptive of reality and normative (the rule governing reality). Consistent, logical, orderly reality is cause and effect and cosmos, law guided and predictable, and then reality at the same time, in the same  place is conflict, passion, chaos, lawlessness, randomness and violence and raw power struggles. Perhaps these contradictory states of affairs are both true at the same time, but we seek order while understanding that all that other stuff will be inexorably popping up and disrupting our neat conceptions and plans.

Third, Ayn Rand posits that a human's life is the ultimate standard against which he assesses all choices and actions. She may be right, though her conception of physical life may need to include a moral (Reality is constituted by an eternal struggle between good and evil, and the good person's job to to affirm biological life, and, by praying and doing good, to extend the kingdom of heaven on earth, and then end up, going to heaven after death.) and spiritual dimension, adding the idea of soul to human consciousness.

Ayn Rand On Innate Ideas

 On Page 71 of her book, The Virtue Of Selfishness, main follower of Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, while they were still close and collaborating, wrote this about innate ideas: "Jut as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man's body works as a barometer of health or injury, so the pleasure-pain mechanism of his consciousness works on the same principle, acting as a barometer of what is for him or against him, what is beneficial to his life, or inimical. But man is a being of volitional consciousness, he has no innate ideas, no automatic or infallible knowledge of what his survival depends on. He must choose the values that guide his actions. His emotional mechanism will work according to the kind of values he chooses. It is his values that determine what a man feels for him to be for him or against him. It is his values that determine what a man seeks for pleasure."

 

My Response: There is no doubt that pleasure-pain mechanism can aid in keeping us bodily healthy and free from injury. Branden, and by extension, Ayn Rand, are arguing that on a rational level of consciousness, based upon life-preserving or rationally chosen values, or based upon life-degrading or irrationally or whimsically selected values, the identical pleasure-pain mechanism there also kicks in, to help the moral, free agent live well and avoid injury or death. Overall, I am not opposed to this description of human nature.

What I cannot wholly agree with is Branden's claim that humans have no innate ideas. We have Kantian categories of the understanding  shaping perceived experience at the minimum, and some sense of herd-instinct, or collectivism, or the possession of consciousness, the metaphysical existence of incipient conscience in most people, their inherent craving for a God-concept and for meaning, purpose, responsibility, work, love, the need for a partner to procreate with and order in their lives--these are some of the potential innate ideas welling up into consciousness in all of us.

I believe I understand what Rand and Branden are seeking to protect here: they want to bracket out innate ideas, likely to make room for free, pure freedom of the will so that the moral, rational individual will have and utilize his liberty to select and live in accordance with the values that he has picked out for himself, and his emotional well-being will come into compliance with his selected values.

We have all have controlling innate ideas overwhelming us as children, especially as non-individuating adults, as mostly slumbering group-livers and herd-dwellers, and there these ideas dominate the individual, determined by social, natural and environmental forces that rule the majority that are sheep.

As we maverize, and grow and develop the individual self, our innate ideas are ever present and ineradicable, are uniquely sublimated and transformed by each individuator asserting his rational will over his self, over his upbringing, over his genetic predispositions. 

Branden and Rand seek the right end by the wrong means. They want rational doers and thinkers with pure free will doing their own thing, running their own lives in perfect liberty. That goal is a bit to rarefied and ideal to be realized, but individuators, imperfect as they are as God made them, can think enough, be creative enough, and willful enough as activists designing and then redesigning their own personal theory and practice of how they should live in near-perfect liberty.

Mark Levin: Pro-Science But Not Accept It As Secular Religion

Mark Levin, on Page 52 of American Marxism, write of how Leftists like long Dewey have preached their ism, Marxism, their secular faith as progressive and scientific, when in fact it was based on junk science, and power acquisition. Its adherents were not pro-science but were pro-revolution. 

Levin and conservatives are pro-science without worshiping it: "In other words, Dewey sought to relinquish what is and what has been, for an ideology disguised as science and reason. Of course, the arrogance of the progressives, like that of the Marxists, is boundless, which one would expect from those who would rule over us. That said, to be clear, people of tradition, faith and custom do not reject science or reason, but they do not worship them either. They have learned and experienced the values of eternal truths and past wisdom, including from the ancients, which reflects the basis of America's founding, as concisely set forth in the Declaration of Independence."

Conservatives and traditionalists in America recognize that science and reason are useful tools, that undergird our American system, but are also capable of being used by Progressives to advocate tyranny and Big Government.

We are onto them and are nonplussed by their appeal to scientism to serve as an outlier warmup arrival for the coming of Communism.

 

Shactman Did A Good Job

 Tom Schactman, likely is a Leftist, though I have not studied him. I was earlier angry about some things that Shactman has penned about Hoffer, especially claiming that he was racist against blacks. Still, upon further reflection, I admit that he knows Eric Hoffer rather well. I do not think he understands Hoffer as well as I do, but that is to be expected, being as I am the inventor of Mavellonialism, and Hoffer was the first Mavellonialist (Perhaps even he was not fully conscious of his point of view. In the 1960s the words and concepts that will make Mavellonialism popular and influential going forward, had not been coined and explained by me yet.).

I want to quote a full paragraph from Shactman's book, American Iconoclast, Page 187, and then I will comment on it, indicating what I thought Hoffer meant versus what Shactman thought he meant.

Here is the quote: "Hoffer's most important insight, in this section, was that true artists and thinkers were ‘preoccupied with the birth of the ordinary and the discovery of the known.' To the true creator, 'a common occurrence' could be 'as revealing as an outstanding event,' and he or she could also utilize the work of the middle-rank or mediocre artist as a trigger for the creator's better idea. In contrast, the non-creatives, a group that included not-very-good-teachers and uninspired managers who insisted on making themselves the center of the teaching and managing experiences, clung to the idea of an elite as the fount of all creativity. Insistent that 'genius and talent' were 'rare exceptions,' this group refused to recognize, as Hoffer did, that the masses could collectively exhibit genius and talent--as when the 'trash' of Europe, dumped in America, built its wealth."

My interpretation: First, true creators can find creative potential in the most mundane events and objects.

Second, Hoffer is Mavellonialist in that he and I are arguing the law of moderation permeates all reality, including the creative process, so there is a paradox here that Shactman and others do not recognize: The Paradox of Borrowing Other's Ideas: What We Borrow from Others is Often More Original than the Incipient Vision of it Produced by its Less Imaginative Originator( One can be more imaginative without being the smarter or more talented.)-whether the borrower plagiarizes or attributes his sources openly and honestly—he is improving them. Hoffer has written that the most creative person, or the most original thinker or artist, may not be the best explicator or developer of his pure innovation. A greater more original talent does his most brilliant and original creating based upon what he borrows or steals from others, rather than what he originates himself. How this Paradox is moderate is that the purest creator often is not the most brilliant exponent of the new movement. We are maverizing and individualistic, but we borrow from others all the time. The individual is most creative when triggered or inspired by the neighbors in the community, and somehow that act of borrowing ironically is conductive to greater creativity than the seminal tinkering and dabbling engaged in by a pure pioneer of new insight, perhaps somehow exhausted by imagining the new line of thought. Perhaps pure originality is self-limiting because so much of its power or force is dissipated permanently in the primal act of creation.

Third, Hoffer likely believed that the masses could exhibit genius and talent, not just on some lower level like creating wealth as Shactman indicates--though that wealth is the origin most hospitable to maverizing--collectively, but with education in the science of Mavellonialism, every common person individually, if they so will and so dedicate their lives to using 95% of their inborn talent, could exhibit genius and talent as impressively as Shactman, Jordan Peterson and Hoffer, with their very high IQs.

I believe Hoffer sided with me on this, and less thinking like Shactman and Peterson that there is a small elite that are geniuses, and everyone else can, at best, be a competent plumber, bookkeeper or dental hygienist.

 

 

The Environment Coducive To Creative Output

Tom Shactman, Eric Hoffer's biographer, wrote this on Page 187 of his book, American Iconoclast: "Section Three, 'Creators,' was deeply autobiographical, although the pronoun 'I' did not appear in it.'Those who lack talent expect things to happen without effort,' he asserted, while true creators understood that anything worthwhile took 'persistence and patience.' An affluent society meant problems for creators, who needed to make their own 'scarcity' and produce their own, inner 'economy of spirit' necessary to the creation of important ideas  or works of art. 'The unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes,' Hoffer confessed, and added that it must be caught and savored, lest we be 'without growth or exhilaration.'"

My response: Shactman is pointing out several things: first, the technique, the process, utilized by Hoffer the thinker and writer, to think and write originally, creatively, brilliantly: Hoffer's imaginative insights come to him in flashes, and the talented artist takes and develops those insights by hard, disciplined work. There may a Mozart out there somewhere that effortlessly writes musical masterpieces, but most creators work hard to polish their raw flashes; the creation of masterpieces is not automatic and effortless, It is hard work and real application of one's time and energy to produce something worthwhile.

Second, where rare geniuses just pop up, their background may have produced them by toughening them and disciplining them, giving them adversity to overcome. Where affluence is common, widespread, and largely universal like it is in a Western democracy, then the adverse upbringing that toughened the aspiring creator is absent. Things are so easy, and come so easy,  that the creators loses all desire, or incentive to overcome what is,  to strive, because doing nothing is so easy and present as a choice. 

Where, to repeat what Hoffer thinks and writes, an affluent society meant problems for creators,, who needed to make their own scarcity, and produce their own inner, economy of spirit necessary to the creation or important ideas, or works of arts. In other words, the self-actualizer disciplines himself by fabricating a living style and milieu that keep him from being corrupted by luxury, ease, dissipation, temptations and too many material comforts. I know that Hoffer's one bedroom apartments were very spartan.

Those that are creative must know how to recognize and capture the gist of those flashes of insight, native to their consciousness, and they must work hard to polish, to develop and to  perfect the creative piece. They must create a spartan sense of self-discipline and workstation for production and work, even if that creator enjoys great wealth and material advantage.

 Hoffer is describing his version of how a creator can create originally and effectively.