Part 1. Freedom of Thought: Virtue and Root of All Other Virtues
The man's life is a result of the mindset that he possesses; and the
same is the case for societies. The people's beliefs, perspectives,
perceptions and feelings and outlook that are their function shape the
world they inhabit and the world they bequeath to their kids. The
mindset, through actions done in its pursuance, becomes
self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling. And the ideas shaping it become
reflected in the nation at all its levels, shaping its social movements
and its climate and ultimately the lives of all that are in it
involved.
The mindset, however it came to pass, therefore becomes the ultimate
and complete authority over the lives of the people within the
civilization. It becomes so complete and encompassing that people
don't question it, but are rather by it shaped. The mindset -
whatever its origins, whatever its methods, whatever its function -
becomes therefore a greater, more complete and more invasive power over
the lives of the people than does the government. By shaping the minds
of the people it shapes all their actions and then the world they
create with these actions. As such it becomes the true authority of the
land.
To be in any way regarded as democratic, an authority has to be
balanced and checked and held accountable. In other words it must be
official and open and complete and thus subject to accountability that
comes from being brought open into the sun. An authority that is not
official is an authority that becomes unaccountable, unchecked and
unbalanced. Which means that it is well on its way to becoming
totalitarian.
America, seeking rightfully to avoid totalitarianism, has applied
checks and balances on all levels of official government. This has
prevented any official organ of power from turning tyrannical and
absolute. The same checks and balances, however, have not been applied
on American society. They have not been applied on American
communities; on American media; on American business; on American
churches; and especially on American public opinion. Which means that
totalitarianism has found a way to slip under the radar screen and
through controlling the minds of people has found a way to create a de
facto tyranny in the land of the free the home of the brave.
What are the signs of this totalitarianism? They are all around us.
They are in fears bludgeoned into people's heads, from fear of being
different to fear of being open to fear of being fully alive. They are
in similitude of thought; similitude of feeling; similitude of
perspective, all bludgeoned into the minds of America from earliest
ages. They are in the hideousness of American social climate from high
school onwards and the strident sellout psychologies that pander to
this conman's totalitarianism by ****traying the people's
legitimate reaction to such climates as pathological. They are in the
control of people's wants, minds, hearts and desires and their
twisting into wanting, valuing and seeking what they would in many
cases never rightfully want, fear what they should never rightfully
fear, seek what they should never rightfully seek and believe what they
should never rightfully believe.
I refer to this as conman's totalitarianism, precisely because it is
unofficial. To people who think they are free under this arrangement,
the correct question to ask is, "If you all are so free, then why are
you all the same?" To go further: Why do you all dress the same, want
the same things, believe the same lies, approach life with the same -
mindset? And if you truly believe in freedom, then why are you so
vehement in attacking anything that is in any way different from
yourselves, whether these be the people within or the people without?
It makes no sense to create a country designed to be free of official
tyranny when unofficial tyranny takes its place and exercises over
people's minds (and thus over their lives, and over their
civilization) a greater coercive power than is exercised by the
President, Congress, Supreme Court and state and local government. It
makes no sense to create a country designed to be free when the basic
unit of human consciousness - the mind - is twisted into
perpetuation of a big lie. To be democratic, authority - all
authority - must be official, checked and balanced, and thus
accountable. And in standing up to conman's totalitarianism in all
its aspects, one does one's duty as a true American patriot.
Freedom of thought is at the basis of all other virtues. Freedom of
thought means true freedom; freedom that shapes one's mind and
radiating out of it one's life and one's actions within the world.
Freedom is prerequisite for knowledge; as it is only within the context
of freedom that one can be free to acquire true understanding, one not
shaped or manipulated by usurpatory interest or mindset of any kind.
Knowledge, in turn, is a prerequisite for responsibility and ethics; as
it is only through knowledge that one can understand the world enough
to know the full range of consequences of one's actions and then act
in a manner that's calculated and thus could regard itself
responsible. And it is only a choice that is calculated and informed
that can consider itself ethical, as it is only by knowing the
consequences of one's actions and taking responsibility for them that
it is possible to make a choice based on values.
By transitive rule, freedom is a prerequisite for ethics; as it is only
within context of freedom that it is possible to make choices, not
based on avoiding or anticipating consequences for self, but rather
because they are the right thing to do. And freedom of thought, being
the root of all other freedoms, becomes the prerequisite for ethics.
Thus, it is impossible to have ethics, responsibility, or any other
virtues we see people claim to profess to believe without freedom and
knowledge. And it is impossible to have actual freedom and knowledge
without freedom of thought.
Which means the following: That it is only through freedom from the
oppressive mindset that it is possible to attain to any kind of virtue.
And that in freeing people from conman's totalitarianism one does
sacred duty before ethics, responsibility, knowledge, and America.
Freedom of thought has another virtue that is just as real. It is
freedom of thought that allows people to see what others don't see.
This has multiple applications. The first of these is that it corrects
errors that happen when people think the same way and exposes them to
perspectives they need to think better and understand the world more
completely. But it does this furthermore: Become the root of all
innovation that exists in the world. Which innovation depends on people
to come up with new ideas that are a result of original perspectives.
And it is this innovation that is at the root of all manmade good that
exists in the world.
Therefore freedom of thought is not only at the root of all other
virtues (liberty; knowledge; responsibility and ethics) that are
espoused by America. It also is the reason the world has what it has
now. And as such, it is the true and unshakeable source of not only
moral good, but physical and political and technological and artistic
good. Which makes it, quite truly, the saving grace of humanity and the
reason for all it has accomplished.
Part 2. Absolute Case for Democracy
I say not only that it is man's right to be free of all forms of
unofficial authority. I say that it is man's DUTY to do so - duty
before America and the Republic For Which It Stands. I say that any
mindset that is unwritten and unofficial, is unaccountable, unchecked
and unbalanced, and as such lacking accountability becomes tyrannical.
And that any serious interpretation of democracy - also of life and
liberty - requires a citizenry that is aware of all unofficial forms of
tyranny and stands against it.
Whether that tyranny be the mindset of Fort Wayne, Indiana, or the
mores of the average East Coast suburb, or the mindset of gangs.
I do not advocate freedom of thought as a form of rebellion. I advocate
it in and of itself, as a virtue, and the necessary condition for all
other virtues. I embrace it passionately and completely, not as a
matter of contrarianism but for its own sake and for the sake of all
else that requires it - all the other virtues stated above.
And I say quite clearly that true democracy and true liberty demands a
passionate, unconditional and absolute embrace of the freedom of
thought - as the true accomplishment of civilization and the core of
all its stated virtues.
In many cases, the arguments for democracy have been the wrong ones.
Relativism - the belief that all things are uncertain, and that
certainty is what distinguishes totalitarianism from democracy - is a
flimsy justification for democracy. Indeed it is a definition that
opens democracy to accusations of cowardice and corruption and serves
not democracy but totalitarianism of a creeping kind.
The only true, moral, absolute basis for democracy is absolute
conviction in absolute rightness of human freedom. And that means
absolute, unconditional and passionate embrace of freedom of thought.
In and of itself and as a basis for all other virtues.
The freedom of thought is the most fundamental of human liberties. And
freedom of thought involves also freedom of personhood. And radiating
out of that freedom of thought and freedom of personhood come all other
freedoms and all other virtues. It is impossible to have a country that
one proclaims free when there is no freedom of thought,
self-definition, emotion and personality.
It is impossible to have a country that one proclaims free when
official totalitarianism is replaced with unofficial totalitarianism of
a mindset controlling people's minds, hearts, spirits and
personalities.
And in freeing people from such unofficial totalitarianism it becomes
possible to arrive at population that is truly free.
Freedom is therefore a necessary condition for all other virtues. And
in affirming, passionately and absolutely, the freedom of thought, one
affirms likewise all other virtues.
Which then becomes the absolute and unshakeable ethical foundation for
democracy, and, as I have just shown, the root of all human attainment.
One that is far superior to the conman's ideology of relativism -
and one that possesses enough strength to combat the threats to
democracy, both external ones and internal, that we see today.
It is of course unavoidable that mindsets will come about. Recognizing
their power of authority over people's lives, I thus postulate
applying to them the same logic that has been applied rightfully and
successfully to the branches of American government; The logic of
checks-and-balances. Seeing in all mindsets - as in all governmental
organs - the capacity for both right and wrong, I seek to subject
mindsets to the same accountability as is done to American government.
Making them known and official is the first step.
Part 3. Ideology and Psychology
Scott Peck described as "neurotics" the people who take responsibility
for things that are not their responsibility - and as "character
disordered" the people who do not take responsibility for things that
are.
My response: The issue in many cases is not psychological but
ideological, and the ideological explanation is both simpler and more
precise than the psychological one.
It may come as a surprise to people who think in terms of emotional
forces, but one's conscious beliefs have a fair amount of things to do
with how one relates to the world. And these conscious beliefs differ
tremendously in what is believed to be one's own responsibility; what
is believed to be the next person's responsibility; what is believed to
be the government's responsibility; or what responsibility is shared,
to what extent and among whom.
Do you remember Beatles' song, "Don't carry the world upon your
shoulders?" The "carrying the world upon your shoulders" appears to be
a quite common - ahem - neurosis among people with particular
ideologies. Let me ask you a stupid question. Was Jude an objectivist?
A libertarian? Could he have been these things? Or was he a liberal
whose self was identified with the good of the world, who believed in
shared responsibility, and who found life meaningless for himself and
intolerable for all unless the world was in a good shape?
I ask another stupid question. What is the responsibility of any given
person, for what, and according to whom? We see people fight over this
issue all the time. We see people shunting the responsibility at
someone else; we also see people taking responsibility for one or
another issue, or cause, or project, or society, or outcome, that many
would say is not their responsibility - but that, without someone
taking responsibility for it, would never get accomplished at all. Are
the first group character-disordered? Are the second group neurotics?
Or is this something that people have been doing for as long as - well,
for as long as there was a responsibility to shunt one way or another,
which is to say for as long as there were people?
Remember the Communist "menace"? These were the people who believed
that responsibility was shared and a part of each citizen as well as
humanity as a whole. Indeed the same ideology was mouthed once by
American leaders, from FDR to Kennedy - and now, guess who - Mr.
Compassionate Conservative. Were these people possessive of character
disorders? Were they pu****ng on America a mass neurosis? Or did they
simply recognize that responsibility in any given society contains both
the individual and the shared aspect - something that was articulated
by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt of all people, long before these - ahem -
supposed sociopaths took these ideas to such places as "The only thing
to fear is fear itself," "Do not ask what your country can do for you,
ask what you can do for your country" and "Mr. Putin has a good soul."
Indeed I am of the belief that each ideology arrives at its own
peculiar mix of supposed character disorder and neurosis. The people
who believe in shared responsibility will be described by people who
believe in individual responsibility as both taking responsibility for
things that aren't their fault and not taking responsibility for things
that are. The same is the case the other way around.
I ask the final question. Where does your responsibility stop and
another person's responsibility begin? What is responsibility of which
citizen or which entity or which collection of citizens or entities?
I've had people tell me that I had a responsibility to myself, and to
tell me what that responsibility was. I've had people grow exasperated
because I kept saying that I was not interested in things in which an
American citizen is supposed to be interested and in pursuit of which
he is supposed to expend his life. Let me get this straight. You tell
me what I owe myself? You tell me what I should want and what I should
strive for? And then you claim that we are living in a free country?
A person who believes in every person being completely responsible for
his life will be both a character disorder and a neurotic. He will
strive obsessively to be completely at top of everything, including
things that he can do precious nothing about; and he will do nothing to
contribute to shared good. That similar characterization will be
frequently made for people who believe in shared responsibility, needs
no elaboration. So this is my question to Mr. Peck:
Where does one person's responsibility end and another's begin?
Where does one entity's responsibility end and another begin?
What responsibility belongs to individual, to country, or to one or
another entity?
And what does a healthy character do to determine which delineation and
which ideology is legitimate?
There are two directions of interest in any human being. One is
self-interest; the other is other-interest. The I-Thou duality
manifests in concern for self and concern for the next person or for
the world. The two components can be arranged in many different ways. I
am here to show the best way to arrange them.
Part 4. Self-Interest and Other-Interest
The evolutionary theory supposes that man has evolved both as species
and as self. That is, man exists as part of humanity and as his own
unique self, and interests of both are combined. Man competes against
other men, but he also serves mankind. The error made by tribal, or
statist, or religious ideologies, is to claim man as solely part of
humanity; the error made by Ayn Rand and Nietzsche is to claim man as
solely himself. Both are half-right. Man exists as himself and as part
of humanity.
Which means the following: That man's orientation to the world consists
of self-interest and other-interest. Both are absolutely legitimate and
natural and, as I've shown, worthwhile. Currently in America we are
seeing the worst possible combination of the two. The other-interest is
to attack in man all that is original and all that is his own and all
that is different from that of his neighbor - in essence, all things
that a man stands to contribute and all that in him makes for
meaningful liberty and existence worth having. The self-interest
meanwhile, under the rubric of liberty - the liberty that I've just
shown the same people to deny others in any meaningful form - is used
to attack man's ability to engage in any collective political or
philanthropic action to improve the lot of one's fellow man. The
concept of "selfishness" gained from collectivist ideologies is misused
to attack all meaningful liberty - especially anyone whose thoughts,
beliefs, feelings and interest differ from that of those who claim to
represent social interest. Meanwhile the concept of liberty gained from
capitalist ideologies - the liberty that, as I've just shown, is denied
in any meaningful manner - is misused to attack any collective action
that seeks to give people a way to a better existence. Thus we have the
worst of all possible arrangements: People formulated on the inside,
with all meaningful freedom and goodness and originality and beauty
forbidden - and the fear of collective action denying people political
power necessary to actually improve their condition, while forcing
these people to compete against one another and be isolated from one
another and being more and more ensnared in a culture of consumer
coercion that claims to give liberty while essentially binding the
person for life.
Ayn Rand offered a way out of this arrangement: Complete self-interest
and interaction among people based on even exchange within the
framework of rule of law. Socialism offers another way out of this
arrangement: Collectivization of all economic activity and unified push
for common good. I offer something better than both.
I offer making the best of self-interest and the best of
other-interest. I offer putting the two where they belong:
Respectively, in the sphere of self-action and the sphere of
other-action. And what I offer is this: Self-interest leading to
complete self-determination, with freedom of thought and freedom of
feeling and freedom of self-creation - with acquisition of wisdom and
knowledge from many cultures and ways of thinking and personal
experience and social insight giving a person a way to completely shape
himself or herself and a life that he or she chooses in an informed and
open manner (including the options that are not a part of his
upbringing) - and other-interest leading one to do good deeds for one's
fellow man. What I offer is this: Self-interest determining self-action
and other-interest determining other-action. What I offer is this:
Complete and meaningful liberty of the individual - and philanthropic
work by the individual that leads to improved lives and a better state
for humanity.
What I offer indeed is arranging existents in a way that makes the best
existence. What I offer is the best of capitalism and socialism:
Meaningful liberty, with freedom of thought and feeling and being and
choice - and philanthropic activity that does actual and noticeable
good to the people who live now or are yet to live. What I offer is
making the best of one's life and the best of what one does for
humanity.
I offer removing the false strands of misconceived other-interest from
the person's mind, soul, heart and existence in order that he or she
can choose in an open and informed and free manner what to be, how to
think, how to feel and what to make of himself or herself. And I offer
removing the misinterpreted concept of liberty from political and
social arena so that it becomes possible for people to do good for
others and organize for common good. Liberty does not mean every man
for himself without any organizing objective; liberty means freedom to
think how one chooses to think, feel how one chooses to feel, be what
one chooses to be and relate to the world in the way one chooses to.
And common good does not mean turning the people into replicas of
oneself or destroying in them what they themselves uniquely are capable
of being or dictating to them what they can be or how they can live; it
means doing philanthropic work, teaching children how to think,
pursuing scientific knowledge, taking care of the elderly, producing
great works, helping those who are not advantaged to have a shot at
existence worth having, and pursuing goals that actually lead to
improvement in lives of humanity. It means being of service to others
and to one another; while allowing for each other complete freedom of
thought, feeling and being - and, from this position of true, actual,
meaningful liberty, to interact as actually free people who rightfully
see the need for improving life for the existing and the yet-to-exist.
In essence then, the concept of liberty and the concept of common good
must be redefined, from the worst possible form we've seen in 1980s and
1990s to a form that makes the best life for man and the best life for
humanity. Instead of the enslaving and short-sighted models of thought
we have seen, will be necessary models of thought that are liberating,
benign, prudent and leading to the best life, both for the existing and
the yet-to-exist. The self-interest will consist of passionate embrace
of life and liberty, along with knowledge and wisdom and understanding
- the freedom of thinking, of feeling, of being and of existence that
is required to make the most of self and most of life. The
other-interest will consist of prudent economic activity, education,
science, art, clean technology and philanthropic work that direct
other-interest in ways that are actually good for real people and good
for humanity.
It is through this arrangement of existence that life can be elevated
to a state worthy of that which is man and that which is mankind.
I do not believe in treating everyone the same. I do not believe in
treating everyone the way I want to be treated. I do not believe in
introjecting my needs, wants and personality into everyone around me
and bludgeoning them into being carbon copy of myself.
I do not believe that the world is made best by there being 6 billion
Ilya Shambat's, or Mike Tyson's, or George Bush's, or
Dilbert's, or Beaver Cleaver's, or Joe Blow's. I believe in human
individuality and as a result of it different needs, wants and mindsets
that are to people most natural and most enhancing of them expressing
their potentiality.
As such, I believe in treating the next person the way they, not I,
want to be treated.
And that is the categorical imperative that I seek to serve.
The world of individuals, all of them able to be the maximization of
their potentiality and their propensities for the good of themselves
and the good of the next person.
The world of people making the most of both their self-interest and
other-interest.
All able to be themselves completely and all willing and able to
contribute to the good of the next person and the good of humanity.
And all contributing to a world that is rich, colorful, passionate and
resplendent. That is made that way through the efforts of people toward
making it so - and through people being allowed to be the best that
they can be themselves.
And that involves the following:
Seeing and respecting and nurturing human individuality.
Recognizing that different things work for different people.
Recognizing that mindsets that are right for some are not right for
others.
And putting the mindsets into a framework of competition and
checks-and-balances.
Resulting in best outcomes produced through competition among mindsets;
freedom achieved through checks and balances among mindsets; and people
achieving fulfilling existence by finding the way to contribute within
the mindset and the resulting path that is to them most natural and
most right.
Ilya Shambat.
|
