Cybernethics / Cybernéthique

I love Yukito Kishiro's japanese comic book series Gunnm (tastelessly published in the US as Battle Angel Alita). It is not just another ultraviolent scifi superfighter story: it is beautifully drawn, it is masterfully told, it has odd black humor, it contains a lot of cultural and scientific references, and it has an actual and deep philosophical and ethical content, that goes to the heart of what being human is.

At the end of Gunnm Last Order, Vol. 2, Kaos, one of the characters from the first series, says:

I finally understand... ...what I never saw before! To speak of dreams... to stir people's hearts... ... to gain their trust... and then let them down! I think I've come to see... ...how grave a sin... ...it is to dream!

And after reaching his patron-to-be Vector, he concludes:

Without a dream in their souls... ...people wither, people die. And without action, a dream grows stagnant. The only way to atone for my sin, my dream... is to make it a reality!

This has such resonance in me. Following the example of Kaos, I commit to raise from my moral slumber, and advance TUNES.

This summer, I saw Hamlet played on the Boston Common by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. It was a memorable moment indeed, with great actors, and a very creative direction, that managed to be very original without sacrificing the least either the letter or the spirit of the text.

But after seeing the play, I could not repress a strong feeling that the whole story was but a huge lie hiding an unsavory truth. Here's my take on the real events behind Hamlet, much more serious than the version by Gotlib & Alexis. Call me paranoïd, I am much less so than Hamlet is alleged to have been...

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... is exactly what dominates the Intelligentsia in France and other countries.

You do not endorse Stalin. You do not call yourself a communist. You do not declare your love for the regime. You do not call on people to support the Soviets. Ever. Under any circumstances. You claim to be an independent-minded idealist. You don't understand politics, but you think the little guy is getting a lousy break. You believe in open-mindedness. You are shocked, frightened by what is going on right here in our own country. You are frightened by the racism, by the oppression of the working man. You think that the Russians are trying a great human experiment, and you hope it works. You believe in peace. You yearn for international understanding. You hate fascism. You think the capitalist system is corrupt. You say it over and over again and you say nothing, nothing more.

Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas against the West by Stephen Koch

Of course, Stalin also had more obvious agents.

Avec un caractère comme j'en ai un, on n'épouse pas n'importe qui. On épouse un cocu.

C'est ce que j'ai fait.

Il ne l'était pas encore quand je l'ai épousé, mais on voyait bien qu'il était fait pour ça. Et ça n'a pas tardé.

C'est comme moi: je n'étais pas encore veuve. Mais il a bien vu tout de suite que j'étais faite pour être veuve. Et ça non plus, ça n'a pas tardé. De ce point de vue, il a été très bien. Ça lui plaisait, à cet homme d'épouser sa veuve. On peut même dire qu'on a été trop vite, tous les deux, ça marchait trop bien, parce que à peine il était devenu mon cocu, je suis devenue sa veuve.

Roland Dubillard, les nouveaux diablogues

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this dirty old &}$#*(% jay tagged me, so now I have to admit that I don't read much.

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On se souvient rarement d'un rêve, et rarement des détails, sauf à la rigueur de vagues détails, juste après s'être réveillé. Celui-là m'a donné envie de vous le raconter en brodant un peu pour recréer tous les détails et supposés implicites, qui semblent évidents durant le rêve, et indicibles après. C'est l'histoire d'un jeune couple glamour qui a tout pour être heureux mais ne l'est pas.

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Since several friends did recommend this movie, including David Madore, and despite the gripes of Lew Rockwell, I went to watch I, Robot this weekend with my cousin. As was expected, it is quite far from being an immortal chef d'œuvre, but it's indeed a rather well-realized action flick. However, it is only in the very end, and with a twist, that it turns out to be somewhat faithful to the claimed inspiration from Isaac Asimov, and not at all with the original Robot series. Beware: big spoilers ahead.

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I know the point of view I am going to give will seem oh so hackneyed. I suppose it must already have been applied to the very same particular case that I will be considering; and many times so, even, but all of these times have remained as obscure as they rightly deserve -- uh, I mean, dark forces conspired to keep the truth from being revealed to the unsuspecting public. Still, at the cost of my mental sanity, I will reveal you how you too can see the great Cthulhu the way H.P. Lovecraft first discovered it. Not that I could refrain from telling you, anyway.

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Henry Hazlitt's The Foundations of Morality took the classical view of ethics, debunking usual mistakes and fallacies, reaffirming the essence of what must be retained. It was a necessary cleanup and restatement of ethics; however, it didn't try to study the nature of the foundations of ethics but to explore what kind of ethics can stand firmly or not on its foundations.

Thus, Daniel C. Dennett's Freedom Evolves can be seen as a complementary text. It establishes the modern foundations upon which ethics can be rebuilt, and related to the sciences of nature: physics, biological evolution, economics. And at the same time, it avoids to delve in the realm of ethics itself (and reveals several time the wrongheaded statist ontology of the author, though in a few isolated marginal remarks orthogonal to the discourse of the book).

Finally, Ayn Rand, in such books as The Virtue of Selfishness or Philosophy, Who Needs It?, gives rational foundations to Ethics, relating it to Metaphysics and Epistemology. And she even studies the psycho-epistemology of anti-morality.

"un seul être vous manque, et tout est ..."

1. "... dépeuplé" (Lamartine, L'isolement)
2. "... repeuplé" (Giraudoux, La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu)

Don't miss the following short text by Ayn Rand: The Only Path To Tomorrow (1944). I've also added at the end of The Death Of Politics by Karl Hess (1969) the original reactions of the readers.

All of that courtesy of my friend E., whom I made wait much longer than politeness allows. One thing that's good about being dumped is that you suddenly have time and inspiration to do stupid things like putting on your website documents long due for publication.

Jacques de Guenin, président du Cercle Frédéric Bastiat des Landes, vient (mai 2004) de publier aux éditions de l'institut Charles Coquelin un livre essentiel pour désamorcer la propagande néo-communiste:

ATTAC, ou l'intoxication des personnes de bonne volonté.
La recherche d'un éditeur fut longue et difficile, aucun ne voulant prendre le risque de publier une telle bombe.
Mise-à-jour: Marc Grunert vient de mettre en-ligne la Préface de Pascal Salin.

De Bastiat lui-même viennent de paraître sur Bastiat.org ces deux textes, destinés à ses collègues de l'Assemblée: Discours sur l'impôt des boissons, et Paix et liberté, ou le Budget républicain. (Merci à C.J. pour ces numérisations.) Bastiat est toujours d'actualité, un siècle et demi plus tard.

Si vous suivez de plus ou moins loin Bastiat.org, vous trouverez aussi listés dans l'ordre chronologique au début de la page d'index les textes précédemment rendus disponibles, que j'ai pu omettre d'annoncer au moment où je les ai publiés.

Voilà le genre de choses que je fais quand je déprime légèrement: éditer des textes pour le web, activité qui occupe mon esprit de façon semi-mécanique, et m'évite de penser à mes soucis, tout en me donnant l'impression de faire quelquechose de semi-utile.

In the last few months, I've read a few books by Ayn Rand. Each was quite an agreable surprise, despite my already knowing much about it. Recommended reads.

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I am not a Libertarian. At least not in the sense argued against by Daniel C. Dennett in chapter 4 his book Freedom Evolves.

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After I showed him Zot!, my colleague and friend Noliv let me his copy of (the french translation of) Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics. A comics about comics, about as reflective as a Douglas Hofstadter book. With insight about art, communication and life in general. Wow. Now, I know I'll be paying to read the rest of Scott's works. (That's the supreme compliment from a capitalist.)

Après que je lui ai montré Zot!, mon collègue et ami Noliv m'a prêté son exemplaire de L'art invisible, traduction française du livre Understanding Comics de Scott McCloud. Une BD sur la BD, aussi réflexive qu'un livre de Douglas Hofstadter. Et qui vous en apprend sur l'art, la communication et la vie en général. Ouah. Maintenant, je sais que je vais payer pour lire le reste de l'œuvre de Scott. (Pour un capitaliste, ça veut tout dire.)

Here's a short article by H. L. Mencken on Democracy: Last Words (1926). I'm sure that among others, my friend Turion Lugol will appreciate, since he's writing (in French) a piece on Democracy. Thanks to Catallarchy.net for the pointer.

Dans notre Espace de Francitude Génial (EFG), tout le monde apprend à l'école et dans les médias à haïr le libéralisme, cette bête immonde qui dévore nos vies, dixit la religion officielle. Cependant, les idées libérales sont systématiquement censurées, et le peu qui échappe à la censure est systématiquement déformé. Aussi, chacun apprend à mettre sous l'étiquette libéral tout ce qu'il déteste, avec pour seule contrainte de ne jamais s'en prendre directement aux valeurs officielles de la religion officielle, le socialisme. Mais comme tout ce que connaît l'Homo Collectivus Gallus (HCG) est socialisme, ce qu'il déteste se trouve n'être que sous-produit de ce socialisme! Ainsi, l'image du libéral honni est en fait la projection des névroses du socialiste. C'est pourquoi les omniprésentes vociférations de haine à l'encontre du libéralisme, dont le principe rappelle les deux minutes de la haine quotidiennes de 1984, ont pour résultat assez cocasse de révéler les démons qui hantent des esprits corrompus par le socialisme.

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...an Adventure Capitalist!

Topic of a recent discussion with friends, anti-americanism in France (even among people with libertarian trends, as long as they are well-endoctrinated by the media). Here are stuff to read on the topic.

Sujet d'un débat récent avec des amis, l'anti-américanisme en France (même chez des personnes pourtant à tendance libérale, pourvu qu'elles soient bien endoctrinées par les médias). Voici quelques lectures sur le sujet.

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Since I don't escape the current events, but only report them late, here is the inevitable Tolkien entry for my blog.

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With Dubya promising to spend zillions of dollars to send a few privileged civil servants to Mars, I am irresistibly reminded of this quote from one of my favorite books, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Neil Postman (RIP) and Charles Weingartner:

Consider this: The first hole ever dug on the moon by a man-made machine is now done. It is the most expensive hole in the history of the human race. Now what does that mean? How do we know whether this is one of man's noblest achievements or if it is a game being played by a small group of lunatics for their own amusement -- at our expense?

Postman hits the nerve, he knows what questions to ask, what assumptions to question. But being a depraved leftist, he can provide no justifiable criterion to answer. Ayn Rand does, in her essay Collectivized Ethics, as included in her essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness. Too bad it's not on the web yet, but here's a purchase well worth it: concise, compelling, to the point. And no, I prefer not to retranslate to English the relevant excerpt back from the French translation on my laps.

Dans une discussion, d'aucuns tenteront de discréditer leurs accusateurs en disant que ceux-ci lancent des attaques ad hominem. Voilà bien un anti-concept de plus, un raisonnement à l'envers, dont des terroristes intellectuels se servent pour empêcher quiconque d'arriver à la seule conclusion rationnelle les concernant, à savoir leur culpabilité, telle qu'étayée par moult arguments valables. C'est une interdiction de penser, une interdiction de juger à leur encontre, eux ne s'empêchant pas, et par leur affirmation même, de dire du mal d'autrui.

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Among the many reasons that make it so difficult to translate a song between French and English, there is of course the inevitable mismatch in the way that words rhyme and have various connotations. But with some imagination and re-creation, you can usually cope with that. However, what you can't escape is the difference in information density per syllable between French and English.

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The IEDM has recently translated and published in English the booklet of works by Bastiat that it previously published in French.

L'IEDM vient de traduire et publier en anglais le livret d'oeuvres de Bastiat qu'il avait précédemment publié en français.

Quel nul je fais! Avec son tact habituel, Hervé de Quengo me fait prendre conscience de ce que lors de mon passage à la radio, j'ai erronément attribué à Henry Hazlitt un texte qui était de Leonard Read: I, Pencil. De plus, j'avais oublié qui, dans les années 1950, avait réintroduit le mot "libertarian" dans son acception moderne. Mea Magna Culpa.

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