Cybernethics / Cybernéthique

I pay homage to Ayn Rand, for how she helped me live better. Not just me, but millions of readers. She was not my prime inspiration: my first libertarian author was Hayek, and my favorite was and remains Bastiat, through another lover of which I discovered Ayn Rand. But my! an inspiration she was, in the literal meaning: not so much for ideas that I already knew, though she certainly helped me articulate them like I wouldn't otherwise have, but more so for the lofty ideal of the self to which she raised me. How glad I am she wrote what she did write! I never ascribed Rand any kind of infallibility, and I see no reason why she should be either held or rejected based on such an absurd standard, even though she may have claimed such a standard for herself amongst her followers. I admire her, and that doesn't require me to follow her blindly. Actually I think you can't fully appreciate an author if you're unable to partake in that dynamic critical conversation with her work, by which you see her deep failings as well as her lofty genius, that only appears greater by contrast.

Bill O'Neill, an objectivist correspondant in Holland, PA, sent me this piece about the infamous Kelo case. Of course, such a thing wouldn't make a scandal in France, where it is well understood that the government can do anything in the name of the public good. America may be becoming a Totalitarian Democracy, France already is one. Démocratie Absolue de Droit Divin. Oh well.

NB: so as to provide a disincentive for people holding political power to destroy liberties too obviously, you may join this pledge, or at least consider visiting the hotel when (and if) it is built.

Correct name for our style of government: Totalitarian Democracy

by Bill O'Neill

In Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags, Clay Shirky clearly explains the issue of a posteriori knowledge versus a priori knowledge -- the essential theme of austrian economics and libertarian politics. However, in the end, he not only fails to conceptualize the issue, he also steps into the trap laid by relativists: he confuses reality with knowledge about reality (a clear case of insanity, as defined by general semantics), and implies that we create meaning rather than discover it.

The nuance is tiny, but as Aristotle said, the least deviation from truth will be multiplied later. Human creation of meaning entails that meaning is an arbitrary product of human will, and that any disputes arising from divergent opinions cannot be solved by reason but only by brute force. Discovery of meaning entails that meaning is objective, and that disputes can be resolved by reason and other peaceful means. Thus, what appears as a mere detail in something as fundamental as metaphysics and epistemology has dramatic consequences when you later study ethics and politics!

Of course, Clay doesn't explore the political consequences of this tiny detail in his essay. His mistake is benign, and I'm sure he himself would be prone to dampen the mistake rather than amplify it, if he were to be taken in a more political discussion. Still, by admitting such wrong premises, Clay abandons all possibility of arguing back against those people who preach Evil. If he's not doing a disservice to himself, he is doing one to his readers. He is both a victim and a disseminator of one of the fundamental memes by which Evil disarms good people.

My friend Turion compared Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Ayn Rand (in French). Well, Ayn Rand certainly had a much more articulated philosophy, but let's admit Ayaan has a comparably tremendous courage in standing up for liberty. This reminds me of the following poem that I recently wrote in reply to a challenge to compose poetry at once, right after a discussion on Ayn Rand:

Proud, as the world crumbled
Alone she dared to raise
And when others mumbled
She called the Evil's ways

Update 1: Partial translation to English of the Ayaan Hirsi Ali interview mentioned by Turion (Cám ơn, LGF).

Update 2: An audio interview of AHA by the BBC (Cám ơn, LGF).

Petite question à nos amis les bêtes: socialistes, communistes, fascistes, gauchistes, alter-mondialistes et autres collectivistes sous quelque nom que ce soit. Admettons un instant que Robespierre, Lénine, Staline, Hitler, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Castro, Pol Pot, et autres joyeux drilles, n'étaient pas de vrais socialistes, dès lors qu'ils sont unanimement condamnés comme dictateurs sanguinaires (faits historiques sur lesquels nos z-âmes-il-est-bête sont par ailleurs des négationnistes jusqu'au-delà de l'indécence). Admettons donc un instant. Admettons aussi que des socialistes célèbres comme Marx ou George Bernard Shaw se soient légèrement emportés en appelant au génocide systématique des races et autres masses impropres au paradis socialiste, et que ce faisant, ils soient ipso facto (quoique momentanément) sortis du socialisme. Veuillons bien admettre. Soit. Et pendant qu'on y est, mettons de côté la ruine, la famine, la misère, le délabrement, la pollution, la bureaucratie, la corruption, l'injustice, la peur, l'oppression et la bêtise qui règnent systématiquement là où le socialisme est censément appliqué -- admettons qu'à chaque fois, ce n'était pas là le vrai socialisme. De même, oublions l'appauvrissement, le marasme, la crise, l'inflation, le chômage, la violence et autres problèmes de société qui adviennent quand on applique un peu de socialisme dans une société encore relativement libre. Veuillons bien accorder que ces tentatives ne relevaient pas non plus du vrai socialisme. Je suis d'humeur conciliante aujourd'hui, et je veux bien concéder tout cela, et bien plus encore.

Mais alors, voici la question, portant sur un point que j'avoue avoir quelqu'hésitation à concéder: chers zamilébettes, qui nous dit que vous êtes de meilleurs socialistes que ne l'étaient vos éminents prédécesseurs, que vous vous comporterez mieux, et obtiendrez de meilleurs résultats?

Ah, j'oubliais: il n'y a que l'intention qui compte. Ne réflichissons pas. Émouvons-nous. Et haïssons ensemble l'ÉnemydeklAASSSS! (Note pour les retardataires: aujourd'hui, cet ennemi n'est plus le juif (quoique), c'est l'américain.)

Citation du jour:

Ne considérez pas les Collectivistes comme des idéalistes sincères mais fourvoyés. La proposition de réduire certains hommes à l'esclavage au profit d'autres hommes n'est pas un idéal; la brutalité n'a rien d'idéaliste, quel que soit son objet. Ne dites jamais que le désir de faire le bien par la force relève d'une bonne intention. Ni la soif de pouvoir ni la stupidité ne sont de bonnes intentions. -- Ayn Rand

At the ITA movie night this week, we watched Mulholland Falls by Lee Tamahori (1996). A good film noir on the Evil of Power. Synopsis: little evil meets Big Evil and gets a glimpse of what Evil is. The philosophy of evil is randianly summarized thus: "The cornerstone of civilization is human sacrifice."

I wonder what is the class of statements that a movie can illustrate. Could it be possible for a movie to illustrate that "Power is not evil in itself, Power is Evil itself"? How can a movie provide for economic reasoning rather than mere accounting fallacies? (Using "Run, Lola, Run" techniques, maybe?)

On the first weekend of April, I attended the Spring 2005 Convention of Libertarian International, in Sofia, Bulgaria, as organized by the Bulgarian Society for Individual Liberty. I was a speaker, and my speech was about Capitalism as the Institution of Ethics. The notes for my speech are now available on my web site.

While in the States, I had an argument with, of all persons, a French man. He argued for relativism, that true and false do not matter, and might not exist at all, that every situation is unique, etc. Yeah sure! His example went that everytime he heard that same Opera was unique. And my reply was that everytime he'd have to listen to the noise of a jackhammer for two uninterrupted hours would be just as unique. He was an extreme example of what Ayn Rand called the anti-conceptual mentality.

Les couloirs du métro annoncent Pharaon à l'institut du monde arabe, à grand renforts de sponsors étatiques et para-étatiques. Pourquoi pas Dalai Lama à l'institut du monde chinois? Chef Hutu, à l'institut du monde tutsi? Inca à l'institut du monde ibérique? Roi Champa à l'institut du monde vietnamien? Hannibal à l'institut du monde romain? Néanderthal à l'institut du monde Cro-Magnon? Et d'abord pourquoi un institut du monde arabe plutôt que d'aucun autre? Attention, si on laisse faire la vermine qui instigue une telle mascarade, dans quelques années, à l'institut du monde arabe, ce sera Premier ministre israëlien bientôt suivi de Président français. La collection a vocation à s'étendre autant qu'on la laissera faire.

Today is the centenary of the birthday of Ayn Rand, the great thinker of Liberty, who alone dared to defend Capitalism on moral grounds! Let's celebrate, together with the ISIL, Libertarian International, or the french ADEL!

Jeudi 20 janvier 2005, j'étais de par ma réputation de libertarien invité de Henri de Lesquen dans son émission Le Libre Journal des idées politiques sur Radio-Courtoisie, face à André Bonnet dans le rôle du catholique-traditionnaliste et à Henri de Lesquen lui-même (en l'absence du troisième invité initialement prévu) dans le rôle du libéral-conservateur. Henri de Lesquen avait articulé son émission en trois partie, définies par les questions suivantes: Un état laïque peut-il avoir une morale?, les droits de l'homme peuvent-ils tenir lieu de morale?, Faut-il avoir peur de l'ordre moral?. J'ai été je l'avoue très mauvais: j'ai tenté sans cesse et trop rigidement de revenir au plan que j'avais établi, au lieu de m'adapter aux interruptions et digressions de l'animateur; aussi, j'ai trouvé les bonnes répliques après l'émission plutôt que pendant, et c'est vous qui devez subir maintenant ce que je n'ai pas su dire alors.

I am François-René Rideau, a one-man think tank from France, and the webmaster of Bastiat.org. Since I realized tonight that time is expensive, I will be short. Iris asked me to answer the question: What is the reaction in France to Ayn Rand's ideas? Well, the answer is quite short actually: <french accent>The reaction to what???</french accent> In France, Ayn Rand is even less known that in America. The difference is that in France, academics don't even have to find a pretense so as to dismiss the significance of Ayn Rand, that is hardly ever brought about.

But the problem with the silencing of libertarian ideas goes much further. Consider that free trade was relatively popular in 1776 after Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations. At the same time, socialism was mostly unheard of. Nowadays, free trade goes mostly undefended, while socialism is the semi-official religion of the day. So this is not just a matter of new ideas that haven't had the time to spread.

Ayn Rand insisted that the superiority of objectivist ideas resides in their rationality. Well, for an argument to be accepted, there are four steps which must be overcome: the argument must be heard; it must be listened to; it must vanquish prejudices; it must be understood. Only on the last step does rationality matter. For the rest, we must develop our skills at rhetoric if we want our ideas to compete on par with those of our opponents.

Having fun together is nice and well, and we're enjoying tonight (at least, I hope); but it only goes so far in terms of advancing Liberty. To advance Liberty is to convince other people of the nature, validity and importance of human rights. And convincing other people is a long and difficult task. It is an Enterprise of its own, to be approached as such. We have limited resources; we must manage them properly. With these resources, we must develop and market our ideas and arguments. Usual marketing techniques and pitfalls apply. We must define our targets, and cater to their needs. Most importantly, so as to survive and to extend, we must follow the bottom line: the self interest of the participating individuals, the sustainability, hence profitability, of the structuring institutions through which we advance Liberty.

Liberty will not prevail by chance. It will prevail because some people will have taken its success seriously, and will have undertaken the task of heralding it rationally. You can be among these people. You can become an activist. Or you can fund activism by people who specialize in the field. You may decide to fund my think tank, or another libertarian organization. In any case, it is your responsibility to entrust proper resources to people who will advance the cause of Liberty. Because you are the ones who know better.

Thank you for your attention.

It has lots of consistent retro-modern late 1950's like design, including the music score. It has developed psychology for all characters, be them heroes, villains or secondary characters. It knows how to build upon clichés rather than blandly restate them. It has great acting and impeccable story-telling. Last but not least, what I always fall for, it has a didactic story, -- and what more, one where adults learn, too. Where ethics and esthetics join. I'm sure Ayn Rand would approve. The greatest movie I've seen in quite a long time.

Cette semaine, j'ai fini de traduire en français Philosophy: Who Needs It. Les non-anglophones pourront donc découvrir, modulo les lacunes de ma traduction ce chef d'oeuvre de Ayn Rand: La philosophie: qui en a besoin.

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.

No it ain't. Bitch. Which is why leftists are very quick at denying reality in practice. And so as to deny even those realities that may be proved through praxeology, they go so far as to using relativism to deny reality in theory, too. Unhappily for them, reality isn't impressed by their denial, and keeps hitting them. This would be but a good laugh and a good riddance, if only they didn't try hard to take the other people down the hill together with them.

Last wednesday, I met Mr. Libertarianism @ Japan, one of the happy few japanese libertarians. Quite a nice fellow.

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.

This big statue is an idol dedicated to superstition. This primitive piece of art symbolizes primitive proto-thinking. This altar was erected in homage to gullibility. These golden jewels are an offering to clerical rapacity. These prayers are a testimony to the brazenness of intellectual frauds. This temple is a memorial to the subjection of the producers to the predators. Its being the finest craftwork that remains from these times is a tribute to the total domination of workers by parasites. These rites are a deathing tradition of mindless subservience being kept undead. This whole religion is a monument to human stupidity -- or worse even: to renunciation of humanity and embrace of subhuman lack of rationality.

PS: sometimes, it's better not to be taken to monuments of the past while reading Ayn Rand's The Missing Link. And don't get me started on military castles and governmental palaces. These remnants of the past are here to remind us how much progress we have achieved since those barbarian times.

Ceci est une réponse à un message point-godwin reçu sur la mailing-list rationalistes-autrichiens, en réaction à une intervention aussi enflammée qu'argumentatoire dans laquelle je démontrais par l'exemple que toutes les règles de comportements ne se valent pas à un jeune relativiste qui niait le processus de découverte du Droit. J'y discute les notions de courtoisie, de règles de comportement, de tradition, d'innovation, de Droit, de Libéralisme, etc.

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

Philippe Gouillou propose des lois de discrimination positive en faveur d'une minorité défavorisée, les cons. Quant à moi, je pense qu'ils sont déjà sur-représentés parmi nos élus, et parmi les destinataires de divers privilèges légaux.

Mais il y a une minorité opprimée pour laquelle je suis prêt à me lever, minorité sous-représentée à la chambre et sur-taxée: les François-René Rideau. Nous sommes à peu près 1 pour 60 millions en France, et moins de 1 pour 600 milliards à la chambre, soit une sous-représentation par un facteur 10000 au moins. C'est scandaleux, et je réclame une loi pour arranger ça: il faut un quota minimum strict de François-René Rideau à l'assemblée à raison de un pour 60 millions de députés.

Comme Ayn Rand le dit dans son livre La vertu d'égoïsme, une société est libre si elle protège la minorité contre la majorité, et la plus petite minorité, c'est l'individu.

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.

At one point, spinemasher questioned my sanity. Well, actually, yes, I'm insanely passionate about the logic part of rationality. What can possibly be insane about that? Well, the insanity is in my neglect the other crucial part of rationality, properly prioritized goal-setting. For instance, with this current discussion, I wasted my time clarifying notions of logic for someone who is obviously unable to make any sense out of it -- because his priorities have shifted away any involvement of logical thinking from such discussion. All this while I could have spent my time more wisely at other activities.