On
Basic Superstitions – More about the Paradigm
Wim
Rietdijk
1. Our culturally correct paradigm: relativism, uncertainty, coincidence
and fuzziness (RU paradigm)
As explained elsewhere (Paradigm
in Default), a fairly radical starting point is at the basis of most
current thinking, from philosophy and sociology up to and including
microphysics. Such “paradigm” may be roughly indicated as a moderate variant of
postmodernism and it is characterised by the terms relativism etcetera in the
title of this section. These have in common as a general purport that the world
does not correspond to any objective, detailedly defined understandable model
as to facts and values:
Values are relative, situations and processes in the micro- and (therefore) the macro-world are
often fundamentally “fuzzy”, uncertain or observer-dependent, and do not allow
understandable and coherent models. That is, the world is basically contingent and any individual, culture or society has at its disposal a wide
margin of freedom as regards its choice of values, conventions etcetera without
these can be deemed objectively wrong.
We
can also say: just as in former ages reason and freedom of experiment and
inquiry were restricted by dogma, superstition and convention, and by the idea
that everything of the status quo emanated from God and should be approached
with the greatest respect, we now see a more moderate variant of
anti-enlightenedness. That is, the idea that much of both truth and values is
far from findable, understandable and “controllable” by reason, experiment and
the systematic action we call science. This implies that we should leave
them to a considerable degree to authorities, priests, ideologists,
socio-cultural preferences and tradition, or to
individual choice.
The
paradigm may also be characterised as a somewhat more moderate extension of a
starting point that actually is common to most of modern art and most current
philosophical “schools” (existentialism, postmodernism, neo-positivism,…), a
starting point which we formulated on various pages of this site. That is: “The
world is incoherent, man is irrational, values are subjective and hence
relative and, therefore, progress cannot be realized by reason or even not at
all”. (It is purported to be relative too.)
Our
paradigm dominates so much that its opposite has hardly ever even been formulated. Such opposite is not “traditional”
reductionist rationalism that sees the world as defined by mere local
causality. That is, phenomena are assumed to be completely determined by local
causal influences such as particles (collisions), waves and fields that cannot,
e.g., nonlocally “orchestrate” or coordinate mutually distant processes as soon
as this would require information that travels faster than light. (Note that
mere local causality leaves many macro phenomena and results to “chaos” or
randomness.)
Actually,
the paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) showed to physicists that
there are more kinds of coherence of mutually distant processes than local
causality can explain. Hence, reductionistic rationalism
is no longer an option.
In
various demonstrations, the present author proved that a definite “four-dimensional
blueprint of the world” indeed appears, this refuting part of the paradigm in
question (i.e., “fuzziness”). (The relevant four-dimensionality refers to the
world as having the dimensions length, width, height and time, so that it
contains past and future too.) In addition, we proved in our above reference
other elements of it – relativism and subjectivism as to moral values – to be
untenable too. For references about the just-mentioned demonstrations see Paradigm in Default.
In
what follows, a few major problems will return now and then:
1) Reasons why the paradigm has so much influence, in spite of its theoretical
weakness;
2) More practical every-day variants and disguised manifestations of it;
3) Social forces having an interest in it.
Finally,
a most radical contrast of the paradigm is a world in which strict laws of
nature leave no room for coincidence and define everything coherently, results
too, such as the outcomes of evolution and human destiny. Note that the
question whether such opposite corresponds to reality is not a question of
paradigm but one of concrete scientific research.
2. Some basic elaborations
In actual fact, science and culture need no
paradigm(s) at all, in the sense that no premises are needed for science to be operative and dependable. Science only
establishes coherence in our experience, and such very experience shows that
the relevant coherence actually appears,
also as to what different observers perceive. If all of life would be a dream,
well, then we find (by means of science) such dream to be a very coherent one…
Elsewhere
(inter alia, in Durf te Denken) we discussed the strange phenomenon that in many domains – from sex to
economics, from educational reform to immigration, from crime-fighting to
modern art and philosophy, and from politics to the genetic quality of man –
the striking phenomenon appears that the very cores of the problems will be
repressed or taboo. The common element with the effect of the paradigm is that
an aversion appears to making things crystal-clear or, that some troubled
waters appear to be “cultivated”.
I experienced a remarkable phenomenon that joins with this in the way
most opponents fight my work: they will seldom turn to a concrete explanation
or theory advanced by me, or to some social abuse I criticize, but will far
more often attack (with more or less emotion or scorn) the basic attitude or
“tone” of such work, especially where my argument contrasts with the paradigm.
That is, opponents will reproach me to be “too peremptory”, or they speak about
“black-and-white thinking”, “immodesty”, “conspiracy theory” and my not
accepting people as they are. I should more relativize, be less certain, less
exposing. I should have admitted that those criticised are very decent, not
having any double agenda. My opponents will always speak about the form, and
seldom about content. Note that this is a mere variant of the phenomenon of
the former paragraph: evasion of the crux of the matter. Also note the common ground with
the paradigm in its capacity of relativizing and “fuzzying” many things.
Current
bias to superficiality is also related: the last thing it tends to is coherent
substance. All of this climate, from its explicit form in the paradigm to
evading substance and accepting social forces as they are, tends to keep many
waters troubled and to save from exposure by rational argument a host of
prejudices, abuses, privileges, myths and instruments of irrational power. In
all, the fuzzy, the relative, the coincidental and the uncertain are too much
related to troubled waters for this being, again, a coincidence…
There
is also a close relationship between the RU paradigm and “the spirit of the
sixties”, in which an aversion to “systems” is combined with a noncommittal
attitude.
Also
morally and emotionally I do not sympathise with the paradigm, for the simple
reason that it gives evil many ways of escape, as troubled waters generally
will do. My theory about its popularity essentially amounts to the same thing:
many like it for such very reason.
It
is of much sociological relevance to realize that relativism – a core of RU –
virtually implies that special interests, personal career and here-and-now
hedonism (consumption) become the most important in life, as the “common good”
and “realizing ideals” lose their meaning. (On the other hand keep in mind that
history shows many not so positive ideals…) For the rest, in sociology itself
we see research concentrating on details rather than systems: comprehensive
coherence is played down by RU. Social abuses, ideologies, taboos and
repressions, and even the course of history, are considered to show little
“line and coherence”. Not much interest is shown in explaining them at all.
Also note a relationship between RU and political correctness: accepting most
sub-groups as they are and not “discriminating” whatever group or interest.
Within
the above scope, reason and science are considered to be rather powerless as
regards ethic, the meaning of life, and improving society.
It
strikes the eye that formerly reason and enlightened thinking and values were
fought by status quo forces via dogma, superstition and violence, whereas
current RU paradigm constitutes an “anti-authoritarian variant” of doing so,
i.e. by relativizing and devaluing reason, coherence, truth and explanation in
the first place, also in evading core phenomena and problems as indicated
above. Further, if deterministic natural law, micro and macro coherence and
objective values are no longer your mainstay, you will turn to “social context”
and “the others” as an inner basis (Riesman’s other-directedness). This is
precisely what we see around us, in coherence with RU dominating thought.
In
a way, such paradigm is also a theoretical complement of bureaucracy:
complicated details-mongering, procedure and formalism rather than vital
values, priorities and (macro) coherence. Actually, many disciplines of science
bureaucratised at all. Generally, the basic gap in modern thinking refers to
the contrast of RU – relativism, postmodernism, incoherent art, subjectivism,…
– that devalues coherence and “catharsis” (such as the Aha-Erlebnis and
to-the-pointness), versus a consistent continuation of enlightened ideas. That
is, versus the spirit of both science and the elevated. The latter ideas are
focused on coherence, rationally derivable objective values, and progress. In
undermining or counteracting those, RU is basically on the side of irrational
power and status-quo interests.
More
specifically, RU contrasts with Einstein’s description of science: “The grand
aim of science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical
deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms”.
In
view of the mere influence of the anti-rational forces of the RU paradigm it is
a small wonder that the Enlightenment
was only a partial success. The mere uncertainty
and incoherence inherent to RU foster anxiety, that is an instrument of
irrational power and ideology. For the rest, they are “philosophese” for mist.
Why do many applaud them? Why they emphatically say that the truth does not exist or, at least, that it cannot be found? Don’t they
feel it as their ally that should be produced at all cost?
RU
joins with the core thesis of conservatism: “Unhappiness does not come from
definite causes that can be fought by rational and moral means”.
3. Some more elaborations
There is a common (self-evident) motive at the
background of
1) Ideologists’ not liking technology because it makes people less dependent
(Schelsky);
2) Sexual taboos and inefficient sexual markets making the individual more
dependent in a vital domain of life;
3) The RU tendency of fuzziness and of hushing up the very crux of many problems,
which entails powerlessness as to their solution;
4) Emphasizing chaos and the incidental, which increases the difficulty of
bringing anything from its place, or of producing a coherent alternative such
as “organizing happiness”. The sceptics, too, are allies of the status quo:
they leave all stones standing.
Many don’t like irrefutable facts, arguments and duties. Therefore, they
invented relativism and fundamental fuzziness. They also prefer to create “a
world of their own” (subjectivism). Rationalism and objective ethic are
abandoned, for they don’t leave latitude for it. There is also a humane aspect
of this: sometimes God and competition are so cruel that illusion is advisable…
4. Varied remarks
1.
If natural law is truly four-dimensional – compare the web page in 1. above – , it will to some extent
refer to results too, rather than merely
to local causes and effects. For the rest, I reject coincidence for moral
reasons too, for it implies God to play dice with tragedy.
2.
There is more future, hope and vitality in the beta way of thinking – genetic
engineering, brain research, artificial intelligence, nonlocal influences,
spacetime integration,… – than in the sceptical hopelessness most of alpha
thinking now emanates. Existentialism, postmodernism, and chaotic art all exude
incoherence as a state of mind: no objective values, no purposive emotions, no
perspective of progress, no objective quality of people and their genes,…
Indeed, the bulk of current alpha thinking as influenced by RU implies something
new, viz. an anti-authoritarian variant of conservatism: mist as a
stabiliser.
3.
An independent thinker can never be a nationalist: “his people” will let him
down.
4.
On relativism: do you really believe that whether Auschwitz was wrong is a mere
question of free personal, cultural or social choice? Where are your compassion
and your indignation about cruelty? And what about artificial insemination: a
Harvard Adonis or an underclass type?
5.
If art neither moves nor eloquently expresses an important truth, what’s its
value?
6.
We cannot require people to suffer, or to sacrifice happiness, for any ethic
that cannot be legitimised by rational argument. This is at the basis of a
rational definition of good and evil.
7.
The world would have an objective meaning if natural law would cause it to
evolve in directions human genes would have a preference for. That is, if
progress and justice are inherent to natural law. If we hypothesize “God” to be
the psyche of the universe as we ourselves are so of our organisms – in both
cases “simply” as a result of natural law – we may say that the values the
compliance with which make the world meaningful constitute “God’s will”.
8.
The gist of “progressive” educational reforms in the West during the 20th
century is anti-intellectualism.
9.
The original sin is our genetic inheritance of the survival-of-the-fittest
instincts we needed in the jungle: let our competitors go down.
10.
What premises at all rationalism and empiricism start from in their joint
investigation of the coherent structure (or model) of facts, relations between
facts and values the universe apparently is?
What
verifiable facts, phenomena or relations among them anti-ratio-empiricists ever
discovered by their approach?
11.
The choice is between reason and irrational convention – from orthodox religion
to tradition, from ethnicity to other-directedness and ideology.
12.
The essence of good government is enforcing that the long-term priority of
progress – fundamental research, genetic and educational quality, integrity,
efficiency of the economy,… – prevails on special interests.
13.
Religion has a strong case as far as it may intuitively sense macro coherences
science eventually could corroborate.
14.
Facts don’t depend on values, but objective values can be derived from facts,
phenomena and their coherence. For example, you can prove relativism to be
wrong by imagining an innocent human being on the rack, or by thinking of the
Holocaust.
15.
Ratio-empiricism is the idea that coherent argument – the scientific method –
is better than prejudice, dogma or convention.
16.
Anti-eugenics is genetic conservatism.
17.
There’s system in most madness. (Courtesy to
Shakespeare.)
18.
An individual is valuable as far as he reflects great values.
19.
Our leaders did not do anything to counteract massive superficiality.
20.
Incoherence is the utmost anti-scientific concept. By the way, it is the most
anti-religious concept too.
21.
Emotional involvement and appeal should be transferred from the pope,
consumption, “pop” and sports to the starry sky, beauty and the idea of
progress.
22.
Best-selling authors and philosophies are not seldom those who best sense and
express the ways of feeling and thinking of John Doe.
23.
Of course, political correctness and other ideologies hate rationalism for
similar reasons why the Church did and does so.
24.
Such correctness contains: “everybody belongs”. It is comparable to nationalism
as a solidarity ideology. Both don’t like an exposure of “compatriots”, which
undermines solidarity around “all of us” and around common institutions; that
is, the establishment, which always emphasizes “unity” (around itself). Such
unity is prejudiced by radical, more-than-technical, criticism. Political
correctness, relativism and details-mongering are historically recent variants of accepting as it is everything that is important.
An
actual solidarity and integration of society should not ensue from conformism,
myth and roughly accepting every special interest and mentality as they are,
but from a rational value system.
25.
Abdominal sentiments will be more often valuable than philosophical or
juridical hairsplitting.
26.
The end of the great myths left an inner void with many who now want themselves
to be Unique Irreducible Personalities who Develop their Projects of Existence
(think of existentialism, subjectivism, man as above natural law,…).
27.
The traditional right seeks certainty and safety via old books, conventions and
institutions. However, we should not base our hope on myth-associated “social
contexts”. Rather, we should derive it from coherence and values – about
evolution, progress, human destiny, a possible hereafter,… – that only science
may eventually establish.
28.
Conformism and mainstream thinking are also survival techniques. Conformists
will be very “shaded” about lies, abuses and “the” truth. They are
noncommittal…
29.
Advertising is certainly a major source of the more and more increasing
here-and-now, consumption and “me” mentality. For the rest, I am of the opinion
that violence on tv should be approached about like public homosexuality was in
the England of queen Victoria.
30.
In line with its relativism and related egalitarianism – that is, in line with
its subscribing to the RU paradigm –, the most important failing of modern
Western intelligentsia is its largely abandoning thinking and speaking in moral
terms about man and society, while relating such thinking etc. to an intuitive
bias towards major coherence as long as science is still on its way to
establish it.
31.
The mere circumstance that so many anti-enlightened tendencies in thinking and
society – from postmodernism and incoherent art to softness
on crime, “progressive” education and
anti-eugenics – are all separately associated with the RU paradigm strongly suggests that such tendencies jointly constitute an unconscious
“conspiracy” – or at least a comprehensive mentality – rather than being
incidental errors.
32.
Also in a practical sense we should “change paradigm”: from here-and-now hedonism
to “rational religion”, that is, progress solving long-standing problems of
life via science, technology and the enforcement of rational values. This would
also cause sense of purpose and meaning to return, this time around better
ideas than tradition, country, “honour” and the like. We would also become less
defenceless against evil (from terrorism to degradation) by having ambitious
long-term motivations of existence.
Within
this scope, our intelligentsia did not produce much as to ideas or ideals
during the last half-century. No coherent sociological theories, no
comprehensive socio-cultural explanations, no moral criticism, no enthusiasm
about progress,… Small wonder that “emptiness”, “the void”, “nothingness” and
“alienation” became popular. For intellectuals too, life became a social game
(status, career, belonging, or even “lifestyle”,…) rather than a moral struggle
and looking for truth. Disinterest in “great things” became endemic and
produced institutionalised sterility.
(Probably, so few vital new political movements turn up because so few new
ideas at all do so, or attract interest.)
Within
the scope of producing ideas and enduring motivations of existence it is a
major task of intellectuals to convince the majority that it has only to win by
the enforcement of integrity and transparency. (Note that the RU paradigm did
much to undermine such motivations!) Is it a coincidence that neither the ideas
and motivations nor any call for such enforcement showed up?
33.
Of course, there is much relationship between the RU paradigm and the hedonism
of 32.: if you are not on your way
to something objectively valuable there’s little left but consumption and
amusement. The spirit of the sixties is an example; it brought little positive
except more sexual freedom. Its worst aspect was/is that it made pass
concessions to socio-genetic rearguards for socio-cultural reform or criticism:
the line of least resistance as social theory. Nothing and nobody but “the
system” failed or was guilty or inferior anymore.
34.
In the last resort, there is no other alternative but either objective truth
and coherence or the prejudice and caprice of “the others”.
35.
In WWII large democracies such as the US and the UK subordinated many laws,
rights and procedures to the top priority of winning the war, without human
rights were substantially prejudiced. Well, let us do something similar in
times of peace too: give priority to progress (inter alia, of science, technology and genetic quality), to solving major
problems, and to the public interest as compared with special ones.
A
specimen is our radically reducing emphasis on “discrimination”. That is, if
special groups give special problems, e.g., their massively importing partners
for marriage from abroad, laws should be adjusted so as to prevent this
selectively, and also to allow special measures, e.g., as to the extradition of
illiterates or unemployed from certain groups such as immigrants. Also, for
example, contracts (say, about golden handshakes or acquired rights) should
easily be made null and void if they are unreasonable in view of the common
good. “Constitutional state” should mean priority for integrity and the common
good rather than the absoluteness of formal rules, also if they clearly
prejudice the former. In this context, fighting abuses and enforcing integrity should take
priority over technicalities, privacy, and many rights. Ethic should have
precedence on formality. Both dogmatism and
moral relativism may also be popular because they tend to the opposite position.
36.
After World War I many pseudo-causes were held responsible for the disaster:
techno-science, capitalism, secularisation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial
revolution and the decline of Gemeinschaft.
The true cause was hushed up: man’s low moral quality. Concretely, this was
responsible for the dominance of a corrupted irrational value system for which
the “honour” or greed of nations and other vested interests and conventions
took precedence on happiness and the reduction of suffering as the ultimate
guidelines of ethic.
For
the rest, similar moral perversions – evil in large-scale social contexts via
irrational values – were responsible for most suffering prior to the World
Wars. In short, neither secularisation nor capitalism were responsible but
man’s moral failure (a result of bad genes and circumstances) which made him
choose unenlightened value systems. Inherent to the
latter were and are his not-so-seldom tabooing or repressing free and open
discussion and his humouring vested interests.
The
RU paradigm (relativism, uncertainty, fuzziness,…) and the – not quite
unrelated – refusal of social science to integrate concrete evil and values at
all into its thinking and theory were co-conducive to the above, that is, to the repression of a core category of history, which is institutionalised
evil “justified” by ideological manipulation. The
two World Wars,
nationalism and the relevant cruelties simply
were consequences of the Enlightenment not having been extended to the intimate
and the unconscious. This is about synonymous with compromising with evil such
as keeping up repressions and taboos, and humouring irrational vested
interests. Such failure was and is continued into the practising of sociology
and the “reign” of the RU paradigm that contributes to keeping evil relative,
vague and intangible, that is, not concrete.
This is the utmost of hypocrisy: the intelligentsia’s (and literature’s)
combining an emphasis on human shortcomings in general with the refusal to get more concrete on them sociologically.
37.
Individuals too should make identifying evil as concretely as possible the core
of their “inner defence” against the hardships, vicissitudes and injustices of
life. Actually, religion (“humility”, “acceptance”,…) and the RU paradigm (fuzziness,
relativism,…) compete in preventing this. They succeeded so radically that most
people not even abandon “solidarity” with society or “our country” because of
their doing so little to identify and substantially reduce social evils.
The
main task of our intelligentsia should be rational thinking about and exposing
irrational values, concomitant abuses, and related repressions and taboos.
Consequently, the intangibility of the abuses’ causes – their most powerful
weapon – would end. Social science hitherto fell short in identifying our
lacking a taboo-free and open discussion in search of the truth as a downright
intellectual, moral and emotional failure.
38.
Some people feel me to be too kind to free markets. As far as I gave such
impression, I want to correct it by saying that I very well realise the
chutzpah both the US “free market” system of
health care and “freely competing” lawyers in the American juridical system
amount to. On the other hand, the incomes and practices of American doctors and
lawyers are far from being largely defined by free-markets. Still, I think one
of the worst things one could do is leaving free markets free to themselves.
Cartels and even more power for the well-organised would be a consequence, and
big business and big labour would thrive.
39.
Authors like Kafka, Musil, Heidegger, Joyce, Adorno, Horkheimer and others who
were “disappointed by the Enlightenment”, many of whom wrote very complicated
or even contorted books – novels and socio-philosophical books – gave an answer
to the great wars and other cruelties of the 20th century that was
inadequate to the utmost. That is, they implicated in mostly very complicated
and roundabout ways, often via psychologically not particularly sound fictional
characters, what can be seen as a fundamental lie: the thesis that the
disasters and suffering of the World Wars and totalitarianism stemmed from
other causes than too many people lacking integrity, compassion, common sense
and quality genes. The mentality of unreason showed by our political and other
leaders that caused the plagues of the 20th century, was not
really different from that of the above-mentioned authors and cultural leaders
in general. Such mentality simply amounted to irrational
value systems in which human (un)happiness was not put first and foremost: the
“honour” of countries, the preferences of
interest groups, power and various ideologies got precedence on such
(un)happiness. From this point of view, the
muddleheaded or pathological fictitious characters of Musil, Kafka, Joyce etc.
– or rather, such authors themselves – were wrong in similar ways as the
Kaiser, the Nazi’s or the Nomenklatura: reason and optimising happiness were
far from being their basic priority.
40.
In the same vein as the above, we now witness something similar: politicians
and socio-cultural leaders again emanate a common anti-enlightened mentality,
viz. that of “correctness”. That is, besides political correctness humouring
every possible vested interest, ethnic group, susceptibility and culture, we
see a socio-philosophical establishment doing
precisely the same thing, which resulted in
sterility: nothing important (not even taboos) is thoroughly criticised and
exposed anymore, which took the gist from social science, philosophy and public
discussion. Every powerful interest is spared by socio-philosophical sciences
up to columnists. They concentrate on the abstract, methodology,
details-mongering and forcing open doors.
41.
There is a common spirit underlying
a) moral relativism;
b) softness on crime, the underclass and social abuses in general (such as
humouring vested interests);
c) the tacit acceptance or even emphasizing in literature of the negative in
man: his failings, his frequent moral and emotional incoherence, and his not
being on his way towards anything meaningful;
d) a bias towards egalitarianism and tabooing eugenics;
e) hating or even firing whistle-blowers;
f) troubled waters, among other things, in bureaucracies, philosophy and art;
g) the sufferings of the World Wars and persecutions;
h) sexually repressive conventions.
Such common basis is ignoring or repressing the demonstrable priority of
(un)happiness as a moral guideline with respect to human action. That is, inter
alia, that reducing suffering and frustration should
prevail on “national honour”, juridical technicalities, and the power of vested
interests. In this context it is also obvious that human genetic quality,
troubled waters, and enforcing integrity are all relevant to (un)happiness.
42.
Vested interests and power thrive on “stability” and “unity”; they will hate
“the controversial” and radical moral criticism that may prejudice them. Could
this be the reason why those on the economic
right strikingly often sympathize with religion and tradition and, therefore,
also with conservatism as to sex, euthanasia and eugenics?
This
is one more specimen of how “neo-corporatism” (“oligarchy”) appears far beyond
the merely economic and political domains, such as in the cultural and
ideological spheres.
43.
It is very clear why so many – liking myth, uncertainty, troubled waters,
anxiety and manipulation – instinctively sympathise with the RU paradigm. For
such instincts to a considerable degree are still attuned to the jungle rather
than our environment more and more being brought under rational and moral
control. Note here that our leaders’
own control is far from largely rational and moral. Its relatiocratic and manipulative – rather than meritocratic and
progress-attuned – nature joins with the paradigm; e.g., think of political
correctness and playing games to incoherent art and “not-to-the-pointness” in
general…
Particularly
our cultural leaders currently do not even attain any consistent story in the
first place, because of both anti-rationalism and inanity. Within this scope,
some art or philosophy being called “innovative”, “shocking”, “creative” or
“revolutionary” is a substitute for the real thing, that is, for moving beauty or substantial nonconformism and new
explanations and theories. As regards their addressing or evoking emotions they
are comparable with “pop” or the sports page: no coherent end or meaning.
44.
The utmost of hypocrisy is current orthodoxy holding that man’s failings are
too radical for his ever just roughly implementing the enlightened ideals,
whereas at the same time it considers him to be so much “inviolable” that one
objects to eugenics or even euthanasia.
45. In
my theory, and my psyche too, there is a simple “black and white” contrast
between
(1) unhappiness, evil, troubled waters, taboo,… and
(2) happiness, the elevated, science, integrity, progress,…
In the minds and souls of many these are muddled in an unsound way, inter
alia, because of some frequent psychological processes:
a) Sex and lust (happiness) are associated (by socio-historical causes) to some
degree with sin, guilt, anxiety, violence,…;
b) Also competition causes that, though we will strive after happiness for
ourselves, we often prefer mishap as to our neighbour;
c) Among the socio-historical causes indicated is the “Schelsky motive” of
establishments that tends to make people dependent and, within this scope,
also innerly divided.
Points a) – c) indeed will make people so much “incoherent” that they will not
canalise their strivings and hope unequivocally in the direction of truth,
science and progress. On the contrary, many show a bias towards the RU paradigm
or feel evil as inherently interwoven with the morally positive and happiness.
Consequently, “paradox”, “mystery” and the unmakable are popular. Among other
things many modern novels and philosophy reflect such spiritual climate. The
latter is a major cause of the opposition to my work. One sympathises with
James Joyce, Beckett and Céline rather than Voltaire and the Genome Project…
Also compare how most pornography has little to do with beauty and (therefore)
the elevated.
46.
In modern society most anxiety is due to evil’s usually disguising itself, so that we cannot handle it straightforwardly or confront it by openly
aggressive feelings. For example, people will feel powerless with respect to
many social abuses because of their obscure, complicated or anonymous nature.
(Think of bureaucracy, “sex is sinful”, the authorities not cracking down on
crime and annoyance, the fate of whistle-blowers,…)
How
much anxiety there is can be inferred from most people not even daring to
violate taboos, or from their other-directly needing “the others”. In
non-Western societies anxiety will be even worse and, therefore, conformism
too.
47.
Why should I be more solidary with society than is implied by my being willing
to sacrifice one “unit” of happiness in order to give two units to my
neighbour? On the contrary, the powers that be extended “solidarity” so much as
to imply my not too fundamentally
(morally) criticising influential social groups or interests: ethnic or religious groups, intentions such as disguised by ideology,
sectors of the establishment,… I should not harm “solidarity” or “respect”
among components of society and not “sow discord” in it.
In
order to prevent the relevant “disunity”, society needs much anxiety,
repression and manipulation as core means of power. For example, you should not
morally debunk interest or other groups in the community. The utmost sin is
questioning the quality of some groups’
genes. It is even “incorrect” to do so with respect to
criminals, chronic problem cases and anti-socials. This is part and parcel of
the taboo as to “too radical moral criticism”: essentially, one should accept
major social actors as they are.
Within
the above scope of “disunity” (“solidarity” being largely a euphemism for
conformism and belonging, joining in the game), there is some relationship
between on the one side tabooing “discrimination” such as criticising the
mentality, crime frequency, performance or intelligence of some ethnic group,
and on the other side ascribing (un)conscious bad faith to certain influential
socio-cultural actors in general. For example, it is at least “not done”
(incorrect or even taboo) if one
a) explains softness on the immigration of low-IQ and lowly-skilled groups – as
it generally appears with leftists – by their well-founded anticipating many
votes from the relevant “disadvantaged”, or
b) partly explains the hyper-complication of law and juridical procedures from
the interests of lawyers and others in the judicial establishment.
Note that the major instrument of power “solidarity” (belonging and conformism)
actually is, is highly elucidated and explained by our realising two important
social phenomena:
(1) “Nationalism is an instrument to make many exert themselves for the benefit
of a few”, and
(2) “Most people are more interested in sitting sociably in a ring than in
knowing the truth”.
These quotations elucidate the contributions of the establishment and the masses,
respectively, to the socio-cultural means of power “solidarity” will be.
Explanations like those of a) and b), just as those, say, about hidden
motives in ideology, indeed imply (at least unconscious) bad faith among those
who are considered to be partners in the “oligarchic” socio-cultural model of
the establishment. Therefore, the concomitant “discord in the community”
displeases the orthodoxy, that accordingly represses or tabooes the relevant
explanations and theories, for basically the same reason as “discrimination”.
This also essentially explains most opposition to my work.
The
above also once more clarifies the contrast between pro- and anti-enlightened
forces, which is highly one between rational and moral criticism versus “not
dones”.
48.
Terrorists, multi-culturalists and egalitarians do on the practical level what
relativistic philosophers and incoherent artists do with words and symbols:
turning against and undermining advanced, partly enlightened, society.
49.
Modern nihilism and hopelessness to a large degree stem from current
“rationalism” and “positivism” being half-hearted rather than consistent. That
is:
a) They excluded values and purposes from their cogent argumentation,
leaving them to “free will” and the irrational;
b) They erroneously were/are reductionist in the sense that they reduced
natural law to local causality (and
probabilism) rather than realizing that a truly rational and coherent world is
defined by laws that also nonlocally make patterns of events consistent, coherent and
non-coincidental, “orchestrating”
them within this scope.
One of the sad consequences of such half-hearted rationalism is that not much
of a third alternative appears in current thought besides on the one hand
reductionist and partly probabilistic “empiro-rationalism” that excludes the
concepts of meaning and macro-coherence, and on the other hand (non)religious
traditionalism producing meaning not based on science.
Both,
in different ways, subscribe to the RU paradigm.
50.
Why modern speech-makers – from Foucault to Rorty, and from Habermas to Pinter
– go on and on in relativizing truth, the elevated and beauty? Well, I think
because they don’t like (too much of) them. The egalitarians join in the game, in their also relativizing human
quality.
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