Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
In 1780, John Adams succinctly defined the principle of the Rule of Law in the Massachusetts Constitution by seeking to establish “a government of laws and not of men”. This reflects the democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution’s preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The very foundation of our legal system says that the law should work for us all, not just a select few.
This raises the question of what is a good law that serves the majority of society and what is a bad law that doesn’t serve the majority of society?
This idea is further bolstered by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The latter addition of the 14th Amendment as well as the Preamble of the Constitution both reflect the spirit in which this country was founded as set forth in the Declaration of Independence: “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Clearly, the pursuit of the Rule of Law under the Constitution as informed by the Declaration is a pursuit of the Utilitarian concept of the right course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good consequences of an action; what is in the best interest of greatest numbers of We the People is in the best interests of the country.
Utilitarianism is a quantitative and reductionist philosophical form. Utilitarianism, however, is not a unified philosophical view. It comes in different flavors with the two primary flavors being Rule Utilitarianism and Act Utilitarianism. Strong Rule Utilitarianism is an absolutist philosophical view and rules may never be broken. Like any absolutist view does not take into account that reality occasionally presents situations where breaking a rule results in the greater good. For example, the strong reductionist rule that murder is bad is countered by the exceptional example of murder is not bad if performed in self-defense or the defense of others. This result of practical application is reflected in what John Stuart Mill called Weak Rule Utilitarianism. It becomes apparent that since not all rules are absolutely enforceable when seeking the common good and exceptional circumstances require flexibility in the law, that the Utilitarian pursuit of the Rule of Law must be in Mill’s Weak Rule formulation of Utilitarianism. But is considering the greater good and circumstantial reasons for breaking or modifying rules the best way to judge whether a law is good or bad?
If one considers Kant’s Categorical Imperative – “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” – then any law not universally applicable should not be a maxim worthy of being recognized as universal. This is contrary to Utilitarianism in general as well as Weak Rule Utilitarianism specifically, but while Kant’s view takes subjectivity into account when dealing with circumstances it does not take into account that there can be objective differences in circumstances as well. It is part of the judiciaries role as a trier of fact to consider not only subjective differences but objective differences in circumstances in formulating the most equitable and just solution to a case at bar. In seeking to be universally applicable in defining maxims, Kant is an absolutist as surely as Strong Rule Utilitarians are absolutists. As a consequence of reality not being neatly binary in nature and thus not often compatible to absolutists approaches to formulating laws for practical application, what can be done to keep Weak Rule Utilitarianism from degenerating into Act Utilitarianism where actors will seek the greatest personal pleasure when presented with a choice rather than the greater good? Utilitarianism conflicting with the Categorical Imperative? Is there a unitary philosophical approach to evaluating whether a law is good or bad?
The answer seems to be no. If there is no single view, absolutist or otherwise, that leads to a practical system for evaluating whether a law is good or bad, then there is only one option for building a framework for evaluation. That option is synthesis.
Consider that absolutist systems as they are not applicable in reality should be confined to being considered theoretical boundaries rather than practical boundaries. This does not negate the value of considering systems like Strong Rule Utilitarianism or Kant’s Categorical Imperative, but rather puts them in the place of aspirational goals rather than practically attainable goals in every circumstance. Given that Mill’s Weak Rule Utilitarianism can degrade into Act Utilitarianism and that degeneration can be compounded by the number of exceptions there are to a rule, are there ways to minimize the defects of using only Weak Rule Utilitarianism to determine the societal value of a law? What supplements can be made to that framework?
I submit that one such supplement is found in the form of Negative Utilitarianism. Negative Utilitarianism is exactly what it sounds like; the inverse function of Utilitarianism. Whereas Utilitarianism is the basic proposition that the right course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good consequences of an action, Negative Utilitarianism is the basic proposition that requires us to promote the least amount of evil or harm, or to prevent the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest number. If one takes both into account in evaluation of the social value of a law (a synthetic approach), the test becomes a balancing act. On one side of the scale is the societal value of overall good consequences, on the other side is the societal value of preventing overall harm. This proposition suggests the following framework for evaluation of whether a law is good or bad.
- How many people benefit from the good consequences of a law?
- How many people benefit from the reduction of harm as consequences of a law?
- Does the benefits from promoting good consequences outweigh the costs of reduction of harm?
- Does the benefits from reducing harm outweigh the costs to the greater good in taking no action?
- Are the net consequences of a law perfectly knowable from either perspective or does the possibility of unforeseeable consequences exist? Can the unforeseeable risks be minimized either by construction of the law(s) to allow for contingencies or by regulating other risks or contributing factors?
- Do solutions from either perspective negatively impact human and/or civil rights? Do those negative impacts outweigh the positive effects to the greater human and/or civil rights of all?
This is but one way to evaluate whether a law is good or bad for society. What are other methods? Are there ways to improve this method? What do you think?
Tony C:
from Ayn Rand on the nature of Objectivism:
“At a sales conference at Random House, preceding the publication of Atlas Shrugged, one of the book salesmen asked me whether I could present the essence of my philosophy while standing on one foot. I did as follows:
1.Metaphysics: Objective Reality
2.Epistemology: Reason
3.Ethics: Self-interest
4.Politics: Capitalism
If you want this translated into simple language, it would read: 1. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.” 2. “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.” 3. “Man is an end in himself.” 4. “Give me liberty or give me death.”
If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. But to hold them with total consistency—to understand, to define, to prove and to apply them—requires volumes of thought. Which is why philosophy cannot be discussed while standing on one foot—nor while standing on two feet on both sides of every fence. This last is the predominant philosophical position today, particularly in the field of politics.
My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:
1.Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2.Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3.Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4.The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.”
I dont see anything about modeling it on brain function. she may have had some ideas on brain function though.
Grossman,
I’m not rationalizing “my evil” or anyone’s evil, but merely stating a fact. A purely evil person is just as rare as a purely good person, but that does not mean people cannot be either good or evil. They just rarely are in the absolutist terms you two truck in. Just because Hitler loved his dog and Goebbels loved and was loved by his children doesn’t make either of them not evil in the value scales used by most sane people. It just makes them human. Killing another human is generally considered an evil act, but is the man who kills to defend others intrinsically evil because he has killed? Not necessarily. Sometimes it makes them heroes.
However, thanks for again demonstrating why extremists such as yourself are not to be taken seriously.
You wouldn’t know real evil if it bit you on the ass. Concurrently, you also wouldn’t know real good either. You measure the universe with the yardstick of your own ego and personal gain like all Objectivists. That’s not only a woefully small and inadequate tool for the task, the units of measurement are distorted by your inability to perceive and address complexity and your inability to empathize with others.
@Roco: I am not sure what you are saying.
I am saying that Rand got it wrong, and even her description of Objectivism proves that she got it wrong. How did she describe objectivism? As a MODEL of how the brain works. Why did she describe Objectivism as a MODEL of how the brain works? Because MODELS are what the brain deals in, MODELS are the natural currency of the brain, MODELS are how we think about things. She did not get her MODEL of how the brain works by examining in detail some actual working brains; she INVENTED it out of whole cloth. What did she use to explain this model? HYPOTHETICALS, FICTIONS, and instructive STORIES.
If Objectivism itself were the product of Objectivism, shouldn’t Rand have been pointing at neurons in Petri dishes, or neurons in the exposed brain of a chimpanzee? How, in the name of Objectivism, can she describe the operations of something she has never seen operate? Even in herself! Whatever mental tools she used to first THINK about Objectivism were already formed; her brain was that of a mature adult already.
The infant brain does not work with objects either. The neural net behind the eyes (and ears, and skin) are trained to distinguish features, not objects; features like vertical and horizontal changes in color or contrast, features like corners, features like MOVEMENT and persistence and color. From the jumble of features hitting the infant eye six hours a day, the features that occur often enough get sorted, and neurons “volunteer” to represent those features, and they start to fire when those features are present. When you see the letter “A” about fifty neurons representing the different features in the A will fire, and when MOST of those features fire together, another neuron wired to them will fire, and that is your “A” neuron.
The brain works with these recognition neurons and piles them one on top of another in dense networks, but all that is just to RECOGNIZE things.
The true purpose of the brain is not to pointlessly recognize things like some computer scanner; as much hardware (wetware) as it takes to recognize things, the real work of the brain is in developing the RULES that it can use to perform simulations and choose among them what to DO NEXT. It does a man no good to just label crap. What is the difference between holding a club and holding a handful of daisies? It is what a club can DO that the daisies cannot do.
When we collect a set of rules about the things we recognize, it makes a MODEL of the thing. A model is not the real thing, it is only intended to capture the essence of the real thing. My mental model of my wife obviously cannot include the function of her 100 billion neurons; it would use up all my neurons.
The point of models is simulation and prediction and relationships, mostly done subconsciously and involuntarily. And that is the point of the brain. Thinking that external objects are the foundation of thought is as trivial as thinking that the alphabet is the foundation of literature. It is ludicrous, nobody in their right mind would start analyzing literature by cataloging the letters in use. Literature is about story, which is about relationships, which is something the brain excels at finding.
The brain doesn’t CARE hardly at all about the details of specific variation, because those don’t change the predictive value of the model, and don’t change what you can DO with the object, or what it can do to you, or what it is going to do next. It makes no difference if the snarling dog has some black hairs in with its brown hairs and a mole on its left ear; what makes a difference is what you can do to fight an attacking dog, and that depends upon your model of how dogs behave and how you can exploit that behavior to disable one before it bites you.
Stare at a specific dying plant all day and you learn nothing. Understand the generalized relationships between plants and the sun, water, soil, diseases and predators, and what you can do to affect those factors, and now you have a chance of choosing a future, by taking an action (or several), in which that specific plant lives instead of dying.
The cavemen that built mental models of animal behavior were able to predict what the animals would do in response to what the cavemen could do, and thereby invented traps and hunting strategies that reliably delivered food. That isn’t a passive contemplation of animals, it is thinking about relationships and behaviors according to rules they figured out, that developed into a generalized model of a typical animal or herd, and then using that model to simulate scenarios and predict the outcomes of each scenario, and then choosing to implement the scenario that either kills the animal, or unexpectedly lets it escape (but as a consolation prize, refines their mental model to greater accuracy with a new component).
The brain is about MODELING the future by figuring out rules and behaviors and relationships with PREDICTIVE value, so it can decide what the body it controls will DO NEXT to secure the future it has (emotionally) selected. That is how the mind works. If for the sake of argument we were to pin the mind down to one thing, that thing would have nothing to do with objects: It would be predictive rules. Neurons spontaneously develop in infancy that generalize and recognize sensory features (not objects but components of objects), it uses them to generalize collections of features as distinct objects or behaviors or patterns of sound or touch, it use predictive rules to create models, it uses predictive rules to mentally have models interact in simulations.
The purpose of the brain is not to recognize static objects like some grocery store scanner; it is to predict where situations are going and what is going to happen, and ultimately what you can do to change it (or better secure it or avert it).
So that is what I am saying, Objectivism is a stupid premise, both in evolutionary terms, and scientific terms, and in simple common sense. The brain doesn’t contemplate a tree, it contemplates what trees can do and how they work and what they can be used for. The brain doesn’t contemplate a table, it contemplates how the table can be used. If in a scifi show you see a table set with plates but the tabletop is floating in the air and it has no legs, your mind won’t hesitate for a second to classify it as a table; it is serving the purpose of a table. In the same show, a force field can serve the purpose of a wall or prison bars. These things don’t throw you for a loop because your brain doesn’t think much in terms of THINGS, it is usually thinking in terms of FUNCTION.
Roco,
Gene H: Most men are a little of both [good and evil] and often one to some and the other to others still. That is our nature.
He is rationalizing his evil. Its not his fault. The Devil made him do it. Man is meat without a soul that knows and chooses and feels. He spits on his own soul and, in enraged vengeance at his moral cowardice, he wants you to spit on your soul. This is the spiritual depravity that makes Nazi death camp guards. Why not murder people? They are guilty by nature. And if youre evil, too, what difference does it make? Its just a matter of degree, as he stresses. He mentions the alleged source of morality, society, but evades the particular morality, sacrifice, he advocates. He’ll compromise himself into Hell but he accepts sacrifice as a moral absolute. Without that, his spiritual emptiness would be too obvious for even a represser as all selfless people are. If you want to see the inner Nazi in his self-rotted soul, tell him that you hold your own life and happiness as moral absolutes, never to be compromised to relieve anyone’s suffering. Tell him that happiness is morally important and that suffering is not. What, Mother Theresa and Jesus should not be respected for their suffering?! Without suffering, neither Gene H nor the Nazi death camp guards can be moral, acc/to their depraved morality of death. Germany was the center of Kant’s advocacy of duty. Germany is not the problem. Modernism/nihilism is.
Recall Adolf Eichmann’s defense of his administration of one of the Nazi death camps: he did his duty against inclination (value). Not even Nazism benefited from the death camps. Hitler diverted urgently needed war supplies to them at the end. Thats a sacrifice that Meatman, Gene H, can get behind. Did i mention that the Nazi in charge of mass murder in Poland was the head of the German Bar Assn.? Im not attacking lawyers but showing the effect of the morality of sacrifice on even people one normally considers exemplars of rationality, education, and sanity. Read Leonard Peikoff’s _Ominous Parallels_.
Roco,
You’re the one talking in childish absolutes to create a false dichotomy. There are far more choices in the world than good or evil. That you are reality resistant and insist on your neat and tidy little categories says far more about you than about the universe. Also, socialism isn’t the same thing as Communism or fascism no matter how many times you try to say otherwise. If they were the same thing, we wouldn’t need different words to describe the concepts. As Gyges intimated, “Read a book!” Actually understanding what you read (sans your proclivity to make up your own vocabulary) would be even better.
Gyges:
Maybe he engaged in a bit of that himself trying to protect his belief system.
You think he is immune from that just because he wrote it? I think you need to read a book, actually many books.
And thank you for the laugh, I see you are also a member of the sanctimonious choir of the far left.
Roco,
Thanks for the laugh. It’s even funnier because you think it’s true.
Orwell had people like you in mind when he said this:
“MEANINGLESS WORDS. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. [Note, below] Words like ROMANTIC, PLASTIC, VALUES, HUMAN, DEAD, SENTIMENTAL, NATURAL, VITALITY, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, “The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality,” while another writes, “The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness,” the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion If words like BLACK and WHITE were involved, instead of the jargon words DEAD and LIVING, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word FASCISM has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words DEMOCRACY, SOCIALISM, FREEDOM, PATRIOTIC, REALISTIC, JUSTICE, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like DEMOCRACY, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like MARSHAL PÉTAIN WAS A TRUE PATRIOT, THE SOVIET PRESS IS THE FREEST IN THE WORLD, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS OPPOSED TO PERSECUTION, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: CLASS, TOTALITARIAN, SCIENCE, PROGRESSIVE, REACTIONARY BOURGEOIS, EQUALITY.”
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part42
In short
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1uc7ohS7cU&w=640&h=390]
Tony C
> Why do the “objectivists” that worship “concrete” based knowledge reject this [brain] science and understanding of “concrete” neurons?
Brain science, interpreted by subjectivism, is subjective. Brain science, interpreted by Objectivism, is objective. You evade my repeated statements of the necessary physical base to consciousness. Aristotle recognized material causes as one type of cause and Rand is a neo-Aristotelian. Rand even said that brain science would tell us why man’s consciousness is volitional/conceptual. One particular Objectivist forum has a post today on this issue.
But you materialist meatheads (that’s redundant!) don’t recognize that you are using a materialist/subjectivist interpretation of brain science. This is what epistemologists call naive realism, the ignorance (when not an evasion) of the difference between concrete reality and one’s conceptualization of concrete reality. You don’t distinguish the form from the matter of knowledge. Naive realism takes whatever concepts one happens to have (as a result of past choices) as reality and is unable or unwilling to monitor and regulate the mind, to direct the process of concept-formation as explicitly as one would drive a car. The result in both cases ,of evading the need to steer a car and steer one’s mind, is an accident. But because intellectual accidents are abstract and thus impossible for naive realists to identify, intellectual accidents are often not conceptualized for what they are. Some intellectual accidents are so poorly recognized that they become respected legal scholars rationalizing laws which empower the state to regard man as a mindless animal which must obey the state for its own good. You might study the character of Ellsworth Toohey in Rand’s novel about independence, _The Fountainhead_. He’s a Progressive architecture critic who advocates sacrifice and collectivism as the proper guides for designing houses and buildings and, in general, for organizing society. In Toohey, Rand has pinned your soul to a microscope slide. It’s not pretty. He lusts for power over others so that no one rises above the herd.
From Cliff Notes (perhaps by Objectivist philosophy professor, Andrew Bernstein):
“Toohey is a power-seeker. In various ways, he attempts to gain control over the lives of other men. At the personal level, he acquires a legion of followers who blindly obey his every command. Toohey deceives his victims by posturing as a humanitarian, but the code he preaches — that of self-sacrifice — is utterly destructive. Under the guise of offering spiritual guidance, Toohey convinces his followers to give up the things most important in their lives — their values. He tells them that virtue lies in selflessness, in the renunciation of personal desires, and that they must exist for the sake of others. He succeeds with a number of weak-willed individuals, who then surrender the things and persons most precious to them. But when a man gives up his values, he necessarily gives up that with which he formed them — his own thinking. His life is then empty, devoid of meaning and purpose, and he is incapable of internal direction. He needs external guidance. Toohey is never too busy to give them his full attention; he is always there to tell them what to do.”
As Toohey says, “Artistic value is achieved collectively by each man subordinating himself to the standards of the majority.”
The movie version is online, occasionally on TV and most probably in DVD. Make sure you have a bottle of Jack Daniells handy. Rand is the most profoundly philosophical artist in history.
Rand wrote than brain science would provide
Gyges:
again what is your point? I already knew he wrote 1984 and Animal Farm as rebuttals against Soviet Russia and possibly Nazi Germany. He was afraid those 2 system’s would be used as examples of why socialism is evil.
It is why you guys try so deperately hard to separate socialism from communism and fascism.
Gene H:
so now good and evil are in terms of Kelvin?
If something is good it is good, if it is evil it is evil. What does absolute have to do with anything? It is just another indication of your lack of understanding.
Roco,
There is nothing between absolute good and absolute evil?
You are a sad and simple thinker, Roco.
The universe is an analog place, not binary, even at the subatomic level. It’s a bell curve, with an infinite array of shades of grey that exist between pure good and pure evil, good and evil which are human judgments and not physical properties of matter. The universe is an inherently relativistic place whether you like it or not. The trick is the good within the proper frame of reference. Even when considering the foibles of anthropomorphism, the majority of the universe falls into that vast sea of the in-between. It’s neither good nor evil. It is sometimes partly both. Most of it simply is and it is indifferent to our socially constructed concepts of good and evil. It is your extremism that blinds you to reality. There is far more in this world than simple good versus evil. That construct is the thinking of children. Mature humans realize that the world is considerably more complex than that. True good and true evil are rarities in the world. Just as few men are saints, few men are devils. Most men are a little of both and often one to some and the other to others still. That is our nature.
By the way, to lecture on principles one must have them to seem credible. The idea of an Objectivist lecturing anyone on principles is little more than laughable. Call back when your universe includes more than propping up your obviously fragile and immature ego and your cult of personality.
As for telling me “what I know”? I know exactly what I think, what I believe and what my standards are and you have no way of proving otherwise unless you are psychic. Right now, I think I believe you are a myopic fool by my standards based upon the evidence of your simplistic and childish view of a polar reality.
Roco,
Just so you know Orwell wasn’t being anti-collectivist in 1984.
Here, in his own words, is what exactly Orwell was writing against in 1984 and what he endorsed as it’s alternative.
From “Why I Write:”
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.”
And here’s him defining socialism in “The Lion and the Unicorn.”
“However, it has become clear in the last few years that “common ownership of the means of production” is not in itself a sufficient definition of Socialism. One must also add the following: approximate equality of incomes (it need be no more than approximate), political democracy, and abolition of all hereditary privilege, especially in education. These are simply the necessary safeguards against the reappearance of a class-system. Centralised ownership has very little meaning unless the mass of the people are living roughly upon an equal level, and have some kind of control over the government. “The State” may come to mean no more than a self-elected political party, and oligarchy and privilege can return, based on power rather than on money.”
Roco,
My point was: if you’re going to use fiction as an example of how actual live people always behave, you should at least get the details right. You sounded about as rational as me saying “People who cancel dates always get possessed by the spirits of demons trapped in Tiki Dolls; it’s the ending to ‘Prey,'” and much less accurate.
Mainly though, I like Orwell’s writing and philosophy. I’ve even read his book other than 1984. It bugs me when people misquote and distort his writing. If you randomly say something factually incorrect about music or beer to make a point, I’d probably correct you then too.
Gene H:
no, you really dont know what you are talking about. Polarity indicates opposite. The opposite of good is evil. There is no in between between good and evil.
You are a moral relativist and have stated it plainly. You dont know what you believe and hold no standards. You have stated so above.
Principles never were your strong suit.
Gyges:
do you have an actual point? Or are you lost again?
Where do you think Orwell got the idea?
Roco,
I know exactly what I’m saying. You on the other hand? It’s pretty clear that you don’t. Anyone who thinks extremism is a form of free thought is obviously not engaging in free thinking. By its very nature, the idea of free thought doesn’t lend itself to polarized and rigid thought.
Roco,
Not to nitpick but, “it was the ending of 1984,” is just plain wrong.
The ending to 1984 was Wilson crying.
After being arrested for being a criminal and then systematically tortured and brainwashed in the Ministry of Love, he was given a job he didn’t have to work at. After that, he runs into the chick, they hate each other, and he goes back to the same bar he had seen “traitors” at years before, and in response to some piece of music proceeding an announcement about the war starts crying because he “loves Big Brother.”
Now, in the course of their torture they do convince him he was “sick” and they were just “curing him,” but that’s just a cover, and one that requires Wilson to have been completely destroyed psychologically before he could accept. Since earlier they had admitted that this whole thing was just about the power of being able to make someone be so eager to stop the torture that they not only would SAY what the person wanted them to, but actually believe it. Initially neither party believes it to be true, and in the end Wilson only does because he’s no longer a rational and thinking man. It was a test of Wilson’s submission.
Plus, I know it’s a great book (I like it so much I actually bother to remember major plot points), but mentioning it in the same list of examples of actual events is going a bit far.
Mike Spindell:
I understand exactly what they are saying. But I am pretty sure they dont.
You should take your own advice.
You dont understand what they are.
Gene H:
you clearly have no idea what you are saying.
What is a polar solution? is that a mixture of ice, water and polar bear?
Tony c
<being reality-impaired is not a crime in my book. I think we probably all are to some extent!
This is the essence of subjectivism or, as its now called, Progressivism. The Devil made them do it. They couldn't help it. As one murderer told British prison psychiatrist, Theodore Dalyrymple, "The knife went in."