If that were a fact, your premise would still be wrong because she did not support taxation, and she earned a great deal from book sales....t
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Friday, May 20, 2011
It Began With Ayn Rand
If that were a fact, your premise would still be wrong because she did not support taxation, and she earned a great deal from book sales....t
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Monday, May 09, 2011
A chaos of public administration in NZ
This article by the NZ Herald highlights in NZ how the government is bringing about the failure of state administration. Apart from the prospects of civil unrest, as we have seen in the Middle East, the public system is broke and needs to be dropped.
Of course this type of chaos is occurring in all of the democracies around the world; and understandably so. The US was the base currency which propelled them all to the same ultimate end....an inability to pay their bills.
The question is - will people blame capitalism; or will they recognise the primary role of government in precipitating this state of affairs. It is hard to blame government when you need a hand-out, and no one thinks to blame anyone when the economy 'looks good'. Well, not everyone. We have been blaming govt since we started blogging in 2005.
------------------------------------
Author
Andrew Sheldon
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Ron Paul - presidential candidate
It will be a very different type of America is Ron Paul gets elected. Those Conservatives might have to ask themselves why so many people feel inclined to use drugs given Bush's administration. Bush was of course was an alcoholic, so its apparent he could not even live with his own conscience, and yet he felt compelled to impose it upon a nation. Or was it just a lifestyle decision? He seems to make a big deal about it in his book.
------------------------------------
Author
Andrew Sheldon
Thursday, May 05, 2011
What is wrong with a meritocracy?
Notwithstanding my positive views of Ayn Rand, and the acknowledgement I make to the impact she has had on my life, there were some negatives, and she also displays her share of blunders. Among them are sweeping statements and dubious reasoning.
Someone referred me to her conception of 'meritocracy', offered at the Ayn Rand Institute:
“Meritocracy” is an old anti-concept and one of the most contemptible package deals. By means of nothing more than its last five letters, that word obliterates the difference between mind and force: it equates the men of ability with political rulers, and the power of their creative achievements with political power. There is no difference, the word suggests, between freedom and tyranny: an “aristocracy” is tyranny by a politically established elite, a “democracy” is tyranny by the majority—and when a government protects individual rights, the result is tyranny by talent or “merit” (and since “to merit” means “to deserve,” a free society is ruled by the tyranny of justice).
Philosophy: Who Needs It, pp.105; sourced from The Ayn Rand Lexicon.
The problem I have with this definition is that its too sweeping in its implications. There is a lot of truth in it. A majority of people having authority over the balance is even more threatening than an autocracy because it holds a sanction of being morally legitimate by virtue of embodying the majority. Who could reasonably hold that the majority is a proxy for the truth. I would take the opposite position, that the minority is more likely to comprise discerning thinkers.
Rand assumes that there is a need in a meritocracy to unconditionally sanction the views of some 'meritocrats'. I don't see this as necessarily entailed, and its occurrence will ultimately depend on the underlying theory of values. This of course Rand understood, since her theory of values was her greatest insight. So if meritocrats do not enjoy the unconditional sanction of others, we have a situation where people need to be convinced. This conditionality is a basis for a new respect or empathy for others; and when you have that, the conditions are reciprocated.
The smallest minority is of course the individual. That does not mean to say that any one person should dictate the affairs of others. It means that every individual should have the sovereign right to represent their own interests or assign or withdrawal a proxy at any time, and on any issue.
Rand assumes here that 'merit' is a standard of value merely by assuming it. This of course raises the question of who embodies rational values. The answer is: The person who can withstand critical review. The problem with the world is not that we cannot find the truth; the problem is that people can too easily shirk accountability. The consequence is a great many 'schools of thought', with no inclination among those schools to reconcile their ideas, nor any provision for them to differentiate them from the 'functional society' such that they can prove the practicality of their philosophy or values. The problem for a great many of these 'schools of thought', and the individualist philosophies like Rand's are the exception, is that they depend upon the sanctioning of victims, i.e. They need to extort advantages from people. i.e. Collectivists have to plunder the wealth of the rich in order to sustain themselves. Of course any school needs raw land at the least, and access to resources.
Clearly making your own society makes little sense. It would be a tremendous diseconomy for people to go off and do their own thing. And yet a great many people do exactly that. Western societies are increasingly confronting low workforce participation rates. Some of these people are wealthy and think they don't need to work. Some however are so pissed off by governments and the rest of our 'unthinking society', that they decide to go off into the wilderness and grow dope or raise vegetables. They embrace the 'simple life'. Some of them just immigrate to a simpler place like NZ, others shack up with some girl in Thailand or the Philippines and life off investment income. There are many Westerners doing this. I stumble upon them all the time. Society does not talk about these people. Most of them are men, but then women can always find respite by depending on women. That is not so easy for men to justify, or women to accept.
I know a lawyer who did that. He was running a successful business, and he got into drugs, and gave the business to his son. He went off to live in an isolated area of Australia. He came back decades later saying sorry to his children, and regretting his decision. The reality however is that he came back with no greater mental clarity. He was engaging in escapism, as these 'schools of thought' are prone to do. I understood his disdain for his society, but unlike him, I retained a respect for facts, and I sought intellectual coherence and correspondence of facts. It has taken me a long time, but it was not time wasted. It was a source of pride 'in discovery' as well as efficacy, knowing that I could out-debate all takers. The next stage of course is to educate and achieve some practical effect. This is not easy. How do you convince people who are convinced that there is no answer, and that humanity is this way by nature. They don't need to talk to me. They have discounted humanity, so their conception of the 'reasonable', whilst more tragic than mine, serves them...as long as humanity continues to disappoint them.
This leaves little respect for objectivity. Some even proclaim to embody it, but they don't have a causative or intellectual framework for thinking...just a rough correlation between their values and their experience. They don't need causation; they each have their support group of vested interests. This support group is pitted against counterparts of course in our democratic society, and each remains entrenched in conflict, attempting to extort some concession through alliances; not underpin by reasons, but 'numbers'. This does not work intellectually of course, but extortion does achieve 'practical' concrete goals.. Little surprise that people start to find NOT thinking very practical. Whether they are pragmatic, or even evasive/repressed: two things happen:
1. People lose respect for facts - they become sceptical
2. People lose respect for people - they become morally relativists - they start to think humanity is screwed up by nature, they start to dismiss the significance or importance of any one individual, and they start to think that the only way to change the world is by forcing policy down people's throats. So we get police officers saying 'if you don't want a fine, then stop breaking the law'. "You will learn one day!". This is nonsense. The law does not teach anything but obedience, and unless we are prepared to move towards fascism, then this is not the way to go. The reality is that its the police and politicians who don't need to think because either party is accountable. The police protect each other. If they are caught for something, they are simply dismissed, but more commonly given the opportunity to resign.
Its the same for politicians. If the electorate cannot 'tolerate' some indiscretion, they will be given the opportunity to resign, and will probably avoid investigation, so they can keep their lifetime pension. Standards are already pretty low. Politicians right around the globe have been engaged in corruption scandals, from the US, UK, Australia, NZ, Japan, India, the Philippines. What makes it possible is - the governments unconditional right to your money (i.e. taxation). This is why you should simply stop paying tax. Withdrawal your sanction for poor administration and declare this a 'failed state'. All democracies are failed states.
------------------------------------
Author
Andrew Sheldon
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Syrian military crack down on protesters
There is a massive crackdown occurring in Southern Syria at the moment. It makes one think that the UN Security Council ought to intervene in this country to prevent human rights abuses. There are a number of problems of course:
1. Control of the skies is not going to do much
2. Syria is strongly supported by Iran
3. Support would need to include military arms or a ground force, and I don't see that.
What is the solution to this problem? I think the US needs a biodegradable armaments. i.e. A gun which degrades after 2 years of use. The problem of course is that the Middle East needs to develop a respect for human rights. They are too ready to tolerate autocrats. They need to develop some fighting skills and dig in. You'd think the US could offer some training in Israel. This only works however if:
1. The US offers training in ethics as well - and its a big bridge to cross
2. The US has a consistent foreign policy - seemingly impossible given their moral ambivalence. Just look at their track record in the Middle East.
------------------------------------
Author
Andrew Sheldon
Monday, May 02, 2011
Japanese corruption - worst in the OECD?
When one has the opportunity to live in different countries or merely takes the time to read the political news in different countries, one soon realises that its corruption is not isolated to one's country. It is essentially universal that politicians under democracy are corrupt. I would expect no less under any form of tyranny because, like democracy, they are not relationships based upon respect. The question then is:
1. Why do people tolerate it? Why are they not out in the streets?
2. Why are people not mailing this blog to their friends?
3. Why are people not looking for another way? A different philosophy?
4. Why does it feel like I am the only one?
This blog post is from a Japanese reporter who covers the Japanese political system. The Japanese parliament is arguably one of the dirtiest in the OECD. Of course third world dictators are far more brazen in their corruption.
------------------------------------
Author
Andrew Sheldon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
ConvinceMe.Net - Anyone up for a debate?
