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via Realeyesation: Don’t miss this great conversation between Alexander Raskovic and the renowned James Corbett from ‘The Corbett Report.’ Discover how James Corbett became a voluntaryist and an Anarchist, and how James and Alexander discovered the methods of self-learning (autodidacticism).
VIDEO COURTESY REALEYESATION: ODYSEE / ODYSEE (NO BACKGROUND MUSIC) RUMBLE / YOUTUBE
TRANSCRIPT
ALEXANDER RASKOVIC: Welcome, everybody. My name is Alexander. You are listening to another “RealEYESation.” And today we’re doing something quite special! I will be interviewing someone who I admire dearly and who will certainly enrich us with a lot of knowledge and valuable information. Today I have the privilege to speak to the one and only James Corbett. James Corbett is an award-winning investigative journalist who started The Corbett Report in 2007 with the intent of creating an outlet for independent, critical analysis of politics, society, history, science and economics. He is renowned for the thousands of hours of audio and video media that he made for the website and also for his podcasts and several online video series.
I personally discovered James Corbett’s work through his excellent documentaries on 9/11, which I encourage you to watch as well. Now, the topics of discussion where James has particularly piqued my attention are voluntaryism and anarchism, since those are the subjects that I primarily talk about on this platform. Knowing that James is and has been a voluntaryist and an anarchist for many years, I have the honor of hosting him on RealEYESation today. So, James welcome to RealEYESation. How are you doing today?
JAMES CORBETT: I’m doing great. Thank you for having me here.
AR: Thank you so much for being here. Now, James, I wanted to ask you: How did you become a voluntaryist?
JC: I think that is a good question. And, if I wanted to answer that philosophically, I would say that I think human beings fundamentally are voluntaryist by nature and they have to be trained into not being voluntaryist. Maybe that’s a controversial opinion, because, obviously, when you look around, most of the people that we encounter in our daily life, most of the time, almost without exception, are statists. Whatever the particular political flavor they prefer, they do think that the the governmental systems that we live under are the natural state of being. I would posit that in fact, no. Humans are remarkably adaptable and that, of course, is part of “the ultimate resource” that Julian Simon talks about—our brains being “the ultimate resource,” because that makes us almost, I won’t say infinitely, but very, very malleable and adaptable to different circumstances, including the circumstances that may not be in our best interests, like ones where rulers are put in positions of authority over us.
But perhaps that is too philosophical a way of answering your question. I suppose, more practically, I could say that I do recall the moment—I don’t recall whether it was in junior high school or high school—but I do recall, in a political science course I was taking at the time, encountering the ideas of John Locke for the first time and thinking that the idea of classical liberalism definitely, immediately seemed intuitively right to me. There was no question, once I started to encounter those ideas, that: “Oh, clearly I believe something like this.” It took many years of fleshing out what that really means and taking it to its logical conclusion point. I was still a statist for many, many years.
I don’t know whether I was blessed or cursed to have grown up in Canada, in the Canadian public education system—indoctrination system—where most people are socialist by default, I think what would be the way to say it. The idea of questioning the existence or necessity of government itself is almost unthinkable to most Canadians. But, in a way, perhaps it gave me an arm’s length remove from the type of philosophy and political science and thinking that was going on in the American Revolution. We did not study that deeply in our Canadian public schooling system. So when I encountered that as an adult many years later on, I was able, I think, to remove from all of the propaganda that obviously surrounds subjects like that. I was able to look at the political philosophy of the writings of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson and others obviously influenced by Locke and start to see the inherent appeal of the idea of, say, the Declaration of Independence—one of the few political documents that I can get behind.
So I think that was the beginning of the penny drop. The penny, of course, takes some time to work its way down the machine and to actually drop. So the old joke is: “What’s the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist?” The answer is: “A few years, if you’re being honest with yourself.” That’s about right in my case. It did take me a few years to go from an understanding, “Clearly, I am on the libertarian side of things, I do believe in classical liberal philosophy,” [to voluntaryism]. It took a while for me to play that out and to really realize that, at base, there is no moral justification or any magical voting incantation that can be performed to confer rights that don’t exist onto people wearing funny badges and funny hats.
AR: I completely agree with you there, James. You know, it is the exemption for morality, if you will, that we envision these people to have, in some strange way, like, “Well, how does that person suddenly get the right to rule somebody else? Because the majority wanted to be so? Because they wrote it down on a piece of parchment? Because they changed the words around?” So, yeah, I definitely agree with you there.
JC: Well, the funny thing is that we can scoff at the propaganda that was used in the past to justify rule in times long ago. For example, the Divine Right of rule, which, of course, the European monarchies um uh invoked as a justification for their role over their subjects, which, in this day and age, most people rightly scoff at—except when they apparently celebrate the coronation of King Charles, or what have you. But most people realize that the Divine Right to rule is just ridiculous. Why did anyone believe that? I am confident that centuries from now people will look at our magical invocations of voting or election rituals or whatever that we seem to use to legitimate things that have nothing to do with proper human morality—we will look at that hundreds of years from now as, “How did people ever believe that?”
AR: Absolutely. I agree with you completely. It’s the same exact religion. Only this time, it’s not a rulership of a king or a queen, it’s a rulership of a bunch of politicians, which is just the same thing. It’s a bunch of human beings thinking that they have the right to rule everybody.
JC: It is. So, the real question then becomes, “How do we rightfully unseat that illegitimate authority in the minds of the people?” I think we have to put the emphasis on that place, because, as I say, I think that people have to be indoctrinated into becoming statists, or to feeling themselves to be statists. So I think there has to be a process of unindoctrination to get them to realize that, “No, you are a free, sovereign, individual human being, and no one can abrogate your most fundamental human rights.”
AR: I agree completely. Schooling systems in general never teach you to make your own conclusions. They tell you what your conclusion should be because the authorities told you. So, by default, you don’t have a solid epistemology—a basis for how you know what you know, if that makes sense. So, by default, there is a huge void in their understanding of, okay, stealing from other people is wrong, but suddenly these people get the right to do blatantly moral things that none of us have the right to do. They’ve never been taught how they made that jump—how do we go from a basic understanding of morality to an exemption from morality by a bunch of politicians.
JC: Indeed, it is a sticky philosophical issue. And I don’t want to trivialize it. I don’t think it does any service to our argument to argue that this is a simple process of obvious and straightforward logic, because we have to view this in the context of the vast scope of human history, in which most people have been subjected to brutal, violent rule throughout most of human history. And political governments come along in various pacts—at least promising to tone down the violence in return for certain powers that are granted to people who get into positions of power.
So, as a result, of of that we can look at the governments in the status system that exists as a type of truce between ruling oligarchs and the people: “We will agree not to breach certain areas some of the time as long as you pledge your fealty to us through this process and allow us the fundamental right to own the geographical territory we claim to own.”
That is a sticky practical problem: “How do we move from a system that is governed in this particular way to an actually free society?” I can very much understand the system that we’re living in today and I can very much understand what a free society would be and how it would operate. But the transition can go in a lot of different ways. And it may not be to the betterment of all humanity, given that we are playing a rigged game.
When you suddenly take the rules off the game and say, “Okay, now you can play freely.” Well, clearly, certain people who have benefited from the rigged game for decades, centuries, generations, are in a different starting position in the suddenly free game. And you can’t blame people who have been hobbled their entire lives generationally, perhaps, for not doing well in such a game.
So, there are many, many considerations to take into account here, and I don’t want to trivialize them. But, having said that, I think the goal of maximizing human freedom is a laudable goal and one that we should be aimed at. It’s a question of how we get from here to there.
AR: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the basic understanding that no person could ever have the right to rule—that there is no pseudo-religious ritual out there that could give a human being like you and me the right to control other people and use threats of violence to enforce their will onto other people—once that basic understanding becomes consistent, not just from a basic philosophical standpoint, [but in practice. Tthen they will realize] what you said at the beginning: Everybody by default is a voluntaryist from the inside.
Everybody knows that it’s wrong to harm another person. Yet they have been indoctrinated into believing that some people can have an exemption from that. Once people understand that there is no exemption from morality and that we have to figure things out without that logical inconsistency, [then they will see that] that idea just doesn’t make any sense, and it’s actually the worst idea ever. [It] has led to this condition over and over and over again throughout our history. [Seeing that] is when humanity will actually flourish.
JC: I agree. I certainly wouldn’t want to make this a consequentialist argument. But I do believe that human flourishing would increase in a free society over the type of ruled and controlled system that we have now. And so, for people for whom consequentialism is a persuasive viewpoint, then perhaps we could detail that as well.
There are many many many mental obstacles that people have to get over on their journey from being a statist to realizing the natural human state of individual sovereign human freedom. And, unfortunately, it is the case that everyone thinks that they are coming up with these objections for the first time and no one has ever thought about it! “But how would you deal with violence in a free society?” “Obviously, you need police, you need jails, you need all of this.”
Anyway, it is funny that everyone seems to think that no one has ever thought of these objections and no one has ever written books about them before. But one of the things that I think is fundamental to underline—especially, again, for those with the consequentialist line of thought here—is that there is a very deeply ingrained (and, actually, perhaps this is an intuitive sense that most people have) that in order for any sort of complicated process to come about, it must be managed. And it must be managed by, presumably, if not a single individual, at least a central group that can control of all of these various processes.
And it is extremely, extremely important for people to realize the counter-intuitive—but I think demonstrably true—reality: that spontaneous order is actually capable of creating much more elaborate and much more stable systems than any topdown centrally managed system could. It is more efficient.
And what do I mean by spontaneous order?
I always cite Leonard Reed’s essay, “I, Pencil,” because it’s the simplest and easiest way to understand this, but it is really profound in its implications. And, of course, Leonard Reed’s “I, Pencil” is narrated from the viewpoint of a pencil, who is claiming “I am a miraculous object because no one in the world knows how to put me together.” Immediately you think, “Well, that’s ridiculous. Here’s a pencil. There’s a pencil factory down the street. What’s the big deal?”
But as the essay develops, it goes on to talk about all of the different constituent materials that have to be mined and extracted and brought to a centralized location and then treated via various processes and then moved on to another place, where they are eventually put together. And all of the people involved in all of these processes, and then all of the people who are helping all of those people: the farmer who grows the food that feeds the worker in the mine in Ceylon who gets the . . . etc., etc.
And you start to realize that the simple act of the creation of this pencil involves the coordination of the efforts of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands—how far out do we extend this bubble? Perhaps millions of people are ultimately involved in some way in helping to bring all of these materials together and to create this pencil in a way that, once you understand the true scope of it, of course, no one person could even possibly keep track of all of that activity let alone coordinate it and manage it. And yet it happens.
And when we start to expand this out [we realize that] of course this isn’t about the creation of pencils. This is about the creation of everything of complexity and omport in our society. It’s about the sum total of productive human activity which takes place not because of some coordinated centrally managed clique of people who are who are stewarding over this process, but in spite of the fact that there are centralized cliques of power that presume to be able to regulate and tell people how to live their lives.
So, once we start to understand the spontaneous order that makes a very complex processes possible, we can start to reconceptualize some of, I think, the core objections that people have to the idea of freedom. Because we, unfortunately in the statist system that we live in, tend to think that these types of systems need topdown control in order to function. But they do not. And once we start toppling some of those barriers, we start to—hopefully, at least—convince some of the people in the crowd who otherwise would have their their consequentialist objections: “But if people were free, how would we do X, Y or Z?”
Well, there are many different ways to envision this. As I would like to stress, I guarantee— guarantee!—anyone listening to this conversation who has some sort of “But but what about this?” [objection], I guarantee there are entire books that have been written about your objection, answering them. It’s good to have questions and to ask them—absolutely.
But I hope that people who do have objections to what we are saying would trouble themselves to actually look up how those objections have been countered and whether or not they think those arguments are persuasive.
AR: Exactly. And that’s actually the underlying philosophy as well. Most people will might come up with a straw man of, “Well, we’re talking about no hierarchies and no leadership.” We’re certainly not talking about no hierarchies. This is where basic voluntaryism and true anarchism are put into the category of communism—or whatever communism has done to the philosophy of anarchism.
That’s not at all what it’s about. It is absolutely not as if we’re talking about there is no such thing as hierarchies, no such thing as leadership. It is all about voluntary interaction. Of course you will need those sort of things. But we’re talking about nothing essentially imposed on you with violence. It is all a voluntary society and everything will be done based on your consent. Nobody will transgress upon your right to decide what to spend your money on or what you decide to spend your time on.
And that’s basically voluntaryism, isn’t it?
JC: That’s exactly right. And so, again, of course, all of the most basic precepts of this need to be stressed and restressed and re-elaborated every time it is brought up, because people have a hard time understanding what is even being said. But of course this is not a license to escape the bonds of morality, which include, of course, the obvious injunction against violating anyone else’s bodily autonomy, anyone else’s property. Anything you seek to do that will violate someone else’s personal sovereignty is obviously verboten under a system of voluntary association. So it isn’t just some sort of license to do anything. Of course not!
AR: Exactly.
JC: But it is a license to do anything that is not encroaching on, infecting, abrogating, or breaching the bodily sovereignty or property of another person. Of course, there will be boundaries that come into conflict. So conflict resolution will be part of a free society as well. Of course it will. And, yes, of course there will be courts of adjudication, etc., etc.
There are many different ways to envision how that will happen in a free society. But one way that obviously would not happen in a free society is the monopoly imposition of a singular police force and a singular court system. . .
AR: Exactly . . .
JC: . . . that everyone is beholden to because they happen to be born in a certain geographical area. That obviously breaches the individual personal sovereignty that is the core of voluntaryism. So, again, there are many many many incredibly important questions. These are not small things that have to be ironed out.
But one thing that is also important to understand is that in a truly voluntary society, there would be many different communities that would choose to adjudicate, for example, boundary conflicts between people and other such things in different ways. And, again, [as] part of the voluntary nature of society, you would be able to choose: “I agree, I consent to these rules. I will live with this community. I consent to this.
And, as I often am at pains to say, if we could envision such a world, I do not think it would be a case of “Let the best community win,” as if there would be one winner that would obviously be so much better than all of the others. Different people will choose different things to comport with their own ideas, their own ideology, their own knowledge base, their own viewpoint, their own world view. Who am I to judge whether or not this person should be living in that community, choosing to go by these rules, or choosing to go by those [rules]?
Again, that’s the mindset of the statist, who thinks there needs to be a topdown imposition of authority that blanket-covers a geographical area but magically stops at the invisible, intangible borders of that geographical area—which is part of the unicorn-believing nonsense that statists get into when they start believing in what has been called—and rightfully so—”the ultimate superstition.”
[They believe in] the magical authority of pieces of paper, where people . . . vote, and then some people [politicians] write something down on a piece of paper and it has magical authority within these invisible, intangible boundaries of this geographical area. Total lunacy! Utter nonsense! But it makes sense in the minds of the statists. We have to do everything we can to make people see the self-evident nonsense that they have been trained into believing.
AR: I agree completely. Now, James, you started in 2007. And [since then] you’ve covered so many topics! Your research is absolutely startling! I was also bewildered to understand that you’re also an autodidact. Am I correct?
JC: Well, yes, I certainly didn’t take any media production courses. I am completely 100% self-taught.
AR: That is absolutely amazing. So where did the journey of self-learning start for you?
JC: I would say from birth. Similar to voluntaryism and free association, I think people are fundamentally born autodidacts. I think that is how humans work. Children are naturally curious and naturally learn by doing and trying things and failing and being corrected and continuing and getting more feedback, etc. That is the natural process of learning. It seems strange that we have to unlearn that, in a way, and come to believe that the only way to learn something is by going to some room for “X” hours a day, “X” days a week to learn from an accredited teacher and then to regurgitate something on a test, and you get a piece of paper that says “I know this thing.” That seems fairly arbitrary and not something that most people hundreds of years ago would have recognized as the process of achieving competence in any given area.
So, to answer your question more philosophically than perhaps it demands, I would say I’ve always been an autodidact and so have you. But, more realistically, it is interesting, because I studied English literature, and that was what I got my degree in. The only thing I could say about that was that I was never going to become a teacher, I was never going to become a journalist—and then I ended up somehow becoming both!
Specifically, when it comes to the journalism side of it or the podcasting side of it—it was, in a sense, a conscious knowledge that [while] I’ve never gone to media school—I don’t know what I’m doing technically, technologically, in terms of how to speak in front of a camera and how to convey this information—I’ve always figured that as a bonus, as a plus on my side. Because it was self-evident that what I was reacting to was the institutionalized journalism of the corporate-controlled mainstream media that had obviously occluded so much from my attention over the years that I thought, “Well, if I’m not do approaching it like those people who went to journalism school and did all of this, then perhaps I have a leg up. Because I’m just going to do it as seems natural to me, and I’m going to learn by doing.”
And that is exactly the process by which I have achieved whatever I’ve achieved, for whatever that is worth. It has come from learning by doing and receiving feedback and correcting and improving, but always trying things and then “failing to fail,” I guess would be the way to say it!
I often tell people: “Don’t go back to Episode #1 of my podcast.” But if you do, you’ll see it was terrible audio production quality, it was not very professional in any sense. But it was the genuine expression of a person who was trying his best and just trying to do something. And I kept doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it and hopefully improving along the way.
I liken it, in fact, to the well-known fact, for anyone certainly who’s tried to learn multiple languages in their life: it is much, much easier for children to pick up languages than it is for adults. And I think one of the reasons for that is because children are natural-born autodidacts who haven’t learned how not to learn yet. They simply try. They start speaking. They start attempting to communicate. And they get feedback. And they get corrected. And they get better and better—until they are fluent in that language.
That is something that’s difficult for adults to do, because we have forgotten that fundamental autodidactic process by which we have to just start and try and completely fall flat on our face, failing miserably, until we can continue and continue and continue and persevere until we have competence in that area.
So, again, I think everyone in the crowd is an autodidact. They may have just forgotten it along the way.
AR: I agree, I agree. Were there any particular methods that you used? Being an autodidact myself, I had much success using the Trivium method, which is an excellent way of starting from what you know and then juxtaposing that to the unrealities, which is also known in philosophy as epistemology. So were there any methods that you utilized?
JC: I don’t know if this is ironic or if it seems contradictory, but, to me, it seems to stem from what I was saying earlier. I certainly didn’t study about how to be an autodidact, and I didn’t employ any particular method, other than what occurred to me naturally to do, which is, as I say, to continue doing something over and over, while continuing to try to improve that thing based on corrective feedback. That is the basic mechanism of it. And if that iterative process is applied enough times, I think it almost can’t fail to produce improvement.
Certainly there are limits to what autodidacticism can do. I could apply autodidactic processes to the process of me becoming an NBA player all I want. I’m never going to become an NBA player. So there are certain of course limits that are inherent in this. But at the very least I could improve my basketball skills if I continued to practice and practice. As long as I had a realistic vision of what I wanted to achieve and how to achieve it, I’m sure that could be reached. So, there are limits to this. But, as I say, I think it’s mostly a sort of natural process—at least for me.
I’m not dismissing or poo-pooing people who want to study and employ certain rigorous methods of learning and understanding, like the Trivium. It’s just that I didn’t consciously apply that in my own case, because I didn’t really feel that I needed to learn about the process of learning. It seemed quite intuitive to me. I think, actually, that is the key thing—the thing that I brought up earlier: to have the realistic vision of what it is you are trying to achieve, to have that as clearly defined as possible, preferably before you start doing whatever it is that you’re doing, so that you at the very least can discern whether or not you are making progress toward your goal.
As long as you have that goal in mind, then you can adjudicate what you are doing—whether it is getting you closer towards that goal or further away from it. That kind of corrective feedback then can lead you in the direction that you want to go. I think that is the very very basic algorithm for learning. As long as you have that under your belt. . . .
Again, if various methods work for people, that’s great. But I’m not sure that there needs to be a very complicated philosophy surrounding it.
AR: I agree completely. What you’ve just said, James, resonates completely with me. It’s just that I’ve also stumbled upon the method later during my life, and [the Trivium method] was more resonant with what I’ve been doing earlier, only it made things a little easier, knowing the logical fallacies and knowing how to spot logical inconsistencies. And, yeah, it entangles so nicely with the basic nature of autodidacticism, as you’ve described it just yet.
JC: Absolutely. Now, having said all of that, the fact that I was an English major perhaps actually does have some bearing on this. Because if there was one thing that I actually did learn, or at least practice enough to become relatively competent at, it was taking information, taking data, finding a thesis that I was looking to support, finding the way to construct this data so that I could present it to someone in a finished form that would, hopefully, if I’ve done my job correctly, be persuasive to them that my thesis was correct.
That’s a very, very basic broad overview of what it is you’re doing when you write those essays or final term papers or what have you back in your university days. That’s certainly what I did many times. And, in a sense, that’s what I continue to do—just in a very, very different format and [on] very different subject matter than I ever would have envisioned back in my early schooling days.
But that is, I think, part of what I do, and that has served me well throughout my life, so far. Having said that, I’m not sure I really needed to go to university to learn that. But at any rate, that is an important part of what I do.
AR: Excellent. James, you are an absolute wealth of knowledge, and I really appreciate your time. Where can people find out more about you and The Corbett Report?
JC: The best place to go is my website. It is corbettreport.com—that’s c-o-r-b-e-t-t-report.com. I am on various social media platforms, although not YouTube anymore, because, unfortunately, YouTube does not like people talking about sensitive and horrible subject matter—like the philosophy of science, which is actually a video that ultimately got my channel scrubbed.
So, unfortunately, censorship is very much in operation. I am on a number of social media platforms, but the best place to go is just to go to corbettreport.com directly. You will always be able to find my work there. And it’s all available for free. I don’t put anything behind a paywall. I do have a subscriber newsletter, but actually the editorial that is the substance of that newsletter is completely 100% presented for free every week on my Substack, corbettreport.substack.com.
So I try to keep the information out there. I try to cite my sources and put it all out there. It’s a resource, and I hope people will use it as such. And, of course, if they do get any anything out of it, I hope that they would support this work so that I do it in the future. But that’s completely optional.
AR: Excellent. Well, this has been another RealEYESation interview. It has been excellent. Thank you so much for watching. And I’ll see you next time.
At this point in the controlled development of humanity world-wide most any “ism” meant to free humanity of that control is idealistic “ivory tower” chat.
Realistically the need for some sort of “policing” has been so ingrained into the public mind and behavior that any sort of “freedom” brings chaos, the chaos goal of the controllers, to keep the loop going creating the “need” within the public consciousness.
Just look at what a very small percentage these days of Negro urban thugs are doing with a cessation of serious consequence for bad behavior in the cities.
The very controlled move from the “Right” brain, artistic, intuitive process to the “Left” brain AI, money, power, control idealism through the propaganda arm of the controllers…the “Entertainment Business, TV, Movies, SMART phone addiction. Our architecture, autos, daily conveniences from silver ware, furniture etc. no longer exhibit any real quality of design with excuses that things need to be “modern.”
That is equally reflective of humans, a loss of empathy and the narcissistic need to be “liked” and have one’s digital nonsense “go viral.”
As with any addiction, the addict must first admit it. To achieve that just look at what the controllers have used to sway the minds of young people to want popularity and fame over any substantial occupation…they control al the main elements of persuasion from education and entertainment to politics and the such. Much like the visual in “They Live” where without the glasses (Vision) all one see’s is the control.
WHO WANTS US TO DIE (song)
https://www.bitchute.com/video/8CKubpwla5Lr/
I live in a major city and deal with that scenario on a daily basis, but I disagree. I imagine it would be a more organic development. Have you ever looked into the many intentional communities that exist all over the world? The employee-owned companies? The movement toward home-schooling? As the world becomes more polarized it seems to me that people may become more open to seeking a life more closely aligned to their beliefs with like-minded others. The trite expression of “being the change you wish to see” may be a long-term goal, but it’s more useful than giving up.
I appreciate your optimism. In fact I often watch youtube videos of positive human behavior, especially young folks, to help my outlook. However, after 50+ years of social/political activism the overwhelming success of the controllers is well beyond my comfort zone.
If you look at my BitChute site and check out one of my essays on the Bigger Picture or Solutions you will get what I mean as my tendency for loquaciousness here gets my comments “SNIPPED” at times and the essays are less limited.
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/PNBO8R18Mpgv/
I enjoyed SF and LA before the last takeover (the web/9-11/etc.) I now live 50 miles from the largest town in the Arizona White Mountains well off the grid.
I am not “giving up,” just being pragmatic. I am an elder of high quality of consciousness and knowledge in a world of celeb worship and narcissistic needs that trump any respect for what I have to offer.
It is much like a Quantum Physics Mathematician sitting in on a 5th grade math class. All I can do is shrug my shoulders waiting for the bell.
With my knowledge of ancient history both human and geological I can “grok” we are but a passing moment in the timeline.
The very first book I read on my own was when I was about 12, “Earth Abides” The title taken from an Ecclesiastes quote:
“Men come and go but Earth abides.”
I like this comment?
Me too :-)))
Thanks
Excellent examples.
For those who wish to continue “progressing” let them. It’s a miserable rat race and only their desire to simplify will hopefully give them the courage to change.
Thanks. Indeed, in a song of mine years ago I said: “Just because I’m human, I don’t have to join the race.” :-))
The idea of having a “dog in the fight” is quite profound in its simplicity. The catch is of course is to understand the situation before it is too late.
annak
“..The trite expression of “being the change you wish to see” may be a long-term goal, but it’s more useful than giving up…”
Very true. It is the ONLY useful way in the present condition.
Sadly most people have assimilated masses of assumptions about how things work and are quite unable to get more then a false awakening.
Only when you are able to eat and exist can you build anything outside of the system others have created
Slaves need slavers to survive. When you get normy pushback to your freedom ideas, that’s slavery talking back to you. Those people can’t be free, they’d die without their owners. When you are discussing freedom, you’re talking about replacing slaves with free people. Slaves don’t like this idea. Free people are responsible for their decision-making. Ethics evolve from facing the repercussions of decision-making. Slaves are unaccustomed to developing ethically in this way, and they don’t want to.
Your username always brings a smile on my face EjDoyle, because I know you got a banger song for mr.Corbetts subject for the day!!???
But yeah we already know who wants us to die, it’s the sons and grandsons of the deceased elite fuckers.
And ofcourse daughters and granddaughters.
Or I should say person and be gender neutered… ffs?
They ought to be shadow banned from all of society togheter and be put on food stamps, and no more fucking kids for the fuckers.
But yeah let’s be real, never gonna happen. Because if that happens, who the fuck are going to pick our chocolate??? Grownups??
Robots???
They would rather have a nuclear war and sit in their bunker made by other people, eating food made by other people, breathing air… yeah ramble ramble.
Grow, and raise our own food and trade in commodities with each other. Have savings in gold or silver.
The fuckers are going to fail to tamper with the gold or silver price. That has been historically proven. The Spanish was somewhat successful but that was just 500 years ago and gold has been traded for over 5K years. Ramble ramble ramble
@Helanda
>>Your username always brings a smile on my face EjDoyle, because I know you got a banger song for mr.Corbetts subject for the day!!???>>
Thanks. Nearing 40,000 views now.
>>But yeah we already know who wants us to die, it’s the sons and grandsons of the deceased elite fuckers…>>
50+ years of real social/political activism, a search for the true controllers only reveals a loop of sorts, never the core. In the 70’s after reading Gary Allen’s “The Rockefeller File” I knew all my previous research was on the mark.
In 1980, as a reporter for KPFA, Berkeley I attended a 2 week gathering in SD with 15,000 people sharing their insights. Talks with Holly Sklar who had just published her Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management or with Michio Kaku, Bill Tab, and more.
I have come to understand the absolute brilliance of the psychotic beings who have created thousands of “rabbit holes” in which to get lost. From off planet truths, century old bloodlines of power, the god/heaven/hell/devil myth, and so much more, but none of them THE answer but rather, like in medicine, the symptoms of something VERY bad.
IMO, the non-pop culture issues: chemtrails, the destruction of arable land, poisoning of our water supplies, the toxic offerings of the super market canned and packaged goods, etc. are ALL part of the take down of the health and future progress of humanity.
>>They would rather have a nuclear war and sit in their bunker made by other people, eating food made by other people, breathing air… yeah ramble ramble.>>
Good points, however, IMHO the control of humanity has always been through the creation of perception…
“The fundamental tools of deception are the encouragement of FEAR and a belief in SCARCITY.”
“We have been engineered into a perception prison of belief and held in place by shackles of fear.”
>>Grow, and raise our own food and trade in commodities with each other.>>
Not if the UN Agendas of 21&2030; Wildlife Project; The New World Order Agenda, and others are successful.
>>Have savings in gold or silver.>>
Not if the present rush for digital currency and ID cards is successful.
It was no accident they changed the constitution quote to:
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from Life, liberty and PROPERTY.
One can “pursue” anything they want but owning property is the key to sovereignty hey?
I appreciate your “rambling” :-))
4U…
IT STARTS WITH YOU AND ME (song)
https://www.bitchute.com/video/uPPBh6BmFaxQ/
(Only 425 words James)
☆☆Thanks. Nearing 40,000 views now.☆☆
Cool! Good to know I have contributed to that in a small manner 😉
☆☆a search for the true controllers only reveals a loop of sorts, never the core.☆☆
And whoever’s family name you say either its Rothschilds,Farrar or musk it goes back so many generations it’s all about nepotism and psychotic behavior.
I’ve read somewhere that Paris Hilton’s good looking sister Nicky married the coming Duke of Rothschild… Hilton, cocaine, Rotschild, banks…. to coinsidary for my pallet…
Really interesting the other stuff you wrote to man. Fuck Brundtland and the “Codex Alimentarus” ( was not that the first name for Agenda21? )
☆chemtrails☆
I think we should call them SAITRAILS, agree?:)
☆☆Not if the present rush for digital currency and ID cards is successful.☆☆
I do not think the people who run the economy in today’s economy can fuck up gold in the long haul.
Gold prices are historically low ATM, before the Spaniards flooded the marked in whatever year ( 😛 )
It was about 3000″$” for an troyo
And it’s not about the fiat value I think its fascinating that in every corner of the globe gold was used way before humanity was truly organized. Or maybe they was way more organized for 5K years ago than history will have us to believe.
☆☆I appreciate your “rambling” :-))☆☆
And I appreciate you taking the time to answer 🙂
>>Cool! Good to know I have contributed to that in a small manner ?>>
Indeed.
>>And whoever’s family name you say either its Rothschilds,Farrar or musk it goes back so many generations…>>
David Icke’s early stuff had some very interesting bloodline history. Lots of our POTUS’s link back to I think it is Charlamaine?
>>Hilton, cocaine, Rotschild, banks…. to coinsidary for my pallet…>>
Keeping the DNA going.
>>…Fuck Brundtland and the “Codex Alimentarus” ( was not that the first name for Agenda21? )>>
Not sure.
>>I think we should call them SAITRAILS, agree?:)>>
Don’t know what that means??
>>I do not think the people who run the economy in today’s economy can fuck up gold in the long haul…>>
Many people get facts mixed up. Gold and diamonds are only important because of their managed rarity. Other then some electronic and dental and health applications gold is worthless. Too soft to use as a metal, can’t eat it or use it for much at all.
I would rather have 10 acres of good land then 10 lbs of gold. So after the revolution people are going to what…. walk around the urban centers with a fist full of gold coins and not be robbed or killed for them?? :-O
We have 75 solar panels, an excellent well and the smarts to have the other stuff necessary in a Zombie apocalypse 🙂
>>And it’s not about the fiat value I think its fascinating that in every corner of the globe gold was used way before humanity was truly organized.>>
IMO more often about jewelry and decorations then monetary systems. Remember Cortez scratched a line in the wall of a room with his sword and had the natives fill it to there with gold and they gladly did it.
>>Or maybe they was way more organized for 5K years ago than history will have us to believe.>>
For a much clearer and larger picture of human history check out Graham Hancock and Randal Carlson on Joe Rogan podcast:
#872 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H5LCLljJho&pp=ygUOam9lIHJvZ2FuICM4NzI%3D
VERY enlightening.
☆☆I appreciate your “rambling” :-))☆☆
And I appreciate you taking the time to answer ?
The way this should work IMO. More then politics this is tops in my book to explore…
WHO ARE YOU (song)
https://www.bitchute.com/video/4qQvl1sCbUhf/
So true. “Our architecture, autos, daily conveniences from silver ware, furniture etc. no longer exhibit any real quality of design with excuses that things need to be “modern.”
I view the architecture in downtown West Palm Beach and so enjoy gazing at the older buildings, nearing 100 years old, the beauty in the window encasements, the trim and engravings. And the the newer buildings plain and boring. I don’t think they were going for the “modern” look, though. I think they were going for cheap and quick.
Thanks. There are some very important content creators these days posting some incredible facts and insights regarding the true history of humanity regarding the Mud Flood times, indicating a much more advanced humanity of accomplishments and deeds.
Of course they are being ridiculed by the controllers, however just looking at any of the videos of beautiful architecture one can “feel” that something very wrong has gone on.
Check out Jon Levi, Jarid Booster, anything on Tartaria, etc. with an open mind.
Indeed, cheap and quick. Not meant to last 100’s of years like was built before. There is some interesting stuff in FLA to look up.
https://rumble.com/v2m5j4y-who-cenralised-power.html
The Ultimate Summary of the Great Reset – and a call to action
Marc Morano goes through the plans for energy and food control (via Ivor Cummins)
https://odysee.com/@IvorCummins:f/finally!-the-ultimate-summary-of-the:4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUJ9kUBBYb4
Great interview! I thought it was good to rehash this foundational idea of consent and voluntarism. I was glad that the idea of leadership was touched on that the idea has been corrupted. It’s hard to deprogram oneself and learn once a person is an adult. It’s not impossible, but more difficult. Children’s brains are much more flexible, incredible actually how they can learn new things so quickly.
cu.h.j
“… foundational idea of consent and voluntarism. …”
The foundational idea that its wrong to hurt and steal from “others” is NOT shared by most people thru history.
Classical Liberalism and voluntaryism grow from the ideas of late stage Christiandom. Vikings thought it was noble to steal from others, so did the first muslims, so did MOST people thru history.
The guest is a woolly thinker, where does he think this ‘universal’ morality’ of not harming others comes from??
I would love to see Mr Corbett question reality and morality with a sharper foil, such as Academic Agent (Neema Parvini), or Auron MacIntyre, who have a more reality based philosophy.
The assumption that its wrong to hurt others or steal from others (as the guest states) are both rather UN-usual paradigms of thinking historically. Historically taking from others and giving to your own was a laudable thing.
Does anyone think that the 1st muslims, romans or vikings or saxons or mongols or gauls thought that murdering and stealing was in any way bad???
What sort of “universal” morality do you share with THOSE people?
The reason that Classical Liberalism (and voluntaryism) are not valid world views at this point is that they both depend on having a population who have got a morality that is based on late stage Christianity. The thinkers who penned those documents (except maybe the illuminist paine) KNEW that.
However many books have been penned about voluntaryism the history of the world shows that such conditions ONLY existed where the people share genetics, culture, or morality.
While I agree with Mr Corbetts philosophy it can not exist in a culturally fragmented society
This was an unexpectedly thought-provoking interview (with odd but strangely effective video editing).
When attempting to understand how profoundly I’ve been programmed as a statist and why Voluntaryism is the answer to unleashing the greatest potential and well-being of Humanity,
I feel the same helpless incapacity I felt trying to understand how I’d been duped by the “Bitcoin Psyop”
and find myself once again wracking my brains to grasp the I Pencil concept… in vain.
Indeed, for the first I don’t:
“…use the words “bitcoin” and “blockchain” and “cryptocurrency” and “digital currency” interchangeably, as if they are all the same thing…
and yet I have nagging doubts as to the liberating potential of bitcoin.
And, although I would tend to agree that spontaneous order would be more complex, resilient and even just aesthetically much more beautiful than order produced by the mechanized, pixelized and digitalized minds of Humans,
to make a pencil all I manage to envision is that you have a deliberately “coordinated” (the word used by Mr Corbett) collaboration of networks of other deliberately coordinated networks of deliberately organized companies communities and countries. I don’t see the spontaneous order involved? It is truly frustrating as the curtain in my mind seems to refuse to be pushed back.
Indeed, I remember chatting with Corbett Reporteers about paedophilia and the necessity of teaching children that their body is their own and that they have sovereign boundaries beyond which no one has the right to trespass.
And I tend (in my admittedly unread ignorance) to see states as the logical extrapolation of corporal boundaries, via the concept of families and larger communities (even if today those states seek to violate such bodily limits)
and as partially addressed in the short interview, my highly subjective “feeling” and even observations are
that people naturally seek leaders who embody their own values and innately understand, as an extrapolation of the (endangered) nuclear family, the necessity for hierarchies in the transmission of skills and values and traditions.
Communities of “like-minded people” whose rules will attract certain sensibilities with regards to justice, life style, spiritual tendencies etc. will necessarily have boundaries similar to state boundaries at some level butting up against other communities be they “free”, collectivist or war-mongering dictatorships .
I agree that a break from the entrenched and pestiferous institutional corruption is desirable but perhaps it is my experience with having lived in a “hippy community” during my most formative years
that leads me to advise caution when evaluating nurture and nature, what is natural and what is programmed into the human psyche and thus what challenges might come up in the construction of “communities of like-minded people”.
And now, as ever, I’m late for the hamsterwheel.
> I don’t see the spontaneous order involved?
Is not the fact pencils get made proof of order?
People are getting to their jobs in timely fashion, excutives are having their luncheons, outstanding debts are cleared in time, trucks are kept in working condition, wood logged, ore mined, alternative procurement located, more lucrative deals found, etc, etc.
And all of that is somehow synced and constantly kept on the precipice of doom. Businesses fail easily, keeping them up and running is a daily accomplishment.
Is not the fact pencils get made proof of order?
Indeed, an undeniable order reigns in the human universe but to what extent is it “spontaneous” (the key word in the concept evoked as I understand it)? If it IS spontaneous, than to what extent is that spontaneity what also created the wars and the paedophiles and Sars-Cov-2?
Certainly galaxies do not need human intervention to continue to function (as far as the current paradigm goes), but the fact that dictatorships grow to fruition, and that the stock exchange continues to create the booms and busts of various fortunes and that the internet was invented, and disseminated, and made fundamental for this discussion, all required a concerted collaborative effort, a deliberate “coordination” (Mr Corbett’s word) on the part of consciously created entities and networks. The creation of a pencil, like everything else in human society, was born of a perceived need for its existence and the carefully contrived effort for making it a reality.
If we say the pencil is the fruit of the same thing that created the galaxies well, we can then say that all the “evil” existing in human societies is also the fruit of this same impetus.
So, the spontaneous order of cosmic creation created both the pencil and paedophiles. And the United States and the Covid clot shots. Our current state of affairs was born of spontaneous order.
So, I don’t see where, at what point exactly, the hymn for “spontaneous order” is supposed to chime in?
Businesses fail easily, keeping them up and running is a daily accomplishment.
Absolutely, an accomplishment born of concerted effort on the part of many to make it possible, born of fear of reprisals and the appetite for personal gain. Someone keeps forcing those children to impeccably crank out sneakers and pencils on those Nike production lines. Not sure the guy whose rubber plantation was taken from him in a debt-for-nature-swap scam would speak about Spontaneous order, nor would the competing pencil factory who was put out of business due to exorbitant interest rates on his loan.
Both the success and failure of businesses depend on the enforced maintenance of hierarchies and savvy manipulation of perceived need, the extrinsic carrot and stick incentives combined with the instrumentalization of intrinsic rewards, not some sort of magical spontaneous or even cosmic order, but a rigidly and constantly maintained human order that allows for the collaboration between a multitude of similarly crafted sub-orders.
If people respect others rights on the road it is also due to the ever-present spectre of death and destruction blasted across the TV and internet screens of participating drivers. Not some ever-loving reverence for other people.
The rubber in the pencil itself conjures the image of harshly managed and exploited colonies of slaves. Is that the spontaneous order you mean?
Why do I suddenly feel like this guy?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuBe93FMiJc
No, i think he means the spontaneous order growing out of a free market instead of an order that’s imposed by the state
Well… free market… I’m wondering if that’s not an oxymoron but…
The Atlantic slave trade was largely unregulated for a long time with participating African kings capturing members of other tribes to sell…
The authors of that system were all acting Voluntarily, of their own free will. Only the people sold into slavery were against it but nobody cared what they thought. Everyone else involved was making a mint. Just an example of a market that humans created spontaneously. What might they come up with today? Have humans really changed so much since? Similar to your sex with the neighboring underage daughters example.
Perhaps technology as slave labor will have made humans more human?
But the real problem with my rant above seems to have been that I took the notion of spontaneous order as being an actual phenomenon that existed whereas it’s meant in the essay to be an ideal to strive for. “The invisible hand.” I bet the social engineers get a big kick out of that expression.
As hinted in the interview, there will always be certain required mechanisms of control for the smooth and effective running of the system and perhaps the only way to keep them to a minumum is to keep these like-minded communities small.
Anyhow… Thanks for your reply.
nosoapradio, I know what you mean.
This helps me understand what James means: https://www.etymonline.com/word/spontaneous
Ok, thanks CQ,
If I understand correctly, the notion of “spontaneous order” is mere idealistic fiction. Not purported a reality. A pencil with a selective memory?
Or a shining concept to strive for, like justice?
Then it seems like an ideal that has a positively slanted vision of human nature.
Having said that, I really enjoyed Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. But the mere fact that such stifling government exists and seems always to have existed would seem like proof that there is an aspect of humanity that will always recreate stifling, corrupt government of one sort or another;
But I suppose that’s no reason not to try again, start over with a fresh slate; To the extent that’s even possible in this world.
Yeah, nosoapradio, I read Atlas Shrugged (and The Fountainhead) years ago, but didn’t comprehend back then how stifling and secretive the state is or how it “services” not the electorate but the rich and powerful (and the corporations, intelligence units, military branches, and transnational entities they create).
Perhaps humans keep letting their “smart superiors” control them because they intuitively realize there IS a higher power by which we all must ultimately be governed. But they then make the mistake of confusing divine government with various versions of human government.
I happen to believe there is one divine creator — one Mind, one Spirit, one Love, one Truth, one Life — controlling and ordering His/Her universe.
That’s why these sentences ring true to me:
“God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love. Man’s rights are invaded when the divine order is interfered with, and the mental trespasser incurs the divine penalty due this crime.” . . . Also: “The heavenly law is broken by trespassing upon man’s individual right of self-government.”*
*Pages 106 and 447 of Science and Health, by Mary Baker Eddy
(I’ll emphasize, for purposes of this discussion, the phrase: “Man’s rights are invaded when the divine order is interfered with . . . .)
As for “spontaneity,” the same author writes about it in ways that make sense to me. For example, here’s one of her uses of “spontaneously” that I find fascinating:
“A coroner’s inquest, a board of health, or class legislation is less than the Constitution of the United States, and infinitely less than God’s benign government, which is “no respecter of persons.” Truth crushed to earth springs spontaneously upward, and whispers to the breeze man’s inalienable birthright — Liberty. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” God is everywhere. No crown nor sceptre nor rulers rampant can quench the vital heritage of freedom — man’s right to adopt a religion, to employ a physician, to live or to die according to the dictates of his own rational conscience and enlightened understanding” (Miscellany 128).
Yes, nosoapradio, I agree that it’s always possible to start over again with a fresh slate — to rise spontaneously and orderly and unselfishly (because reflecting divine Love is unselfish), with the ideal of Liberty (self-government, reason, conscience) propelling us upward and forward!
So in my usual hasty, unread and absolutist fashion I made sweeping pronouncements about Spontanous Order: the most obviously egregious being that it doesn’t even exist except as an abstract ideal to pursue, like justice. To be fair, I meant it didn’t exist as a means for constructing societies. ie: “Let’s deliberately create a spontaneous order!”
So in an effort to rectify the error of my ways in between classes I tried to read up a little on the concept and found
Some extracts from essays by Timothy Sandefur critiquing Hayek’s notion of Spontaneous Order which seem to bolster my own initial vision:
“…I continue to believe that Hayek has given insufficient ground for distinguishing a constructed from a spontaneous order. Indeed, the basic problem is that Hayek incorporates constructed orders into his definition of spontaneous orders, resulting in a sort of logical nesting doll or fun-house mirror in which any action can qualify as constructed or spontaneous depending on how one frames the issue…
…More important to my point is that Hayek explicitly contemplates spontaneous order as including — indeed, depending on — constructed orders. In his essay “Kinds of Order in Society,” Hayek wrestled with some of the problems I’ve been talking about, and concluded that spontaneous order is the kind of order that arises between constructed orders interacting amongst themselves. This is sensible: all human action is intentional at some level, and the spontaneous order of the overall market is populated by the “constructed” orders that are the conscious and deliberate transactions between particular individuals. But if this is the case, it’s very easy to rationalize any particular act of rational constructivism by simply taking a broader view of the overall order. If one institution appears to be a planned, constructed order on up-close examination, just take three steps back and suddenly it’s just a part of an overall spontaneous order and therefore not only legitimate on Hayek’s criteria, but actually praiseworthy — just the kind of social experimentation that progress depends on…
…Spontaneous order is a great descriptive tool for explaining how Paris gets fed even though nobody plans it. But it does not give us a foundation for a normative critique of constructed plans for feeding Paris…
…The fuzziness of the boundary dividing constructed and spontaneous orders throws into confusion any argument that spontaneous orders have better consequences than constructed ones…”
https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/12/22/timothy-sandefur/know-it-when-i-see-it-enough/
@CQ
The author I cited just above used the lyrics of the song linked below as an image to describe Hayek’s vision of Spontaneous order by replacing the God in the song with “Spontaneous order”.
That is, if we look at the Earth from space, all we see is a beautiful planet and not all the thoughtful decision-making and all horrors happening on it.
Just as, if we look “From a Distance” at all of the socio-economic inter-meshing networks solidly functioning, cranking out pencils, we won’t see the ruthlessly exploited children in the graphite mines and the cynically maintained abject poverty of the rapeseed oil farmers and the calculating pedophiles entertaining the pencil assembly factory workers, eyeing their children
and so everything just looks like one big Hayekian festival of spontaneous order.
Though you may not share that vision, yet as a way of responding to your comment, I thought you might enjoy the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN4AcFzxtdE
@nosoapradio
That song had me in tears. I recognized Bette’s face instantly. And I recognized the tune and the title of the song instantly, though I must confess that I had never listened so raptly and understood the words so clearly as I did this time.
While it may not exactly match the message I was conveying, it’s close enough. And, more importantly, it feels like you’ve just given me a beautiful gift and a happy memory of “the good old days.” Thank you! (I used an mp3 converter to add it to the growing list of songs on my iPod that my friends and I used to listen to in our youth.)
There’s one more aspect of Bette’s video I’d like to comment on–and get your response to, nosoapradio. It’s this:
The innocent children playing freely — spontaneously — in the forest remind me of a link James provided in the intro of his May Open Thread. He called it “an even more nefarious” WHO agenda (or something like that).
Could you please click on it (I’ve provided it here), read/watch it, and tell me what you think? It’s such a stark contrast to the “babes in the woods” in Bette’s video. It demands that the world wake up, pay attention, and fight back on behalf of our infants and toddlers and adolescents and teens in what may become the struggle of our lives: https://stopworldcontrol.com/children
Bless you.
“If we say the pencil is the fruit of the same thing that created the galaxies well, we can then say that all the “evil” existing in human societies is also the fruit of this same impetus.”
Perhaps evil is natural, but centralized power does not prevent it. In fact, it has hindered the natural consequences of it. For example, take a pedophile. If they are killed, perhaps other pedophiles might think twice about abusing children. Like Espstein. If an angry parent would have killed him without the courts involved, maybe it would make others like him think twice about hurting children.
What we have now with centralized court systems, if a parent kills a pedophile who harmed their child, the centralized court system necessitates the arrest of the parent and a trial and potential prison time. Perhaps without it there would be less of this insanity and perpetuation of evil. Our courts protect the powerful murderer and pedophile.
Police assaulted elderly people who didn’t wear a mask without penalty and citizens could not seek justice in the moment without potential penalties. A person who assaults an elderly person should be stopped immediately (and probably given a thorough beating right then and there).
So, perhaps humanity is checking this insanity by trying to remedy this obvious unjust system of “rules for me not for thee” that protects evil people by trying to dismantle it and try something else.
But your question about evil and if it is also spontaneous is a very thought provoking question.
Is evil also spontaneous? Perhaps it is and evil will always exist but what we have now is making adding to it by stopping the consequence.
Thanks for your comment cu.h.j,
I guess for me it all boils down to my impressions that
if we base our “like-minded community” project on the idea that virtually all human societies to date screwed up only because there’s always been these psychopaths running the joint
then we’re ignoring the darkness lurking in our own hearts and risk just recreating it all, all over again
wondering why our hypothetical “spontanous order” doesn’t seem to seamlessly set in
and why our open blockchain systems keep getting taken over by someone with a lot of means and a tyrannical bent.
But I’m probably just feeling argumentative and vaguely statist today as, for the first time since 2008 I’m going to act in some scenes at the theater later this evening, presenting extracts of Anouilh’s ANTIGONE
in the role of Creon.
Your post is very thought provoking as usual. Specifically,
“if we base our “like-minded community” project on the idea that virtually all human societies to date screwed up only because there’s always been these psychopaths running the joint
then we’re ignoring the darkness lurking in our own hearts and risk just recreating it all, all over again”
I am not sure that JC implied that that is the only reason human societies to date have screwed up. But rather human societies have sought to create a system that is supposed to protect people (in theory) but it is flawed.
I do think “ignoring darkness lurking in our own hearts” will recreate it or some version of it.
And this spurs the question in my mind, are some people born evil?
I think some people are indeed born evil.
And also, do we have an obligation to try to stop evil? If we ignore it, are we not perpetuating it by failing to stop it? Is a person evil who does not try to stop someone from harming others?
I don’t know. Maybe it depends on the circumstances, or maybe it does not? Certainly JC has tried to stop evil through his work and so have others who stand up to tyranny.
Hi cu.h.j
Are people born evil?
Are all people born with a potential for evil?
Dunno and I watch too much Netflix but my guess would be…
people can be lead through circumstances, biochemistry and emotions to more or less consciously abandon their scruples linked to their unpleasant feelings because they’re too excruciatingly uncomfortable or because doing so allows them to experience a fleeting glimmer of hope or some other positive sensation. A salutary feeling of control?
I suppose some people might be more or less prone to abandoning scruples, empathy, emotions either through circumstances or inherited bio-chemistry.
I haven’t yet adopted a belief in predatory lizard people but I might be wrong…maybe unconsciously refusing to believe in something so terrifying. Perhaps things would be even a lot worse if there were some other ruthless species controlling humans. I suspect there are only humans looking out for their best interests and those of their own children convinced that other children aren’t really human or nearly as important as theirs. I sometimes ardently hope that some of these powerful factions in the shadows really do have the well-being of humanity at heart.
But when I think that, I’m reminded of the robot in I Am Mother *SPOILER ALERT* who explains why it wiped out all the billions of human beings. Because it saved embryos and was determined to create trillions of much more perfect humans with a much greater aptitude for peace, happiness and creativity. Or something like that.
Such a mentality would be capable of removing itself from empathizing with the human race while believing it is the most Humanistic of all.
At what point can ordinary human nature be qualified as evil?
Is fear-driven willful ignorance evil if it allows the worldwide administration of clot shots killing innocent men, women, children and babies across the planet?
Are we evil because we don’t do more to try to “wake up humanity”? Or because we continue to pay our taxes? And continue to enrich the likes of Bill Gates by chatting through his Windows?
Are we evil because we’re wallowing in such dark discourse, thus exacerbating our human plight when we could be focusing on positive stuff like dancing and gardening, telling jokes and eating pizza thereby raising positive vibrations and energy for our individual and collective good?
Whatever the case may be, I’m convinced that Mr Corbett strives to do good and I’ve learned a lot and chatted with interesting people thanks to his website.
shit. After resisting the reflex of saying “she” I still said “who” isntead of “that”…
Aaahhhh, the irresistible tug of anthropomorphism… might be our undoing. Or at least mine.
I saw that movie I Am Mother! I thought it was good (and creepy of course).
I’ve done a little research into psychopathy, some documentary watching on prisoners with the diagnosis and it does seem like some of them are “wired” differently.
And some of the most sadistic serial killers like Ted Bundy for example seemed to enjoy hurting people.
Dahmer who had a relatively normal childhood (not abused or molested) was a very creepy and twisted serial killer, not as sadistic as Bundy but very warped. He saw people as things, objects. Very very bizarre.
Once I learned that these types of people exist, I wondered why they did what they did. What would make a human being harm a human being this way? And the powerful psychopath, the people steering the agenda of death of mass numbers of people are causing worse destruction and harm. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand how someone could do that.
Your question, are all people born with the potential for evil is an interesting one and my guess would be no. Although I have no proof, I’d say that because there may be genetic predisposition involved (some sort of biochemical relationship), this would mean that some people are more likely have the potential. But I don’t know. I’ll have to look more into what is known about the genetics of psychopathy. Some if it has to do with mentorship in childhood and modeling poor examples (like with Gates and Elon Musk, etc.) I mean if Gates had been in a normal home environment, maybe he wouldn’t be a psychopath. I do think he’s a psychopath. He probably doesn’t, but his lack of remorse is a dead giveaway.
I think it’s normal to love your own family (children, siblings, etc.) more than other people. I don’t know why but it seems normal so I understand why people can tune out horrible things happening to others (child labor, trafficking, etc.). And to help in small ways with donations can be something.
I think using ones skill set to make some kind of positive difference is a pragmatic approach. Taxes are hard to avoid unless there were a group effort to stop paying. I hate paying taxes, not just the theft part but what it pays for. Maybe some day I’ll work for myself and be able to operate in an alternative economy. I’d like that.
You also posed this question “At what point can ordinary human nature be qualified as evil?”
I’ll have to think about that. I mean some people act in ways to protect themselves and allow bad things to happen to others. For example a bystander who fails to act to help an injured person. If they do nothing at all, I think it’s wrong.
But what if they were in shock and couldn’t move, like if someone is held at gunpoint? It can depend on state of mind, past experiences, actual ability to act and help in a meaningful way.
I mean fear is a biological mechanism that has evolved to protect us.
So, in my opinion it’s a case by case analysis of events, states of mind, making mistakes. Some people do harmful things to others and change. Like some former gang members who grew up in bad neighborhoods and engaged in crime who have a change of heart in jail and then go on to help other people.
Can someone make up for evil things they have done? And what is evil?
I think evil is doing something that is cruel or takes advantage of someone or causes extensive harm. Usually acts of violence like murder, rape, torture, etc. Taking part in genocide, stuff like that I consider evil.
Or allowing an act of evil to happen in ones sphere of influence. Like if I stepped over a dying man because I wanted to hurry home to watch a movie. Or I hit someone in my car and drove off pretty sure they were mortally wounded but was afraid of the consequences. Since I have the skills and knowledge to help a person in need of emergency medical treatment, not using it because of some trivial inconvenience would make that evil. I would never do that.
On the other hand if my life were at risk, would I risk my life to help a stranger? I might if they were a child. It depends on the circumstance.
continued…”ordinary human nature” is a lot to consider.
Common human failings like doing things out of convenience and self preservation are not necessarily evil. Or paying taxes and buying products made in sweat shops. It’s really hard to avoid buying electronics that you know are made ethically. Taxes if not paid can result in jail time or garnishment of wages.
I’d say that human beings tend to do ordinary things that are not ethical, like supporting nasty companies out of convenience. I am guilty of this, but I don’t think it’s evil, but rather does compromise my integrity in some way. And maybe it has a karmic consequence. I do think these points you raise are important and that people (myself included) should try to avoid supporting the slavery system. Sort of how Catherine Austin Fitts suggested.
clarification “It’s really hard to avoid buying electronics that you know are made ethically”
I meant it’s difficult to assure that products one purchases are made without exploiting others. In fact, if someone buys something made in China, I suspect there could be some unethical labor practices going on.
Large companies maximize profits by exploiting cheap labor and some countries still utilize children in factories. People buy them because they are affordable and don’t really think about where they come from. This is the problem with globalization, the lack of control one has over quality and to see how their products are being made.
The large company’s primary concern is profit and if they can get away with exploiting workers they will do it. But one person refusing to buy them might not affect the bottom line of the company. So people do what is easiest and push these things to the side.
But now companies want to do away with human labor entirely and want to eliminate it entirely by using robotics.
I was watching some videos by Boston Dynamics and they are working on robots that may completely do away with these types of jobs. What’s worse?
I think the richest people who have billions and trillions of dollars are the worst culprits. Those people are guilty of the
worst evil. If I was one of them, I would try to find a way to put my money towards stopping this agenda. Or people who work for them and are making this possible could stop. They have nothing more to gain but they are risking the survival of our species.
Evil is not part of human nature. Evil is action, result of broken processing of lousy inputs received from the environment.
Also known as garbage in garbage out.
The only constituent parts of human nature are the ability to ingest information, to esablish knowledge based on information received and to take action in the world without, driven by acquired knowledge.
People who have received very bad input, resulting in broken processing and leading into bad action, end up delivering evil onto this world.
Evil is not part of human nature. Evil is action, result of broken processing of lousy inputs received from the environment.
So as everyone receives varying degrees of lousy inputs that lead to proportional amounts of broken processing,
everyone will bring varying degrees of evil unto the world?
Yes. People in massive numbers believe things that are patently false. How do you think any actions based on such beliefs can lead to an increase of freedom? And that is what everything boils down to: are people generally with what they are doing leading to more or less freedom, in average, for everyone?
One could probably construe various scenarios where this would not seem to apply. One could, for example, help out people because they believed in Santa and believed that Santa will chalk them up for a nicer present if they help out some people. The question would then be, how does this individual decide to “help”. Defend the country by being deployed thousands of miles behind the border? Help with the vaccination effort? Hold people down as they are injected psychotropic drugs against their will? Become any flavour of an order follower? Evangelise climate change? Help keep people enslaved by spreading myths on banking, bureaucracy, politics?
Depending on the point of view, and level of consciousness, all of these actions can be deemed to be very helpful. Some of these people will claim they are actually serving, while others will commend them for their service. Can you imagine the gall of someone going into the world shooting people in urban settings thinking they are doing it to spread democracy (which to an extent they are, but their idea of democracy has no connection to what democracy de facto is) while their family and friends will be cheering them on and feel pride?
If you wish to understand the evil look no further. While there is evil on an individual level that is of a much higher order, when considering the totality of evil produced by the masses of people who are “just doing their job” (most of whom would probably die defending their justification rather than come to terms with what they are actually doing), that amount of evil done by this large mass of people is far far greater, by many orders of magnitude. The 0.0001% type of deal. While the 0.0001% are influencing the 99.9999%, it is the latter who do all sorts of crazy stuff all day long, in most cases simply in exchange for a paycheck.
Just imagine what kind of a world we would be living in, starting tomorrow morning, if people over night stopped believing in one single big lie. Like money, for example. You would get out onto the street and even if nobody directed one single utterance toward you, you would know, you would feel it in your bones,. it would be palpable that that world is not the same as the one you left behind after closing your eyes. They would look at you and they would know. They would know they were misled and that much of their lives has been spent and wasted chasing a pipe dream because they allowed themselves to be fooled and corrupted.
How many big lies are out there? Open a dictionary and start from A.
So massive numbers of humans produce massive evil because they are operating on false assumptions aka “big lies”.
We could imagine that the .001% inject the critically false assumption into the machine and the “well-meaning” human psyche does the rest.
Ex: Weather gods need unconditional gifts. It will rain if you regularly sacrifice this many children.
Lavishly usurious banks are normal and necessary to make the world go round.
One little mind virus and vast oppressive, genocidal civilizations are built.
The massive strength and momentum of the 99.999 percent is used against it in a savvy psycho-spiritual judo throw by the cynical minority.
Underlined, boosted by humans’ natural fear-attraction of the Other and other such instincts…
That seems pretty plausible.
> operating on false assumptions aka “big lies”
These are firmly held beliefs. I would say much easier to get rid of ab assumption.
> “well-meaning” human psyche does the rest.
There is nothing inherently good nor bad about the human psyche. The problem is belief in false authority (from without) that is deeply rooted in consciousness.
> used against it in a savvy psycho-spiritual judo throw by the cynical minority.
It is an amazing feat. To keep people in this lpw state of understanding for so long is a majestic accomplishment.
> Underlined, boosted by humans’ natural fear-attraction of the Other and other such instincts…
There might exist an acumen of self hate that has been generationally transfered for many generations and has not been consciously confronted and thus resolved. Probably a result of massive trauma.
> That seems pretty plausible.
I am not 100% confident that when I open my eyes what I see is the “real world”. But I am 100% confident that this system is constrained by laws. Of god, of nature, of universe, feel free to chose.
To know these laws means to dispell hopelesness and rid oneself of depression. To apply this understanding will inevitably lead to each an every paradox being resolved.
Well, I’ll drink to the resolution of each an’ every paradox!
Cheers dears and bottoms up!
Sars cov 2 was neither created in reality nor created spontaneously; it was conjured up as an idea that has the potential to spread across distances and with speed no virus, even digital ones, could even begin to be jealous of; it was conceived deliberately and with a purpose and because it could have been done; and it will be conjured up constantly and without giving it much thought by many unwitting participants for decades to come.
Now, in regards to the spontaneously created order, I have understood that to mean that the order between these market players has not been created with specific intent or at a drawing board but simply as a consequence of haves and needs.
I would liken this to a child that somehow, suddenly (spontaneously?) becomes conscious after years of ingesting information, developing skills, nurturing the connection to the environment … after a while an awareness is born and understanding of self and the surroundings appears where there was nothing alike prior.
“Sars cov 2 was neither created in reality nor created spontaneously; it was conjured up as an idea that has the potential to spread across distances and with speed no virus, even digital ones, could even begin to be jealous of”
Hahahahaha????
A couple of things:
1) Morality? What’s that, who defines it and who makes sure your neighbour’s morals are the same as yours?
2) 22:20 You can choose to live with this or this community: what if your neighbour chooses to live in a community that thinks it’s ok to have a consensual sexual relationship with their neighbour’s underage daughters but you don’t find that so cool, whose community’s court is going to judge that case? And what about the choice of the kid? Is she even old enough to express an informed choice?
3) 23:00 “Again, that’s the mindset of the statist, who thinks there needs to be a topdown imposition of authority that blanket-covers a geographical area but magically stops at the invisible, intangible borders of that geographical area—which is part of the unicorn-believing nonsense that statists get into when they start believing in what has been called—and rightfully so—”the ultimate superstition.””
How is that different from the unicorn-believing nonsense of the chosen authority of your community that magically stops at the invisible, intangible borders of the sphere of influence of your neighbour’s community?
3) A question: James, do you pay taxes? If so, are you not supporting the statist world view by complying with their nonsense?
Just to not anger anybody and thus violate their sovereignty: take everything written here with a grain of salt 😉
I think that the point is that there is a natural order, not needing to be imposed by a centralized state.
Why does the absence of a state mean that it’s okay to abuse children? Who said that?
He did not. But rather than the creation of a centralized governing state is immoral because it violates consent.
More about children. They cannot consent and have a vulnerable mind and form. It is immoral to harm a child or “under age” person.
Do governments prevent abuses of children? No in fact they have protected them. Look at Epstein and the Franklin scandal. It’s revolting.
Centralized power does lead to corruption and immoral leaders will violate the rights of people and say that it is just (we need it or divine right or whatever excuse).
Look at where we are now, a huge centralizing cancer (WHO, NWO, etc.) to humanity.
Does a centralized court protect people? For example if I were attacked by someone and shot them I may be arrested for attempted murder and prosecuted even though I was in my moral right to protect myself.
It’s insane.
Speaking of taxes. Most people pay. Why? Because they don’t want to be thrown in jail for opposing the theft by a parasitic government. A government that has pedophiles and other psychos who never get any physical penalty for their abuses.
I pay taxes. I pay a lot of taxes to avoid jail. Maybe one day I will not pay and fight in court and think rotting in jail is worth the risk.
What we have now is not working to liberate or improve the human condition.
Cu.h.j
“…I think that the point is that there is a natural order, not needing to be imposed by a centralized state….”
WHERE does this natural order come from?
Does it support the ‘thighing’ of pre-menstrual girls by their husbands? (link below)
Does it support making young boys swallow their elders semen? (link below)
Thus the question
“….Why does the absence of a state mean that it’s okay to abuse children?….”
STARTS at the wrong assumption that the ideals, morals, values and goals of westerners are universal.
example of different values at work
One thing that I really hate about western people is how they always assume that other cultures share their ideas and value
http://web.archive.org/web/20230511144147/https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Thighing
“……There’s no issue in the sexual kissing, thighing..etc of a minor wife, even if she can’t yet endure sexual intercourse. Scholars have stated that the default ruling is that a man can enjoy his wife however he wants as long as no harm is caused. The examples they mentioned for this include masturbating with her hand, fondling, kissing, etc.
فتاوى الشبكة الإسلامية، المكتبة الشاملة، ج3 ص8445
The Fatawa of the Islamic web, archived by Al-Maktabah Al-Shamilah library in 2009, vol.3 p.8445
…..”
“…….Question: My family married me to a female minor and they warned me not to touch her. What’s the ruling regarding me and my wife and what are the limits of pleasuring myself with her?
Answer: If this girl can’t endure sexual intercourse due to her young age, then it’s forbidden to have sex with her because it would harm her. The prophet said: “There is no injury nor return of injury”. The husband can touch her, embrace her, kiss her and ejaculate between her thighs. And he should avoid anal sex because it’s forbidden and the one who does it is cursed.
حكم مفاخذة الصغار، فتاوى الشبكة الإسلامية ج13 ص8798 فتوى رقم 77718
The Fatawa of the Islamic web, archived by Al-Maktabah Al-Shamilah library in 2009, vol.13, p.8798, Fatwa no.23672
…….””
The question should be “how do we define child abuse”,
1st because perverts are trying to redefine it in our own culture
2nd because other cultures have radically different ideas about the subject
https://medium.com/the-story-in-history/the-tribe-where-boys-perform-oral-sex-on-grown-men-d63690fe5bf6
“….The most shocking and might I add controversial aspect of the initiation process is the part where the boys are made to perform oral sex on the older men. This is so the boys can swallow the semen from the men’s ejaculation. >>>>>>>>And the boys who are able to swallow more semen are considered to have more benefits….”
OK, not gonna lie, that last line made me LOL because I’m horrible
You pose interesting questions. Let me think about the ideas you are trying to convey. I will get back to you.
The last line makes me want to vomit and I suspect that there were people in that tribe who naturally questioned those type of vile behaviors.
Seriously, the thought of that makes me sick.
‘…and I suspect that there were people in that tribe who naturally questioned those type of vile behaviors….”
WHY would they question them???
On what basis do you call them “Vile”???
are your ‘values’ based on anything but your ‘preferences’?
THOSE are the actual questions people should ask….. as I have always said CS Lewis ‘the abolition of man’ predicted everything we see today.
It is vile because it is harmful, a form of rape and violence.
It has been demonstrated that child abuse can and does cause profound harm. I know this in part by anecdotes from people I have known who were abused and it has caused lasting psychic damage and has caused permanent disability in some people.
There was a woman I knew who was abused as a young child who had such profound PTSD that she would start screaming uncontrollably and involuntarily. She had these uncontrollable “ticks” and physical gestures that would make any person who had a shred of conscience disturbed.
Child abuse is up there with murder and torture or eating human flesh. It is an error, a sickness, a mistake, an “abomination”
Why? In part because there is basic biological structure for empathy in human beings, a potential for goodness. In fact, I think it is the optimal state. Why? Because in general people avoid pain and I think most human beings do have an innate capacity for empathy that means that we can feel the suffering of others.
I think certain “taboos” serve biological purposes and perhaps serve a more complex purpose that transcend a specific religious orientation. Perhaps some religions have gotten closer to the fundamental “order” that empathy and trying to “do no harm” will lead to a more harmonious life for all living things.
I will do some research into scientific studies in this regard. I am of the opinion that biology can provide clues into what is “supposed” to be.
People have biases, everyone as to how they interpret scientific data. It is not the end all be all definitive answer however.
I do think that evolutionary biology has some merit to describe this process on a physical level but that the paradigm of reductionism skews interpretation.
I do think western civilization has some very good qualities that have been shaped by a variety of experiences and influences, not just a particular religion.
Physical evidence and scientific study can provide insight to our physical and psychological experience here on earth. It is not meaningless. This does not mean it is the only valid way to evaluate reality and experience.
Why should we care about the needs and feelings of others? What if they are different from us?
I think it is in part because when we do good, we receive good. Perhaps not immediately, but over time.
Does compassion and empathy serve an evolutionary purpose? I think it does. It serves the survival of humanity in the highest form, one of peace and harmony as the overall guiding principal.
It’s a very interesting and complex train of thought.
And when I say we receive good, I also mean that an act of generosity and kindness provides a chemical reward.
Why does it increase serotonin? I don’t have a simple answer, but I believe that kind acts can increase pleasurable chemicals in the brain.
You’re examples of human depravity above are interesting and thought provoking into cultural differences in viewing what is right an wrong. Cultural differences do influence this view.
But I think that it is natural for children to know abuse is wrong and this transcends cultural context.
It’s clear when someone does not like something. They may cry or express some outward sign of distress. A person who does not automatically stop what they are doing to remove the distress has some type of abnormality.
I will see if I can find any scientific basis for my hypothesis.
cu.h.j
“….It is vile because it is harmful….”
Now you have read ‘Abolition of Man’ do you have a better understanding of what I mean when I ask WHY being harmful would make something ‘bad’ ?
I’m surprised you found it challenging, the ideas are pretty simple but I guess his English is a little olde fashioned, which is why I like to point people at “lewisdoodle” on youtube.
CS Lewis read all the books published in England over a hundred year period. https://archive.org/details/englishliteratur0003lewi/page/n5/mode/2up
I will read “the abolition of man” and write back about my interpretation.
I do think that you pose interesting and thought provoking points.
It was a good read. It was dense and his writing style is a bit challenging (for me) but I understood the valuable insight he shared.
In fact, I’ll post a link to the work on archive here:
https://ia802609.us.archive.org/18/items/TheAbolitionOfMan_229/C.s.Lewis-TheAbolitionOfMan.pdf
I also don’t think angering people is a violation of sovereignty. People have a right to speak their mind.
But your question around immoral neighbors is an interesting one. Suppose someone moves into a community who thinks abusing children is okay or some other type of immoral behavior, who protects the rights of the child?
Who protects a child from an abusive parent? The state often does not. In fact, during my nursing school clinicals, I took care of a 6 month old who had been abused by the mother’s boyfriend. The infant had “shaken baby” syndrome or sustained a subdural hematoma (bleeding under the dura that surrounds the brain).
This caused blindness and mental retardation. I learned that child protective service gave this child back to the parents after reports made by health care staff for prior injuries. It was one of the saddest things I had ever seen.
But who would protect a child from an abusive parent? Would someone come into the community, a vigilante that would protect the child? Maybe there would be some type of vigilante that would do this.
Is vigilante justice moral? I think sometimes it is, like in the case of child abuse.
I think JC’s point is that there are ways to work these things out without establishing centralized systems of control that have a tendency for corruption and the “rules for me not for thee” phenomenon.
Hughsername
“…2) 22:20 You can choose to live with this or this community: what if your neighbour chooses to live in a community that thinks it’s ok to have a consensual sexual relationship with their neighbour’s underage daughters but you don’t find that so cool, whose community’s court is going to judge that case? And what about the choice of the kid? Is she even old enough to express an informed choice?….”
What dude? Are you an islamophobe!!! Reeeeee!
LOL, 😉 just kidding but the link to an article on ‘thighing’ is no joke
https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Thighing
Morality is the immutable law of the universe stating that you should do no harm. If you do, there will be consequences.
Poisonous concepts of moral realtivism or subjective definition of morality have been introduced to obfuscate this simple truth.
Do no harm. Provided you are not a broken human being you can always use your emotions to gauge the morality of your actions. That is probably the only reason that we have emotions in the first place.
mkey
“…Morality is the immutable law of the universe stating that you should do no harm. If you do, there will be consequences….”
“Universal Laws” of morality are not something that a pure MATERIAL universe can provide. A cloud of gas or a chemical reaction does not judge right or wrong.
“….Poisonous concepts of moral realtivism or subjective definition of morality have been introduced to obfuscate this simple truth….”
Moral RELATIVISM is the natural progression (followed by nihilism and death) of the pure materialist worldview.
“….always use your emotions to gauge the morality of your actions…..”
That is ridiculous advice
When I get angry my emotions tell me to smash people with a rock, when I want stuff my emotions tell me to steal, when I want to f my neighbors wife my emotions tell me to give it a try…..
EMOTIONS MUST BE CONTROLLED BY REASON, and the fact is that Reason – in the absence of God (and organized religion) – gives me NO reason NOT to harm others if I can get away with it….reason must be controlled by what CS Lewis called “the Tao” in his book “abolition of man”
There is a saying that goes, “Without objective morality, everything is permissible.”
But the rub is, where does objective morality come from?
I guess some say its a law of the universe that says “do no harm” that spontaneous came into being from nowhere.
I’m not sure how that admonition can be objectively applied since life is so full of situations where one is forced to choose between causing harm and allowing someone else to suffer harm.
Thereby causing harm no matter what choice is made.
To be intellectually honest, one simply must conclude that objective morality comes from something higher than humanity. Something conscious rather than an impersonal unthinking force.
Objective morality has to come from God.
The trouble comes from the fact that so many individual members of humanity are under the impression that they are gods unto themselves.
But couldn’t your innate emotions tempered by reason provide inhibition to doing something harmful to another? Does that not come before religious influence?
As a lighter example, I have lost my temper and verbally chastised someone and saw that their feelings were hurt and I naturally felt guilty. The sadness in their face made me sad.
Similarly stealing someone else’s stuff is not “fair play” and lacks the richness of an honest wage or being paid fairly.
I’ll give an example from my own childhood. I was poor as a kid and felt a lack so once I stole money from other children’s belongings. I think I was 7 years old at the time, or even 6. Of course this was discovered and my mom found out who was livid and ashamed.
She told me “the thief steals honor from himself” and told me that she was disappointed in me. That realization that the material gain was not worth the cost to my integrity was profound. In fact, I recall when I was stealing the money from other children, I felt shame and that it was wrong. I did not know why, but it “felt” bad.
Is All this brilliant prose the spontaneous order James may be referring to? A statist friend placed a book in my hand recently. End Game / The problem of Civilization vol.1 by Derrick Jensen ,2006.
I wonder as I plow through it if James had been influenced by this writer in the past. Jensen proposes the bring down of Civilization in a controlled way as to lessen the human pain and suffering that will inevitably be our future as the present system of death completes the current crash course it is on. I must admit some of what he writes about is reflected here all the way to the top of the page. You all are spontaneously brilliant. Such a pleasure to read.
The transition ahead will be…?The resources and carrying capacity will collapse. No more monopoly subsidies. Food will become scarce and the the ruler of this world will be, very pleased mans active suicide. We won’t be able to think things through as we are doing here. Jensen quotes Dr.Walter Youngquist, big oil geologist as saying ” we are essentially f::ked,and we don’t know we’re already over the cliff,but we aren’t paying attention.”
We are eating oil now and when it is gone the collapse will follow.
Then maybe, time will be favorable to create a spontaneous moral existence , fueled primarily by guilt. That is if anyone is left alive that can remember the good ‘ol violent days of yor.
Like many podcasters/interviewers/filmmakers etc. Alexander Raskovic has fallen into the trap of adding distracting, annoying background sounds to the mix (especially the low frequency ones) as if it creates extra drama and interest.
Or was that you Broc?
Unfortunately because of this I couldn’t listen to/watch more than a few minutes here and there. 🙁
I think I’ll just go and read the transcript now.
So annoying, it’s like a corporate HR video.
?
Agreed. Just awful. Made it impossible to listen to. The music is basically conveying “this is how you should think”. How about let me listen to the interview and make up my own mind?! I couldn’t tune it out. So distracting!
“People have the right to as much freedom as they can get. No more and no less.” — Irving Layton (Canadian poet).
The part about spontaneous emergence of stable order (I would rather say “complexity”) is gold. Too few in conspiracy realism space have taken the time to grasp this amazing realization. I think this happens in part because of potential theological implications which can be unnerving to some theists. But an interesting twist here, is the myth I was raised on (Joseph’s Myth), which has it that top-down control is “Satan’s Plan”, whereas bottom-up free-agency is Christian. However much I discard the literal tenets of my former faith, I have to admit I do like that metaphor.
The only rule of life is: “Do unto others as you would like done unto you”.
This one can be tricky for sadomasochists.
Better: do not do unto others as you would not want done unto yourself.
The divine right of kings was the premier political paradigm for millennia, with the occasional exception of trials at proto democracy. It wasn’t until the political fight to gain human rights limiting executive prerogative began that other forms of government began to emerge. As power of rule shifted it had to be held in some other political structure. This was usually on the lines of a parliament. To wit the governance we have today with all its warts and outright corruption. This struggle took many hundreds of years in a see saw battle. Leaps forward usually followed on the heals on constitutional crisis often with armed conflict or threats to such. Locke was a gigantic influence on human rights under what he called Rule of Law.
Today Rule of Law, or Constitutionalism, is seen as impinging on the ability of govt. to carry out its mandate and there has been a steady move towards rule BY law, called Positivism, from the early 20th century, especially the 1930s on. The problem is that the more human society distances itself from Rule of Law towards positivism the more corrupt government begins to resemble the Absolutist that held that executive prerogative, divine right, is the Law.
This remembering that the primary human rights are, not to be summarily executed without legal recourse. Not to be tortured, not to be held indefinitely or without trial or without recourse to habeas corpus, no unusual punishment as the work around or excessive fines beyond that proscribed ….and other rights. Thank you John Locke and many others.
So if political power is to be yet again transferred under constitutional crisis, power abhorring a vacuum, what institution or ideological construct is to take the place of the current electoral facade of democracy?