Saturday, March 31, 2007

Brief Statement of Principles

(This item was also a blog entry on February 11, 2007 and not meant to be my primary manifesto, but why reinvent the wheel?)

This blog won’t be an exercise in feverishly linking, with obligatory know-it-all comment, to every event in the news as it happens. There are (literally) about a million sites doing that already. This site, I expect, will be more likely to respond to books and other long-form, detailed arguments or ideas. The Web could use a little cautious reflection, maybe even some peace and quiet once in awhile.

That tone may allow some actual philosophizing to occur, so that maybe we’ll all learn something. One rarely philosophizes from a complete blank slate, though, so it’s worth briefly noting, in the interests of full disclosure, some of the beliefs — not mere prejudices, mind you, since they are the conclusions of years of prior logical analysis (nor mere assumptions or axioms, since I’d happily revise each or all in the face of new evidence) — that I already bring to bear and which are likely to be reflected in future posts:

•Claims should not be made without good empirical evidence, so it is intellectually irresponsible, indeed immoral, to claim that God or other supernatural phenomena (ghosts, psychic powers, astrology, etc.) exist.

•The only rational, non-mystical basis for ethics is rule utilitarianism (that is, behaving in accord with the rules most likely to foster the greatest long-term happiness among all morally-relevant agents — I avoid saying “people” to sidestep for now the question of the moral significance of animal welfare), and moral thinking should pervade all of our decisions, leaving no room for lying, cheating, cruelty, infidelity, taking credit for others’ work, or even the lackadaisical sort of callous irresponsibility (as on the dating scene) that seems to characterize much of the thinking of many young adults these days.

•Property rights are the most important manifestation of ethics and law and the often unappreciated basis of civilization, the alternative to which is violence and poverty, as socialist governments have made abundantly clear; capitalism, in short, is not only good but is humanity’s greatest accomplishment.

•Government should be abolished, or at least minimized (it is likely, though harder to demonstrate empirically, that law itself could be turned over to decentralized private courts somewhat in the fashion of old common law courts and modern arbitration firms, and that the military could be far more rationally directed on a subscription basis by capital-intense insurance firms, but at the very least all unbiased observers can agree that we should end most Cabinet agencies, government-run schools, regulation, public sector unions, and welfare/social security programs in favor of allowing an unfettered economy to make everyone far richer — and freer — faster); limiting government has been the key to America’s greatness, though it has strayed far from that founding ideal, one now largely forgotten by both left and right, though not, fortunately, by libertarians.

•Because science is easily distorted by the media and other forces, most health scares are overblown, as is the threat of global warming, for the purpose of attracting attention to research or to pro-regulation political causes (and a pro-regulation bias is likely to exist in government-funded or -directed research).

•Evolution is the best and most powerful explanation for the workings of life and, contrary to politically-motivated claims of intelligent design theorists and the like, is confirmed by mountains of evidence from the fossil records of the past to the continual arms race against bacterial development and adaptation in our own day.

•Feminism is bunk, based in virtually all its formulations on the irrational, radically anti-empirical, a priori assumption of equal mental or rational capacities (in essentially all areas of human endeavor) in the two demonstrably different sexes (as unwarranted as assuming that two similar species, say, elk and moose, must prove to be “equal” by some empirical or, failing that, metaphysical measure); while belief in God may be the most erroneous commonly held view and belief in government the most socially destructive, feminism is perhaps the most manifestly false commonly held view in our culture, refuted as it is by virtually every daily interaction experienced by virtually all people, sustained only by the kind of borderline-schizophrenic, compartmentalized thinking that enables someone to claim men and women are mentally the same one moment and then bicker over whether to see a “guy movie” or a “chick flick” the next, without noticing the contradiction.

•The masses are by and large cretins (keep in mind that the average IQ is roughly 100), and all political factions of which I am aware, from Marxism to fascism to libertarianism, are guilty of flattering the masses (appealing to the “good sense of the average person,” etc.) in the vain and demagogic hope of receiving popular affirmation for their own agendas, which most people will never grasp, let alone endorse; similarly, intellectuals must, despite the great temptation, beware taking too indulgent an “ironic” interest in the mind-rotting trash that generally passes for popular culture, tending as it does to contribute to the masses’ impulse-driven lack of self-discipline, forethought, or morals – and must instead pause from time to time to appreciate the storehouse of wisdom and aesthetic achievements we inherit from tradition, which tends to dwarf the accomplishments and sophistication of any one mind.

•Biotech and cybernetics offer the best long-term hope of improving the human race, particularly making humans more rational (anyone who complains that people are “too rational” already is likely insane or highly intellectually irresponsible) and sooner or later making us immortal.

•Until biotech and cybernetics make fundamental improvements in the human mind, voluntary (as opposed to government-run or otherwise coercive) eugenics is something all honest, sober-minded people should endorse – not in the irrational, crude, ethnicity-based form that the Nazis promulgated but in the common-sense form of politely discouraging stupid, violent people from passing on their ways or inclinations to any more offspring (or indeed non-relative members of their social circles) than necessary; people who claim to oppose eugenics in this milder, decentralized form unwittingly demonstrate their hypocrisy every time they engage in mate selection and pick better rather than worse mates.

Those are just a few simple ground rules that I think we can all agree upon for starters – the sort of nearly-self-evident things I can’t be bothered to go back and re-prove in every single entry but which, if kept in the back of your mind, will help smooth your reading experience and make more sense of the many other ideas to come.

The logical outcome of the ideals described above, should enough of you come to share them (perhaps as a result of regularly reading this blog), is a world of highly intelligent, anarchist-atheist yet property-respecting and moralistic, pro-American cyborgs (likely of multiple subspecies and possibly diversely transgendered) who are immortal, have an appreciation for high art, show an almost Amish respect for certain elements of tradition, and are kind to animals. I don’t expect to see this almost-perfect world within my lifetime, but all of us who work to bring it a bit closer to realization can at least sleep with clear consciences at night. Every little bit helps: registering Republican instead of Democrat (if the Republican Party returns to its limited-government principles), listening to synthesizer-based New Wave music, discouraging acquaintances from respecting the Bible, or discussing robotics in a frank and open way with your friends and family. Little by little, each of us can make a difference and set a good example — and remember, you are not alone.

UPDATE 1/15/08: I admit this list was dashed off quickly and that I may have erred by giving feminism such short shrift, for instance, or by lightly invoking the term “eugenics” when I might have said merely “biotech and picking a smart mate” — but this entry on utilitarianism may be a better way of explaining my underlying principles.

UPDATE: Well, I have rarely updated this site’s five permanent explanatory pages (on Principles, Bibliography, Acquaintances, FAQ, and Work) between its launch in 2007 and 2010 — and may not necessarily even agree with everything I said in them — but an important entry from April 11, 2010 describes a big mid-2010 shift in my activities that at least gives you an idea what the future should look like (NOTE, while I’m at it, that e-mails to this site’s URL do not reach me, or indeed anyone, but you can find my real e-address on this site without too much trouble).

20 comments:

ToddSeavey.com » Blog Archive » Aborting Feminism, Adding Links said...

[...] I mentioned my opposition to feminism in an earlier post called “Brief Statement of Principles,” which is now also posted as one of the Permanent Things in my right margin, as is my half-joking Personal Ad — something you should read instead of the current post if you happen to be a feminist who might be willing to date me but will cease to be willing if you read my denunciation of feminism.  Also among the Permanent Things is information on the monthly Debates at Lolita Bar that I organize and host, which next month (May 2) will feature an intra-feminist argument between comedian-debaters Charles Star and Jen Dziura over the question “Does the Beauty Industry Oppress Women?”  So come hear them and, if the current blog entry upsets or inspires you, come give me a piece of your mind while you’re at it. [...]

Mitch Golden said...

How these two can be reconciled:

Claims should not be made without good empirical evidence…

and

Because science is easily distorted by the media and other forces, most health scares are overblown, as is the threat of global warming, for the purpose of attracting attention to research or to pro-regulation political causes (and a pro-regulation bias is likely to exist in government-funded or -directed research).

Missing is your good, empirical evidence for the latter assertion.

(And, at any rate, this seems to me not to be a statement of principle, but a conclusion.)

TJIC said...

Todd,

I just stumbled into your blog. Excellent stuff! Like you, I’m an anarchocapitalist.

Re: “The only rational, non-mystical basis for ethics is rule utilitarianism” – I tend to agree.

That said, I’m not afraid to admit that I meet your definition of mysticism, in that I believe in a moral code as a set of axioms, not as a second tier set of principles derived from the first tier axiom of utilitarianism.

…but let me ask you a question: how do you justify the belief that everyone’s utility counts equally? Is that not a form of mysticism? Do you use some sort of Rawlsian “veil of ignorance” argument to try to get around this?

Anyway, keep up the great blogging.

E6 said...

that word you keep using [feminism]… I do not think it means what you think it means.

“Princess Bride” reference aside… there are people who consider themselves “feminists” and are not what you are implying they are.

Princeton Wordnet defines feminism as:

(n) feminism (a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women)

(n) feminist movement, feminism, women’s liberation movement, women’s lib (the movement aimed at equal rights for women)

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=feminism

Unless you interpret this differently than I (in which case I’d be VERY interested to hear YOUR definition of it)… this in no way means that the sexes ARE equal… just that IN THE EYES OF THE LAW.. should be treated equally.

ie: laws and rights should be as blind to gender as they are to hair-color, height, dominant-handedness, etc…

Now this doesn’t mean that I can prove one way or another that there is a correlation between hair color and strength, or right-handedness and intelligence, or height and emotion… just that the rights afforded to an individual should not be based in any way on these things.

E6

Todd Seavey said...

As my feminist girlfriend Koli was insisting just hours ago, she and many of her fellow feminists refuse to recognize the distinction between that-which-is-legislated and that-which-is-encouraged-by-social-pressure as decisive. Thus when most feminists — including in all likelihood the people who wrote that Princeton definition — talk about equal rights, they do not generally mean merely equal rights under the law but equal (or at least increased) social influence for women, greater equality of outcome, occasional (or even constant) recourse to legal remedies for disparities created by social pressure alone, etc. Individualist feminists such as yourself do not speak for feminists in general any more than libertarians define liberalism. I wish it were otherwise, but here we are.

Todd Seavey said...

I should add that the best place to discuss those issues in detail, though, is this thread:

http://toddseavey.com/2007/04/21/aborting-feminism-adding-links/

Koli said...

Your analysis of where my position leads is not accurate. At least not necessary. Not accepting the “legislated” vs. “created by social pressures” distinction as dispositive doesn’t have to imply an endorsement of “constant recourse to legal remedies for disparities created by social pressures alone.” The remedies can be –most should be– social.

My criticism of the types of “social pressures” that create disparities is an attempt to influence private behavior and to challenge people’s assumptions about things like race and gender rather than to effect legislation. Social pressures –especially cumulative effects of social conditions inherited from centuries of legally imposed disabilities– can often be as destructive to substantive liberty as the legal disabilities themselves. Perhaps this would not be the case in a utopian libertarian society that begins from a clean slate in a blind, Rawlsian fashion. That’s not the world we live in. We live in a world of historical and institutional baggage.

E6 said...

my rebuttal would have to be another movie quote.

Have you ever seen “Office Space”?

If not, disregard… but if so, do you remember the following exchange:

Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It’s not that hard: Samir Na-gheen-an-a-jar. Nagheenanajar.

Michael Bolton: Yeah, well at least your name isn’t Michael Bolton.

Samir: You know there’s nothing wrong with that name.

Michael Bolton: There was nothing wrong with it… until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.

Samir: Hmm… well why don’t you just go by Mike instead of Michael?

Michael Bolton: No way. Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks.

In that vein… I use the words “rights” and “equal rights” correctly… I should not have to change my definitions just because the progressive/socialist movement wants to change what is actually a “right”.

For clarification, refer to Ayn Rand’s essay “Man’s Rights”…

(If you must, feel free to throw in ad homeninm cult-references in response to my committing the sin of mentioning Rand in a positive way.)

E6 said...

I do agree with Koli that we don’t have the luxury of a “clean slate”, however, I don’t agree that changes anything.

I don’t even answer for the sins of my own father… there’s no way I’m allowing anyone to infringe upon my life liberty or property for sins done by people who aren’t in my blood line and really share NO characteristics with me other than gender.

So some white guy in the 50’s oppressed your grandmother and somehow the burden is on MY shoulders to help you get into law school at MY expense?

Koli said...

Yeah. Lots of people refuse to answer for the sins of their fathers, but are willing to accept the advantages wrought by the sins of their fathers (as buttressed by government intervention, a fact they also conveniently overlook).

But in any case, I don’t think I recommended inheritance of sins. Nor have I suggested that someone should get into law school (or whatever) at your expense. Since I have NOT argued for affirmative action or other such policies, I am not sure how my point is vulnerable to the charges the you make.

Also, “Some white guy” didn’t “oppress” someone’s grandmother as an isolated incident “in the 1950s.” Women have been systematically barred (by law) for centuries from practicing law, medicine and other professions. They were not, in many cases allowed to own property. They were not allowed to vote, go to college, refuse sex to their husbands, divorce their husbands, control the profits of their labors (if they were married)…. When they first broke into previously male dominated disciplines they were greeted with hostility and sexual abuse… just to give a few examples. (No, I’m not asking for affirmative action to combat the legacy of this; stay with me….)

As a result of such conditions, women have a history of relative lack of achievement (relative to men) in many fields, which too often gets cited as evidence of women’s INABILITY to achieve things on a par with men. This serves to perpetuate and entrench the inequalities. Women also lack the deep cultural footings in many professions and areas of public life that men can take advantage of. Since these conditions were created by erstwhile LEGAL distinctions, I don’t think they can be fairly characterized as “created by social pressures alone” as Todd suggested. (Even so, I’m not recommending affirmative action….)

I harp on history, not because I expect legal remedies for all the historical wrongs, but because I want to persuade people to refrain (voluntarily) from judging individuals and their abilities based on things other than actual knowledge of the individuals. I don’t want to bear the burnden of someone else’s law school admission either. But I also don’t want to have to work four times as hard to be paid half as much and taken half as seriously as some white guy with an IQ that’s 20 points lower, while being sexually harrassed by him.

And, I will say this one last time for good measure, when I say “I don’t want to have to” I’m not asking the government to step in and help me. For the most part, I’m asking poeple (in the marketplace of ideas) to think about the way they evaluate and treat others. To think about whether their judgments of people are arbitrary or rational. If you’d deny me THAT right, then, well… that’s just unAmerican!

Amelia Bedelia said...

Lots of people refuse to answer for the sins of their fathers, but are willing to accept the advantages wrought by the sins of their fathers (as buttressed by government intervention, a fact they also conveniently overlook).

Every self-identifying group in America has been oppressed at some point or another. Almost as many groups can be charged having oppressed somebody else. Individuals swept up into the sea of an ethnicity or a gender or what have you become tainted by association (or undeservingly exalted).

Men dominated society? Which men? The average man was working in a coal mine or slogging away in a farmfield. His wife was cooking, cleaning, knitting sweaters and raising children. These people didn’t have time to assume their places in some kind of Marxist familial power struggle. I’m a female. Had I lived 150 years ago, frankly, I’m not sure I’d have *wanted* to trade my place in the home for a miner’s hardhat or a soldier’s bayonet.

Getting back to the Everyone’s a Victim (At Some Point) Theory: Some people have a legitimate gripe. Black people. Irish people. Catholics. Jews. The Irish. Japanese internees. Homosexuals. The left-handed. Gypsies. Native Americans. Unattractive people. Stupid people. (Stupid attractive people excepted, however, as they seem to rise to the top of every society.) These victims-by-proxy can say, “People who shared a significant amount of my DNA — or my predilection for same-sex romance — were oppressed a while ago, on this soil.”

To these people I say, “That’s nice. Now that you’ve acknowledged that, you should move on and live your life to the fullest, appreciative of the free society you were born into.”

I will include women in the legitimate-gripe category, but cautiously. The most vocal feminists have depicted the lot of yesteryear’s woman in a much bleaker light than reality. This wilfull exaggeration really irritates me. Everyone had it rough back then — not just women — and when I say “back then,” I mean until quite recently. Life was a Hobbesian nightmare, in my view, until about a century ago. Even then, people were dying of polio and riding around in rickety automobiles, fully exposed to the elements, and suffering through other hardships that did not discriminate based on race or gender.

When I hear the word “feminist,” I think of someone lamenting the struggle women faced when their husbands and sons went off to die in wars overseas. What about the people dying? I’m not saying it wasn’t hard on the women left at home — it was hell. But women weren’t the only ones suffering in that situation, nor in many others where feminists depict them as such.

Similarly, at any point in recent history, the men living large usually took their wives and daughters right along with them. So a reference to “advantages wrought by the sins of their fathers” makes me wonder at the ridiculousness of trying to manufacture a gender-based split in society. There is no gender war. There never has been, in any Western society remotely like ours. Wealthy men, even in the days when women did not work outside the home, had pampered daughters and wives.

The advantages enjoyed by today’s women owe their existence (for the most part) to labor-saving, productivity enhancing, life-extending innovation created (for the most part) by the men feminists love to hate. Women have time to pursue careers, to realize their full potential — whether it’s corporate law or tennis at the club — because they’re not stuck washing and cooking for ten hours a day. There are machines for that, and restaurants that deliver, and a labor market teeming with women willing to take care of other women’s children while their mother steps out of that role for a few hours.

I&..CONT..

Amelia Bedelia said...

..CONT..#8217;m not saying that women should be deliriously grateful to men for rescuing them from the primitive cave. Only that it’s not so much a battle as a journey, hand in hand, toward modernity and equal rights.

As a result of such conditions, women have a history of relative lack of achievement (relative to men) in many fields, which too often gets cited as evidence of women’s INABILITY to achieve things on a par with men.

It’s been a long time since women had to change their names to George So-and-So (e.g. Eliot, Sand) in order to get a novel published. Where was the female counterpart to George Gershwin or Cole Porter in the 1920s? Where’s the great female artist of the… of any time? Georgia O’Keefe was pathetic–let’s face it.

Women have had plenty of time to excel in every field under the sun. If they haven’t “caught up to men,” it’s nobody’s fault but their own–as individuals. These intergroup comparisons put a great deal of pressure on individuals to achieve greatness on behalf of some unseen an often amorphous category. All gay people are part of a community? And all black people? And all women? What about gay black women? When one of them is good at something, which minority group gets to claim it as their achievement? Height of ridiculousness, if you ask me. She alone should claim the honor. It was her struggle: It began with her birth, and no earlier. (Everyone’s life is in some sense a struggle.)

Women also lack the deep cultural footings in many professions and areas of public life that men can take advantage of

Concrete example, please?

If you don’t succeed, the world is against you?

Countless times in history, people whose group affiliations tainted their social acceptance managed to succeed despite the odds. Twenty-first-century women, of all people, should be able to overcome. Seriously.

But I also don’t want to have to work four times as hard to be paid half as much and taken half as seriously as some white guy with an IQ that’s 20 points lower, while being sexually harrassed by him.

Social acceptance is a crucial factor in the workplace for anyone below the level of CEO. You could be held back for any number of reasons. Gender’s just one of them — and one, I would argue, that’s probably not a factor in 99% of workplaces. People like to have co-ed workplaces. Have you ever seen a company that wasn’t co-ed? Women bring a different flavor to the atmosphere, and in companies that do face-time with clients, it’s important to have a range of personalities to appeal to customers. In fields where women and other walking data points are “underrepresented” (a concept I dispute, but let’s move on), you’ll find that employers bend over backward to hire such people. Often as tokens. If you can live with getting ahead that way, you will go far.

I’m asking poeple (in the marketplace of ideas) to think about the way they evaluate and treat others.

I can tell that your intentions are noble, and you don’t seem like an angry man-hater, so… kudos. But do you really think this kind of reasoned discussion will appeal to your intended (anti-woman) audience? Most feminists know that it won’t, and so they resort force via the long arm of the law. The people who’d be convinced by your reasoning probably were already at peace with the idea of a gender- and color-blind meritocracy.

E6 said...

“The remedies can be –most should be– social.”

“But in any case, I don’t think I recommended inheritance of sins. Nor have I suggested that someone should get into law school (or whatever) at your expense. Since I have NOT argued for affirmative action or other such policies, I am not sure how my point is vulnerable to the charges the you make.”

I am curious as to why you specify that most (not all) remedies should be social. Are you allotting for at lease SOME legal remedies? If so, other than affirmative action, which I am glad to hear you are also against, what legal remedies would you support?

E6 said...

and another one:

“For the most part, I’m asking people (in the marketplace of ideas) to think about the way they evaluate and treat others. To think about whether their judgments of people are arbitrary or rational. If you’d deny me THAT right, then, well. that’s just unAmerican!”

why the caveat “for the most part”? I consider myself a feminist. Todd correctly identified my type as the “individualist feminist” variety as exposed by Wendy McElroy and others.. but regardless… I can unequivocally say:

“In ALL cases, the remedies for any wrongs of the past should be done via the marketplace of ideas and social pressures”

can you?

Todd Seavey said...

I think Koli, perhaps like most Americans, would oppose affirmative action while supporting anti-discrimination laws in cases where you could demonstrate (without mere statistics) deliberate bias in an individual workplace. That’s feminist and not fully libertarian in the usual strict-property sense that the word is now used (though Milton Friedman endorsed anti-discrimination laws, and if the underlying empirical assumption behind them is an evolved, irrational tendency to prefer one’s own kind, that’s a bit less absurd than the usual affirmative action underlying assumption that all variance from statistical equality must result from bias).

I’m all for people making a voluntary effort to stop being bigots, of course, but like a lot of non-leftists am also very wary of the default assumption that bigotry is the main explanation for differential outcomes — if you tolerate diversity, you must tolerate differential outcomes (including, I’d radically add, differing degrees of allegiance to one’s own ethnic group — I wouldn’t demand the soul food restaurant hire a 75% white workforce).

Koli said...

E6, I support anti-discrimination laws.

Todd, I do tolerate differential outcomes and I’m absolutely with you on being wary of “the default assumption” of bigorty. But when I confront obvious instances of bigotry, I don’t feel obligated to bend over backward to invent some other, more benign explanation.

Amelia — I don’t agree that people are either already convinced or deaf to further comment. There is always room for persuasion.

Koli said...

“Social acceptance is a crucial factor in the workplace for anyone below the level of CEO. You could be held back for any number of reasons. Gender’s just one of them”.

I agree. I never claimed gender as singular or overriding. But why shouldn’t I point out the absurdity (or even immorality) of being held back because of gender, where that’s the case? Especially if I’m appealing to people’s morality and good sense, rather than the long arm of the law?

I’m just exercising my freedom to create new social pressures to combat ones I don’t like.

E6 said...

I think this whole “misunderstanding” is due to words like “feminism” being so vaguely defined.

Same thing with “liberal”… I have been known to call myself a liberal and of course it confuses people who have some other pre-conceived definition in mind. I default back to Princeton wordnet (would use o.e.d., but can’t find free version online)

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=liberalism

ToddSeavey.com » Blog Archive » DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: “Is Gentrification Good?” (plus music of the 80s and Seaveys of 1631 A.D.) said...

[...] One town, by the way, that could perhaps use an influx of more “elite” residents is Jersey City, where dwells my girlfriend, Koli (you can read her recent comments about feminism below my “Brief Statement of Principles”).  I’m not saying Koli isn’t part of the elite, but her mayor, Jerramiah Healy, by contrast, was arrested for drunkenly brawling with cops outside a bar.  Healy says he was merely intervening in a fight between other patrons, but the fact that cops felt obliged to mace him — something one does to the mayor only on rare occasions — makes me wonder. [...]

ToddSeavey.com » Blog Archive » Book Selection of the Month: “Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Golderg (plus war and globalism) said...

[...] Goldberg also reminds readers of the immense popularity of eugenics, across the political spectrum and among all the high-minded idealists of the interwar period (witness George Bernard Shaw’s unbridled enthusiasm for combining socialist economic planning with eugenic reproductive planning — and come back in February for my analysis of another brilliant yet eugenics-influenced writer of the 1920s, H.P. Lovecraft, as that month’s Book Selection). That is troubling enough to make me rethink my casual use of the word as a neutral or even positive thing when promoting biotech, which is quite a different, less centralized, less authoritarian phenomenon — voluntary, piecemeal enhancement for unforeseen but diverse ends vs. enforced purity and a single, all-natural “ideal.” [...]