Reminding those in power
of the words they said
Results in them just laughing
Results in you just dead
I wish that words did matter
But here is the cold fact
Words and vows don’t matter
What matters is to act
Expecting an individual or a society to act on their self-interest is like expecting people to always and only eat for nutrition. The bait and switch of “it is good for me” and “it tastes good” and “I like the company” as all being “self-interest” reveals the trick. All things are “self-interest” when you want them to be.
The resolution of the contradiction is to consider it as a malformed question. What I do is what I do. “Self-interest” is one (and only one) model for action during and after the fact. The self-interest of others is something I can observe, ignore, opine about, block, as it is my “self-interest” to do so.
Is that all against all? No, it’s ME against all.
Those who do not own the means of production are the working class. Those billionaire actors and athletes are just as oppressed as a slave forced to dig diamonds by hand.
Only mass movements can hold power and freedom. Individuals die (unlike groups) and can be defeated (unlike groups) and so they can never hold power and freedom.
Fie on both of these species of nonsense.
Excise yourself of the Marxist idea that power and freedom happen only in numbers much greater than one.
You already do not hold that a great author must give his work to the public domain to be great.
You already do not hold that all criminals must be Robin Hood.
You already do not hold that a wealthly man is, in fact, wealthy.
You already do not hold that physical strength is in one man’s body.
You already do not hold that your mind, whatever it might be, is right there in your head and nobody else’s head.
But when you start talking about power and freedom, you rush to “politics.” You rush to numbers much greater than one. I say one will do.
What’s that? But individual men die? I agree, and I hope you’ll agree that so do groups. And individual men can be defeated? I agree, and I hope you’ll agree that so do groups.
But-but-but individuals are born of numbers greater than one, born in societies of numbers much greater than one, on this planet with many different nations. I agree, and I hope you’ll agree that those parents, those societies, those nations, are all made up of individuals.
It’s not a matter of 50/50 both-are-true, because we definitely agree that individuals are, in fact, individuals, and some will rule, and some will serve. It’s a matter of the Marxist idea that power and freedom happen only in numbers much greater than one blocking out the power and freedom found in individuals.
I am not making a suggestion about how one man can influence society. I am not talking about society.
Notice the different ratios between individuals who have gone from right to left (fewer) and individuals who have gone left to right (more). Then notice the different ratios between groups who have gone from right to left (more) and groups who have gone from left to right (fewer). Groups trend left, individuals trend right. So if you’re looking at groups, you see movement to the left. If you look at individuals, you see movement to the right. When a group is more or less democratic, left. When the group is more or less run by a single individual, right. Do lefty groups always win out? Only for the eye-blink of the past few hundred years.
Measuring power as group power is one way of measuring power. Measuring power as power is another. One can say the formal military is the real power and the warlord is not, until the warlord wins over the formal army. So the measure of power is power, not institutions. An individual living the life he wants through whatever means he has access to, such as a criminal or a wealthy man, that’s one way of measuring power / freedom. Measuring institutional power / freedom isn’t the only way.
These are the Marx / Freud errors that do the most harm…
All people are interchangeable. Equality.
A description is a prescription. To describe a thing is to state why it should be preserved or why it should be changed.
History follows rules and progresses. Creationism for events.
Truth is the supreme virtue. Strength, beauty, tradition, humor, whim, all else must take second place.
Introducing “is it true?” into religion chains you to the possible answer of “no” regarding something that matters to you. It makes you an atheist-in-waiting. “True” is not a function of religion. Which is why “but that’s not true” is not an functional critique of a religious claim.
The powers that be
Were all reported
To be all against
What they now supported
The cause they opposed
They now say they led
But if you ask me
I wish they were not liars
When the other guy gets caught
And they crow for each infraction
They don’t care about the law
They care about their faction
For it is not the case
Such attentiveness was shown
When the perpetrator
Was known as one of their own
The emphasis in Marx and Freud on origins backwards in time masks the lack of success forward in time.
My preference for peace
And a day filled with ease
Are mainly what prevents
The sociable sin
And just giving in
To post about current events
Why give myself grief
To convey my belief
About that which I have no influence
Or think that I should
Signal that I am good
With a post about current events
I truly don’t mind
And I think that it’s fine
To praise or to cause an offense
But please let it be
Between me and thee
Not a post about current events
Moral: avoid unpaid PR work for celebrities.
Every single action that I’ve ever done that had the worst outcomes for me for doing it, I did it because I was trying to accommodate another person and went against what I would have done naturally. Every single action, every one of them. When I’ve acted naturally, sometimes I had bad outcomes. But not the worst outcomes.