Monthly Archives: July 2016

Why “All Lives Matter” is the Rational and Moral Declaration

Authority, Ethics, General Philosophy, individualism vs collectivism, Metaphysics, Violence, ,

It is a pathetic and frustrating thing to be labeled a racist (as I recently was) by simply pointing out that humanity is rooted in individuals, not groups like “blacks” and “whites”; that racism is a function of individual beliefs and action, and therefore cannot not be ascribed to individuals because of some trite, subjective group/institutional affiliation; and it is also exasperating to hear it asserted that saying “all lives matter” is–by some backwards, inane Marxist “logic”–an anti-black declaration when in fact it is merely pointing out THE objective ontological fact which makes Truth, Reality and Morality possible at all.

When someone calls you a racist for saying “all lives matter” they are simply proclaiming their collectivist beliefs, which necessarily spawn ethics and politics that hold violence to be the primary and ultimately only efficacious way of compelling moral behavior. In other words, those who declare it racist and thus evil to express the rank ontological truth and fact that all lives matter is implying that they really believe that NO lives matter.

Not black. Not white. Not yours. Not mine. Not their own.

If Racism is Institutional, Then the Individual is Absolved

individualism vs collectivism

You can say that racism is of the Institution (a function of the “majority” group through which society is established; e.g white people, collectively), or you can say it is of the Individual. But you cannot say it is of both. If the institution is the cause, then the individual by definition must be absolved. If the individual is the cause, then the institution is absolved.

This has to do with the fact that while “groups (of individuals)” and “individuals” are conceptually distinct, that which makes them relevant and rational in a practical sense is how they are related. The collectivist assumes, whether he admits or knows it or not, that the individual is a direct function of the group/institution. The individualist assumes the opposite. In order for “individual” and “group/institution” to have any rational meaning, and thus any practical efficacy or relevancy, this relationship cannot be ignored or denied. Which means that one cannot say a given single social outcome is a function of both. It is either a function of one or the other, since the necessary relationship between them means that one must act as a direct extension of the other.  Existentially and conceptually, individuals are not institutions and institutions are not individuals. Yet each must necessarily define the other when we speak of outcomes because they are utterly related.

An institution either acts as a function of specific, autonomous, morally distinct individuals, or the individual acts as a function of the institution. It must be one or the other. When a man makes a choice–to act in a racist way, for instance–he either makes it himself or the institution makes it for him. But it cannot be both.

It cannot be both. 

Now, the the problem is that, empirically,  the individual is the actual, material thing. The individual is the concrete; the institution is the abstraction. The institution doesn’t have any agency itself because it’s not actually real. Therefore, when we reverse this relationship, as the collectivist does, the individual cannot be held responsible for any decision or action, because he is merely an abstract concept which utterly serves and is given categorical relevancy by the group. He does not actually possess material existence. And this is why the title of this essay is: If Racism is Institutional Then the Individual is Absolved. Because what is not real cannot think; cannot will; and thus cannot act.

Let’s look at it this way:

Say Tom’s family has a single apple. Either Tom can eat the apple or someone else in the family can eat the apple. Or, we can that say the family ate the apple; and what we mean by this is that each member of the family ate part of the apple. The family, as a single entity, cannot eat the apple, because “family” is an abstraction; it, as a material thing, doesn’t actually exist.

Yet somehow, when it comes to institutional racism, when one person “eats the apple”, we say the whole group ate the apple, as though the group is a single entity who acts as the agent, which then subordinates the individual to “its” will. This then naturally makes the individuals of that group the abstraction, all of whom are guilty of eating the apple because all of them serve as abstract notions which equally express the actions of the actual, material group; of the institution. If the institution is racist, then all individuals, as merely abstract extensions of the institution, are racist. But not qua themselves…again, only insofar as the institution is racist. 

Now, the practical consequence of this in today’s America is that white individuals who haven’t a racist bone in their body and haven’t committed anything even close to a legitimately racist act are scratching their heads in confusion because some pundit on the news declared them racist simply by virtue of being a function of the racist “institution”, by which they mean white people as a collective. They are racist because they were born of “whiteness”.

And yet the logic demands the exact opposite:  Since these individuals are an utter function of the institution, they are, ipso facto, purely abstract. Which means they do not exist. Which means they do not  think and do not act.

Which means that they cannot possibly be racist.

The Denial of Reason as Truth’s Foundation is the Denial of God, of Self, and of Reality

Metaphysics, Objective Relativity, , , , , ,

You cannot believe, or have faith, in something irrational. And this is because what is irrational is impossible, because it cannot be defined in any measure, because the definition of something cannot contradict the very thing which is being defined.  And at the root of what is an irrational definition, I submit, is contradiction: the attempt to combine mutually exclusive concepts to create meaning (I explain this in more detail below).  Further, that which is impossible because it cannot be defined cannot then, by definition, exist; because whatever exists must have some kind of consistent definition…some identity, even if it’s only “that thing”.

It’s interesting to note that Jesus Himself never said that God can do the impossible. What He said was “with God all things are possible”. I surmise that there is a very good reason for this. To say “God can do the impossible” is to say that God can make the impossible possible, which is a contradiction in terms and violates the very logic and conceptual consistency by which God Himself, along with everything else, is defined in the first place.

Let’s look at it this way:

The difference between all things being possible and doing impossible things is in how we define and thus identify “things”. There is no such thing, and can be no such thing, as a square circle, or an elephant which is also a bird, or a left turn which is also a right turn, or man’s Will which is also God’s Will, or a free choice which is also a pre-determined effect of the laws of physics. These are not things at all…they are concepts without the reference of reason–of conceptual consistency–and thus are never manifest nor observed in reality for the very reason that they lack a specific identity; they lack the necessary existential criteria (as far as man’s perspective is concerned) of being a conceptualized single, specific thing at any given moment.

So because these impossible, identity-less “things” cannot actually BE anything at any given moment there is no way that God can manifest them. They defy reason; they flaunt conceptual consistency. And God can no more do that which is unreasonable than he can, Himself, be unreasonable. For God to “do the impossible” is to reject the very means by which man can know and define God and himself in the first place; and that means is reason–conceptual consistency. For if there can be such a thing as an up which is also a down, or a white which is also a blue, or a Will or choice which is also an effect of an external determining cause, then even God must admit that there is no legitimate reference for Truth; that there is no reason He, or you, or I, can give for something being what it is as opposed to what it is not; what is true as opposed to what is false; what is good as opposed to what is evil. And when this happens, understanding and knowledge is demolished, and therefore, nothing has identity, not even God; not even man. And that which has no identity cannot be said to exist at all because the question “What exists?” cannot be answered.

Once that question can no longer be answered, God is dead. And so are we.

It is only by believing in what is rational, in what is reasonable, in what has conceptual consistency, that there can be any belief at all.

The Most Beautiful Thing–Choice

Voluntarism, , , , , , ,

The commission of a free, unfettered, utterly voluntary choice of, to, and by the Self, categorically for the Self, in the service of It’s Will, in order to manifest any measure of existence in any form It alone craves and holds dear, and which neither accepts nor concedes any manner of external determinism, be it natural or supernatural, nor respects nor considers any external authority, nor seeks to oblige or obey any external law or standard, or any other invisible or ethereal or transcendent notion or ideal or master, and concomitant with a categorical belief in the totality and perpetuity and invincible and indivisible truth of Self ownership, and which neither harms nor defrauds, neither kills nor supplants, any other individual, is the most beautiful thing in the world.