All posts by Argo

Aphorism of the Day: Why You Were Born

Aphorisms, ,

You don’t exist to please others; you don’t exist to obey “authority” just because it claims “authority”, or to receive your goodness from some abstract standard outside of yourself. You exist to be happy, fulfilled, and promoted according to your own tastes and goals, without stealing from, lying, killing, threatening, hurting, or deceiving others. End of story.

The Governing of Man Says Everything About His Nature

government, Voluntarism, , ,

Ask yourself why we assume government is the superior social system. Of course, we already know the answer: because left on its own, mankind dissolves into an orgy of sin.

This is not some trite or casual observation. This admission is a PROFOUND metaphysical statement, with ramifications affecting every ounce of human existence. So, before we make such a claim, wisdom demands that we fully examine and fully understand what it is we are declaring.

The root of the issue is this:

Does man need governing?

To argue that the efficacy of human existence is only truly realized–or maximally realized–when man is forced by government into morality is to argue that man is, on his own, by the choice and free will endemic to him, inadequate to existence.

Once this is accepted, tyranny and death must inevitably follow.  Because if man is Able, then governing him is a contradiction to his existence, and this will be manifest by his sacrifice to the State.  If he is Unable, then his existence is an oxymoron and we must concede that he should be sacrificed to the State.

One small problem:

The government is run by man. So now what?

The only resolution to the contradiction is to reject the underlying metaphysical assumption. Man is not Unable; He is Able. Man then does not need governing; he needs NOT to be governed. Man’s Will and Choice and Self-awareness are not an abberation or a distortion of nature, they are the means by which he truly LIVES.

Experience is Not an Argument

Epistemology, General Philosophy, Metaphysics, , , ,

Today on Facebook, Breitbart News posted the following quote from Holocaust Survivor Martin Greenfield:

“The United States is the best damn country the world has ever known. Anyone who disagrees with that hasn’t been where I’ve been, hasn’t seen what I’ve seen.”

As lovely as that sentiment might seem, and though I respect Holocaust survivors immensely, the assertion is really nothing more than a non sequitur. In a couple of ways.

First, it is a categorical fact that no one has been where anyone else has been nor has seen what anyone else has seen. This is because any given person, by definition, cannot be anyone else. Everyone, simply by virtue of their being born, has their own absolute frame of reference by which they experience life.  The very fact that I am not you means that I cannot and will not experience existence as you do. I will never be where you are or see what you see, because we are infinitely different.  And because this is a simple ontological axiom, and therefore is universal to human experience, one cannot base an assertion upon it. Because the presupposition of such an assertion is that if you had seen what Mr. Greenfield had seen, and had been where Mr. Greenfield had been, you would, in fact, agree that the United States is the best damn country the world has ever known. But the infinite distinction of individual experience makes this an impossible scenario. And because it is an impossible scenario, precluded by the facts of rank existence, it is an illegitimate argument. It is irrelevant.

Next, we should remember that experience is not the equivalent of reason. What you have seen or where you have been is not a legitimate substitute for what you think about what you have seen and where you have been. You simply cannot base an argument upon perception alone; you must base it upon a rationale.  That is, a philosophical interpretation of reality (how you define what is true), which is rooted in your belief system.

So, when Mr. Greenfield says “America is the best damn country the world has ever known”, he is not, in fact, arguing from experience…because this is impossible. Why? Again, because observation is not reason. He may think his experience as a Holocaust survivor suffices as an argument, but reason demands that this cannot be so.

If Mr. Greenfield wants to argue that the U.S. Is the world’s greatest country he must provide an actual reason, not merely a perception. And if his reason, rooted in his fundamental beliefs, is not rationally consistent, then it is false. Period. Full stop. And no amount of experience, no matter how profound, can make it true.

Reason Demands that Truth is Relative

Epistemology, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

Absolute truth, or Truth qua Truth, is a tautology (and this is true of all abstract concepts when they are said to be a function of themselves), which makes it a contradiction, which means that there is no such thing as absolute truth, which means that all truth then is subject to a reference; and this fact makes truth subjective.

Which means that truth then, and obviously, cannot be objective.  On the other hand, the thing which IS objective is truth’s reference.

So…what is the reference?

Well, truth’s reference is he who is asking the question–what, how, why, which, where, etc.. Put another way, it is the Oberver; or, he who is perceiving and then conceptualizing the distinction between himself and NOT himself–or I vs. Environment. This frame of reference then, the frame of reference of I, the Observer, of Self who Percieves from the absolute ontological place of Me, is going to be the epistemological primary; the irreducible reference for defining the Truth of what he observes.

Without this primary, you simply cannot have truth. But it’s more than simply having it, the epistemological primary must be defined reasonably.  That is, he who claims to apprehend, to have or know truth, must be defined without contradiction; without indecision; without subjective or rationally unverifiable claims. Without this epistemological primary, defined according to unyielding rational consistency, there can be nothing which is True.

And, naturally, nothing which is false.

In other words, when you have properly, reasonably, answered the question “What is man and how does he know what he knows?”, then, and only then, will you have Truth.

What is Hell?; What is Death?; What is the Worm?

Epistemology, Metaphysics, , , , , ,

Hell is being Me and not knowing why I am Me in a way which does not make Me an absolute function of that which is outside of Me, and therefore must utterly determine Me, and thus contradict Me. Death is the absence of reason by which I can explain not how I am an effect but why I am the Cause. The insatiable worm is being “I” and yet having no real definition of “I” qua “I”.

Why Only the Individual Can Represent the Moral and Epistemological Standard; and Why Only Voluntarism is Benevolent

Authority, government, Metaphysics, Violence, Voluntarism, , ,

It is impossible to accept and embrace cultural or racial differences if the ideology promoting such “acceptance” declares these differences as the very ontological root from which human beings spring.  That is, if the metaphysical primary of me is “whiteness” or “secular-ness” and the metaphysical primary of another is “blackness” or “Muslim-ness”, then our relative existences are mutually exclusive. Which means that there can be no acceptance of differences since the differences themselves are absolute. I can no more traverse the chasm of collectivist-identity metaphysics in order to appreciate the perspective of a “different” culture or race than I can appreciate the “perspective” of a softball. There is no common frame of reference, since the very absolute root of what I am (e.g. “White”) is by definition the antipode of the absolute root of the other (e.g. Black).

And because these metaphysical roots are infinitely contrary, I do not actually exist to him and he does not actually exist to me.

Once this philosophy is combined with moral value, necessarily declared and established by the ruling governing Authority, because collectivist value can only be pragmatically realized or made at all relevant through force, there can be no integration of groups; only the categorical elimination (destruction…death) of the imposter. Meaning that if “whiteness” or “secular-ness” is bad and “blackness” or “Muslim-ness” is good then I have become the imposter. I, in assuming that my existence has any value or efficacy, become a rank moral affront to the “good” group. The “lie” of the value of my existence distracts and subtracts from the actual value of the existence of the black man, or the Muslim man, for example. (Which is where, by the way, we get the political phenomenon of “white privilege”…it’s a predictable manifestation of Marxist economics, which is a function of collectivist metaphysics.)

My very presence, my very birth, then, must be regarded as a pervasive sin, the only absolution for which is death. The act of snuffing out my “artificial” life is thus the moral obligation of those in the “true” and “righteous” group. It is the only cure for what has made me so infinitely  offensive: the fact that I was born at all.

Now, a plug for voluntarism:

The aforementioned is yet another reason why societies established under the auspices of a central Authority…the State; the Government; the King, always distill down to oppression, exploitation, and economic collapse. As soon as an “Authority” is established to represent “the people”, humanity MUST be defined collectively…and therefore, collectively valued. Which means politics will always, always, always dissolve into a “them” versus “us” mentality, which the violence of the State, wielded by the “true” group, must mitigate. Which means that all such societies will eventually become tyrannies.

Choice and Individual Will cannot by any means or any measure be combined with Force and Collective Need.

Period.