A (p)review

So, today's the day.  As I announced a few months in advance, 4/20/2013 would be the day I go on strike unless some eminently reasonable conditions were met.  (I've made some revisions to them since then.)  I'll get to those in a moment, but first, consider a hypothetical:

Say that today, I wanted to "wake and bake" in the privacy of my abode, saganize my cognition, and set myself to the task of thinking about a Platonic-Aristotelian-Kantian-Hegelian-Nietzschean-Randian-Rawlsian-Nozickian-Chomskian "synthesis" and see what I could come up with so as to "go out with a bang" for my 4/20 blog posting . . . but, oh darn, I was out of cannabis and just couldn't get my hands on some all that readily.  And so no edutainment in that regard today.

Instead, some fucks, somewhere, without my consent, had decided to exercise physical force and power over my life to prevent me from engaging in such peaceful, productive activity, in violation of my not-specfically-enumerated natural rights (which are at the core of the "live and let live" ethos that grounds the best modern Lockean-liberal theories of government).

In the United States of America.  In the year 2013.

You might begin to see the problem here.

This is unacceptable.

If you were to poll Americans on what the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution said, a pitifully low percentage would know the answer . . . and that's how creeping statism became a fact of American political life.  I'm sure that the Framers would be most dismayed at this state of affairs.  Ignorance is the problem, and only education can be the solution.

My posting yesterday posed the question, "Is it 'later than we think'?" and went through a number of items that indicated that we may well be nearer the cultural and technological singularities than we think.  A fitting title for today's entry might well have been, "Is it earlier than we think?" - that is, there seems to be a large amount of evidence that we still have a long way to go before humanity achieves the state of enlightenment necessary to reach "maturity" as a species.  As I noted yesterday, humanity entered what might be termed an "adolescent" phase some 2,500ish years ago.  Some time in the not-too-distant-future, if the human race doesn't wipe itself out first, it can and will enter an "adult" phase.  (The so-called new atheists think this means an end to religion.  None of them seems to possess the intellectual prowess of a Plato, Aquinas, Hegel, or Whitehead.  Just sayin'.  Hell, Antony Flew owns them already; they've had no answer to him as of yet.  Quelle ignorance!)

That said, here are the nine eminently reasonable "no-brainer" conditions, in bare essentials, which I have set down in order for me to end the strike which I am starting at 4:20 today:

1. Cannabis becoming as legal as alcohol for all adults age 21 and over living in America.

2. Accountability for CIA acts of torture, sodomy and killing of detainees.

3. Marriage equality.  (At least this one appears to be close to a done deal.  Yay, one out of nine!)

4. Good-faith effort by America's elected representatives to broker a mideast peace deal in the spirit of Taba, which even both Dershowitz and Chomsky agree on.

5. A quality program implemented by educators for educating the nation's youth in the humanities in an age-appropriate fashion.

6. A move toward outlawing factory-farming and other cruel and inhumane practices toward animals.  (This alone would help to reduce net carbon emissions a shit-ton, not to mention improve diets.  A win-win-win!)

7. An overhaul of corporate-cultural norms that presently have the effect of dehumanizing and demoralizing stakeholders, which also has the effect of stunting productivity.  (In a perfective world, people would be much less dependent upon employment by others for their livelihoods.  In the meantime, ... .)

8. A serious move by political, business, and other leaders to get leading intellectuals (like this guy for instance, or this lady) much more involved in the presently-impoverished national dialogue.

9. A serious move by the leading ideas-merchants in academia and elsewhere to do a much better job of connecting with the concerns of ordinary folks (and this emphatically includes taking Ayn Rand more seriously than they are at present; the Ayn Rand Society can serve to provide many promising, uh, leads).

Being that this is 2013 already, it seems to me to be quite a shame that these haven't all happened already.  They are no-brainers.

For anyone who's been paying attention, item #1 is particularly galling considering that no one has any good arguments for keeping the status quo on drug policy.  There is a constant chorus by now that "the drug war is a massive failure," and yet the vast majority of congresscritters aren't doing jackshit to fix the problem.  How did we ever come to this state of affairs?  The only answer I can think of is: ignorance.  The congresscritters aren't doing jackshit because the people to whom they're supposed to be accountable aren't doing enough to light a fire under their asses.  Education is the only solution.

Here's a hint to good aspects of both Rand and Chomsky that can be synthesized: how the abuse of language, a dichotomy between territory and mental map, corrupts any dialogue.  If there's one key lesson I gleaned from Chomsky's Understanding Power, it's this one.  The muddling of language is caused by, and causes, the muddling of thought.  Abuses of power-relations are just one of the results.  Both the pioneer of linguistics and a leading proponent of a neo-Aristotelian, objective approach to concepts can agree on that.

I said in my original strike-announcement that my blog would "shut off" after today.  I'm not ready to do that just yet; at minimum I'll have a grace period, perhaps 90 days.  (What I am doing for sure is withholding, indefiitely, future mental products from public circulation.)  I think the probability is somewhere around 50/50 that there are roughly 420 pages worth of page-turner material in this here blog, and it would be kind of a shame to delete it immediately from public view, though I think it's only a preview of what could be to come.  As of now, though, it's arguably roughly 420 pages worth of page-turner material available for free, which is really about all I'm willing to just give out up to this point in time, without my stated conditions being met.  This does leave me with one monetizing option I may well use to help support my future work: making the existing contents of my blog available (perhaps in eBook form) only for paying customers, probably at $4.20 a shot.  Maybe it will be available only to members of an online Ultimate Gulch I might be setting up.  (Now taking applications; there's one entrant so far....) Would that be "cheating" on my "strike" commitment?  I don't think so, but I don't give too much of a shit about that; it's the product of my mind to do with as I please, and it's future production that non-Gulchers would be missing out on.

All this does raise a question: am I setting up some kind of Catch-22 situation?  That is to say, don't the conditions I've set forth require a fairly rapid progress in the direction of the cultural singularity, whereas publication of future products of my mind would supposedly speed up that very progress?  Hell, I think leaving that as an exercise to this blog's readers should make things a bit more interesting for all concerned.

Anyway, if a dedicated reader were to mentally integrate all my existing blog postings into a single unit, I'm roughly 100% confident that he or she would come away with the essentials necessary to grasp that perfectivism is the philosophy of the future, which is to say that Ayn Rand's ideas are the wave of the future, which is to say that America's intellectual status quo is unacceptable.  (And, as advanced students of Objectivism are well aware, it's all about method - integration - and only derivatively about individualism and capitalism which the cowardly and/or ignorant preservers of the status quo are so fearful of.)  My future mental products will only build upon the essentials set forth in this blog, which is to say, they should be pretty fucking awesome.  But a shit-ton of promising leads are already contained herein; all one has to do is pursue them, and to think.

I, for one, am optimistic about what is to come, whatever it may be and however it happens.  I think it'll end up being a lot of fun for a great many concerned.  As far as I can tell, my going on strike will be for the best when all is said and done.  If there's anything my perfectivist mindset has taught me, it's how seemingly unfortunate circumstances can be turned into a positive; I notice parallels in the martial arts tradition, when it comes to using an opponent's strength to one's advantage.  Sure, I set a goal some months back for today, and fell short.  But it's like Jordan said, you use that as an opportunity to improve and, ultimately, to succeed.

In connection with this blog posting's title: In briefest essentials, the past, present and future of true and correct ethical philosophy is contained right there in "Perfectivism: an Introduction."

And so, with that, I can't think of anything more of importance to add to what I've said already.  Catch y'all on the flip side?

(and obligatory musical accompaniment :-p)

ULTIMATE CLIFFHANGER: Will UP write his entire book on Perfectivism while stoned?

Problem, America? ;-)

Links for the day (with relevance to the eventual Aristotelian/perfectivist cultural singularity)

(A note on terminology: The "cultural singularity" would basically be the vast majority of people adopting an "Aristotelian-Jeffersonian-Randian" way of life.)

1) On the 14th of this month, I promised something on the subject of "force, alienation, and the dialectical tradition."  (April 15th in America is a date widely noted for the federal government's use of physical compulsion or force against its citizens, see, and so the timing seemed appropriate.  Alas, I've been busy, hence the delay.)  In relation to that grouping of subjects, I floated this posting over at the philosophy subreddit (but, /r/philosophy being such a joke, it got next to no traction there, and it even received a downvote from an anonymous coward, probably an anti-Rand one if that forum's history is any guide).  Perfectivism, of course, urges the student of P/perfectivism to present the best theory he or she possibly can, with due engagement with the philosophical tradition.  This linked posting represents the state-of-the-art in such a process of dialectic.  Methinks that forums like /r/philosophy may very well just have to learn the hard way, whatever that turns out to be.

2) "What would Socrates do?"  A review by Naomi Schaefer Riley of the late Earl Shorris's The Art of Freedom, in today's Wall Street Journal.  I like how, in Shorris's Western-humanities curriculum which some idiots criticized as culturally imperialist, he opted for the likes of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty over African cultural studies.  Doesn't that rather conclusively demonstrate how some cultures are objectively superior to (i.e., more advanced than) others?  English culture gave rise to On Liberty; to what, comparably speaking, did African culture give rise?   (American culture, meanwhile, gave rise to The Fountainhead and Google.  America, fuck yeah!)  My, how easily the idiots can miss a point....

Note: Three days until I go on strike.  I'm thinking 4:20 p.m. on 4/20.  Whatever verbal rivers of gold that any of my saganized cognition generates thereafter may be my exclusive private domain indefinitely, unless or until the eminently reasonable conditions I've set forth are met.  I haven't ruled out forming some kind of "Ultimate Gulch" along with high standards for admission, however....

One month to go: 4/20/2013

4/20, which should in a just world come to be remembered as Cannabis Freedom Day, is the day I have set for when I go on strike (namely, ceasing publication of this blog and withholding any further products of my mind from public circulation) unless the eminently reasonable demands I have set forth here are met.

I want also to reiterate the point I made here, concerning this nation's monumentally stupid (i.e., in the terms I used there, fucking ridiculous) and anti-American drug policies.  We have a head of state who has unashamedly sold out his own youthful party base, for no explicitly stated reason, since no reasons are being so much as offered these days by the anti-American, freedom-hating prohibitionist segment of this nation.  All the good ideas in circulation are on the legalization (for adults 21 and over) side, and what's more, any sober and honest observers of today's political scene know this beyond any reasonable doubt.  It's a goddamn shame that the head of state, a former University of Chicago lecturer in constitutional law, hasn't either the decency to voice a bully-pulpit opposition to these disgraceful drug policies or the courage to come out and explain himself to the American people when his drug czar says he's going to continue enforcing the idiotic federal drug policies in those states where majorities have voted for sensible legalization.

And this is one of only several no-brainer issues (see my list of demands) that the political Establishment - save for a few good apples in a rotten, rotten bunch - is either too ignorant or too malicious to so much as lift a finger to address.  Anyone with a lick of sense knows that Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine wouldn't stand for this disgraceful state of affairs for a single minute, that what we have now is a bastardization of the nation's founding ideals - and a thoroughly pointless and unnecessary bastardization at that.  It defies common sense (a favored ideal among the Framers and supporting authors).

Many signs point today toward a crumbling republic.  We now have a gross federal debt meeting or exceeding the nation's Gross Domestic Product, a situation seen only once before in the nation's history - at the end of World War II, when the U.S.'s position of dominance in the world was locked in for decades to come.  We don't have that today.  We have a population falling behind in global competitiveness, due to a decadent culture which fails to convincingly promote intellectual values.  This is due in good part to an intellectual class that has - in a way that is quite self-aware, I'll add - made itself all too irrelevant to the "mundane" concerns of the people, and which has failed to achieve even in the modest task of incorporating Aristotelianism squarely into the curriculum.  We have a political Establishment corrupted by money and ignorance.  We have a ticking fiscal time bomb to the tune of $107 trillion (present value) that our politicians have no idea how to defuse.  There's a looming retirement crisis to go along with that $107 trillion time-bomb in the old-age-insurance schemes.  We're pretty much at the mercy of whatever climate change happens in the coming decades, with too many global-warming-denialists and downright lazy sonsofbitches around for there to have been intellectual energies directed toward contingency plans by now.  We have the Chinese already choking in their own smog, which is sure to have ripple effects that will hit home one way or another.  We have theocratic regimes hell-bent on getting nukes, in an age when theocracy and dictatorship as such should easily have been relegated to the dustbin of history.  And so on.

Our potential saving grace will be the wonders of technology, but we can only be best assured to win the race with the coming Cluster Fuck if we actualize the human potential that makes such wonders possible: the human intellect.  Aristotle had some choice things to say about that subject, words which we as a culture ignore or overlook at our own peril.  There are modern-day neo-Aristotelians that have been shouting this theme from the rooftops, only to be marginalized and shunned by the very intellectual class that's supposed to be promoting the interests of the people, to be serving as the guardians and integrators of human knowledge.  Whatever else people of all different creeds believe and/or disagree about, there can be no reasonable disagreement with or disbelief in something all true wisdom-lovers would agree with, and that's the vital need to maximally actualize our intellectual potentialities.  It's the key to everything else of positive value in human life, the basic principle of a defensible ethics, the underlying solution to socio-political challenges, the basis for cultural flourishing.  From the standpoint of this philosopher, it's a no-brainer, the basis of all received wisdom ("common sense") throughout human history, a principle that should permeate ethical, social, cultural and political life like it's second nature.  Jefferson and Franklin grasped it (what would this nation's history be like without these two?); philosophers as such pretty much endorse it implicitly if not explicitly as a way of life; educators grasp it well enough to grasp the importance of their profession; scientists, inventors, and visionaries grasp it well enough to be in the line of work they're in.  Cultivating human intelligence should be our highest priority, whatever other admirable priorities we have.  And yet, where and when do we ever hear this theme being broadcast loud and clear, affirmed loud and clear by individuals of our acquaintance, and so on?  If it were a widely-received cultural norm, I think we'd know about it - and experience its life-enhancing effects - by now.  So, whence this disconnect?

For the next month, I will make it a task to diagnose, to uncover the source of, this disconnect, for therein lies the way to a sweeping solution.  Who knows what I'll uncover by then, or what is to happen after that calendar date.  One can only hope that cannabis will be minimally available to me during this period of time, to expand the range of cognitive opportunities - just as Jefferson (and, in all likelihood, Thoreau) would have wanted, of course.

Today

January 20, 2013.  This marks the three-month point on the countdown to The Ultimate Cliff.  Woohoo! :-D

On a related point, what is the newly-inaugurated head of state going to do about legalizing cannabis for all American adults?  Question: given our head of state's racially-diverse cosmetic makeup, how can he continue to just sit by silently while the openly and unapologetically racist drug war continues unabated?  Where's Yeezy?  Shouldn't he be calling out the head of state on this crucial matter on behalf of all his niggas?  (SPIRITED WARRIOR SOUL: "This is what happens, Barry, when you fuck your own constituency in the ass!" smash smash smash)

A brief recap of the no-brainer items for avoiding the 4/20 Ultimatum set by yours truly:

(1) Legalization on Lockean-Jeffersonian-Paineist grounds (necessarily coupled with a comprehensive program to responsibly inform people on the benefits and risks of cannabinoid intake), or an 'Occupy 4/20' deal involving mass public possession or consumption of cannabis in nonviolent protest of prohibitionist insanity.

(2) A good-faith move toward a process of accountability for CIA acts of torture, sodomy and killing of detainees.  Many of these activities are so beyond the pale of human decency, so disgusting, that they'd make Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson puke their fucking guts out if they knew it was done under the auspices of the stars and stripes; no question about it.

[At the end of his article linked above discussing the killing of CIA detainees, Greenwald mentions that the night before, Clint Eastwood had a spectacular stream-of-consciousness episode at the Republic National Convention.  Guess which story the mainstream cable-news media devoted shit-tons of time to covering in the following day(s), and which story they made every effort to sweep under the rug.  Mother. FUCKERS.]

(3) Marriage equality.

(Speaking of which, why did it take the head of state more than two years after the appearance of Olson's un-rebutted Newsweek article for him to "evolve" toward common sense on the issue?  What's the hold-up?  Quit stalling, motherfucker!  Olson's case is the reason the anti-equality side has been ground into the dirt in the courts, venues in which solid argument and evidence - as opposed to Santorumesque idiocy - are the decisive factors.  I'd venture to guess that support for marriage equality among philosophers is somewhere north of 99%.)

(4) A good-faith move by our elected national leaders toward facilitating a mideast peace process in the spirit of Taba.  There's no fucking reason why mideast carpet-pissers should continue to run the show they way they've been doing.

(5) A good-faith move by elected leaders to work toward implementing an age-appropriate philosophically-grounded education for students K-12 in the nation's schools.  Jefferson, Franklin, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others (even today's educators themselves, I should think!) would be on board with that idea, so don't fuck the memories of these great people in the ass, elected leaders!

(6) A good-faith effort by our elected leaders to move toward outlawing grotesquely inhumane factory-farming processes.  At the very least they could stop using taxpayer dollars to subsidize it, for crying out fucking loud.

(7) Full and explicit repudiation by political and corporate (Dow 30 if not S&P 500) leaders of the all-too-familiar demoralizing and cynical culture of corporatism and cronyism stinking up the place in this country.  (BTW, "crony capitalism" is a term Ayn Rand wouldn't tolerate for a fucking second, for (EPISTEMOLOGICAL) reasons that everyone should know by now: anti-concept, frozen abstraction, package-dealing, concept-stealing, context-dropping, the art of smearing, anti-euphemism, you name it.  It's all there in the Lexicon.)

(8) Good faith effort by the national elected leaders and other culturally-significant standard-bearers to integrate leading minds such as Noam Chomsky into the mainstream national discourse.  Ideally, Chomsky would be offered a prime-time slot on one or more cable news networks, which would enhance most amazingly the intellectual credibility of their opinion programming, and even enhance their own bottom lines.  There's nothing for them or anyone to fear from an honest exchange of ideas - nothing.  Private capitalist ownership is too popular in this nation for Chomsky to pose any remotely plausible threat to that.  But he may well pose a threat to the perverse status quo that empowers, enriches and rewards the power-elites who engage in shitty, unaccountable behavior that victimizes and marginalizes people at home and around the world and needlessly tarnishes America's image and moral credibility.

(9) Serious effort underway to bring full fairness and accountability to the exchange of ideas among the nation's leading ideas-merchants in a way that is relevant and beneficial to the People, who depend on them as specialists to do their fucking job for the benefit of society (which is, of course, not limited to teaching dues-paying students).  That most definitely means confronting the Randian challenge to the intellectual status quo; the people would like and deserve to know, in terms that would make Aristotle himself proud, why so many professional intellectuals have snubbed her.  Sgt. Hartmann's line about that head being so sanitary and squared-away that even the Virgin Mary herself would be proud to go in there and take a dump is apropos in its parallels.  (I'm the Sgt. Hartmann of this here show, of course.)

At least these items.  My other Ultimate Cliff demands I'll rescind for the time being but retain the prerogative to bring back, modify, amend, add to, etc (with amply fair warning prior to 4/20 of course).  My prerogative, because none of y'alls fucking owns me, stinky wishful anti-Jeffersonian myths wafting about notwithstanding.

I expect to have fun these next three months; how 'bout all you slimy little maggot-infested scumbags?  Perhaps by then you, too, will pack the gear to serve in my beloved corps.

"Hi folks, welcome to the party. What took you so long?"

Establishment Philosophy vs. individualism

An exercise in the spiral:

If one googles 'individualism philosophy' one finds the same state of things, essentially, as what I pointed out nearly two years ago - a near-complete lack of interest among academic moral and political philosophers in individualism (and especially among the most "elite" of them - e.g., Oxford/NYU/Harvard's Derek Parfit, who also - mind-bogglingly - neglects Aristotle, eudaimonia, and virtue-ethics in his "state of the art," Oxford-published "magnus opus" on ethics).  This is a widespread corruption in the Intellectual Establishment, constituting an intellectual and moral betrayal of the American people and of the nation's founding ideals.  My observations remain as spot-on accurate now as they did then; spiral progression in the two years since has only further enhanced and solidified these findings.

I think the American people would like to know why this near-complete neglect of individualism is taking place in the Academic Establishment, wouldn't they?

There is an ominous parallel here to a culture- and polity-wide corruption in the Establishment - not in the universities (in this particular case) but in media and in government - when it comes to Noam Chomsky's near-complete absence from political discourse and exposure in (American) mass-media venues (outside of the internet, that is).

What I observe here are cultures of evasion, in which truth and justice are unpopular and inconvenient with regard to the status quo.

I don't think the Framers would stand for this status quo for one fucking second.

Do you?

As Walter Sobchak might very well have said, there's no reason - there's no FUCKing reason - for the national situation to be this way, or to stay this way.  One need only look at the complete failure of intellectual, moral, and political leadership in our nation's Legislative and Executive branches at doing the obviously-right fucking thing on cannabis legalization, to know our polity is a broken one.  I know it, you know it, and the American People (should damn well) know it.  Here we have overwhelming evidence and reasons for why cannabis should be legalized yesterday; we have a majority of the People showing support for its legalization according to polls; all logic, right, truth, and justice point in that direction; the de facto racist nature of the War on Drugs should sting at the conscience of everyone; the prison-industrial complex built up around this vicious War should likewise sting at everyone's consciousness; and, yet, no action from our national leaders.  The Democrat Establishment is no less corrupt in its ongoing support of this President despite the obviously-racist effects of the Drug Policies which he enforces (or does he?) and - worse - remains dubiously silent about in the face of all the evidence.

All this, no thanks to the Intellectual Class, and its culture of evasion and stagnation.  As the Intellectuals go, so goes the country - just as Rand said.

Do these Intellectuals even begin to wonder why even the leading one of their own, MIT's Prof. Chomsky, is nearly absent from America's public discourse?

It's their own fault, after all, having made philosophy almost totally irrelevant to ordinary citizens.

It so happens that Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom would be of more interest in meaning-of-life terms to the ordinary people, than would Quine's "Two Dogmas" article.  That's just a fact.  While that should (of course) not be construed to denigrate what Quine et al have been doing, it is a severe problem when meaning-of-life issues are neglected by the Philosophical Establishment in the process.  (The Existentialists and Rand were addressing fundamental meaning-of-life questions well over half a century ago, at a time that Academic Philosophy was going out of its way to be as irrelevant as ever to the People and is only now catching up in the meaning-of-life area - a task which can't even be addressed all that well as long as Rand and individualism remain largely neglected.  That's just a fact.)

Perhaps it's high (ahem) time that someone, somewhere, founded an alternate Academy, as individual philosophers did way back in the day - only perhaps the term "academy" should be dropped altogether given the disrepute that has been brought upon that term by institutional insiders, and replaced with something along the lines of "lyceum".  Just a hunch.

Am I wrong?

(Why does taking on an entire Philosophical Establishment feel like shooting fish in a barrel?  Is it supposed to feel that way?  Is that how Rand - who was decades ahead of her time in the virtue-ethics department - felt, too?  Is that why so many in the Establishment hate Rand?  A frightfully high number of these entities don't seem to give a shit what Gotthelf and the Ayn Rand Society have to say about her, either.  These aren't worthy fucking adversaries.  [A notable exception is one John M. Cooper of Princeton, a preeminent scholar of ancient philosophy and chair of a recent Ayn Rand Society program, "Ayn Rand as Aristotelian" (2005).  Perhaps the ancients had more noble ideas about how to carry out philosophical discourse and make it relevant to people's lives?])

P.S. Aw, fuck it; spiraling back to this subject, I'll go ahead and perfectively fortify my observations as follows: Prof. Leiter is a vicious piece of shit.  That motherfucker had better retract and apologize for his appalling treatement of Rand and Rand-scholars, or else.  (See item #9 here.)  One might think a simple concern about one's long-term intellectual and moral credibility would lead to such a retraction and apology, irrespective of my threat to go on strike beginning 4/20, because his (and his vile little cronies') credibility will be ruined long-term - whatever happens - if they don't.  Whatever his academic accomplishment, the man is a disgrace.  Maybe some of his colleagues could light a fire under his rotund posterior and improve their own reputations in the process.  The American People are not going to take kindly to this unbelievable shit once they find out what their most vocal intellectuals have been saying and doing these past years and decades to stonewall progress.  Once again: as the intellectuals go, so goes the nation.  (A recent Leiter entry has him whining about capitalism, yet again, whereas the solution to our nation's economic and existential problems lies in an Aristotelian eudaimonist intellectual perfection.  Why the fuck doesn't he at least advocate that?  [Of course, that would mean getting cornered like a rat for his treatment of Rand, all the same.  Maybe that's why?]  He complains all the goddamn time about America's intellectual and cultural dysfunction, but then shits all over Rand and capitalism without providing any real alternative answers.  Fuck 'em!)

P.P.S. reddit's /r/philosophy and I have a date Wednesday (tomorrow), baby!  Woo!!!

4/20/2013: Time for Plan B

(The Ultimate Cliff - has a nice ring to it, dunnit?)

Aw, fuck it.  Seeing as I'm getting nothing as of yet from the President or his carpet-pissing goons in response to my open violation and defiance of this country's insane drug laws ("The little prick is stonewalling me"), and seeing as I can exercise the "virtue of patience" for only so long given the needlessly fucking ridiculous state of things, I'm moving forward with a new deal, take it or leave it (and pray I don't alter the deal any further).

Here's what's gonna happen:

On 4/20/2013 I go on strike.  This blog shuts off indefinitely.  The river of gold ceases to flow.  Unless . . . the following demands are met:

(1) That cannabis be legalized for all adults 21 and over in the United States, accompanied by a sensible cannabis-education program outlining the benefits and hazards of cannabis use and discouraging its use among still-cognitively-developing minors (with fact-informed parental supervision and discretion for its use, etc. etc. etc.).  Anything short of this will make the Baby Sagan cry.

(2) On the condition that demand 1 isn't met by April 1: That all government tax forms save for filing extension forms are removed from all government buildings, websites, etc.  I don't care if the government itself does this or a band of guerilla activists does so; I really just don't give a shit.

(3) That a credible 'Occupy 4/20' movement is organized if the first two demands are not met.  'Occupy' gathering places shall smell to high heaven either of fresh dank bud in the possession of all those attending (thereby violating applicable federal and state laws en masse and overwhelming enforcement resources), or of billowing clouds from the smoked product.  I really don't give a shit which it smells like, though the latter would be really cool.  Legendary toker Bob Marley said to stand up for your rights; well, fucking do it, then!

(4) A seriously credible process of accountability for CIA acts of torture is underway.

(5) "If you will it, it is no dream": Serious and credible efforts by our government to encourage an endgame for the mideast peace process in the spirit of the Taba Summit.  The rest of us are fucking sick and tired of hearing about this pointless craziness on the news.  If this is too unacceptable for the right-wing fundamentalists here or over there, tough shit; it's time they got reasonable along with everyone else.  The only "end times" that are a'coming are the cultural and technological singularities, so deal with it, assholes.

(6) A serious and credible plan in place for instituting age-appropriate neo-Aristotelian and neo-Enlightenment philosophy curricula at all levels K-12 and beyond in our public schools beginning fall semester 2013, including Peikoff-lecture-course-aided study of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.  It's fucking ridiculous that this isn't happening already, seeing as how Ayn Rand is becoming a significant part of the national discourse (the power of ideas, just as she said) and yet the public is mind-boggingly ignorant (no thanks to key figures in the Philosophy Profession) of what Rand and Objectivism are all about.  Unless or until people realize what caliber of heroic intellectual efficacy it takes to compose something like "This is John Galt Speaking," our work is not done here.  (That would take actually reading and comprehending the goddamn thing rather than skipping over it like our President among many others did.)  There are plenty of promising, uh, leads toward such a curriculum in this blog, on the sidebar, and in my Blogger profile.

Such a curriculum shall be aimed at the primary task of critical thinking and lifelong, independent learning with the explicit emphasis on maximally actualizing individuals' intellectual potentialities.  The cultural and technological progress that would ensue from such an enhancement of the human ethos would be fucking mind-blowing.  The school environments for the students (remember all the downsides of the K-12 experience? the bullying? the cliques? the popularity contests at the expense of truth and justice? etc.) would also dramatically improve almost overnight.

Also, there should be a solid program of economic education in place in the very near future so that people can understand the dynamics of globalization, and how we have to adapt and be resilient in the face of such rather than be stagnant and complacent.  People may then understand why the jobs got off-shored (to more needy peoples, BTW) and seemingly "won't be coming back," while the corporations and rich U.S. residents continue more or less on their pre-1973 path.  That would help to clear up a lot of misunderstandings and confusions (no thanks to Marxist idiots) about the nature and evolution of capitalism in the present age, and get the Occupy crowd focused more on things like self-empowerment rather than (domestic) wealth-redistribution.  You'd think that, 237 years after Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, people would at long last be well-versed in thinking like an economist (or businessman!), but obviously there is work to be done.

(7) Serious and credible discussions in place for establishing world peace and using nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes.  Since Iran is known to lie to infidels and sponsor terrorism it cannot be trusted to go forward with its enrichment program without full no-bullshit access and supervision by qualified nuclear inspectors. The world should be fully behind the West's decisions on how to make this access and supervision happen, including a military option to target suspected weapons facilities for termination.

All plain common sense so far, ain't it?  Let's continue in that vein:

(8) The following individuals are offered full tenured Professorships in Philosophy at prestigious institutions of higher learning: Brad Aisa, Robert H. Bass, Miles Benham, Roger Bissell, Harry Binswanger, Chris Cathcart, Allan Gotthelf, R. Kevin Hill, Diana Hsieh, James S. Klein, Richard Lawrence, Roderick T. Long, Robert and Amy Nasir, David Rych, Leonard Peikoff, Gregory Salmieri, William Stearns, Joseph Tucker, Don Watkins, and (last but not least) rateyourmusic's UlyssesRex (a true sage, he), and any others of my choosing as and when they come to mind.  I personally vouch ("my highest possible recommendation") for their ability to communicate philosophical ideas and ideals effectively to students of philosophy.  (Some of them may need some polishing but they're pretty much already there and are very fast learners.)  Consider this an Ultimate Letter of Recommendation.  What's more, these individuals are all very well-versed in Rand and Rand-interpretation, and that will prove to be hugely important in the months and years to come.  The politics involved in getting tenured in philosophy these days is fucking ridiculous and clearly biased against non-left-liberals.

(9) A full and unequivocal mea culpa from Brian Leiter and various and sundry other academic "philosophers" for their outrageous and unjust treatment of Ayn Rand and Rand-scholars over the years.  Call this Accountability for Evasion.

(10) A serious and credible national discussion well underway to eliminate manifestly inhumane factory-farming practices for raising food animals.  Rights under a Lockean interpretation do not license humans to abuse other creatures in such a fashion; moreover, humans have a right to intervene on behalf of animals' welfare when others are abusing them.  Wholesome and organic - the "classic" way - of raising food animals may still be permitted though that should most definitely be on the table for discussion as well.

(11) Serious and credible proactive action plans on the part of corporate entities for improving the work environment and morale of employees.  (I do believe that in an eminently realistically achievable neo-Aristotelian utopia people will learn all about self-empowerment so that they don't have to depend on corporations for a job.)  The prevailing politics of backstabbing, lackeying, and rewarded-mediocrity in corporations should be fully and explicitly repudiated, in favor of honesty, justice, rewarded-ability, etc.

(12) That the ideas of public intellectuals such as the legendary Noam Chomsky are front-and-center in the national discussion rather than (mind-boggingly) relegated to the periphery in favor of mediots like Hannity.  Fox should at least offer Chomsky a one-hour prime-time slot in place of Hannity; its intellectual credibility would skyrocket overnight.  Or maybe MSNBC would sweep in first....

(13) Marriage equality.

I might think up more demands as time goes on, but I think you get the basic picture here.

If America leads and sets the examples in all these areas, I think the rest of the world will be sure to follow.

We have over three months - exactly three months from the president's second Inauguration Day - to set all this in motion; I think that should be plenty of time for people to get their shit together on such no-brainer issues.  I've grown weary of trying to spread these ideas all on my own, so some of you fine readers will have to do your part as well, since I presume you would love to see self- and world-improvement also.

I'll finish for now with this:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/benevolent_universe_premise.html

Best premises! :-)

In the queue: "Cannabis and cognition"

:-D ^_^

Teaser: Imagine the School of Athens painting, only all of 'em are baked.

heeee

This is your Captain speaking: This is where it gets really mind-blowing, folks.  Fasten your cognitive seatbelts.

So, uh, welcome to the party.   Where ya been all this time?  :-D

Now let's make The Ultimate Cliff. :-D

Am I wrong?

Am I wrong?

Human rights court: CIA 'tortured, sodomized' terror suspect. Also: 4/20/2013, a Cannabis Cliff?

The CIA torture-'n'-sodomizing news item.

In a society where words and ideas get twisted in Orwellian ways, the term "terror suspect" is equated in the mind of the average sheep/boob with "terrorist."  What else could explain how the American People rationalize or plainly ignore morally outrageous actions committed by their own government?  There's a cognitive bias - I forget what it's called right off-hand - in which people will condone actions by their in-group which they condemn when committed by the out-group.  The psychologists apparently have a tendency to reduce massive cognitive deficits such as this to "cognitive bias," though as a philosopher and moralist I leave open the very real possibility that this can be reduced to willful evasion or malice in many instances.  Some of the more vile right-wing nationalist types will chant "American exceptionalism" and "God bless America!" while all this goes on; a God-blessed America wouldn't dare torture, now, would it?  Hence the (willful?) cognitive blinders when the evidence pops up and stares them right in the face.  Many others would rather just not be inconvenienced with facing up to this reality and doing something about it.

However you cut it, it's fucking disgusting.  What would Jefferson think?

On a related note, Greenwald breaks down the new film directed by Katheryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) about the CIA's (Orwellian obfuscation coming) Enhanced Interrogation Program.  What an inconvenient time for this human rights court to issue its ruling!  The fucks in Washington are thinking, "Okay, how do we go into damage control?" and not "How do we hold our leaders and officials accountable for their acts of torture?"  That's just how fucks in Washington think these days.

Meanwhile, the fucks in Congress keep cannabis illegal and DOMA the law of the land, for no good reason whatsoever in both instances.  We've got crazy ignorant fucks from a gerrymandered majority (of course, the honest and common sense thing to do about drawing up congressional districts would be to assign that responsibility to an independent entity) running the House science committee.  We've got yet another stupid "fiscal cliff" coming in good part because the Republicans are being dishonest fucks about the economic effects of their preferred tax policies, and refuse to take a hint from the fact that voters rejected the plutocrats' open and unabashed efforts to buy the presidency outright.  (Can you just imagine how fucks like Hannity and the rest of the talking heads at the official propaganda outlet of the GOP would react if Dems suppressed a study like that?)  Isn't it high time the fucks were run out of town, or something?  Who the fuck keeps electing these fucks, anyway?

Reader, what do you think?  What does your conscience tell you ought to be done?

Speaking of political cliffs, should 4/20/2013 be designated as the Cannabis Cliff, I wonder?  The scenario churning in my mind for a while now has involved massive crowd of stoners showing up at all the major monuments in D.C., paying tribute to the real patriots who founded this nation, and lighting up en masse.  Wouldn't fucking matter whether the rascals in Congress got around to doing the sensible thing by then, or not.  It would just be a deadline playing upon the Cliff theme - a favorite in D.C., as we know too well - and then, on 4/20, no matter what, a shit-ton of cannabis goes up in smoke right across the street from the rascals.  Maybe the cool political leaders would join their fellow patriots out on the smoking areas.  (An alternative scenario is playing upon that same Cliff theme by setting that as the legalization deadline and then let the political brinksmanship ensue; the threat to light up en masse would be the pro-freedom side's bargaining chip in that case.  But why not light up even if it's legalized, in celebration?  Yet another alternative scenario - if this idea cannot be implemented in that time - is for various people around the country to smoke out in front of their local federal courthouses and turn it into a legal spectacle in which the outrageous drug laws are challenged on Ninth Amendment grounds.  Then the drug laws can be unequivocally exposed as the travesty that they are in the full light and court of public opinion.)  Can you just imagine the glorious spectacle of a massive billowing cloud of fragrant, aromatic dank smoke engulfing the Washington Monument?  4/20/2013 is a weekend day, by the way.  And it could be observed and celebrated as a national holiday every 4/20 weekend thereafter (perhaps as an adults-only event since a sound legalization policy would involve a responsible-cannabis-use educational program; yes, one day out of 365 the kiddies wouldn't get to access the monuments but they would learn an unbelievably valuable lesson in freedom and citizen action, and they could always plan around that day; perhaps even better yet: leave it up to the parents whether to bring their kids along?).  National Dank Day it could be called.  Free fucking country and all that.  Now the question is whether Jon Stewart, the Hollywood Crowd, true 'tea party' patriots, and sympathetic supporters could get on board with arranging this very thing to happen.  The cynical cable news networks could make a huge theatrical production out of it, don't you think?  I think the scenario would be fucking AWESOME.  Anyway, just throwing some ideas out there for the time being.  Maybe the good guys in the game of 4/20 chicken could throw in other eminently reasonable demands, like having CIA torturers and sodomizers, and their enablers, actually being held accountable for their actions.  Nice idea regardless, innit?

(Obviously I have way too much time on my hands sitting around and thinking up shit like this.  The availability of trees doesn't help any, either.)

Books, CDs, and DVDs as units

This blog entry's subject is unit-economy.  Its theme is: unit-economy as key to cognition.

(I'm writing this in a Saganized state.)

I was looking down at a hard copy of Morton Hunt's The Story of Psychology and it finally hit me in a completed/perfected form: Books (i.e., their entire contents) as units.  Then I generalized to other units in my immediate sensory vicinity - CDs and DVDs, meticulously organized to criteria I won't go into here at this point in time.  (Dramatic intrigue to ensue; see P.S. below [currently in my mind but yet to put down on digital screen].)

The Hunt book was grouped in with other "empirical psychology" books.  They can be grouped together as units in that regard in accordance with conceptually fundamental similarities.  (See: Rand, "Fundamentality, Rule of" which I see is right over there in the large white-cover well-worn copy of The Ayn Rand Lexicon, similarly grouped in with other concepts according to fundamental-level similarities (which I won't name at this point in time - dramatic intrigue, again).  This process of generalizing falls, I think, under the general category of "induction."  (Now I look over at the Harriman book and also physical copies of Peikoff's "Objectivism Through Induction," which I've barely even listened to yet.)

(I've just had another important unit enter my perceptual field, but I'm sure as shit not going to tell all of you right now.  Just a moment.)

Gist: The task now is to condense (units and concepts being condensatins of concretes, with mental units serving as concretes with respect to higher-level integrations/condensations) all the units in my perceptual view, as well as all those other higher-level units rolling around in the ol' noggin), into a philosophically compelling, dramatic narrative to culminate a few months from now.

P.S. 4/20/2013.  "Mark it, Dude."  Possible title: There Will be Bud.  Details to come, of course.  (Are you hooked on my every word yet?  I know I am. :-)

P.P.S. I think I can present a pretty good case against digitizing much less pirating all information/entertainment units. ;-)

P.P.P.S. Ain't integration fun? / You can't refute perfectivism. :-)

P.P.P.P.S. What Would Howard Stern/Seth MacFarlane/David Shore Do?  shifaced

P.P.P.P.P.S. UP asks: So am I the first to figure all this out or am I just now catching up with everyone else?  (Hi there year 2100 readers! :-D )  lmao

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Best 10 bucks I ever spent lol.  Plenty more material where that came from. :-o

A goal: total cannabis legalization by 4/20/2013

[UPDATED below.]

(Stimulated in part by the insanity of this news item.  Something something Mark Twain quotation.)

Completely legalized in all of the United States for all adults 21 and over (unless we want to be wink-wink hypocrites by making it nominally 21 while acknowledging that college kids starting freshman year will do it; do we want to be fucking wink-wink hypocrites or do we want to be reality-observant like Aristotle?).

The only question is how to make this happen.  (The ironic part is that formulating strategy for swift-as-possible legalization would itself be aided by cannabis-induced semantic priming.)

I think there is already a basis for pot legalization in the Ninth Amendment.  What would Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, Locke, Sagan, Marley ("Get up, stand up..."), the Coens, Kanye, Glenn Greenwald and plain old common sense say/do?  If consuming cannabis in the privacy of one's home poses no clear or present danger to the security or well-being of others or self, then prima facie we have a pre-political, nature- or God-given right to do so, which government is instituted to secure.  It's plain, simple, and common sense - something we don't see enough of in the world, unfortunately.  (A compromise measure would leave cannabis prohibition up to the states - a Tenth Amendment thing - but at the very least the wise tactic is to go into negotiations demanding as much as you can reasonably demand.  And I rather like the appeal to Sagan and Marley on natural-rights and common-sense grounds.)

There also needs to be a common-sense plan in place for educating people about the benefits and hazards of cannabis use.  (Available data indicate that it's not a good idea, in terms of cognitive development, for people in their teens to use weed - not frequently or in large amounts, anyhow.)  In fact, such an educational program should be a required condition of cannabis legalization, because we don't want a big fuck-up.  We don't want such legalization to go bad for no good reason, and then get blamed for problems that ensue from irresponsible use or what have you.  The cognitive benefits (when used responsibly) as explained by Sagan need to be brought to the fore of the public's consciousness.  (Something something semantic priming.)  It's fucking Carl Sagan, man!  There's no reason for anything he wrote to languish in obscurity.  (Exhibit B of what's gone the hell wrong with this country.)  The other health benefits are all well and good, but we have a planet to save from possible ecological collapse, and/or a technological singularity to reach ASAFP, and we need all the cognition-boosting resources at our avail to make this happen.

That, and a thorough, age-appropriate education in philosophy for as many citizens as possible, as soon as possible.  (Might not happen by 4/20/2013, but the future is not determined . . .)

That's pretty much the gist of it in a nutshell.

The nice thing is that there's really no refuting any of it.  (Perfectivism rearing its pretty head again....)  Ah, it's neat having truth, beauty and justice on one's side. :-)

Can we as a nation get our shit together on this issue in a little over five months?  If not, why not?

"Weed is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -UP, with revision from the original saying

UPDATE: Might as well make same-sex marriage the law of the land by 4/20/2013 while we're at it . . .  Then prostitution other capitalist acts between consenting adults?  What Would Jefferson Do?  (The philosophy-education program would probably be higher priority with him, but hey, we're not limited to just one or the other, thank Rand.)

UPDATE: Wouldn't the fucking politicians just love a large-scale cannabis revolt right around April 15?  "Legalize it and then we'll pay up.  Deal?"  (Hell yeah, that's way more than a fair bargain.  Throw the other rights retained by the people in there as well, while we're at it.)

UPDATE: It had slipped my mind by the time I posted this blog entry, but the original Ninth Amendment idea planted in me quite some time ago is rightly credited to Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett.  My "prima facie natural right" formulation above and Barnett's "presumption of liberty" idea amount to essentially the same thing.  (Ain't integration fun? :-) / You can't refute perfectivism. :-) )