“Bread crumbs”(perhaps how you got here)

(Originally posted Saturday, August 9, 2008)

Purportedly from Imperial Stars: Volume 1,
Copyright 1986 by Jerry Pournelle (ISBN: 0671-65603-1).

I have not read the book cited above, nor do I recall ever seeing it. The diagram is supposedly in the book. It is obviously not very sophisticated, but it reflects certain beliefs that became common with the apotheosis of Ronald Reagan and the Glorification of Self -Interest. Specifically, note the following beliefs implied:

• (Upper left quadrant) Ayn Rand's ideas are necessary (presumably, so are Max Stirner's, but I don't know who he was or is). Also, "reason enthroned" (whatever that is) is necessary, but evil. Ultimate evil (whatever that is, again) has a mysterious arrow pointing downwards, maybe to Hell, but it is necessary. Ultimate evil is necessary? For what? Who says? And the various libertarians, whoever they are, are also necessary and evil. Apparently this quadrant stands for "high rationalism, low statism," neither of which are defined, of course.
• (Upper right quadrant, high statism, high rationalism) The communists, socialists, "welfare liberals" (whoever or whatever they are) and "state worship" (whatever that is ) are dangerous but good. That "state worship" is pointed in the opposite direction from "ultimate evil" seems curious, but I can't explain it.
• (Lower left quadrant, low statism, low rationalism) Here we find "American 'Counter Culture'," "Classical Anarchists," and "Irrational." I assume they're all bad, also. None are defined, however, so we don't have to worry.
• (Lower right quadrant, high statism, low rationalism). Here we have "Various Conservatives" (as opposed to those that stay fixed), "Fascists," and, horror of horrors , "Nazis." All presumably bad.

Apparently everyone in this strange little diagram is bad. This does not give us much hope for political culture. What is most interesting to me, however, is the circle "Reason Enthroned." I suppose this must have something to do with the alleged "rationality" of people like Ayn Rand (I see not the slightest evidence of anything that can usefully be considered "rationality" anywhere in her works, but that's probably irrelevant).

The real problem seems to me that we have not even the least hint of what might be "rationality" here. Does this mean that all valid thought must conform to Aristotelian logic? Or do we accept statistics and probability? If so, how about Bayesian statistics? Is all mysticism forbidden? And just what throne is Reason sitting on, anyhow? My guess would be, a toilet.

I am not being frivolous. It is much harder to define "Reason" than one might think, and the pathetic, silly posture of "rationality" in Ayn Rand's works is not even slightly like a useful notion. Her so-called "philosophy" was usually called "Objectivism." The cornerstone of this was the postulation that reality exists independently of the mind, and that reality can be known through the application of suitable methods. Somehow, from this premise, she leaped to the conclusion that "rational self-interest" was the correct notion of good.

There were many great errors in her work. Among them, I note particularly the problem of her weak notion of "perception," which for her was only a kind of extended sensation. Anyone who has seen much social psychological experimentation will have trouble with this. Her concept of reason was that it was "the art of non-contradictory identification." In other words, all she needed was a consistent system of deduction. This seems to leave open an infinity of possible ways to create "reasonable" statements, but not really - she actually only knows Aristotelian logic. Aside from the complaint that this leaves her open to Gödel's problem, it also means that she has no good notion of probability or what it can mean, to say nothing of quantum phenomena. In other words, her work is pretty dreary and not well thought-through.

But it was good enough to fool various people that once thought themselves under pressure to be "conservatives" when liberalism was the fashion. How amusing.

Back to Pournelle's diagram: it does us one service. It separates conservatism-liberalism from statism-libertarianism (here I use the word "libertarianism" in lieu of something clumsier, like "non-statism"). It is quite possible to have statist conservatives (e.g., Dick Cheney) and libertarian liberals (e.g., Gladstone). Anyway, "reason enthroned" seems to be a necessary evil, which I find amusing. If we have to live with Ayn Rand's notions, maybe so, but I'd rather call it a "stupid nuisance."

 All text on this page is the work of J W Durham and is licensed only under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Other licensing terms may be available. E-mail me