Part 22 (1/2)
Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of that which you don't.... It is not a sacrifice to renounce the unwanted. It is not a sacrifice to give your life to others, if death is your personal desire. To achieve the virtue of sacrifice, you must want to live, you must love it, you must burn with pa.s.sion for this earth and for all the splendor it can give you-you must feel the twist of every knife as it slashes your desires away from your reach and drains your love out of your body. It is not mere death that the morality of sacrifice holds out to you as an ideal, but death by slow torture.
[G5, FNI, 172; pb 140.]
You may also find it hard to believe that anyone could advocate the things Kant is advocating. If you doubt it, I suggest that you look up the references given and read the original works. Do not seek to escape the subject by thinking: ”Oh, Kant didn't mean it!” He did....
Kant is the most evil man in mankind's history.
[”Brief Summary,” TO, Sept. 1971, 4.]
Psychological Techniques Kant originated the technique required to sell irrational notions to the men of a skeptical, cynical age who have formally rejected mysticism without grasping the rudiments of rationality. The technique is as follows: if you want to propagate an outrageously evil idea (based on traditionally accepted doctrines), your conclusion must be brazenly clear, but your proof unintelligible. Your proof must be so tangled a mess that it will paralyze a reader's critical faculty-a mess of evasions, equivocations, obfuscations, circ.u.mlocutions, non sequiturs, endless sentences leading nowhere, irrelevant side issues, clauses, sub-clauses and sub-sub-clauses, a meticulously lengthy proving of the obvious, and big chunks of the arbitrary thrown in as self-evident, erudite references to sciences, to pseudo-sciences, to the never-to-be-sciences, to the untraceable and the unprovable-all of it resting on a zero: the absence of definitions. I offer in evidence the Critique of Pure Reason.
[”An Untiled Letter,” PWNI, 141; pb 116.]
If ”genius” denotes extraordinary ability, then Kant may be called a genius in his capacity to sense, play on and perpetuate human fears, irrationalities and, above all, ignorance. His influence rests not on philosophical but on psychological factors.
[”Causality Versus Duty,” PWNI, 117; ph 98.]
The philosophy of Kant is a systematic rationalization of every major psychological vice. The metaphysical inferiority of this world (as a ”phenomenal” world of mere ”appearances”), is a rationalization for the hatred of reality. The notion that reason is unable to perceive reality and deals only with ”appearances,” is a rationalization for the hatred of reason; it is also a rationalization for a profound kind of epistemological egalitarianism which reduces reason to equality with the futile puttering of ”idealistic” dreamers. The metaphysical superiority of the ”noumenal” world, is a rationalization for the supremacy of emotions, which are thus given the power to know the unknowable by ineffable means.
The complaint that man can perceive things only through his own consciousness, not through any other kinds of consciousnesses, is a rationalization for the most profound type of second-handedness ever confessed in print: it is the whine of a man tortured by perpetual concern with what others think and by inability to decide which others he should conform to. The wish to perceive ”things in themselves” unprocessed by any consciousness, is a rationalization for the wish to escape the effort and responsibility of cognition-by means of the automatic omniscience a whim-wors.h.i.+per ascribes to his emotions. The moral imperative of the duty to sacrifice oneself to duty, a sacrifice without beneficiaries, is a gross rationalization for the image (and soul) of an austere, ascetic monk who winks at you with an obscenely s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure-the pleasure of breaking man's spirit, ambition, success, self-esteem, and enjoyment of life on earth. Et cetera. These are just some of the highlights.
[”Philosophical Detection,” PWNI, 22; pb 19.]
See also ALTRUISM; CONCEPTS; DUTY”; FAITH; IDENt.i.tY; KNOWLEDGE; LINGUISTIC a.n.a.lYSIS; LOGIC; LOGICAL POSITIVISM; MODERN ART; MYSTICISM; OBJECTIVITY; PRAGMATISM; PRIMACY of EXISTENCE vs. PRIMACY of CONSCIOUSNESS; RATIONALIZATION; REASON; RELIGION; SACRIFICE; SELF; SELFISHNESS; SELFLESSNESS; SUBJECTIVISM.
Knowledge. ”Knowledge” is ... a mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation.
[ITOE, 45.].
See also CERTAINTY; EPISTEMOLOGY; LOGIC; PERCEPTION; REASON.
L.
Language. In order to be used as a single unit, the enormous sum integrated by a concept has to be given the form of a single, specific, perceptual concrete, which will differentiate it from all other concretes and from all other concepts. This is the function performed by language. Language is a code of visual-auditory symbols that serves the psycho-epistemological function of converting concepts into the mental equivalent of concretes. Language is the exclusive domain and tool of concepts. Every word we use (with the exception of proper names) is a symbol that denotes a concept, i.e., that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind.
(Proper names are used in order to identify and include particular ent.i.ties in a conceptual method of cognition. Observe that even proper names, in advanced civilizations, follow the definitional principles of genus and differentia: e.g., John Smith, with ”Smith” serving as genus and ”John” as differentia-or New York, U.S.A.) [ITOE, 11.].
Concepts represent a system of mental filing and cross-filing, so complex that the largest electronic computer is a child's toy by comparison. This system serves as the context, the frame-of-reference, by means of which man grasps and cla.s.sifies (and studies further) every existent he encounters and every aspect of reality. Language is the physical (visual-audible) implementation of this system.
Concepts and, therefore, language are primarily a tool of cognition-not of communication, as is usually a.s.sumed. Communication is merely the consequence, not the cause nor the primary purpose of concept-formation-a crucial consequence, of invaluable importance to men, but still only a consequence. Cognition precedes communication; the necessary pre-condition of communication is that one have something to communicate. (This is true even of communication among animals, or of communication by grunts and growls among inarticulate men, let alone of communication by means of so complex and exacting a tool as language.) The primary purpose of concepts and of language is to provide man with a system of cognitive cla.s.sification and organization, which enables him to acquire knowledge on an unlimited scale; this means: to keep order in man's mind and enable him to think.
[Ibid., 91.]
The first words a child learns are words denoting visual objects, and he retains his first concepts visually. Observe that the visual form he gives them is reduced to those essentials which distinguish the particular kind of ent.i.ties from all others-for instance, the universal type of a child's drawing of man in the form of an oval for the torso, a circle for the head, four sticks for extremities, etc. Such drawings are a visual record of the process of abstraction and concept-formation in a mind's transition from the perceptual level to the full vocabulary of the conceptual level.
There is evidence to suppose that written language originated in the form of drawings-as the pictographic writing of the Oriental peoples seems to indicate. With the growth of man's knowledge and of his power of abstraction, a pictorial representation of concepts could no longer be adequate to his conceptual range, and was replaced by a fully symbolic code.
[Ibid., 15.]
Language is a conceptual tool-a code of visual-auditory symbols that denote concepts. To a person who understands the function of language, it makes no difference what sounds are chosen to name things, provided these sounds refer to clearly defined aspects of reality. But to a tribalist, language is a mystic heritage, a string of sounds handed down from his ancestors and memorized, not understood. To him, the importance lies in the perceptual concrete, the sound of a word, not its meaning....
The learning of another language expands one's abstract capacity and vision. Personally, I speak four-or rather three-and-a-half-languages: English, French, Russian and the half is German, which I can read, but not speak. I found this knowledge extremely helpful when I began writing: it gave me a wider range and choice of concepts, it showed me four different styles of expression, it made me grasp the nature of language as such, apart from any set of concretes.
(Speaking of concretes, I would say that every civilized language has its own inimitable power and beauty, but the one I love is English-the language of my choice, not of my birth. English is the most eloquent, the most precise, the most economical and, therefore, the most powerful. English fits me best-but I would be able to express my ident.i.ty in any Western language.) [”Global Balkanization,” pamphlet, 8.]
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson ... tells the story of how Annie Sullivan brought Helen Keller to grasp the nature of language....
I suggest that you read The Miracle Worker and study its implications.... this particular play is an invaluable lesson in the fundamentals of a rational epistemology.
I suggest that you consider Annie Sullivan's t.i.tanic struggle to arouse a child's conceptual faculty by means of a single sense, the sense of touch, then evaluate the meaning, motive and moral status of the notion that man's conceptual faculty does not require any sensory experience.
I suggest that you consider what an enormous intellectual feat Helen Keller had to perform in order to develop a full conceptual range (including a college education, which required more in her day than it does now), then judge those normal people who learn their first, perceptual-level abstractions without any difficulty and freeze on that level, and keep the higher ranges of their conceptual development in a chaotic fog of swimming, indeterminate approximations, playing a game of signals without referents, as Helen Keller did at first, but without her excuse. Then check on whether you respect and how carefully you employ your priceless possession: language.
And, lastly, I suggest that you try to project what would have happened if, instead of Annie Sullivan, a s.a.d.i.s.t had taken charge of Helen Keller's education. A s.a.d.i.s.t would spell ”water” into Helen's palm, while making her touch water, stones, flowers and dogs interchangeably; he would teach her that water is called ”water” today, but ”milk” tomorrow; he would endeavor to convey to her that there is no necessary connection between names and things, that the signals in her palm are a game of arbitrary conventions and that she'd better obey him without trying to understand.
If this projection is too monstrous to hold in one's mind for long, remember that this is what today's academic philosophers are doing to the young-to minds as confused, as plastic and almost as helpless (on the higher conceptual levels) as Helen Keller's mind was at her start.
[”Kant Versus Sullivan,” PWNI, 109; pb 90.]
See also COMMUNICATION; CONCEPT-FORMATION; CONCEPTS; GRAMMAR; LINGUISTIC a.n.a.lYSIS; PERCEPTION; PSYCHO. EPISTEMOLOGY; REASON; WORDS.
Law, Objective and Non-Objective. All laws must be objective (and objectively justifiable): men must know clearly, and in advance of taking an action, what the law forbids them to do (and why), what const.i.tutes a crime and what penalty they will incur if they commit it.
[”The Nature of Government,” VOS, 149; pb 110.]
The retaliatory use of force requires objective rules of evidence to establish that a crime has been committed and to prove who committed it, as well as objective rules to define punishments and enforcement procedures. Men who attempt to prosecute crimes, without such rules, are a lynch mob. If a society left the retaliatory use of force in the hands of individual citizens, it would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law and an endless series of b.l.o.o.d.y private feuds or vendettas.
If physical force is to be barred from social relations.h.i.+ps, men need an inst.i.tution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.
This is the task of a government-of a proper government-its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.
A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control-i.e., under objectively defined laws.
[Ibid., 147; pb 109.]
When men are caught in the trap of non-objective law, when their work, future and livelihood are at the mercy of a bureaucrat's whim, when they have no way of knowing what unknown ”influence” will crack down on them for which unspecified offense, fear becomes their basic motive, if they remain in the industry at all-and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of-the-road are all that can be expected of them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does not follow ”public policies,” integrity does not pet.i.tion for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun.
Non-objective law is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves.
[”Vast Quicksands,” TON, July 1963, 25.]
That which cannot be formulated into an objective law, cannot be made the subject of legislation-not in a free country, not if we are to have ”a government of laws and not of men.” An undefineable law is not a law, but merely a license for some men to rule others.
[Ibid., 28.]
It is a grave error to suppose that a dictators.h.i.+p rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men's spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictators.h.i.+p has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; it has to deal not in death, but in sudden death; a state of chronic uncertainty is what men are psychologically unable to bear.
[”Ant.i.trust: The Rule of Unreason,” TON. Feb. 1962, 5.]
An objective law protects a country's freedom; only a non-objective law can give a statist the chance he seeks: a chance to impose his arbitrary will-his policies, his decisions, his interpretations, his enforcement, his punishment or favor-on disarmed, defenseless victims.