Part 45 (1/2)
Tradition. The ”neo-conservatives” are now trying to tell us that America was the product of ”faith in revealed truths” and of uncritical respect for the traditions of the past (!).
It is certainly irrational to use the ”new” as a standard of value, to believe that an idea or a policy is good merely because it is new. But it is much more preposterously irrational to use the ”old” as a standard of value, to claim that an idea or a policy is good merely because it is ancient. The ”liberals” are constantly a.s.serting that they represent the future, that they are ”new,” ”progressive,” ”forward-looking,” etc.-and they denounce the ”conservatives” as old-fas.h.i.+oned representatives of a dead past. The ”conservatives” concede it, and thus help the ”liberals” to propagate one of today's most grotesque inversions: collectivism, the ancient, frozen, status society, is offered to us in the name of progress-while capitalism, the only free, dynamic, creative society ever devised, is defended in the name of stagnation .
The plea to preserve ”Tradition” as such, can appeal only to those who have given up or to those who never intended to achieve anything in life. It is a plea that appeals to the worst elements in men and rejects the best: it appeals to fear, sloth, cowardice, conformity, self-doubt-and rejects creativeness, originality, courage, independence, self-reliance. It is an outrageous plea to address to human beings anywhere, but particularly outrageous here, in America, the country based on the principle that man must stand on his own feet, live by his own judgment, and move constantly forward as a productive, creative innovator.
The argument that we must respect ”tradition” as such, respect it merely because it is a ”tradition,” means that we must accept the values other men have chosen, merely because other men have chosen them-with the necessary implication of: who are we to change them? The affront to a man's self-esteem, in such an argument, and the profound contempt for man's nature are obvious.
[”Conservatism: An Obituary,” CUI, 198.]
America was created by men who broke with all political traditions and who originated a system unprecedented in history, relying on nothing but the ”unaided” power of their own intellect.
[ibid.]
See also AMERICA; ANTI-CONCEPTUAL MENTALITY; ”CONSERVATIVES ”; CULTURE; ”ETHNICITY”; FAITH; HISTORY; INDIVIDUALISM; TRIBALISM.
Tribal Premise (in Economics). The basic premise of crude, primitive tribal collectivism [is] the notion that wealth belongs to the tribe or to society as a whole, and that every individual has the ”right” to ”partic.i.p.ate” in it.
[Review of s.h.i.+rley Scheibla's Poverty Is Where the Money Is, TO, Aug. 1969, 11.]
The tribal premise underlies today's political economy. That premise is shared by the enemies and the champions of capitalism alike; it provides the former with a certain inner consistency, and disarms the latter by a subtle, yet devastating aura of moral hypocrisy-as witness, their attempts to justify capitalism on the ground of ”the common good” or ”service to the consumer” or ”the best allocation of resources.” (Whose resources?) If capitalism is to be understood, it is this tribal premise that has to be checked-and challenged.
Mankind is not an ent.i.ty, an organism, or a coral bush. The ent.i.ty involved in production and trade is man. It is with the study of man-not of the loose aggregate known as a ”community”-that any science of the humanities has to begin.
[”What Is Capitalism?” CUI, 14.]
Political economists-including the advocates of capitalism-defined their science as the study of the management or direction or organization or manipulation of a ”community's” or a nation's ”resources.” The nature of these ”resources” was not defined; their communal owners.h.i.+p was taken for granted-and the goal of political economy was a.s.sumed to be the study of how to utilize these ”resources” for ”the common good.”
The fact that the princ.i.p.al ”resource” involved was man himself, that he was an ent.i.ty of a specific nature with specific capacities and requirements, was given the most superficial attention, if any. Man was regarded simply as one of the factors of production, along with land, forests, or mines-as one of the less significant factors, since more study was devoted to the influence and quality of these others than to his role or quality.
Political economy was, in effect, a science starting in midstream: it observed that men were producing and trading, it took for granted that they had always done so and always would-it accepted this fact as the given, requiring no further consideration-and it addressed itself to the problem of how to devise the best way for the ”community” to dispose of human effort.
[ibid., 12.]
A great deal may be learned about society by studying man; but this process cannot be reversed: nothing can be learned about man by studying society-by studying the inter-relations.h.i.+ps of ent.i.ties one has never identified or defined. Yet that is the methodology adopted by most political economists. Their att.i.tude, in effect, amounts to the unstated, implicit postulate: ”Man is that which fits economic equations.” Since he obviously does not, this leads to the curious fact that in spite of the practical nature of their science, political economists are oddly unable to relate their abstractions to the concretes of actual existence.
[Ibid., 15.]
See also CAPITALISM; COLLECTIVISM; ”COMMON GOOD”; INDIVIDUALISM ; MAN; PRODUCTION; ”REDISTRIBUTION” of WEALTH; SERVICE; TRIBALISM.
Tribalism. Tribalism (which is the best name to give to all the group manifestations of the anti-conceptual mentality) is a dominant element in Europe, as a reciprocally reinforcing cause and result of Europe's long history of caste systems, of national and local (provincial) chauvinism, of rule by brute force and endless, b.l.o.o.d.y wars. As an example, observe the Balkan nations, which are perennially bent upon exterminating one another over minuscule differences of tradition or language. Tribalism had no place in the United States-until recent decades. It could not take root here, its imported seedlings were withering away and turning to slag in the melting pot whose fire was fed by two inexhaustible sources of energy: individual rights and objective law; these two were the only protection man needed.
[”The Missing Link,” PWNI, 51; pb 42.]
What are the nature and the causes of modern tribalism? Philosophically, tribalism is the product of irrationalism and collectivism. It is a logical consequence of modern philosophy. If men accept the notion that reason is not valid, what is to guide them and how are they to live? Obviously, they will seek to join some group-any group-which claims the ability to lead them and to provide some sort of knowledge acquired by some sort of unspecified means. If men accept the notion that the individual is helpless, intellectually and morally, that he has no mind and no rights, that he is nothing, but the group is all, and his only moral significance lies in selfless service to the group-they will be pulled obediently to join a group. But which group? Well, if you believe that you have no mind and no moral value, you cannot have the confidence to make choices-so the only thing for you to do is to join an unchosen group, the group into which you were born, the group to which you were predestined to belong by the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient power of your body chemistry.
This, of course, is racism. But if your group is small enough, it will not be called ”racism”: it will be called ”ethnicity.”
[”Global Balkanization,” pamphlet, 5.]
A symptom of the tribal mentality's self-arrested, perceptual level of development may be observed in the tribalists' position on language.
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 souud of a word, not its meaning. He would kill and die for the privilege of printing on every postage stamp the word ”postage” for the English-speaking and the word ”postes” for the French-speaking citizens of his bilingual Canada. Since most of the ethnic languages are not full languages, but merely dialects or local corruptions of a country's language, the distinctions which the tribalists fight for are not even as big as that.
But, of course, it is not for their language that the tribalists are fighting : they are fighting to protect their level of awareness, their mental pa.s.sivity, their obedience to the tribe, and their desire to ignore the existence of outsiders.
[Ibid., 8.]
It is obvious why the morality of altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leaders.h.i.+p and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism's perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological : the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leaders.h.i.+p and ”protection” against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value-they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice-they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a pa.s.sionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against ”selfishness,” they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-wors.h.i.+p of a tribal lone wolf. But their leaders-the theoreticians of altruism-know better. Immanuel Kant knew it; John Dewey knew it; B. F. Skinner knows it; John Rawls knows it. Observe that it is not the mindless brute, but reason, intelligence, ability, merit, self-confidence, self-esteem that they are out to destroy.
Today, we are seeing a ghastly spectacle: a magnificent scientific civilization dominated by the morality of prehistorical savagery.
[”Selfishness Without a Self,” PWNI, 61; pb 50.]
See also ALTRUISM; AMERICA; AMORALISM; ANTI-CONCEPTUAL MENTALITY; COLLECTIVISM; ”ETHNICITY”; INDIVIDUALISM; IRRATIONALISM; KANT, IMMANUEL; LANGUAGE; PSYCHO-EPISTEMOLOGY; RACISM; REASON; SELF; SELF-ESTEEM; SELFISHNESS; STATISM.
Truth. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.
[GS, FNI, 154; pb 126.]
Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality. Man identifies and integrates the facts of reality by means of concepts. He retains concepts in his mind by means of definitions. He organizes concepts into propositions-and the truth or falsehood of his propositions rests, not only on their relation to the facts he a.s.serts, but also on the truth or falsehood of the definitions of the concepts he uses to a.s.sert them, which rests on the truth or falsehood of his designations of essential characteristics.
[ITOE, 63.].
The truth or falsehood of all of man's conclusions, inferences, thought and knowledge rests on the truth or falsehood of his definitions.
[Ibid., 65.]
Every truth about a given existent(s) reduces, in basic pattern, to: ”X is: one or more of the things which it is.” The predicate in such a case states some characteristic(s) of the subject; but since it is a characteristic of the subject, the concept(s) designating the subject in fact includes the predicate from the outset. If one wishes to use the term ”tautology” in this context, then all truths are ”tautological.” (And, by the same reasoning, all falsehoods are self-contradictions.) When making a statement about an existent, one has, ultimately, only two alternatives: ”X (which means X, the existent, including all its characteristics) is what it is”-or: ”X is not what it is.” The choice between truth and falsehood is the choice between ”tautology” (in the sense explained) and self-contradiction.
In the realm of propositions, there is only one basic epistemological distinction: truth vs. falsehood, and only one fundamental issue: By what method is truth discovered and validated? To plant a dichotomy at the base of human knowledge-to claim that there are opposite methods of validation and opposite types of truth [as do the advocates of the ”a.n.a.lytic-synthetic” dichotomy] is a procedure without grounds or justification.
[Leonard Peikoff, ”The a.n.a.lytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,” ITOE, 136.]
The existence of human volition cannot be used to justify the theory that there is a dichotomy of propositions or of truths. Propositions about metaphysical facts, and propositions about man-made facts, do not have different characteristics qua propositions. They differ merely in their subject matter, but then so do the propositions of astronomy and of immunology. Truths about metaphysical and about man-made facts are learned and validated by the same process: by observation; and, qua truths, both are equally necessary. Some facts are not necessary, but all truths are.
Truth is the identification of a fact of reality. Whether the fact in question is metaphysical or man-made, the fact determines the truth: if the fact exists, there is no alternative in regard to what is true. For instance, the fact that the U.S. has 50 states was not metaphysically necessary-but as long as this is men's choice, the proposition that ”The U.S. has 50 states” is necessarily true. A true proposition must describe the facts as they are. In this sense, a ”necessary truth” is a redundancy, and a ”contingent truth” a self-contradiction.
[Ibid., 150.]
[Consider the catch phrase:] ”It may be true for you, but it's not true for me.” What is the meaning of the concept ”truth”? Truth is the recognition of reality. (This is known as the correspondence theory of truth.) The same thing cannot be true and untrue at the same time and in the same respect. That catch phrase, therefore, means: a. that the Law of Ident.i.ty is invalid; b. that there is no objectively perceivable reality, only some indeterminate flux which is nothing in particular, i.e., that there is no reality (in which case, there can be no such thing as truth); or c. that the two debaters perceive two different universes (in which case, no debate is possible). (The purpose of the catch phrase is the destruction of objectivity.) [”Philosophical Detection,” PWNI, 16; pb 14.]
See also a.n.a.lYTIC-SYNTHETIC DICHOTOMY; CONCEPTS; CONTRADICTIONS; DEFINITIONS; EXISTENCE; FALSEHOOD; HONESTY; IDENt.i.tY; LOGIC; METAPHYSICAL vs. MAN-MADE; NECESSITY; OBJECTIVITY; PRIMACY of EXISTENCE vs. PRIMACY of CONSCIOUSNESS; PROPOSITIONS; REASON.
Tyranny. Tyranny is any political system (whether absolute monarchy or fascism or communism) that does not recognize individual rights (which necessarily include property rights). The overthrow of a political system by force is justified only when it is directed against tyranny: it is an act of self-defense against those who rule by force. For example, the American Revolution.
[”From a Symposium,” NL, 96.]
See also DICTATORs.h.i.+P; GOVERNMENT; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; PHYSICAL FORCE; POLITICS; PROPERTY RIGHTS; STATISM.
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