Lovers Need Lawyers

“Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains!”—Rousseau, The Social Contract 1762
In the beginning, there was the Social Contract: a freely constructed community of Individuals who willingly give up their natural Freedom and voluntarily consent to the community's Laws if—and only if—it can sufficiently protect their Life, Liberty and Property/Pursuit of Happiness.

This is the foundation of Liberalism (the type of System we currently live under), which was discovered through a hypothetical thought experiment called the State of Nature: a device used by early Enlightenment Philosophers to imagine how Man would live if stripped of all seemingly conventional attachments to Country, Religion, and Family and existed only as the isolated, separate beings that the unity of our individual Bodies suggests.

The point of this experiment was to foment a conspiracy to undermine the legitimacy of all previously existing political regimes by exposing their Rulers’ supposed claim to serve the Common Good as nothing more than a means to exploit the Ruled for their own selfish, greedy ends.

(The formula goes something like this: We are all Selves + the Self is naturally selfish = its two strongest motivating passions are Self-Preservation and Self-Interest)

The goal was to give an equal Right to selfishness to the Ruled; to allow them to be the sole judge of their own Interests; to have the Right to freely choose Rulers who would best serve those ends. And, once the old legitimacies were sufficiently disposed of (i.e. Revolution), then the Rulers and the Ruled could consciously—using their Reason—construct a new Contract that would equally protect the Interests of both parties.

But, if one constructs a Society founded on our basest, most animal instincts will it not eventually reduce us back to them; if all these Social relations are shown to be merely conventional, with no natural basis, how do you prevent that line of thought from eventually extending to every form of relationship? And now, “History” has seemingly led us full circle back to the once fabled State of Nature—not as an experimental hypothesis as those who first proposed it, but, instead, as an ever increasingly realized reality.

The Youth today are now well provided for by our Country—and continue to demand more and more social security from their government—yet there is really little to no reciprocal civic engagement required of them; they are free to choose which, if any, Religion they wish to practice; and now, even sexual involvements have been completely liberated as well—no longer necessarily leading to commitment or Family life—completing the triumvirate of conventional attachments: Country, Religion and Family. We now exist as the naked Individuals who once “inhabited” the State of Nature—but with one little difference: we still inhabit Society and like to think of our-Selves as “civilized” creatures, but, as the State of Nature originally showed, the result of disconnected Individuals all asserting equal Rights to a finite amount of Nature’s bounty is really…a War of All Against All.

Despite the radicalism of the Philosophers that first proposed this new scheme for Society, they never imagined the break down of the Family as well, and had relied on this semi-natural, or at least unavoidable, necessity to provide some sort of bridge to connect the Individual and Society. The Individual would take a material stake in his community, in order to provide the best possible atmosphere in which to raise his Family—a way to ensure the Common Good that flows naturally out of our Self-Interest. Also, the concern for the safety of one’s Family is a powerful reason for loyalty to the State that protects them.

Rousseau, however, knew better and could see where the rising tide of Egalitarianism and Individualism (which he agreed with in principle) caused by this new philosophy would eventually lead. This inspired him to devote his entire career to encouraging passionate, Romantic Love to attempt to create a bond between Men and Women that was greater than mere Bourgeois calculation of Self-Interest. But, based on this sketch by Chappelle, it would appear that his great effort has failed and our view of our-Self as simply freely contracting Individuals has now penetrated our every relation—officially destroying any semblance of a natural basis that once connected Human Beings to one another.

Rousseau tried to discover/create Molecules (Family), as opposed to simply Atoms (Individuals), as the building blocks of Society because then Society’s parts would already be moved by different motivations than mere Self-Interest—which then could hopefully be extended to Others. People in love constitute a visible proof that Man can act for other reasons besides the Economic/Utilitarian motivations that dominate Modern Theory. In contrast, each partner in the Molecule is instead motivated by forces found in true attachment and concern for Others, whereas a Society constructed out of radically separate Atoms creates no shared basis of concern—only diffidence or, even worse, war.

We have now turned the most intimate connection that can unite two Human Beings into just another contest in the War of All Against All—the final development of founding all human relations on mere contracts; simply another contest for the “Will to Power” to assert itself. The only possible peace is to be found in an artificial construct: the Business Contract—which we enter into for as long as it is convenient and serves our Interests; a union of two equally Self-ish Individuals who hopefully each have a good lawyer to settle the statistically inevitable Divorce.

And you know what the silliest part of all this is: a concurrent attempt by the same Individuals to turn the actual Social Contract—the societal one—into a more compassionate/caring relationship—i.e. some sort of Socialist type structure that could help to reduce our selfishness—while at the same time reducing real Human connection to an abstraction, with no natural basis. In the end, it appears that we all love our Rights, but hate their consequences. We want to be respected as an Individual, but also want to have real human connections.

And, what we are creating instead are a bunch of Social Solitaries and Isolated Individuals—all with their “own little separate systems”—who have no alternative to collapsing into their Self because everything else has lost its foundation. There is no longer any connection—natural or artificial—to make us care for anyone, except for number one; to draw our attention outward and give us a reason to care about a Community or Society; to not just use one another simply for bodily pleasure…

“I don’t know about you, but I’m still horny.”

You Can Lead a Man to Reason, but You Can't Make Him Think

The word Kultur or “Culture” was first used in its modern sense by Immanuel Kant—who was thinking of Rousseau’s description of the Bourgeois—in an attempt to make up for the, supposed, deficiency in character of this new type of man. The Bourgeois was neither Citizen nor Individual, and his Self-Interest—even his Enlightened Self-Interest—it appeared, was simply not a sufficient basis upon which to unite a People and create a Common Good. After Rousseau’s critique, the new Liberal doctrines—based upon the early Enlightenment thought of Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu—had become insufficient, or at least too unattractive, to found truly Human societies upon. To “Enlightened” Europeans of the time, countries like America looked merely like an aggregate of Individuals, or disorderly marketplaces—dumping grounds for the refuse of real Cultures—where Individuals would simply bring their sellable commodities in the morning, and then at night return to the privacy of their own homes and enjoy, privately, the proceeds of their day.

These new Commercial Republics had as their foundations the pursuit of Material Well-Being and Self-Preservation and had stripped politics of its old imaginary goals—dedication to the preservation of throne, altar and country—leaving Man unclothed and unprotected in a new “civilized” War of All Against All. The idea of “Culture” was created as a way to somehow make up for the loss of these higher goals after the demystification of Religion by the Enlighteners—to preserve something like Religion without having to resort to superstition and myth; it was an attempt to give Morality and Art a place in the Modern World, in order to preserve the “Dignity of Man.” This new Liberal mode of Politics, with its Universalistic view of Man as Man—as opposed to the man of a particular time and place—ended up not being as attractive as was first thought, and the Culture Movement—which continues, although in a deformed manner, to persist to this very day—was created as a proposed corrective to Liberal Society or as a radical rejection of its new mercenary Morals and indifference to Art and Politics.

Plato, almost 2,500 years ago, in The Republic, gave an allegorical account of what it means to be part of a Culture—although he never actually used the word and there is no Ancient Greek word that can even be translated as “Culture.” He said, more or less, that the particular Cultures/Communities of the world are caves into which we are all born and are chained with our heads restrained forcing us to look only forward. We all stare at a wall in front of us, upon which shadows are projected that constitute the gods and heroes that are particular to our time and place that the Culture’s ideas of the good and justice are based.

There is, however, a steep incline that leads out of the cave through which the bright light of the sun shines blindingly through. “Philosophers” are people who have broken free from the chains, have exited the cave and can see the situation for what it truly is. And, for Plato, it is their responsibility to the Common Good to come back into the cave and to try and influence the politicians to rule more reasonably. But this does not mean the execution of the gods; it does not mean the empowerment of the People; it does not mean the multitudes be made capable of philosophizing. Only the Leaders—and the Philosophers who inform them—know the truth of what’s outside the cave but the masses, in the end, can at least profit from the insights of this blinding Truth. However, they are never to be told the Truth because they “can’t handle the Truth.”

Modernity changed all that. The Enlightenment philosophers didn’t necessarily think that the Masses could be made into Philosophers, but they did recognize a certain level of reasonableness of the People. If Man’s deepest motivating passion is Self-Preservation, it would be logical to conclude that Man could make rational decisions about what will help preserve himself the best—especially the type of Regime that would preserve him the best. Thus a conspiracy was born to shine the Light of Being into the caves—permanently dimming the images on the wall. The task was to rationalize all the old legitimizations of power—strength, wealth, religion, tradition, birth, age—to show that they were all simply Man-made, and hence not morally binding. Revolution became Man’s greatest and most celebrated act. The new Societies that would be created no longer would put a Socrates to death because his usefulness to Society could be made evident: Science can aide in Man’s pursuit of Self-Preservation.

But as I have said previously, at the very moment of its triumph a very large wrench was thrown into the gears of this modern machine. Rousseau’s critique of these new types of Societies was undeniable and it did not paint a very pretty picture for the future of Humanity. From this new outlook, the Culture Movement was born. For some, such as Rousseau and Kant, the goal was still the universal justice of Freedom and Equality implicit in the Enlightenment project, but the character of it was in need of some slight adjustment. The bland uniformity and universal homogenization that were to be the result of this overly rational, overly calculating mode of politics was rejected because it turned out to be only an easy fix for a very difficult problem and didn’t seem to take into account the full range of the human condition. It just wasn’t capable of accounting for the creative, artistic, or “Free” aspects of Man’s Nature and its deficiencies caused a backlash that continues to persist.

Today, in America, there are two different uses for the word Culture: 1) is as a description of a People or Nation—American Culture, Japanese Culture, Iranian Culture, Jewish Culture, etc; and 2) is everything that is created that’s opposed to Commerce—Art, Music, Literature, PBS: creations that aren’t merely dictated by the amoral demands of the Market. These two conceptions are linked in that 2 is what makes up the content of 1. The Art, Music and Literature shape the world-view of the American, Japanese, Iranian and Jew and are expressed through the customs, styles, tastes, festivals, rituals and gods that unite the separate Individuals into a community with shared roots and common goals. The Individual is sublimated into the collective, which allows a People to think and will generally for their Common Good.

“Culture” was originally conceived by Kant as the goal of our highest human aspirations—an attempt to synthesize our low brutish, animal nature with our noblest Human longings; to restore, on an even higher level, some sort of wholeness that was lost after the initial Social Contract that destroyed the perfect unity of our being that we had in the State of Nature. It was on a higher level because this new wholeness now included all of Man’s faculties and capabilities and attempted to aim them toward Man’s greatest ambitions in all the creative fields we have acquired in Civil Society.

But it soon came to simply retroactively describe the various and varied Human phenomenon that had resulted during Man’s journey from the State of Nature to Civil Society. It was transformed from Culture to Cultures, and it now has become Politically Incorrect to judge the content of the these manifestations despite these old “Cultures,” as Nietzsche put it, being nothing but “superstitious custom that originated on the basis of some misinterpreted accident.”

We are now told we must respect Others' Cultures and that we are not allowed to judge the Values of them; that we must worship and promote Diversity and Multiculturalism; that what separates us (Culture) is more important than what unites us (Nature). But there is this vast contradiction of internal logic that no one seems to recognize here. Liberal Tolerance—Classical and Modern—is completely debilitating to Culture—which was first created as a response against Liberalism. Although, we currently use it as a means of building a dam against the torrents of Capitalism and “Eurocentrism,” in the end, it will completely subsume them.

Liberalism has no respect for Cultures because it is based on Reason and Science, whereas the old Cultures are all based on the dictates of a god and the attendant superstition and myth. Liberalism is based on Individual Freedom and the Right of the Individual to decide what is right for himself; it separates us by allowing our subjectivity to take preeminence over the collective expressions of our Peoples’ particularistic historical journeys. If an old value—say, the status of Women’s Equality in a particular Culture—does not coincide with Liberalism, then the Liberal denounces it because they believe in the intrinsic Equality of all. But how do we determine which Values can and cannot be judged?

Once you take that first step and decry that even one single Value that a Culture holds is unethical, or unreasonable, or indefensible, then you open up the floodgates of the dam and eventually drown the entire village. Everything is then open for critique and nothing is safe from the cold, clear lens of rational inquiry.

We may wish all we want to protect other Peoples from the ravages of the Capitalistic machine and so-called “American Culture,” but, unless we can have an honest conversation about the history that has resulted in the present, then all we are going to have are incoherent, whitewashed, ineffectual attempts to do so—such as the new “Cult of Diversity Worship” that is the intellectual rage in all the major universities of America today.

If you open yourself up to other Cultures and look into their cultural practices, what you will find there is, in fact, closedness because Cultures are, by definition, insular. They have to be; that is how they create and sustain their distinctiveness and inner-connectedness, which is what makes the world diverse. All Cultures think that their way of doing things is the best, except currently for the West. There are a multitude of reasons for this—mainly, I would say, due to so-called "Liberal Guilt" for Imperialism, Slavery and Racism—but we must realize that our current incoherent Liberal Ideology is going to result in either a) an extreme Right-Wing Nationalistic/Race-based reactionary force, who will not stand for the destruction of their Culture, or b) in the destruction of all distinct Cultures into one Universal Homogenous Culture.

Is there a way to reconcile Tolerance and Culture, or are these mutually exclusive world-views; does Tolerance necessarily require a relativism that goes to the depths of our very souls?

The Tea Party to Restore Sanity

Over the weekend, I made my way down to our nation’s capital to attend The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The rally was an attempt to move beyond the “animus” that is dividing our country into the Two Americas—Red and Blue, Conservative and Liberal, Christian and…Atheist, Secular Progressive, Agnostic, “Enlightened,” Apathetic, etc. The message was not so much that we have nothing to be mad about and that it is irrational to be so, but, rather, that it is counter-productive to be so to the degree that we have been seeing recently; and that it is not so much the American citizens themselves who are being unreasonable, but the ones that supposedly represent us—in Washington and on the Cable News channels, the ones responsible for defining the national conversation.

I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time reviewing the show itself—because, to be perfectly honest, it kind of sucked: the jokes fell flat and the interplay of the various personalities was kind of boring and forced—but, rather, the message behind the show, which I thought Jon did an excellent job of conveying during his last monologue. I think, more than anyone else on television right now, that Jon Stewart is one of the clearest and most reasonable voices that we have, and it is a shame/pathetic that the only voice of Reason is coming from a comedian, with a negligible sized viewership, that is more than reluctant to play the role that he has created for himself. Although Jon is obviously a committed Lefty, he never shies away from calling out the Democrats/MSNBC on their lies, anymore than the Republicans/Fox News and performs a valuable function that I wish the mainstream media would take more notice of and imitate.

Over the last couple months, I have attended various rallies/protests from a variety of different groups and have tried to talk to the attendees to find out what exactly their concerns are and the reasons they felt it necessary to come out and make their voices heard. I’ve been to a Tea Party event featuring Sarah Palin, a self-proclaimed Socialist march, an anti-BP protest, and now, I guess what you could consider, a more Centrist (ok, slightly left of Center) type of event and have been able to make some comparisons and contrasts that I would like to share with you.

First off, at each one of these events, the majority of people that I have talked to have been calm, rational people, with legitimate gripes and justified reasons for their discontent. This is, of course, not how they are portrayed by their political opponents, who only focus on the fringe radicals—the Racists and Homophobes, and the Anarchists and “Peace-niks.” The meek voice of compromise always seems to be drowned out by the angry shouts of Commitment and Moral Indignation because Passion speaks louder thanReason—and has an actual agenda and game-plan for implementing its goals. Most Americans don’t really know what to do about the Financial Crisis, or Healthcare, or Social Security, or Immigration, or the two wars, or a Living Constitution versus a Fixed one, and so on; but, they do know that they are unhappy with those in power and feel betrayed by the apparent lack of competency and moral fortitude to meet the demands with which we are now faced.

And that was the ultimate message of the rally this weekend: how can we make this voice of Reason heard over the din and dint of our "country's 24 Hour/politico/pundit/perpetual/panic conflictonator" who make a living by purposefully dividing us? Jon used the metaphor of Americans driving down the highway, on their way to work, merging from an eight-lane toll plaza into a two-lane tunnel. “You go, then I’ll go, you go, then I’ll go.” A common purpose and goal enabled compromise and, despite a driver’s possible distaste for the “Values and Principles” of their fellow drivers, they were still able to civilly proceed to allow everyone to arrive at the necessary destination.

This is a nice metaphor; a working model of civility and rationality in action, but, unfortunately, an extreme over-simplification of America’s problems. Whereas, it is not in our Self-Interest to run someone off the road and pick a fight with them just because we happen to disagree with their politically charged bumper-sticker, the real-world political realm allows for a bit less room for compromise with those of opposing Principles. Although we do need some sort of compromise between the two opposing Ideologies doing battle right now in America if we are going to be able to move forward as a country, we can’t really do that until we understand where the other one is coming from. And right now, the two sides are at such polar opposites that to think that we could achieve such a compromise is chimerical, wishful thinking.

What we have right now doing battle are two completely opposing world-views and views of Man and his Nature. There is no room for compromise on any issue because they are built upon two completely different foundations. How can you compromise on the extent and purpose of a law, if you are not even talking about the same type of person for which it is meant to control? How can you find a reasonable middle-ground, if you are not even talking about the same world, let alone country? This divide goes back to the modern dichotomy of Locke vs. Rousseau, that I have mentioned before, although the way that these opposing world-views has been divided up in the American mind is quite an odd combination and may account for much of the dissonance of our current debates.

Politically and economically Conservatives would be considered to be Lockeans: Limited Government, Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, and a Free Market; Liberals, in this realm, are much more Rousseauean: Government should help to restrain Inequality—especially of wealth—and play an active role in limiting and regulating the Economy. But, in an odd turn of events—and the link that connects Classical Liberalism with today’s brand of it—when it comes to the Cultural realm, the roles are reversed and the Liberals become Lockean and the Conservatives side with Rousseau.

The very word “Liberalism,” of course, is derived from the root word “Liberty” or “Freedom.” In the tradition of the Enlightenment, Liberals today believe that everyone has the Right to say, think or do whatever they want—of course restrained from doing any sort of physical or mental harm to an Individual—unbound by any religious or “natural” restraint upon behavior, speech or attitude. It is still the idea of Reciprocation of Rights, or some sort of idea of Enlightened Self-Interest, that they believe in, but you would be hard pressed to find a Liberal today who would claim any sort of Classical Liberal defense for their Right to do so.

And this is where you see the Rousseau-side of Modern Liberalism begin to creep in. Classical Liberalism may have made a whole lot of sense on paper, but it was not nearly doctrinaire enough to compensate for the historical reality of Inequality that had proceeded it. It may have allowed for some people to move up the ladder—The American Dream—but it usually did so at the expense of Others and in general would result in the extreme Inequalities in wealth and opportunity that we have today. Therefore, they say, the government needs to take a more active role in the maintenance and distribution of wealth and power and even regulate access to certain products it deems bad for us.

The Conservatives are an even stranger and even more confusing combination of tendencies and doctrines that, as we can see, have resulted in an equal amount of dissonance in their theory and practice. Although they ostensibly follow in the Enlightenment tradition and the beliefs of our Founding Fathers—annunciated in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights—they do not believe that these ideas can be divorced from our religious tradition (i.e. Christianity) and that the lack of government—or limitation of government within a narrowly defined sphere—can be and must be made up for in the Civic realm by shared Cultural Values and Beliefs. This is where the Rousseau-side of their thought comes in: Freedom constrained within a homogeneous and binding set of Cultural constraints that provides continuity and unity within a State.

But for some reason, Conservatives are unwilling to admit—or are simply blind to the fact—that this continuity and unity is completely undermined by their unequivocal support of Free Market, Globalized Capitalism. This may provide a high level of prosperity for our country, but I can’t think of any force more destructive to any sort of national unity or possibility of real Culture. A merchant has no loyalty beyond the ground upon which he stands, and to think differently is a naive folly. Why else would Fox rail against the Left—its anti-family Values and lack of restraint and morality—and then have a Sunday night line-up of The Simpsons,The Cleveland Show, Family Guy, and American Dad: all of which are unapologetic about their ridicule and distaste for the very Values that the Fox News Channel promotes?



When it comes right down to it, though, I would say that the biggest delineating factor between Cons and Libs is what you value more: Freedom or Equality—which always seem to be at an uneasy tension with one another.

The Cons, obviously, value Freedom more, especially Freedom from government or, at least, more Freedom to participate in the government, which serves as the present basis for their discontent—especially for the Tea Party. Because, the more that things are getting done in Washington, rather than in the State legislature, the more removed the average citizen is from the political process and the less say they have in the decision-making process. Freedom of choice and diversity of choice are reduced and you become stuck with one monolithic, federal bureaucracy in which you have no say and no other option. Although, for some reason, they fail to see, or don’t care to see, how the same thing can be said about overgrown Corporations and the enormous power and influence they exert over the political process, take for example the recent court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The Libs tend to take the side of Equality more, which is the reason that they feel it necessary to expand Federal power and its ability to interfere in the daily lives of citizens. Despite our so-called “Civil Religion” annunciated in the Declaration of Independence—as has been the case for Humans with every other religious doctrine—we have failed to live up to the ideals embodied in it. This Liberals or “Progressives” feel justifies and warrants the expansion of Federal power—in order to make up for the disparity between our stated goals and the reality that has followed them. Plus, the only body powerful enough to counteract the influence of corporations is the government, so the more corporations grow and expand their sphere of influence, the more the government is forced to grow to try and counter-balance it (although this is a bit of a chicken and an egg type scenario and I have had discussions with Cons where they claim it to be the other way around, but I completely disagree with that).

Jon Stewart very clearly, yet inadvertently, summed up the basis for the division in our country in a recent interview on his show with Senator Ted Kaufman, when he closed the interview with the insight: “So if I may sum up: the system is corrupt and broken, exactly how it was designed to be.” To which Kaufman, the Democratic Senator from Delaware, replied, “Exactly.” Whereas, Cons are fundamentally distrustful of, not only, Human Nature, but of concentrated power in the hands of any Individual, or a small cabal of Individuals (regardless of their stated aim), Libs/Progressives believe in the ability to use Instrumental Reason to overcome our problems and the ability of a small group of “Experts” to scientifically come up with solutions to conquer the Human Condition, or of some sort of Human Perfectibility.

This is a huge, huge, huge topic, and this post is all ready much longer than I would like it to be, so let me kind of cut it off and sum up what I see as a basic solution to our problem. The first and foremost factor destroying the ability of our political system to function is the fact that it is designed as a means for running a Republic, and, over the last century, we have grown from our humble beginnings into a mighty Empire. Hence, the rules and regulations set up by the Founders are no longer workable on this massive of a scale, therefore, Jon is right to complain about the inefficiency and inability of our Federal government to pass meaningful and timely legislation—it is purposefully designed to do just that. But, I would say that there is not a Liberal alive today—in theory, at least—who does not see the American Empire as a bad thing, especially not Stewart, so I think that his criticism is uninformed and miss placed. And this is really the crux of the whole thing. The general setup is just fine—with the exception of some fine-tuning here or there—it is just being misapplied and is causing massive frustration.

Most Americans agree on exactly what the problems are, but our world-views and the justifications for our beliefs dictate such differing solutions that it is hard to create a national consensus and the means of implementing them against the wishes of the minority out of power amounts to Tyranny (hence the Tea Party position). The Constitution, however, provides a very easy compromise to this problem. The reason it is so hard to pass Federal legislation is because America is built on the idea of Self-governance, the Right of a People to decide what is right for them. The Founding of America was completely un-Ideological; there were no ideas of Positive Right that were dogmatically unquestionable (as in Communism or Fascism), simply Negative Rights that the Federal Government was meant to protect. The States then had the legislative power to experiment with the enacting of any sort of Bill of Positive Rights that they thought necessary and sustainable, thus giving the citizen 50 different options for what type of government they wished to live under.

Today, whereas, the Liberal position may be morally justifiable as far as Human Rights go, it unwittingly leads to voter apathy, the Individual’s feeling of a disconnect from the political process, the shrinking of the Individual inside the selfishness of their own heart, and—as of now, the still distant possibility—of Universal Tyranny (not necessarily because of its ends, but because of its means). If we—the average citizens—want to once again feel like we have a say in our government and the decisions that most effect our daily lives, then our goal should be the reduction of the Federal Government within the smallest sphere possible—which could be the source of compromise that Stewart is looking for—and the reduction of US interests—economic and political—throughout the world. I realize that this is not an immediate possibility and a lot of work would be required to enable this, but we are obviously by-partisanly dissatisfied with our current situation. And, if we do not want to see this “experiment in self-government” be dissolved, then it is our obligation as Citizens to stand up and make the necessary changes to once again take control over our lives.

We Laugh at Danger and Break All the Rules

With the recent, untimely death by his own hands of my friend Jason “Old Boy” Kuzniarski, I felt that it was time to explore a little deeper just what it is I have been talking about in this forum, in order to try and help myself make sense of this event.

What exactly is this so-called “Self” of which I have been speaking?

The Self was one of the many discoveries made in the State of Nature that was brought back from the jungle, in order to be used to re-shape Society. In the State of Nature, Man’s greatest concern is Self-Preservation and his greatest fear is that of Violent Death. By Nature, he is a Solitary Individual, therefore, in order to live naturally, his greatest concern must be Self-Interest.

“Self” is the modern replacement for “Soul.” The idea of Soul went out of fashion after Machiavelli’s exhortations against the possibility of living according to Virtue and the lack of certitude about what exactly the Soul even is, despite 2,000 years of philosophy exploring this topic.

One of the first—if not the first—to have used “Self” in its modern sense was John Locke. He described it in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690 as, “that conscious thinking thing, whatever substance [it is] made up of…which is sensible or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends.” It forms a continuity that “unites existences and actions …in time into the same person: so whatever has the consciousness of present and past actions, is the same person to who they both belong.” The Self is one’s personal identity that is the result of the choices and experiences that occur throughout one’s life. It exists as an immaterial Consciousness or Ego, which acts as a storage unit that holds these life shaping moments, in the face of a very rapidly changing material body that is constant in flux.

But how would this natural way of living work within the confines of Society? It must be changed from pure Self-Interest into, what came to be called, Enlightened Self-Interest or Self-Interest Well Understood.

In Modern Philosophy, there was a sharp turn made (pretty much an “about-face” or 180˚ turn) away from cultivating or perfecting, seemingly impossible, Virtue toward the emancipation of personal Desire as the ordering principle of Society. It was a way to make the goal of Happiness much easier to realize. Instead of setting a person's two components—Body and Soul—against one another as the Ancients had with their demands of Virtue, if the second component Soul—or Self—is allowed to cooperate in the satisfactions of the Body—instead of being trained to restrain them—then the division in Man can be overcome and earthly satisfaction achieved.

This simple solution, however, was exploded by Rousseau in his critique of the new type of Man—The Bourgeois—that is the resultant of this new schema. He was quick to point out that Locke’s Natural Man would hardly be distinguishable from the rest of the Animal Kingdom and would not be industrious or rational, but rather idle and irrational—motivated exclusively by the Passions. Rousseau removed the floor from beneath Man—that Hobbes and Locke needed in order for their very simple plans to work—and helped to found the Modern Psychology of Self, popularized by Freud, which attempts to look at the Sub-conscious “Basement” to see what really lies beneath all our Rationality and Civility.

We keep chasing this Self back further and further into the jungles of the State of Nature, but its essence remains elusive and this understanding, more and more, comes to seem to be its essence. The Self now seems to be this mysterious, ineffable, indefinable, unlimited, creativity—knowable only thru its deeds. It has come to replace God—of which it is the impious mirror image—as the grounding for all motivation, action, and “values.” It’s become the source of all things. It now creates god(s) in its image, not vice-versa, as in the old Biblical stories.

This Self is also the anti-thesis of Nature—not bound by the Laws of Natural Science, it is the only source of Freedom in a mechanically, deterministic world. It’s emanations are now proof of Free Will, but are random swervings really the same thing as making a Free Choice? Our Psychology today posits that the Sub-conscious trumps the Rational Consciousness and, in reality, we are really at the mercy of something even worse than God’s Will: Unconscious Desire. We are simply this uncontrollable ball of emotions that are ready to burst out at any moment, with no mediating force to counter-balance.

In the Ancient conception of Man, the “Soul” was capable of exercising control over the Passions and pointed the lower motivations in Man toward higher goals and achievements. Man had a real Freedom that allowed him to order his world and, although he was still at the mercy of Nature/God, his Reason could aid in an ordering and hierarchy that gave Man power over his life.

Our current language of the "Self" has none of these edifying and inspiring components and the greatest change is that the good man used to be the one who cared for others, whereas now it is the one who cares exclusively for himself. Survivalism has replaced Heroism. Selfishness is now a good thing instead of a Moral Vice.

The word “Soul” expresses very different images and ideas than does the word “Self,” yet we have quietly accepted the substitution and the poverty of our language mirrors the poverty of our realities. We are told that Man is Self, and Self is naturally Selfish (period) whereas, Soul invokes images of divine and lofty goals and enterprises, and requires a Society dedicated to it in which this beauty can flourish. This whole dilemma becomes even more problematic when one of the most beautiful Souls I have ever met was an Atheist.

I wonder where an Atheist’s Soul goes when he dies?

Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes

The aspect of Rousseau’s critique of Liberalism that I want to focus on for this post is the phenomenon that is the primary result of this new system: The Bourgeois. This type of person has been the bane of every Philosopher and Artist—on the Left and the Right—since Rousseau first gave him a name in his work Émile in 1762.

Rousseau said that he is a result of a mistake made by Locke: “He who in the Civil order wants to preserve the primacy of the sentiments of Nature [Self-Preservation and Self-Interest] does not know what he wants.” To him, The Bourgeois is stuck in the middle of what he feels are two very respectable extremes: 1) the good, Natural Man, as found in the State of Nature; and 2) the Moral (de-natured) Citizen of the ancient Republics in Greece and Rome. He is constantly divided by his Natural Inclinations and the demands of Social Duty. The conflict between Self-love and love of Others, Inclination and Duty, Sincerity and Hypocrisy, being one-Self and being Alienated has pervaded all modern discussion of the Human Condition since Rousseau’s critique of Liberalism.


When a Bourgeois thinks of others, he only considers how the interaction is going to benefit himself; yet, when he tries to think about himself, his only conception is in comparison to others, with no inner metric of Self-worth.


Bourgeois and Middle Class can be used interchangeably, but, where as Bourgeois is always used with derision, Middle Class in America has always been thought to be a good, desirable thing to be. It is a status the poor strive for and a demographic Politicians always pander to because a majority of Americans fall within it (depending, of course, on your definition of Middle Class). In Marxist theory, The Bourgeois is despicable because they are the buffer that allows the Capitalist system to continue and perpetuate itself; for Artists they are contemptible because they are un-poetic, un-erotic, and un-heroic—and their religion is empty and mostly just for show. They have neither longings for greatness nor enthusiasm for life and merely accept the world the way it is, in a passionless reconciliation with “Reality.”

The Bourgeois can be directly related with, what Locke called, the “Industrious and Rational” Man that he required in order for his system to work. He was a new type of Man that made the Politics of Consent—as opposed to politics based on Myth—work. He consults his Reason and sees that, by incorporating with other men, he can get a lot more done and better protect himself (i.e. preserve him-Self), but only will consent to a Government that protects his Individual Rights (the Natural Rights he possesses, which predate Government and Society).

Throughout American history there have been people who have spoke out against this type of system—most notably Thoreau in his book Walden in 1854 and the Transcendentalists—but for the most part it has been accepted and has helped America to become the Industrial and Technological behemoth that it is today. The latest and most far-reaching of these Counter-Movements occurred in the 1960’s and has completely transformed the face of America. Although beginning with legitimate claims against American society and the Government—Civil Rights and opposition to the War in Vietnam among others—their solution and method for enacting their social change, I would say in the end, has done much more harm than good.

Their Philosophy was an incongruous mixture of Marxist collectivist communalism paired with a Nietzschean over-emphasis on a free-spirited Individualism. (And don’t forget the Freudian rejection of society as a repressive agent of neuroses and unhappiness, as if we could possibly return to the State of Nature after all of our History that has moved us so far away from it.) Although, both Marx and Nietzsche hated The Bourgeois, they approached the problem from completely different vantage points—the modern Left/Right dichotomy—and to think the two could be combined is completely foolish and is based on nothing but wishful thinking.

There are very legitimate claims that can be made against our Government and our Culture—and have been made by many Thinkers even before America was created—but the solutions of the Sixties have failed. And far from reforming or transforming Bourgeois Society, their ideas have instead led to the greatest opportunities for growth “The System” could have ever hoped for. The Counter-Culture has now become part and parcel of the Consumer-Culture. There is no differentiation between Bourgeois and Bohemian anymore other than the style of dress and the dichotomy has collapsed in upon itself. Denim may have replaced Khaki on our University Campuses, but those pants were still bought at a store that fully participates in every unsavory practice that our Capitalist system was built on: unsafe factories, low wages, child labor, natural degradation, marketing—the lists goes on and on.

The true result of the Sixties Philosophy came to a head in the Eighties and was personified by the Me! Me! Me! Generation and can be best described by the phrase, “Whoever dies with the most toys, wins!” When the contradiction of Community through Individuality became manifest, there was no longer anything left to stop the excesses of Capitalism because another part of Sixties Ideology was rejection of the past/attempt to kill History (at least Western History). This meant two things: 1) the Religion that made people at least stop and think about the state of their souls for two seconds had disappeared; and 2) all those great Thinkers that proposed alternatives or modifications/correctives to our System had been forgotten as well.

We are now Solitary Individuals, being kept afloat by life-boats in the middle of a vast, empty ocean, with no connection to History, no connection to our Community, no connection to our Country, and with only an abstract connection with the rest of Humanity.

“These are the times that try Men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
—Thomas Paine Crisis December 23, 1776

The Party's Over

Loss of Human Dignity? That is a pretty high price to pay. Why did Kant feel that this new system—which he ultimately agreed with—had such a high cost, especially when you think about all the great things that were gained from it: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, the Right to vote and have a say in the functioning of your Government, and a whole plethora of other Rights to protect the Individual.

To find the answer to that question we must look to the other half of the Modern American dichotomy: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (who I indicated earlier as the basis for the current crop of Liberals today).

Rousseau wrote about 60 years after Locke’s highly influential book Two Treaties on Civil Government, and started off his thought in fundamental agreement with Locke. He agreed with him about the origins of society in the State of Nature and the principles of Freedom and Equality for all Men, but drew very, very different conclusions about how society should be set up to ensure those principles.

Locke (following in the footsteps of Machiavelli) thought—since 2000 years of philosophizing and preaching had been completely ineffectual against Man’s natural desires and the methods that had been created in order to do so led to such great torment (sin, the threat of Hell)—that we may as well act as we naturally are, instead of how we ought to be and that would lead to happiness. Man is naturally Selfish, and his two main concerns are Self-preservation and Self-Interest. But, Locke thought, if Self-Interest could be trained to be Enlightened Self-Interest—where Man has the Right to believe whatever he wants, say whatever he wants, and be whatever he wants, but must also recognize the same Right for everyone else—then Society would be much more peaceful and prosperous and the Individual much more content.

These ideas began to spread throughout Europe like wildfire by men known as the Philosophes—popularizers of Enlightenment thought—and people everywhere began to realize that all the old loyalties—God, heredity, social class, age and even gender—were simply myths used to keep the People down and resigned to be content with their miserable living conditions. Locke and the rest of the Enlighteners rationalized everything till all tradition and convention was left without a leg upon which to stand—till it seemed like anything was possible.

This is the backdrop upon which Rousseau entered on the wings of a scathing critique of Enlightenment thought, in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, that completely destroyed its confidence right at its grand moment of triumph. His insights were nuanced looks at the Human Condition that peered much more deeply than Locke’s philosophy into the phenomenon known as Man to try and explore the results of this new philosophy of Individualism and what it actually meant for people’s lives: for Politics and Community, Love and Friendship, Morals and Art, and even Human Purpose.

And Kant, following in Rousseau’s footsteps, saw the degradation to human relationships that would result from this over-emphasis of the Individual and attempted to re-shape Enlightenment thought to make up for these supposed deficiencies. Kant was the last great Enlightenment Philosopher and all Movements and Political Programs—ranging from Romanticism to Communism to Fascism—that have come after him have been a result of the perceived failure of Kant, and of the initial Enlighteners, to adequately account for the Human Condition and to give a place to an exclusively Human quality that would separate us from the determinism of Natural phenomenon and the Animal Kingdom.

I will delve more deeply in posts to come into the critique made by Rousseau that has been so persuasive that it has shaped all of Western history since him…

The High Cost of Low Prices

The foundation for our current conceptions of Individualism was laid during the Age of Enlightenment, in the 17th and 18th centuries by two men: 1) the Englishman, John Locke, and 2) the Frenchman, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. A battle between these two men’s ideas has raged for the last 250 years, and, very broadly speaking, one could say that modern Conservatives are Lockeans, whereas modern Liberals follow Rousseau. Most people would probably say it is more Locke vs. Marx—and in a world-historical sense this may be accurate—but here in America, where Marx’s critique of Private Property has never held much sway, I would place it with Rousseau, who’s schema still allowed for Private Property (plus Rousseau is the initial source of the search for alternatives to Classical Liberalism which proceeded Marx by about 100 years).

Rousseau is an extremely interesting and complicated character, which I will very much be returning to at a later date, but for now I want to focus on Locke: the most influential thinker upon our Founding Fathers.

Locke, like many thinkers of the Enlightenment, based his ideas on what Modern Political Philosophers called: THE STATE OF NATURE. The State of Nature was a hypothetical thought-experiment first proposed by Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan, in 1651. It is a pre-social condition, in which Man lives as a solitary being, that “existed” before the incorporation of men into particular groups or cultures. It was used as a way to strip away all the human conventions and traditions that had been invented in order to discover Man as Man based on Nature—as opposed to Man of a particular time, place and culture—which has been the goal of Philosophy since Socrates. And what was found there, was that Man's two deepest motivating factors are Self-Preservation and Self-Interest, and these two natural ideas form the basis for all of Modern Philosophy.

Locke’s most influential work was his Two Treaties on Civil Government, written in 1689 during his six year exile in Holland. In the First Treaties, he lays out an argument refuting divinely-ordained, hereditary, absolute, patriarchal monarchy; in the Second Treaties, he argues that the only legitimate form of government is one derived from the Consent of the People based on Freedom and Equality. And as Thomas Jefferson appropriated for the Declaration of Independence, “that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles.”

For Locke—and all the other State of Nature Philosophers—Man is by Nature an Individual, so he concluded that the only reason we need government is for the protection of our Individual Rights, which we naturally possess—namely life, liberty and property. In Locke’s view, governments were originally instituted among Men in order to have an impartial arbiter in Rights disputes, to protect the Rights that Men possess which predate government—Natural Rights, discoverable thru Reason, that we have in the State of Nature, before the creation of artificial living conditions known as "Societies." These are the Rights annunciated for us, as Americans, in the Bill of Rights.

These were very radical ideas at the time, and flew in the face of every previous civilization—all based on the dictates of a god. The veil had been lifted and no longer did Man need to rely on myths as the basis for their societies. Instead, they would be replaced with reasoned Consent that was available to all human beings regardless of their geographic location or cultural upbringing. It was Socrates—the original questioner—in action, but with one big difference: Socrates never believed it possible or desirable to create a society without binding myths or “misinterpreted accidents” which add up to a vision of the world for a specific People.

So…what the hell happened? How did we end up with this mess we see before us today?

—With a politician who tries to sell a President's former senatorial seat and another who thinks that presidents are above the law; with our system in shambles because of Wall Street derivative scams and Enron type meltdowns; with faith in the government, the schools, organized labor, the press, the justice system, big business, and God at all time lows.—

Unfortunately, the easy-going conclusions of Locke did not suffice, nor did their real-world application work out as well as it was hoped, yet somehow our system has not experienced any crisis of legitimacy for the general population. Our system has become a confused, incoherent amalgam of the last 250 years of Philosophy, yet somehow manages to function, and function very well, for enough of a majority of Individuals that there is no will, public or private, to do anything about it.

German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant, could see all the way back in the late 18th century that this new system proposed by Locke was the greatest engine of stability ever created for a society because it was the most adept at satisfying the Individual's needs, but he had just one slight qualm: the price of it was Human Dignity.

In the Beginning There Was the Word

What does it mean to be an “Individual” and where does this concept come from?

Individualism's origins begin in the late Middle Ages (The Dark Ages) in the works of early Renaissance writers, artists and scholars rebelling against the authority of the Catholic Church. A few centuries later, Individual autonomy is once again asserted by Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation, further deteriorating the Catholic domination of the West. And the concept becomes fully developed during the Enlightenment, in the writings of Classical Liberals (not to be confused with our current crop of Liberals) such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes who helped drive the final nail into the coffin of the Church's authority over Civil Society and private life.

Being an “Individual” necessarily entails antagonism against others because of an assertion of one’s own beliefs and interests against the commonly held concerns of "The Masses.” It is the promotion of one's own goals and desires thru independence and self-reliance, while opposing most external interference upon one's interests by society (the dominant Culture/Majority) or institution (The Government/State). Individualism’s natural by-product is the concept of “Freedom,” in which one has the Right to Freedom of thought, of conscience, of speech, of the press, of religion, of assembly, etc., all secured by Private Property and promoted by a Government founded to protect these cherished ends.

Individualism also means the emphasis of Rights over Duties, of desire over responsibility, of the singular Will over the general. It is the Right to your own personal satisfactions regardless of the cost to the community—in which you are inextricably a part, despite your level of participation/non-participation in the Whole. It also attenuates the possibility of “Culture”—defined as a shared set of assumptions which unites and binds a People—because the Individualist’s goal is to transcend the commonly held beliefs and create one’s own standards upon which to live.

As the bohemian artist Oscar Wilde put it, “Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.” An important function to be sure, but where does one draw the line between the desire to be one’s self and the desire to be part of a community; to be independently minded and to participate in a Culture; to be a part of something bigger than one’s self as opposed to merely an atom in a continually changing flux?