BlueMountains28 is a YouTube user and apparent e-stalker who posts random and often incoherent appeals to anarchists, usually in attempts to defame Ryan Faulk under the guise of “saving anarchism.”  Recently, he (BM28, that is, and the “he” is an assumption) posted the following comment on my channel:

Security firms will destroy society.
view_play_list?p=9A7EFF4766AE4D25

The string of letters and numbers is the second part of a YouTube URL, pointing to this playlist.  In the description, BM28 writes (enumeration mine; explanation forthcoming):

Armed militias will use coercion to fight over resources and exploit others [1]. Services that contain coercion need to be collectivized in order to prevent special interests from using force to dominate others for their own benefit, such as in protection rackets [2]. Wealthy landlords raised private armies that ripped society apart in 19th century Mexico and feudal Japan [3]. Anarchists will need to use other models that combine collectivism and voluntary participation in order to prevent this [4]. PS Private security firms may play a supporting role, such as in local neighborhood patrols or temporarily stabilizing war torn societies like Sierra Leone, but they will be a disaster if they become the dominant means of organizing armed security [5].

Before going another step into this, let’s consider the above paragraph.

[1], [2] and [5] are bald assertions — nothing more, nothing less.

[3] is what I call hand-waving, because it makes vague references under the guise of supporting an argument, but the references don’t actually support anything.  Further, his choice of the phrase “ripped society apart” suggests to me a fondness of theatrics over substance.

[4] is not a solution.  BM28 insists that it is but, as I am about to show, gives us no reason to accept his claim.  On the contrary, counterexamples to his doomsday prediction abound, and what he proposes as a solution to the tyranny of “private militias” is actually vulnerable to the very problem he invokes.  Further, BM28’s own words will demonstrate his sheer lack of concern with furthering a coherent argument.  What his concern actually is, I’m not altogether certain, but it isn’t reasoned discourse or truth.

Now, with that out of the way, here is what I posted in response to BM28’s little rant:

How exactly is this a solution? Collectives are still comprised of individuals, and individuals still have volition. Decrying the evil motivations of men and positing a group of these same men as the solution is utter nonsense.

BM28 then claimed that I committed the fallacy the composition:

You are committing the fallacy of composition. Please see my channel’s comments for more details.

Why was he insistent that this discussion move to his channel?  Stay tuned.  Anyway, I read the following on his page:

(2) LibertyIsNotAGiven [sic], you don’t have to agree with people that provide constructive feedback. You just need to be open minded enough to recognize their issues are real.

You are committing the fallacy of composition by claiming the group is no more than the individuals that exist within it and is therefore irrelevant. That is like arguing a piece of chalk is no more than the isolated atoms that compose it and thus will always be invisible. This is a fallacy commonly made by libertarians.

That is, of course, silliness.  I responded by telling BM28 that, no, there is no composition fallacy, because I did not claim individuals must act one way as individuals and only that way in every other circumstance.  What I claimed was that individuals, regardless of circumstances, have volition. This is precisely what I said in my original response to his diatribe.  I also pointed out that, in order for BM28 to get around this criticism, he would have to claim that a piece of chalk ceases to be comprised of atoms simply by way of becoming chalk.  Reductio ad absurdum.  Case closed.

Well, not exactly.  You see, BM28 had his channel set up initially such that all comments must be approved before being posted.  Unable to handle the agony of defeat, he never approved my response to his “fallacy” claim.  Later, he turned off the approval setting, but at least two other comments of mine have mysteriously vanished from his page.  Since then, he has claimed that my posts must have run afoul of YouTube’s “spam filter.”  Even if that is true, it doesn’t explain why the first post was never approved in the first place, nor does it explain how BM28 knew to post this…:

Here is the definition. *In a composition fallacy, it is claimed that what is true of the parts is also true for the whole.*

I propose collectivizing the financing, public participation and implementation in order to form community level floating agencies. That would make it more difficult for specific individuals to use coercion against other individuals for their own benefit.

You don’t have to agree with my proposals but please do recognize how serious of an issue this is. Historically, wealthy landlords and powerful warlords have raised private armies that have torn apart their societies.

…on my channel, after failing to approve my comments on his.  Hmm.  What are you hiding from, BM28?

Hilariously, he later (and repeatedly) accused me of being “narrow” and of trying to “suppress” this profound truth of his.  What a crackpot.

In any case, notice above what is the first of many BM28 attempts to spin the discussion away from what I actually said to him in favor of making it seem as though I’m refusing to even consider the “problem” he claims to have identified.  Unfortunately for him, I never dismissed his “problem.”  Rather, I tried without success to get him to explain how his proposal actually solves anything.  Ostensibly it doesn’t, and there’s nothing to change my mind because BM28 won’t elaborate.  He has a nagging habit of just saying things and believing they are true simply by way of heartfelt assertion, but reality doesn’t work like that.

Perhaps inevitably, the discussion to date has deteriorated into BM28 insulting me and making numerous desperate attempts to straw-man me as thoroughly as possible so as to bury my points in bullshit.  The actual issues I raised with this individual were as follows:

• Define “private militias.”  Don’t just point to some historical artifact like “Feudal Japan” or “19th Century Mexico” and call it beholden to “private militias” ad hoc.  Actually define the term.
• Define “individual coercion.”
• Explain how collectivism solves the alleged problems with “private militias.”  Don’t just point to some circumstance that you hope to come about once the problem is solved.  Actually explain how your proposal will solve the problem.
• Define “collective decision-making” and explain how this solves the alleged problems.
• Explain how “administrative oversight” will be implemented, who the overseers will be, and who will overseer the overseers, while still maintaining some approximate compatibility with “anarchism.”

BM28 has failed on all counts except the first one.  He did eventually make an attempt to define “private militias,” after much hand-waving and evasion.  The definition he offered is as follows:

They are paramilitary organizations that are funded by private interests, such as wealthy landlords and drug traffickers, that act on the private interests’ behalf. They often consist of the landlords’ rural workers or a class of professional warriors.  Mexico in the former and Japan’s Samurai in the latter.

On its face, that isn’t a bad definition.  The problems creep in with his lame examples.  For example, Mexico’s drug traffickers were kept in business by governments, and the Samurai of Japan were beholden to the nobility, who were in turn beholden to emperors and other figures of power.  Furthermore, the raising of these “private” armies, to whatever extent that may have occurred, depended exclusively on collectivism.  It could not have come about in any other manner.  So even if one believes in the magical world of volition-less humans that exists in BM28’s mind, his proposal empirically fails by way of the very history he deigns to cite in support of it.

He hasn’t addressed this glaring hole in his “argument,” and I suspect he can’t, which explains why he has chosen instead to proceed down the path of insults and straw-men.

Caught in the downward spiral of his own epic failure, BM28 tried to rescue himself by saying:

My comments were very detailed. Open minded viewers should refer to my three comments on the next page of this board that start off with these passages.

What is a private militia?
How would collectivizing features of armed security reduce the abuse of coercion? Name some examples.

Most people would be able to say *Maybe private militias have a troubled past and the solutions may not be that simple. I am not sure but it is something to look into.* LibertyIsNotGiven can’t do that because he is just too narrow. It’s sad.

I replied:

1. You defined “private militias” whilst raising concerns over “the individual use of coercion” (another nebulous concept you never defined), then you invoked a manner [of] coercion that can only be enacted on a collective scale. Can you say “self-defeating?” Because you defeat yourself at every turn.

2. You never explained how your proposal would actually stop the hypothetical problem you raised, and this is actually irrelevant since the solution is vulnerable to same problem you cited to begin with.

3. You named “19th century Mexico, Feudal Japan, Afghanistan and Columbia.” This tells us NOTHING. Refer to the definition of “detailed” again. I could just as easily assert that medieval Iceland proves “private militias” viable and able to sustain a society for centuries. By your own logic, the argument should end there and any disagreement is automatically “dismissal” or “suppression.” Shall I accept your concession now?

“LibertyIsNotGiven can’t do that because he is just too narrow.” – LibertyIsNotGiven has handed your ass to you on a platter. Your hand-waving, straw-men and insults in place of actually responding to what I’ve said say more about your motivations and character than I could ever hope to.

Due to his failure on these and other counts, his only recourse is to claim that I am “too narrow,” whatever that means.

In a true admission of ineptitude, BM28 then took three separate quotes of mine, from completely different contexts, then spliced them together and pitted them against one another as follows:

I did respond to your initial counter arguments. That is why you have to lie in the comments below.

*I never said that a militia need necessarily be propped up by its resident state….Both backed by their respective states. Already been here. Yawn…..I said they are propped up by their respective states*

I am willing to discuss these issues with people that are a lot more open minded and a lot more honest. You are full of it.

At first, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.  Then I looked back and realized what he’d done.  The actual comments he is quoting from (or quote-mining) here are as follows:

So you’re confusing civil war with private militias? That’s pathetic. Also, I never said that a militia need necessarily be propped up by its resident state. Outside influences work just as well. In any case, these warlords require a rather large collective of followers to do their nefarious deeds, and your proposal, as I’ve noted repeatedly, offers no solution to this. Rather, I think your proposal would make the problem worse by offering every incentive to buck the “system.”

…and:

I never said they were “due to the state.” I said they are propped up by their respective states, and other ways maybe [vise] versa. It’s a symbiotic arrangement, but I can’t really elaborate since you’re so afraid of providing details.

…and:

Both [are] backed by their respective states. Already been here. Yawn again. I’ll give you partial credit for actually trying to name a specific entity in one of the two examples this time, however.

Ain’t BM28 a shifty little critter?  What happened here is, he quote-mined part of one comment where I was discussing “private militias” in general and spliced it in with two other comments, wherein I was discussing the “examples” he provided.  He dropped my context and assigned his own in order to completely misrepresent what I said.  If BM28 isn’t a young-earth creationist, he should be.

So let’s be clear about this.  Feudal Japan, 19th Century Mexico, et. al. were beholden to and in proverbial cahoots with various governmental entities, as I stated to BM28 several times.  I never, never, never said that this must be true in all cases. Any statements of “mine” to the contrary do not exist outside of BM28’s overactive imagination.

As further evidence of his utter dishonesty, he has proudly displayed his quote-mining efforts in the description of his channel, attributing to me the butchered, snipped and sliced segments of ideas taken totally out of context.  In case he takes it down, I took a screenshot:

Today I would like to examine two phrases that I lovingly refer to as products of the “lingual gag reflex.”  These phrases correspond to a series of sounds which are intended to convey some point, allegedly in opposition to ideas challenging a political status quo.  In reality, however, even though the words are commonly uttered or typed with great conviction, it is quite difficult to attach them to anything coherent.  For all intents and purposes, these lines truly are a lingual gag reflex, spewed passionately in the face of anyone who strikes a particular nerve but failing to rest upon any substantial meaning.

What are these phrases?  I’ll tell you:

“[My country]: love it or leave it.  No one is making you live here.”

“[Oppressive Institution/Program/Policy X] is necessary for the greater good.”

Love It or Leave It!

The first phrase is commonly offered in debates between anarchists and statists.  Depending upon the sophistication of the parties involved, it often takes the form, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”  Also common (specifically in reference to the U.S.) is the heartfelt claim that citizenship is voluntary, therefore government is voluntary.  Since it is voluntary, you consent to be governed by living here, and so on.  Frequently, links to information regarding renunciation of citizenship are provided for the anarchists’ benefit.

The statist who proceeds down this path of thought makes a number of errors, but I’m most concerned with one assumption.  That assumption is the anarchist’s consent to rule based on an arbitrary standard: existence.  Being born on a patch of dirt equals implicit consent (i.e. implicit acceptance of the social contract), therefore claims of oppression are invalid in the absence of any attempt to renounce citizenship or at least leave the country.  This assumption is ridiculous, of course, because any number of factors might be in play.

• The anarchist might lack the means to relocate himself.

• He might, as is increasingly the case in the slowly-militarizing United States, have problems with passports and other documentation.

• He might have a family that he cannot afford to relocate, or a family with members who have their own reasons for being unable to move.

• There are no anarchist commonwealths to which an anarchist might travel, so insisting that he “love” or “leave” the statist’s nation is tantamount to a non-argument, an absurd claim meant to end discussion rather than offer a rational defense for the forcing of a system upon the anarchist.  The anarchist might very well realize this and, by extention, realize there is no point in moving.  Wherever he goes, people will offer the same “love it or leave it” demand when he objects to being tyrannized by their government.  Even if one might be fully capable of renouncing his or her masters in some nebulous sense, doing so is likely to have no practical effect, as the renouncing individual will either still be subject to his former government due to land monopoly, or he will be subject to some other government upon leaving.

Just think of the strangeness intrinsic to this position.  Jews in Nazi Germany consented to torture and death camps.  Palestinians in Gaza consent to terrorism at the hands of the Israeli military, and likewise Israelis consent to rocket attacks and terrorism by Islamic fanatics.  Any individual or group that has been oppressed, tortured or killed by any other individual or group sovereign in the region where the event(s) occurred is “consenting” to oppression, torture and murder simply by way of being there.  This is what “implied consent” entails.  As such, a determined aggressor can derive the “consent” of his victim from just about anything.

The Greater Good!

What is the “greater good?”  Does the phrase mean anything at all?  Since both terms require subjective value judgments, I don’t think it’s possible to arbitrarily classify anything as “good” and then dub it “greater” on some equally arbitrary standard.  A woman being gang-raped is clearly in the minority.  Is her plight for the “greater good?”  Certainly not, I hope.  There’s nothing “good”at all from her perspective, in all likelihood, and it is doubtful that she will be assuaged by the “good” from her assailants’ viewpoints.

“That’s not fair!” cries the statist.  “The woman is a minority in that situation, but the rapists are the minority in society.”

Notable objection, and that might be true, but it only serves to highlight the arbitrariness.  At what point is the line drawn?  At what point does so-called “legitimate” majoritarian rule become so-called “illegitimate” majoritarian rule?  One might say that society is the only majority that counts, but even then the majority is arbitrarily limited based on imaginary lines in the dirt.  If the will of a majority makes “right,” then it is arbitrary to claim that any given majority is exempt from this.  A woman being in the minority compared to the rapists is no different than a tax-resisting individual being in the minority compared to the armed mercenaries at his door (and those who support and enable those mercenaries).  Furthermore, a woman who “consents” to rapists in fear of her life might be accurately likened to an individual who “consents” to taxation in fear of his life, well-being and/or possessions.

Saying that someone consents to a proposition or action under the threat or actuality of violence does one of two things.  It either renders the term “consent” meaningless, as something like consensual sex becomes such simply by one party threatening harm upon the other, or the term “consent” needs to be understood as a synonym for “surrender” or “submission.”  In fact, if “surrender” or “submission” more accurately reflects what statists mean when they claim someone “consents” to a government by existing under it, then I think it would serve for clearer discussion if they would use those terms instead.

So we’re left with the “greater good” being a reflection of one arbitrary majority’s will and the means by which they seek to sate that will, usually by compelling the minority opposition to submit or surrender under the threat or use of violence.

The problem here is that, even if the arbitrariness of defining a so-called legitimate majority is overlooked, there is no sensible way by which a government can possibly hope to accurately do the will of that majority.  Governments cannot properly allocate resources, as Ludwig von Mises demonstrated nearly a century ago.  How then can these same entities be expected to read minds and create rules accordingly?  Interestingly enough, free markets and free association between agents serve as very good solutions to this problem.

So when these arguments come up:

“[My country]: love it or leave it.  No one is making you live here.”

“[Oppressive Institution/Program/Policy X] is necessary for the greater good.”

…I think it’s fair to kindly inform the wielder that he/she is not making any sense.

Just kidding. I wanted to get your attention, that’s all.

I don’t write about religion much here. When I have in the past, it’s usually been to antagonize Muslims. Outside of LessGov, however, I kick around the subject of religion quite a bit. Maybe I should write about it more. I’m writing about it now, at least, but this won’t take long.

A Yahoo! Answers user named Bobert recently posted the following intellectual gem when asked for proof that God (presumably the Christian God) created the world:

The universe exists. [Therefore] God exists.

It is impossible for something to come into [existence] from absolute nothing with absolutely no cause. That would violate the laws of thermodynamics.

Therefore there must be a Creator.

Brilliant, eh? No? Well, there’s no fooling you, apparently.

Really, it’s straightfoward nonsense, but this particular specimen is interesting due to the creative invoking of thermodynamics. Bobert starts off all wrong with his little syllogism — “The universe exists. [Therefore] God exists,” – because such a statement has no more meaning than, “The universe exists; therefore Zeus exists.” Sorry, buddy. That’s what we call a non sequitur.

The next line — “It is impossible for something to come into [existence] from absolute nothing with absolutely no cause,” — is no less than an appeal to Primum Movens, or more specifically the lauded cosmological argument. This necessitates remaining vague on identity and exempting the deity from the “first cause” by placing him/her/it outside of space and time, which by all definitions is nonexistence. The deeper implications hinge on metaphysical primacy (existence vs. consciousness), and I may take a notion in the near feature to explain why I think primacy of consciousness is a hopelessly pathetic notion.

Additionally, the “from absolutely nothing” portion demonstrates a staggering ignorance of prevailing scientific theories, as none that I’m aware of posit that anything came into existence from nothing. For that matter, if the theist can posit a god that is exempt from all known laws of nature and can exist without existing, who are they to object to a hypothesis centered on a singularity that might have expanded (ala Big Bang) by way of natural processes we simply have no knowledge of yet? That strikes me as far more plausible than magic.

Then we have Bobert’s … attempt at humor, perhaps? He claims, “That would violate the laws of thermodynamics.” He says “laws,” but I’m not sure from whence he derives that.  Here I will assume that he is likely referring to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that a non-isolated system not in equilibrium will be subject to entropy over time. Since Bobert did not cite the law(s) in question or explain why they are violated, I am willing to bet he doesn’t even know the first thing about thermodynamics but simply regurgitated something from a Kent Hovind video. Predictably, his claim stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the second law, which is addressed concisely at TalkOrigins on their Index to Creationist Claims:

1. The second law of thermodynamics applies universally, but, as everyone can see, that does not mean that everything everywhere is always breaking down. The second law allows local decreases in entropy offset by increases elsewhere. The second law does not say that order from disorder is impossible; in fact, as anyone can see, order from disorder happens all the time.
2. The maximum entropy of a closed system of fixed volume is constant, but because the universe is expanding, its maximum entropy is ever increasing, giving ever more room for order to form (Stenger 1995, 228).
3. Disorder and entropy are not the same (Styer 2000). The second law of thermodynamics deals with entropy. There are no laws about things tending to “break down.”

So at last we reach Bobert’s awe-inspiring conclusion: “Therefore there must be a Creator.” However, his short path to this finale has been plagued by poor reasoning, crazy leaps of faith and simple bad information. Suffice it to say that he has not convinced me of anything, except that he would serve his cause better by finding a new argument.

The debate surrounding subjective and objective knowledge is age-old and will probably endure to the end of human existence and beyond. In all the years this site has been online, I have never offered any sort of comprehensive summation of my views on this issue, so I would like to attempt to do that briefly here.

As a disclaimer, please keep in mind that this is the perspective of a layman whose only real interest in philosophy is limited to basic logic and concepts rooted in reality, as opposed to mystical musing about whether existence exists and whether it is anything more than a perpetual dream within an immaterial cosmic consciousness. Philosophy is a tool for discovering truth and enhancing my life with relevant, coherent, consistent principles. Any persons who want to send me treatises on the virtues of solipsism or dualism can, therefore, save themselves the trouble.

Let me begin by offering some definitions.

Objectivism – the philosophical position that certain truths are true everywhere, independent of human thoughts, emotions, opinions, etc. Ethical objectivism or moderate moral realism is the position that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion.

Subjectivism – a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. Ethical subjectivism is the meta-ethical belief that all ethical sentences reduce to factual statements about the attitudes of individuals.

Truth – conformity with fact or reality; a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like.

Generally, I will be referring to objectivism and subjectivism in the context of ethical considerations, but there might be broader implications if the reader chooses to apply them.

Truth in and of itself is a fairly straightforward idea, but there is a depth to the analysis one might engage in that is beyond the scope of this article and possibly beyond my ability to care. As such, I’m content with the above definition and will elaborate only in stating that truth may be categorized as self-evident, empirical or deductive.

“I exist” is an example of a self-evident truth, because someone making the statement must exist in order to do so. Likewise, “I do not exist” is self-refuting, because someone making the statement must exist in order to claim that he doesn’t exist. An empirical truth is one than can be observed and tested. This encompasses science and general everyday observations about the universe. Deductive truth is usually found through logic, wherein a series of premises lead to a conclusion. Faulty premises can and often do result in faulty conclusions.

So there’s that, but is any of this truth objective or — *gasp* — absolute?

In short, it is irrelevant. If the human senses are so unreliable, and human logic so imprecise, that the identification of objective truth and accessibility of objective reality remain inexorably out of our grasp; and even if we are to ignore the performative contradiction of asserting that nothing is absolutely true — then the only conclusion one can draw from this is that humans are limited and that there might be aspects of existence that are beyond our ability to detect. As such, if we cannot detect something, which means neither the thing itself nor its effects are testable or observable at all, then that thing — the higher, unknowable truth — is functionally nonexistent to humans and irrelevant. Even if what we can test and observe does not produce any manner of objective or absolute truth, it is pointless to argue in favor of proceeding otherwise on the grounds that truth is unknowable or inaccessible.

Maybe this position can be dubbed “irrelevantism.” I don’t know if there is an existing term or phrase that suffices.

In terms of ethics, then, it becomes apparent that quibbles over objectivity and subjectivity are quite meaningless. The simple solution is to subject ethical propositions to the same rigor one might reserve for any other claim, namely logic and empirical testing. If ethical claims evaluated in this manner are not objective, then neither is any science or discipline ever conceived by mankind, and such status is impossible to attain. It becomes moot to consider anything beyond whether a particular claim is consistent with known reality.

So it is for this reason that I am sympathetic toward objectivism but ultimately convinced by neither objectivism nor subjectivism. Objectivists (including the big-O Randian variants) defeat their own cause by claiming objectivity through reason but reaching so many opposing conclusions that they might as well just call themselves relativists. The Randian philosophy isn’t even internally consistent (which is a whole other article). In the subjectivist camp, as alluded to previously, it is impossible to even make claims without contradicting the core premise of subjectivism. Some might call this consistency, but I call it garbled nonsense.

My solution to this mess is to consider any ethical proposition that checks out under logical and empirical scrutiny to be valid, until which time the available data points to something else. So goes science. Murray Rothbard’s proposals are mostly good in this regard (though he frequently referred to rights and such, and while I think certain right-ish principles derive from reality, I’ve yet to see a coherent defense of rights as they are usually posed). Robert Nozick’s philosophical ideas always struck me as intriguing, though, like the Randian Objectivists, some of his conclusions fall short of his purported principles. David D. Friedman is uber-practical, and his book The Machinery of Freedom is partly responsible for my acceptance of anarchism, but libertarian consequentialism is an ethical black hole that can “logically” justify almost anything.

In the older school, Lysander Spooner remains perhaps one of the best proponents of natural law — arguably my favorite — and his No Treason papers have yet to be successfully challenged to my knowledge. However, he too was regrettably mired in the concept of rights without any real explanation of whether such things even exist external to cultural conventions. Other philosophers — Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Jefferson, Stirner, Proudhon, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Kant — all made their venerable contributions to human thought as well as their respective fair shares of absurdity.

Not long ago, I reviewed a book by Stefan Molyneux titled Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. While I did not (and still do not) feel qualified to judge whether the ethical “beast” (to borrow Molyneux’s metaphor) has been conquered, I can speak for myself in saying that UPB succeeds where other systems have failed. The reason it succeeds is that it is not a system, per se, that attempts to tell a person what he should or should not do. Rather, it is a framework for evaluating the truth value of ethical statements. For example, “Murder is moral” self-detonates because it requires one person to be moral by murdering and another to be immoral by not murdering. This is, of course, incredibly simplistic, so rather than risk misrepresenting the book, I must recommend reading it for oneself, as it and several others are freely available in digital format at Freedomainradio.com. To date, UPB is the most logical and comprehensible approach to ethics that I’ve encountered. That by no means makes it objective or even true, but like any other proposal subject to rational analysis, it either stands or does not.

Critiques of UPB have been posted at RationalAnimal.net (Part 1 and Part 2) and Back to the Drawing Board, and I encourage anyone who has read the book to take a look at these two sites.

All of the above in consideration, my conclusion for the time being is that there is no reason to proceed as though ethics cannot be regarded as “objective” (or quasi-objective, as it were), at least to the reason-centric extent apprehensible by humans. We know that murder and theft are mostly undesirable, with only certain segments of the population embracing them as viable foundations for an ideal society (the ruling class, typically, along with those who benefit from the violence of the ruling class). As David Friedman observed, “The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.”

It strikes me as truly pointless to engage in prolonged debates over whether murder, theft and a general disregard for self-sovereignty constitute moral virtues, evils or neither. Humanity has spent thousands of years on the path of slavery and slaughter. Governments and their armies haven’t solved these problems. Even when they try to, the end result often either involves a mere changing of the guard or is even worse than the original situation. To call the track record of religion in terms of peace and prosperity abysmal is a grand understatement. The collusion of humanity’s two main authoritative institutions is perhaps the most dreaded scenario of all for those of us who value progress and liberty.

So even if one considers objective human ethics to be dubious, unknowable or outright impossible, that is a poor excuse for approaching life as though nothing can be good, bad, right or wrong. If objectivity is beyond our reach as humans, then we can depend only on the science and logic that have given us modern medicine, computers and spaceflight. If objectivity is out there but remains undiscovered, that is likewise a poor excuse for dismissing ethics, as doing so amounts to little more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. If objectivity exists and can be demonstrated, then I eagerly long to discover the proof of this.

I finished this review during LessGov’s extended downtime, so I first posted it at Blogspot. Now it’s here, albeit belatedly.

—

It seems self-evident that a free society requires free individuals. Likewise, oppressed individuals tend to produce oppressed societies. From Stefan Molyneux’s perspective, the core of this problem is a person’s willingness, consciously or otherwise, to cling to destructive fantasies regarding his or her personal relationships. As such, the purpose of On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion is a frank exploration of this issue.

I will also be frank in this review and express up-front that the manner of personal conflict and reflection referenced in the book is not something I am familiar with. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a very stable family and perhaps the best parents an individual could ever hope for. My friends are few and far between, but they are all people whom I would trust with just about anything, without reservation.

With that being the case, I almost felt like an outsider while reading On Truth. Mind you, this has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of anything posited by Molyneux, but I could not personally identify with the philosophical crises being addressed. In this sense, perhaps one might consider me a neutral observer, and maybe that’s a good thing. Or maybe my lack of relation to the issues disqualifies me as a valid critic. Nonetheless, I’m seldom without an opinion.

As I’ve come to expect from Stefan Molyneux, the writing in On Truth is top-notch. The text is clean, logical, easy-to-follow and simply could not have been constructed in a more organized, concise fashion. Indeed, the work is so brief and to-the-point that it reads more like a long essay, rather than a book.

The early portions of the exploration focus on parents and quickly extrapolate to the family as a whole. From start to finish, the principal and crucial concepts that Molyneux attempts to convey are truth and integrity (which he defines as “consistency with reality”).

As the title might suggest, On Truth pays much attention to identifying and eliminating hypocrisy and contradiction within relationships. One notable section is titled “Detonating Mythology” and is followed by an in-depth look at the idea of love, what it means to love (as a verb) rather than just speak of the idea and how love is so often used as a mere mechanism by which one party imposes artificial obligations upon another. This all gives way to larger applications, such as religion and society as a whole.

Ultimately, through illustration and what might seem like pure common sense upon consideration, Molyneux presents a relatively sound case for the existence of what he terms “the tyranny of illusion.” At the same time, he leaves little room for excuses, no rational justification for continuing to perpetuate illusion and fantasy once the prevalence of such things has been established.

Should John or Jane Q. Public read this book? Probably. The oppressive condition of society alone suggests that Molyneux’s thesis is at least close to being correct (whether one agrees with his larger philosophy or not — i.e. Universally Preferable Behaviour, anarchism, etc., which are related but separate issues). In essence, a reader will have three possible choices after delving into On Truth: she can choose to dismiss the ideas entirely, acknowledge the validity of the ideas but ignore them, or admit that there is something in the ideas worth exploring further. And I say “exploring further” because On Truth in and of itself does not necessarily reach any sweeping conclusions. Whether that was intended, I cannot say. Given the brevity of the work, I suspect the open-ended nature was deliberate. From my perspective, it is meant to encourage the reader to realize that philosophy goes beyond reading a book and knowing things. Philosophy is about finding what is true, in turn allowing one to live a life that is based on integrity, which will in turn result in happiness.

In fact, Molyneux himself seems to state as much on the final page:

“This book is not a call to meditation, but to action.”

Anyone who wants a direct, honest examination of what it means to find integrity in his or her own life will, in all likelihood, benefit greatly from On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion. Even if you have trouble relating to the conflicts presented (as I do), you will have still learned something and will know what to avoid in the future, lest you at some point come to relate to the described conflicts all too well!

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Special thanks goes to Mr. Molyneux for generously providing a copy of On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion for review.

Stefan Molyneux’s books, Podcasts, articles and message board are all available on his website, Freedomain Radio (http://www.freedomainradio.com).